The Taken: DI Erica Martin Book 2 (Erica Martin Thriller)

by Alice Clark-Platts

  ‘I think I know how this has all happened,’ she began. ‘And I think we can work it all out. I think I can help you, Sera.’

  The woman said nothing, gazing down at her hands.

  ‘I think you’re someone to have pity for. I mean, Tristan Snow. What was it like being married to a man like that? A bully. An abuser. A paedophile . . .’

  Sera’s eyes dipped, her thumb rubbing the knuckles of her other hand.

  ‘I think you protected your own children. To the detriment of yourself in all probability. Unfortunately, you let him have his way with everyone else, didn’t you?’ Martin paused. ‘But I know that you were abused by this man.’

  Sera’s face was as motionless as granite.

  ‘I think he had involved you all in some pretty appalling practices. And I think that, one day, you just snapped, you’d had enough.’ Martin nodded, her eyes on Sera, her heart beating. It was like speaking to a statue. ‘I can understand that, Sera. God, anyone could – right, Tennant?’

  ‘That’s right. Anyone could.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what life was like. Travelling around to do these shows. Tristan being treated like a god.’ Something glimmered in Martin as she said those words . . . a tiny light in the black hole of this case. ‘I bet he had loads of other women, didn’t he? You’d think that, wouldn’t you Tennant?’

  ‘Yeah, I would. Definitely.’

  Martin quietly moved back to her chair. She wasn’t sure whether Sera had even noticed her. She took hold of the back of the chair and, without warning, lifted it up and smashed it hard on to the floor. Tennant did well not to react. His pen paused for a millisecond above his pad before continuing to write down what was being said.

  ‘But I don’t want to talk to you about Tristan. Fuck him,’ Martin said. ‘Who gives a shit if he’s dead? Wanker like that, treating everyone like dirt, as if they’re his slaves. Abusing children, subjecting them to exorcisms. Who acts like that and thinks he can get away with it, right? Fuck him!’ Martin took a breath. ‘No, I don’t care who smashed his head in. Dickhead deserved it if you ask me. And maybe if that was how it had been left, we could all be heading home. We could have helped you, Sera – if you’d spoken to us, that is. Fixed up a nice little self-defence ploy with the CPS. Done a deal with the court.’ Martin carried on, well aware that this was all untrue. But she wanted Sera to regret her actions, regret not speaking.

  ‘But you didn’t talk to us. And that was a big mistake, I’m afraid. Because what you did today has changed everything. I don’t care about Tristan. The person I really care about,’ Martin said, dropping her voice, moving to lean over the table, inches away from Sera’s face, ‘is your daughter. That’s who I give a shit about. I care about what happened to Violet. And we’re going to sit here and work out how that young girl ended up dead, if it takes us all night,’ she hissed.

  The walls of the room seemed to bend inwards unrelentingly . . . Martin’s gaze was fixed on Sera, who still betrayed nothing.

  Sera blinked and moved her head back, her eyes closed. A smile grew on her face. Martin watched as Sera breathed in deeply. She looked far from disturbed or upset; she looked like someone at the beginning of a yoga sequence.

  She opened her eyes and met Martin’s stare. ‘You want me to speak?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You want me to regret the murder of my daughter? To cry and wail, and show you how sorry I am?’

  Martin moved her head to one side, considering her response. ‘I want you to tell me why you murdered your daughter,’ she said at last, her words dropping on the floor of the room like hot stones.

  Sera shook her head slowly from side to side, a desperate leer on her face; tears flooding her eyes. She gave the sound of a small sob. ‘You don’t know anything, Inspector Martin,’ she said. ‘Anything at all.’

  ‘What don’t I know, Sera?’ Martin’s voice had altered; it was softer, inviting. ‘Tell me what it is.’

  Sera bent her head before lifting it steadily to meet Martin’s gaze. For some reason, the room seemed to darken almost imperceptibly before she spoke.

  ‘She wasn’t my daughter,’ Sera said simply, at last, bringing her long hair around to twirl in her fingers.

  ‘What did you say?’ Martin asked, her mouth suddenly dry.

  ‘Violet,’ Sera replied quietly. ‘Violet was not my daughter, Inspector Martin.’

  55

  I was at the kitchen table as usual. You were both opposite me – you and Tristan. You had been crying. The tears and flushed cheeks made you resemble our mother.

  The day seemed very still and silent, as if a blanket had been thrown over its face. Birds chattered outside, a mug of tea sat in front of me. But real life was motionless.

  I waited for you to tell me.

  Tristan breathed through his nose heavily. He had put on weight, I noticed. I’d been feeding him well. I wanted him to eat to fill the void where the boys had been. It would never be made whole in me, of course. I’d always have it, black and empty, craving impossible peace in my stomach.

  I thought grief would be different. I thought it would encompass me, that the memories I had of the boys would be laid out before me as if a luxurious carpet where I could lie down, running my hands over the fibres, feeling its caresses. Death brings a rush to the grieving, do you know? He enters your house and stirs up a cold wind. But then he flies, leaving you alone. And alive.

  But with the boys . . . I was separated from the gift of grief. I was forbidden it; the walls of its city were closed to me. Instead, there was only empty silence.

  Now here we were. Me on one side of the table; you on the other. Tristan’s hand on your knee. Why hadn’t you just ignored me? Got on with things and spared me the humiliation of this little tableau? But of course he wouldn’t spare me. He wanted to hurt me. And you – you had always wanted what I had, since we were children.

  ‘So you see,’ Tristan said, breaking the moment. ‘We don’t have any choice, Seraphina. If the church find out about the baby, it’ll be a disaster. I’m filming next month. It doesn’t bear thinking about, if people . . . well, you know, if they suspect anything.’

  I forced myself to glance at your belly before dragging my eyes away. I didn’t need to see the emergence of the rounded dome, the hard swelling beneath your jumper. I think I touched my own stomach, feeling it flat and lifeless.

  ‘We live here together anyway,’ Tristan was saying. His voice was pleasant, rich in persuasion. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘And the baby?’ I asked. ‘Will it matter to the baby?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tristan answered. His eyes flickered. That was an inconvenient thought which would be better ignored, I could tell.

  I studied you both. I was precise. ‘If I agree to this, I want it.’

  ‘No,’ you said, understanding immediately what it was that I desired.

  ‘What?’ Tristan asked.

  ‘The baby. The baby will be mine.’

  ‘No,’ you repeated. ‘Never.’

  ‘It will think I’m its mother. That’s the only way.’

  ‘Surely we can come to some . . .?’ Tristan countered.

  ‘It’s the only way,’ I said again. ‘Otherwise I won’t agree. I won’t do it.’ I closed my mouth and turned my head to stare out at my garden.

  ‘You bitch,’ you cried. ‘You absolute bitch. You have to take everything, don’t you? Everything! I hate you.’ You collapsed low in your chair like a child.

  Tristan tried to soothe us with shushes. ‘Come now, little hen,’ he directed to me. ‘We need to be reasonable. What’s important is the church; what people think . . .’

  ‘You can’t be trusted with children,’ you spat at me, your words hurled into the air, bouncing hard around the walls. I closed my eyes briefly, the image of my sons leaping into this very room flashing into my mind before I could stop it.

  ‘You can’t be trusted with husbands,’ I threw back.

  ‘Enough,
’ Tristan roared, getting to his feet, patience with us women lost. ‘The pair of you disgust me. You disgust me.’ He strode to the door and looked back at us. You were cowed, shrunken, at the table. I was placid, still focused on the garden.

  ‘You will come to me after Mass tonight, each of you, with your reasons for your request. And I will decide. What I decide will be final.’

  I began to laugh: quietly at first and then louder until you jumped up from the table and ran from the room, pushing past Tristan in the doorway. That was when I stopped laughing and stared at Tristan’s back, rigid before me. ‘And then what?’ I asked. ‘You’ll cut the baby in half?’

  Tristan turned slowly to face me. ‘Be careful, Seraphina,’ he said. ‘Be very careful.’

  ‘I gave up everything for you. My family, my home.’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘You came to receive a better life. A life where you were valued and loved.’

  I looked at him, tall and fat, in a green jumper with that unruly hair. ‘This isn’t love,’ I said simply.

  ‘And neither is envy,’ Tristan answered. ‘A good name is worth more than riches – a King Solomon quote, I believe.’ He sneered a little. ‘You will not destroy what I have made, Sera. You will not. I would rather pour petrol over your body and set a match to you than have that happen.’

  I turned once again to the window. My heart did hammer. But it was unseen by Tristan.

  ‘You can have the baby,’ Tristan said, after a moment, leaving the room to find you, your sobs gradually dying out in the hallway.

  56

  Martin tugged on her trainers and walked quickly out of the briefing room, ignoring the beep of incoming emails from her computer and the vibration of a text message arriving on her phone. They had halted the interview. Sera needed to sleep. They all did. Wanting to avoid seeing anyone, she chose the stairs over the lift, and pushed open the emergency exit door at the back of the station on to a cloud-free and starry Durham night.

  She turned left out of the car park and headed up the hill, running past the Student Union and across Kingsgate Bridge. She had always liked this sparse concrete structure, which led from the brutal modernity of Dunelm House where students parried and politicked to the cobbled enclave of university colleges near the Cathedral. The moon was high and in the light of the street lamps she could see the river below her; hear the gentle slap of its waters on the banks.

  The rain earlier on in the day had left its reminders, and Martin’s feet were soon wet from the puddles. She ran fast, sprinting over the bridge and up to Palace Green, where she paused, breathing hard, hands on her knees, looking up at the spotlit shape of Durham Cathedral. She was in the university heartland here, nostalgic for an earlier case that had also tested her, brought her to the edge of her understanding of humanity and its machinations.

  She stood, gazing up at the magnificence of the Cathedral, wondering what it was that compelled humans to build such a thing; to believe in something that would require it; or, at the other end of things, to be certain that there was no hell – that the taking of a life of another would have no penalty.

  Violet was Antonia’s child . . .

  Martin let this fact move inside her like a marble in a jar, tilting it this way and that; working it around until it settled. Antonia had been made pregnant by Tristan, and Sera had been persuaded to adopt Violet as her own for the sake of the one thing that cemented them all together – the church.

  And yet . . .

  For a woman who professed her faith so strongly, who had devoted her life to its calling, Sera seemed remarkably impervious to its teachings. Where was her guilt? Where was her sorrow at what she had done? Where was her morality?

  This couple, Tristan and Sera: they had created a following, they were worshipped near and far. They had ostracized her father; Tristan had had affairs with God knows how many women, had abused children; Sera had killed her own daughter, who was actually her niece. On and on and on it went. Something rose up in Martin, and she retched, vomiting coffee and sandwiches on to the wet grass.

  She paused for a moment afterwards, her face down towards the ground. Then she straightened and wiped her mouth, making her way off the Green on to the pathway. She leaned for a moment against the pale, stone walls of the Palace Green Library, taking comfort in its cool longevity. She needed to continue the interview with Sera, unravel this whole tangled thread. They would start from the beginning and work their way through the labyrinth until they got to the clear air at the end. Martin rubbed a hand over her face. The Cathedral clock chimed the half-hour. She should go home, get to bed.

  Martin turned away, her shoulders tense and hunched as she crossed the moonlit grass and jogged slowly back to her car.

  As she put her key in the lock, a hand reached out and grabbed her elbow. Immediately, Martin spun round, blocking her assailant with her arm, a knee to his groin.

  ‘Shit. Sam! Sorry . . . I didn’t know it was you!’

  ‘Fuck!’ Sam doubled over, groaning into his thighs.

  ‘Who the fuck comes up from behind like that?’ Martin protested. ‘I thought I was being mugged. After today . . .’

  ‘It’s why I came, you idiot,’ Sam said, raising his head to look at her through eyes crunched up in pain. ‘I was worried about you.’ He straightened slowly. ‘I see I needn’t have bothered.’

  Martin let out a laugh, blind for a moment to the memory that they were fighting, that things were so intractable, so difficult. She reached out her hand before she could stop herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, and then she remembered and the weight of it all fell inside of her with a dull thud. Sam took her hand, watching her face, looking for a fracture in the solid shell around her. She found that despite herself, the very act of him searching for it softened her. ‘Come in. Here . . .’ she held on to his hand and they walked in together, into the dark hallway.

  ‘Wait, I’ll get the light,’ Martin said.

  ‘Don’t,’ Sam breathed, kicking the door shut and pushing her up against the wall. He bent his head and kissed her. ‘I was really worried about you.’

  Martin sank into the kiss, forgetting about the day and Violet and Jones and Sera. She felt Sam’s body against hers, hard and warm. She ran her hands over his back. ‘Thank you for worrying,’ she said and butted her cheek against his.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, simply.

  Her heart seemed to stop. Something in her tensed, prepared to flee. The feeling solidified inside her for a second and then it relaxed and she felt a heat move through her, an acceptance.

  She opened her mouth to speak but merely nodded, taking his hand in hers and leading him up to bed.

  57

  The sky the following day had a clear, white clarity about it as Martin made her way back to the ward where Antonia lay in a machine-beeping solitude. The morning air still carried the remnants of the downpour the previous day but Martin breathed it in gratefully, clearing her head; steeling her resolve to finish this case. A part of her never wanted to see any member of this fucked-up family ever again, and that part was riddled with anger towards Antonia – that she could have helped Violet. That she could have saved her, if she’d only have told someone what was going on behind the doors of the Deucalion, got Violet away from Sera. But as a restorative breeze whipped Martin’s hair from her face on the walk through the hospital car park, she swallowed the feelings down. She would finish this case for Violet.

  After further warnings from the ward sister to not be too long, Martin pushed open the door to Antonia’s room. She lay prostrate, white bandages covering her face, from which oozed small caterpillar trails of a greenish-yellow substance. A drip pulsed next to her, wires running into her arm; a machine flashed mutely beside her head. Her eyes had been closed when she entered but now opened slowly as she approached the bed.

  ‘Ms Simpson,’ Martin said in a low voice. ‘I’m very sorry to disturb you, but I really need to talk to you about your accident – about what hap
pened to you.’

  Antonia made no reply, but her pupils dilated a little. She appeared to be waiting for more.

  ‘We haven’t been able to question you before now. But I’m very anxious to talk to you. To find out what happened and who did this to you.’

  Antonia gave a small blink, water pooling in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘I realize this is all very distressing.’ Martin swallowed. ‘And I’m afraid I have some other bad news.’

  Antonia closed her eyes. ‘Where’s Sera?’ she asked limply. ‘Why hasn’t she come to see me?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Martin answered, choosing her words carefully. ‘Something has happened to your niece, Ms Simpson.’

  ‘To Violet?’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Violet died yesterday, Antonia. I’m very sorry.’

  Antonia’s shoulders twitched violently. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What do you mean, she died?’

  ‘Violet passed away yesterday. I’m sorry,’ Martin said again.

  ‘How?’ Antonia’s voice trembled as she spoke, and her eyes were wide and fearful under the bandages.

  ‘We’re still gathering evidence,’ Martin replied. ‘But . . . it does appear that your sister was involved.’

  Antonia tried to wrench herself up on to her elbows but grimaced with pain before sinking back down on to the pillows. ‘Sera was involved? Oh, the bitch!’ Antonia spat out with effort, before shutting her eyes tight. The exertion had exhausted her and silence fell across the room. ‘Oh, poor Violet. My poor girl. What she suffered . . . That’s why she did it, you know. That’s why . . .’ Antonia’s voice was so faint, Martin almost thought she might have imagined it.

  ‘That’s why who did what, Antonia? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.’

  ‘She didn’t mean it, what happened. She’s been twisted all these years. Made to hate me, to despise me,’ Antonia swallowed and said with supreme effort. ‘But I don’t blame her for what she did. I don’t blame Violet.’