by Deborah Lucy
Not for the first time since he came here, he wondered how many other people had lain awake at night in this room over the years. There was a date carved into the mantle above the small fireplace in the living room. It said 1801. He’d tried to calculate how many people might have stared at this exact spot in the dead of night since then, disturbed by their troubles or thoughts of intruders. But lack of sleep was the least of his worries.
Staring up, the low, uneven white ceiling acted as the screen on which his mind ran and reran the last few months like a mad, fast-forward projector that he could do nothing to stop. He couldn’t help himself but watch, going over it all again, night after night, like a slow motion car crash. Since it had all blown up, he’d made himself a hostage to this method of processing what had happened.
He’d hoped that by going over it again and again, a solution would find its way out of the dark. What was it that Leigh had said? That he had rolled a hand grenade into their lives and was hoping that it wouldn’t go off. If he could just go back, he’d do things differently. That was the only impossible solution that offered itself up.
But he couldn’t go back. It was a total fuck-up. He thought immediately of Ben and felt guilty for even thinking of his endearing little boy in that same moment. But Temple knew he had fucked up. Big time. And he couldn’t change it. He’d had to wreck his family in order to save Ben, save him from living in care, being fostered or adopted, having someone else bringing him up. He couldn’t have left him to the fate of the state, and in rescuing him, he’d had to hurt and lose those he loved.
It had been both an obvious and difficult choice to make. As soon as the social worker told him of Ben’s existence, the product of an extra-marital two-night stand between Temple and Ben’s now dead mother, he knew he wouldn’t be able to abandon him. It reminded him too much of his own situation as a young boy. His uncle Richard and his grandfather, both of whom had been almost strangers to him, had offered him the same lifeline, or else he would have suffered the fate of living in state care when his mother was murdered.
They hadn’t had to take him in. His grandfather was old and Richard was a single man, but they’d come together to give him a home. And there was only one thing he could do given similar circumstances. Even before he’d broken the news to her, he knew Leigh would not be able to forgive him. Newly reconciled and back living together, they were happy and he didn’t want to spoil that. So he’d waited six weeks before he told her, after the DNA test he’d requested had confirmed he was Ben’s father.
Recalling the moment he’d told her, he saw her face again, the hurt and anger, the tears. He hoped that she might accept the situation for what it was and manage to bring Ben into their family. There was no threat to her from the boy’s mother; she was dead. But Leigh was massively wounded by the revelation. And she said that wound wouldn’t grow any less if she had to keep seeing Ben. He was asking way too much.
How would Ben’s sudden presence be explained, she said, to their family, their friends – any new friends? They would all have to be told. She refused to lie and said she would spend the rest of her life explaining and seeing the reaction on people’s faces, seeing them feel sorry for her, having them talk behind her back. Pitying her. No, she wasn’t prepared to do it.
He had to make a choice – he couldn’t have it all. It was her and Daisy or it was Ben, and even before she said it, because of his past, she knew what Temple would do. She had been so angry with him. Not for the first time, she screamed at him that these were the consequences of his selfish actions and now they’d all have to live with them. As he lay there, remembering their conversations, he recalled how they escalated with them both shouting at each other and Daisy crying. Once again, Leigh threw him out.
Then came the news. A further twist of fate. News that Leigh was furious about, but that he’d hoped would give them a lifeline; that might change her mind. She was pregnant. He again asked her to reconsider their position – things were different in light of this, they should all be together, they could make it work. He loved her, for God’s sake. She was adamant. No, they couldn’t make it work. What’s more, she would go it alone with the baby. Fuck you, she’d said.
So he had a decree nisi, with an absolute shortly to follow. Such was her anger with him she told him she would move away, putting miles between them, knowing this would mean he wouldn’t have ready access to his ten-year-old daughter Daisy or the progress of Leigh’s pregnancy.
While Daisy was bewildered by her parents’ behaviour, she had been excited and readily accepting of Ben, her new-found half-brother. But Leigh wouldn’t countenance any notion of playing happy families under such circumstances. She didn’t care if it was what Daisy wanted. She was reeling from the situation he had left her in and wanted to teach Temple a life lesson: when you fuck up, there are consequences. She wanted to hurt him in every way she could. Really hurt him. Leigh knew taking Daisy away from him and cutting ties with her and the new baby would do that.
She was house hunting in Norfolk, hoping that going to the other side of the country would signal just how much she wanted to break contact. And she wanted to screw him financially. More hurt. To pay for how he’d hurt her.
Daisy was tearful and sad at the thought of being wrenched away from her school, her friends and her daddy. She was starting to fail at school, misbehave. She was giving Leigh a hard time, saying she would refuse to move. She would live with her dad; she didn’t want to go and she couldn’t make her. If she did she would run away; she wouldn’t stay. And so Leigh was also left having to cope with Daisy’s growing resentment towards her and her misbehaviour.
And Ben, Temple’s little boy, was in the middle of all this mess. Under investigation anyway, Temple had taken a month off work to see him settle into his new surroundings. The boy had been upset and confused and obviously missed his mother. ‘Reinforce your relationship to him at every opportunity,’ said the social worker. ‘Remind him that you are his daddy and he will come to accept it.’
Almost overnight, Temple’s life had been turned upside down. He had to make a home for Ben, a son he had no prior knowledge of and to whom he was a stranger. With the help of the social worker, he set to work. The boy was a good little soul and after the inevitable initial ups and downs, he had quietly settled into a routine.
Then Temple thought of Ana, the au pair who had moved in with them. Now he was living in a place he hated, in a tiny, rickety old cottage, with two people who only a few months earlier he’d had no knowledge of, while his angry ex-wife, their unborn child and his daughter whom he loved were in their old family home, his little girl crying herself to sleep at night. He was at a loss as to what he could do to put things right, but he had to do something. He’d lost Leigh but he couldn’t and wouldn’t lose Daisy, despite Leigh’s attempts to keep them apart.
As he lay there, his bandaged finger started to pulse. His thoughts turned to China Lewis and all he’d heard about her. He had to try and find her. The sudden thought of tracking down Gary Lewis appealed to him far more than going over things he couldn’t change. He decided to go into work.
Chapter 12
Darya Petrenko lay prostrate on her bed. She couldn’t bear to look at her husband Kostya so she had taken refuge in her bedroom. He would know better than to disturb her there. She was out of her mind with worry for Katya. She had never run away before; it had never entered Darya’s head that she would even think of doing such a thing. She was almost paralysed with fear of what might be happening to Katya. She could only think of bad things; the thoughts flooded into her brain like devils designed to drive her mad.
Her perfect world had been turned upside down and she was existing in a new reality. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. She just wanted Katya back. She physically hurt knowing her daughter was out there, somewhere, without her, without any protection. Kostya said that he had the security team out looking for her and that they would find her. Well, the hours and days had ticked
by and she hadn’t returned.
He refused to contact the police and she felt helpless. Did he think that his business associates had something to do with it? But they had both viewed the recording of the driver taking Katya to school that day. They had seen for themselves that she had got out of the limousine and had literally run in the opposite direction of the school. They hadn’t seen her since.
Her mind went over and over the morning she had last seen her. She had seemed perfectly normal. She thought back further – was there something she’d missed? Was there an undertone with Katya that she’d failed to spot? Was she unhappy with something in her life? Something must have been wrong or else why would she have run away?
Darya just wanted her daughter back. She wouldn’t be able to move until she knew Katya was home. She was going to stay there, laid on her bed, wanting to black out and be rendered unconscious until that time. The not knowing was too much for her to bear. The tears started to roll down the side of her face and into her hair. She needed her back. She was going out of her mind.
She wanted the police to be looking for her daughter and she hated Kostya for preventing that. The last seventy-two hours had shown her a different side to her husband that she had never seen before. And right now, she hated him with every fibre of her being. She never thought she would feel this way towards him but she did now.
He’d prioritised his business partnership over his own daughter, his own flesh and blood. She would never forgive him for that. She marvelled at how her feelings could change in such a short space of time but they had, perhaps irrevocably. She didn’t know if they would survive this and she no longer cared. There was only one thing she wanted more than anything in the world, and that was Katya back with her.
* * *
In the quiet darkness of the early morning, Temple pulled up outside Gary Lewis’s flat. The lights were still on, as they had been when he’d looked up at them only hours before when Lewis ran off. He rang the buzzer but there was no answer. Perhaps he’d been picked up and was in custody.
Back at Gable Cross police station, Temple went to the custody unit. He then checked his emails and the force log. No Gary Lewis and no return or sign of China Lewis reported from any of the PCSOs who’d gone out with China’s photo. He would escalate the case today, particularly in light of the disclosures from Amy Davidson. Temple started to plan for teams to go in and do a thorough search of Barbara’s and Gary Lewis’s premises and make a wider media appeal for information on the whereabouts of both Gary and China.
The police station was quiet at this time of the morning. Temple was one of only a handful of people there. He’d have to wait for the 8 a.m. shift to come on duty before being able to put any of his plans into action. He had nearly two hours to wait. He looked at the address of the children’s home that he had put in his pocket, and the name of the girl who’d gone missing about the same time as China. He looked at his watch and left the station.
The Brook was a large Victorian double-fronted terraced house in a nice residential street in Swindon. Nothing from the outside marked it out as a children’s home. The manager of The Brook, Kay Riley, who welcomed Temple inside, had been on a sleepover and was in the process of ensuring the four children in the home were being organised for school.
As he stepped into the hallway, Temple was greeted by strings of coloured bunting. It was warm and inviting and went against his perception of a children’s home as a cold, utilitarian environment. As he followed the manager, he saw heart-shaped pictures pinned to the downstairs doors.
Amongst the noise upstairs of staff chivvying children from bathrooms to bedrooms, Kay showed him into a large kitchen-diner extension where he sat at a pine table while she made him a cup of coffee. The room was unexpectedly modern in design, bright, clean and well decorated. The same colourful bunting was here too, pinned around the dining area walls, along with kids’ drawings. It felt like any other happy home.
‘As I said, I’m interested in one of the kids that ran away two days ago,’ Temple explained. ‘According to my records, Molly Wicks was returned just after midnight after being reported missing for six hours.’
‘Yes, Molly’s going through some difficult times at the moment. They seem to hit double figures and start pushing at the boundaries to see how far they stretch. We only have girls between the ages of eight and fourteen and we’ve increased our intake from three to four in the last few months. The kids find this a challenging time in the home. I’m sure things will settle down but in the meantime there will be the inevitable disturbance that another child coming in brings. Just as they get used to another child being in their home, after a short while, along comes another.’
‘So the dynamics change?’
‘Yes, so you can start to see our challenges. We try and match them as best we can before taking them, but for all that you never really know how it’s going to work out until they actually move in and start interacting with the other girls. As you can imagine, it takes a while for things to settle down.’
‘What makes them want to run? This feels like a nice home.’ The more Temple saw of the place the more impressed he was. His preconceived ideas about a children’s home being a dark and threatening place were clearly wrong.
‘We do our best here to make it homely but the reasons for running away could be any number of things. For a start they could just be “runners”; it could be their default position. It’s our job to try and break that as a pattern of behaviour. Or it could simply be the upheaval another arrival brings. There are also trust issues to overcome – Molly had a very difficult time at home before coming into care.’
‘So what happened here?’
‘Molly’s upset by the new girl, Shona – perhaps she sees her as a threat at the moment. The new girl’s quite a handful. She’s somewhat violent; lashes out, throws things, screams. She hasn’t settled in yet. It’s a new place, new people, new kids. She’s unsettled, scared even. She takes a lot of our time. It’s all behaviour we expect to deal with, but it can be quite upsetting and unsettling for the other kids.’
At that moment, Kay Riley looked past Temple to acknowledge a staff member who had just come on shift.
‘Hi, Callie, thanks for coming in.’
Temple turned round. A tall, slim woman with red hair looked back at him with a broad smile.
‘I’ll just go on up and get started,’ she said, and turned out of the room.
‘Callie’s had to come in to cover a shift for us,’ Kay Riley explained. ‘Our new girl lashed out last night and one of our carers was injured. You want to speak to Molly, did you say?’
‘Yes, if that’s possible. I’m looking for another young girl who’s gone missing in Swindon and I just wondered if I could show Molly a photo of her, see whether she could tell me if she’d seen her or knows where she might be. Do you know where Molly went while she was missing?’
Kay handed Temple a cup of hot coffee and they moved into a small office away from the kitchen.
‘Of course we spoke to her when she returned but she was non-committal. Her social worker’s supposed to conduct a “return home” interview with her, but that might not take place for another few days yet. She may disclose to her where she went, but kids can be very secretive. She’s told us in the past that she hangs around the train station. Apparently kids feel safe at railway stations – can you believe that? She’s also said before that she’s hung around the Parade Shopping Centre. I’ll go and ask Callie if Molly’s ready and see if she’ll talk to you.’
Kay left Temple sitting in her office. He looked round the room as he finished his drink. On the wall there were some paintings by the kids, menu plans, rotas, a poster with company values, framed qualifications of staff members. It all looked well run. Kay returned to her office and sat behind her desk while in the hallway he could hear Callie trying to coax an unwilling Molly along the hall.
Callie was at the door with a shy Molly who stood just outside, reluctant to
come across the threshold. She didn’t want to go any further inside. She was a pretty, still sleepy-eyed, dark-skinned girl in a school uniform.
‘Would you speak to this police officer please, Moll? And then you can get yourself some breakfast.’ Callie was trying her best. ‘It won’t take a minute. He’s wondering if you can help him.’ She spoke gently. ‘He’s very nice, he won’t bite.’ Temple and Callie exchanged glances at that point, with Molly looking at the floor.
Temple introduced himself. Molly rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, all the time avoiding any eye contact with him, then looked down to focus on the floor. She didn’t speak.
‘I won’t keep you long, Molly, I just wondered if you might have seen this girl. Have you seen her around Swindon at all?’ Temple offered up his phone with the picture of China for her to see. She still didn’t speak, but she was unable to resist looking at the screen, dragging her eyes from the floor and studying the photo for a couple of seconds.
Temple watched her closely as her eyes flicked over China’s image. Molly hoped she showed no obvious sign that she recognised the girl. She shrugged and looked away over her shoulder, appearing disinterested but not able to mask the merest hint of a smile.
‘She’s not in trouble. I want to help her. I’m worried about her. I take it you don’t know her, otherwise you’d tell me?’ There was no answer from the girl except a slight shrug.
‘Well, thanks for looking. I won’t keep you from your breakfast.’
Temple shut down the image and put his phone in his pocket. He didn’t want to press her. Callie made an apologetic facial gesture back to Temple and followed Molly as she sloped off to the kitchen.
‘I’ll leave you my card. Could you let me know please if Molly discloses anything you think might help me?’
Kay took it from him.
From her slight smile, he felt sure Molly had seen China and knew who she was. He was frustrated. It had been a long shot but he thought speaking to Molly might have reaped some reward, some shortcut to finding China Lewis. It might have worked had she not been so vulnerable herself. There was definitely a hint of recognition when Molly saw China’s photo.