by Niki Mackay
‘Like you’ve stayed out of Kate’s life?’
His eyes avoid mine. ‘We don’t always get parenting right.’
‘I guess we don’t.’
I leave with the feeling of having found out nothing and been tasked with the impossible. I was due to see my mother this afternoon but I’m not going to make it. She’s probably forgotten anyway. I start to drive, light up a cigarette, inhale deeply, dial my mother and put the phone on speaker. She picks up but doesn’t say anything. For fuck’s sake.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’ Crackly, dry.
‘It’s Madison.’
‘Oh.’ Not ‘hi’. Not ‘how are you?’
‘I was supposed to come and visit you today.’
‘Fine, I’ll see you later.’
She’s about to hang up. ‘No, Mum, wait a minute.’
‘What?’
‘That’s why I’m ringing. I can’t make it – some work stuff has come up, but I’ll be there at the weekend.’
‘Okay.’ And she’s gone, no feeling on it either way. I know better than to take it personally and yet I still feel it, a little sting somewhere. Her indifference isn’t personal, it’s not about me. Shit, I, of all people, know that. I have to forgive her. Somehow I have to. If I can forgive her, maybe Molly can forgive me.
When I get back to the office, I ring Peter. He confirms that Marcus Reynolds called to report his wife missing. ‘Went totally ape when we said we couldn’t help.’
I laugh at that. ‘I’ll bet.’
‘I’d assume they’ve just left, wouldn’t you?’
I fill him in. Telling him of their escape plan, the diary, the packed bags left, the upturned plant, and the open door. I tell him about Marcus and Naomi. He sighs when I say Malone didn’t really delve.
Eventually he lets out a low whistle.
I say, ‘I’ll be investigating it, obviously we wouldn’t bother at this stage.’
‘We, the police?’
‘Okay, you.’
He pauses. ‘Sorry I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’
‘I know.’
‘How can I help?’
‘You can’t. You guys will have to look into it when it hits forty-eight hours, I suppose.’
‘A lot can happen in that time.’ I can hear the concern in his voice.
‘Yes, I think it’s already started,’ I reply.
‘Do you figure the husband for it?’
‘Well, I would say he’s certainly high up on the list but there’s this ex of Kate’s who seems to show up in everything.’
‘Your spidey sense doesn’t like Reynolds?’
I laugh. ‘No, it’s not that I don’t think Marcus is a total shit. But I’m more interested in Oliver Horfield.’
‘Kate’s boyfriend?’
‘Yes, he’s shown up recently. Harassing Kate now.’
‘Wanting to rekindle a beautiful thing?’
‘Not exactly, and he has a wife,’ I say, and then fill Peter in on the incest aspect.
He appropriately mutters, ‘Fucking hell.’
‘Right. I’ve been trying to contact him at his work, been on holiday apparently. No answer on his mobile and I’ll be driving to his house shortly.’
‘Is there a history of abuse with the husband though – Marcus?’
‘Yes, not documented, but Claudia’s pretty much confirmed it to Kate, not to mention the affairs.’
He lets out another low whistle. ‘Oliver seems a good place to start, especially since it looks like he was stalking the whole family. I’d do the same.’
‘Ha, you won’t ever find yourself out here in lone-ranger land.’
‘In some ways you have more freedom.’
I laugh. ‘I guess it has its upsides.’
There is a pause that’s too long, then he says, ‘Are you free later for dinner?’
I want to say yes. I so want to say yes. I think about Janet and Molly and Rob. I sigh. ‘I’m going to be up to my neck in it, sorry. The priority is finding Claudia and Bethany – you know as well as I do that this time is going to be crucial.’
‘Another time?’ he tries.
‘Sure.’
I don’t mean ‘sure’ though. I mean ‘leave me alone’. Peter is more than I can bear right now. The thought of him fills me with love and fear in equal measure, and I do love him. I always have. I think about how shit I feel every time I speak to my mum, or drop Molly home. The burden of the people I care about is already too much. I can’t manage him as well because the chances are it won’t work out. Oh, it’d be fun for a few months; exciting and new. I’m always good for a few months. Then I’d turn on him, like I turn on everyone. And he’d disappoint me as much as I would him. It’s what people do to each other and I can’t take the upset. When I get upset, I drink, and when I drink, I lose control and Molly needs me to be in control. Or at least be able to look like I am.
I force away the other thought that whispers in my stupid mind. The one that says maybe this time it will be different.
I can’t take the risk.
36.
Claudia Reynolds
‘Bethany.’ My voice is scratchy, dry, barely a whisper; my throat feels as though I’ve swallowed razor blades. I try again. Nothing. I move my arm, so heavy it hurts, and I shake her as hard as I can, which turns out to be pretty softly. I’m rewarded though. She rolls over slightly, her eyes flutter and open and she looks right at me, glassy but okay.
‘I’m very sleepy, Mummy,’ she mumbles, and she’s gone again.
I must drift off because the next thing I know Bethany is saying, ‘Mummy . . . Mummy.’
I force my eyes open and look at her.
‘Where are we?’ she asks.
‘Shhhh, baby, everything’s okay,’ I say, but my blood feels icy. I remember a firm hand pressing something to my face. We were at home. I was going to leave. Finally, I was going to leave. I was taking the diary to Kate. I’d spoken to Marcus. He must have found out; he has done this to us. His own family.
‘Mummy, my throat hurts.’
The door opens and I instinctively try to close my arms around my daughter but they are too slow.
‘Hello, Claudia.’
For a second I’m confused. Not Marcus. Not a man at all. I find myself looking directly into familiar eyes.
I say, ‘You!’
‘Hello, Claudia,’ she repeats with a smile.
‘Martha, what are we doing here?’
She ignores me. ‘You have to stay here for now.’
My head is fuzzy and I can’t think of the right things to ask, though there are many, many questions quivering just outside the fuzz. She sits on the bed opposite us, still smiling as though we were all having a friendly visit.
‘Do you both feel okay?’
‘No, I feel funny, and Bethany won’t wake up properly. You drugged us.’
‘Oh, no.’ She shakes her head like a petulant child. If I had the strength, I’d hit her.
‘I wouldn’t do that to you.’ There are tears in her eyes. ‘I wish he hadn’t had to, but you wouldn’t have come, would you? If we’d just asked?’
Marcus. No matter how far he goes, I think he can’t go any further. But there’s always another level.
I glare at her; she says, ‘I know it doesn’t feel nice, but of all the things he might give to you it’s not the worst, oh no.’ She shudders at something in her own head.
‘Martha, what’s happening? Why did you want us to come here?’
She looks at me and seems almost surprised by my presence. ‘The diary. We had to take the diary.’ I almost laugh. At my own stupidity. At the thought that I might have managed to do something that my husband didn’t know about. Of course he knew I’d been in there.
I
can feel my daughter heavy in my arms, she’s gone back to sleep. ‘Martha,’ I say.
‘Yes, Claudia.’ She’s smiling, an insane, unreasonable smile.
‘How did you know I had the diary?’
‘Oh, I didn’t know! He told me.’
‘How did he know?’
She laughs, a mad, high-pitched sound. ‘He knows everything, he’s always watching.’ Oh God. Her life isn’t so different from mine.
‘Is he watching us now?’
She nods. ‘Of course.’ Her hand waves to the top corner of the room, there’s a camera there. She giggles, that awful sound again. There must be a camera somewhere in the office.
‘I think I’ve been too long; I’m supposed to be quick. I brought you food. It’s on the table. You’ll start to feel better soon, I promise. It wears off. I should know. There’s a bathroom at the back of the room. And there’s a telly.’ She hands me a remote and stands to go.
‘Martha . . . wait—’
‘Claudia, I have to go, I told you,’ she frowns.
‘You have to help us . . . please!’
Her frown fades and she kneels by the side of the bed, turning her head at an angle so we are eye to eye. ‘I am helping you. Just do what I say and you’ll be fine. Don’t do anything to make him angry.’
‘How would we make him angry?’
She shrugs.
She stands again and goes out of the room. I keep calling her name even after the door closes and I hear a lock turn. I keep calling in my croaky voice, until Bethany wakes up and asks why I’m shouting and then I smile and stroke her hair and tell her not to worry, that everything will be fine. But my heart is racing.
37.
Kate Reynolds
I feel a familiar pressure build on my chest. Fear: cold, uncut, clean and fresh. It’s non-specific, it’s about nothing and everything all at once. I remember the same feeling when I realised my new home would be prison, that Naomi was dead, that it was my fault. It didn’t happen during the trial or while I was on remand, it all seemed dream-like then. Dean says I dissociated, a coping mechanism. Then the wonderful numb detachment left, the first night Janine climbed down onto my bunk and held a pillow over my face, just long enough that I thought I was going to die. So that defence is long gone. Everything is horribly real. That night has come back to me with startling clarity. The first time I remembered it was during a particularly sleepless night, only a month after I had been sentenced. I thought it must have been a dream and Dean had agreed that that was likely. But it had happened again, and then it came to me in the daytime and I knew it wasn’t a dream. It coincided with the numbness wearing off. Dean suggested later that I had been in shock. That’s when I’d called my dad. The last time he spoke to me until now. The day he shut me out. The details became clearer, but I took a risk when I went to Madison. My memories might have been false after all. But look where they’ve led. The more I think about it, the more I understand that the knowledge was always there. Buried in my subconscious.
I call Dean; he’s the only one who will make me feel better. I tell him about Claudia and Bethany. He asks if I’m okay and I say I am. But I’m not. Not really, though I feel better for talking to him. The more Madison has uncovered the clearer it is that many things have been covered up. Oliver is Ruth’s son. He is my brother. Martha was at the party that night. Marcus and my dad are involved. The worse thing about it all is that I still love them, especially my father. These awful undeserving people, who not only left me in my hour of need, but may have had something to do with putting me there. In prison even Janine’s messed-up relatives turned up every two weeks. She delighted in the fact no one came for me. Except Dean, and they all knew he was my therapist. The sting of abandonment is no less now. It still hurts just the same six years on. It’s not normal, is it, to treat your child that way? No matter what. Betrayal.
Then there’s Oliver. The other person I loved. My brother. He is my bloody brother and he knew that all along. I loved him. I trusted him like I trusted them all. I think Dad and Marcus must have known. I can only think that even though she’s dead, James was looking out for his precious Ruth. Her reputation even in death was to be upheld even as mine was shattered. It must be that. I can’t go so far as to think they knew I’d go into the room, but they didn’t come rushing to save me either. Naomi must have known something. It wouldn’t surprise me. Her favourite currency was information. If she held your secrets she could use them against you. My guess is she tried to do this with Oliver.
Madison has asked me to wait an hour to come into the office but I am restless and the walls of my flat are closing in. I grab my coat and bag and head out. It’s cold but sunny and I walk. I walk aimlessly out of town, to green trees and the river, trying to untangle the mess in my head.
My phone keeps beeping, it’s been doing it since yesterday. I try and scroll through, there’s a text message and a voicemail. Oliver. Sounding desperate, panicked. ‘Kate. Please, we need to talk. We really need to talk.’ Silence. A sound like a sob. I stop walking. ‘Please, Kate, phone me back.’ He leaves his number. The message ends and the time it gives is just before Claudia and Bethany disappeared. Oh my God. I dial the number. It rings and rings. I dial it again. No answer. He’s got them. It’s not Marcus. I call Madison in a panic, barely able to breathe, barely able to speak. She tells me to stay put and in twenty minutes her black sports car screeches to a halt and she gets out.
I’m sitting on the floor. Sweating, panting. Madison takes one look at me and sits down next to me. I’m surprised when she takes my hand, locks her eyes with mine, and says: ‘You are okay. You are not dying. It’s a panic attack. You just need to breathe in and out, and in and out.’ I stay focused on her eyes and I can feel my heart slow down and my breathing return to normal. I whisper, ‘Oliver. Voicemail.’ And I hand her my phone.
She listens, hands me back my phone and helps me into her car. When she starts the engine, rock music blasts out of the speakers. I nearly jump out of my skin. She turns it off quickly and apologises, mumbling that it helps her think.
‘Mind if I smoke?’ she asks. She still hasn’t said anything. About him. About what we are going to do.
I do mind, the smoking, but I nod that I don’t and she winds down the window and lets in cold winter air as we drive along. The cigarette smells disgusting, but I can see her loosen with every puff. Maybe I should try it.
‘Start at the beginning,’ she orders.
I do, adding again the feeling I had had that someone was in my flat earlier in the week. The other feeling of being followed, being watched.
‘You should have told me.’
‘What, that I had a feeling?’
She laughs. ‘Look, this whole investigation has been based on you having a “kind of” memory that may or may not be real, so any other feelings you might have I want to know about, okay?’
‘Okay.’ I wind down my own window, trying to get air but breathing in nicotine instead. I smile and say to her, ‘Looks like I might be onto something though, doesn’t it? Bet you’re glad I’m innocent?’
‘I figured you might be.’
I’m surprised at that. ‘Really?’
She shrugs, inhales, exhales, flicks the fag butt out of the window. ‘Yup. Doesn’t mean we don’t need proof though, does it?’
‘The police wouldn’t have touched this case again.’
She sighs. ‘Lucky for you I’m not the police then.’
‘Did my dad and Marcus know anything about Claudia and Bethany, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. But they’re definitely hiding something, protecting someone.’ It’s what I’ve been thinking but I still feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. Like the world is caving in around me. Oliver. My brother. Did my dad know? Did he know when Oliver was coming to the house? Surely not. Naomi. She’s the key, I suppose. Naomi,
who Marcus was in love with. Marcus, who is lying. My dad, who is lying. My head is spinning.
‘Ruth,’ I say suddenly.
‘What?’
‘The only explanation can be that Dad is looking after Ruth’s reputation.’
‘Ruth’s dead,’ Madison says.
‘Can you think of another reason?’
‘Not yet. Maybe he had something on them.’
I frown at her. ‘What do you mean?’
She shrugs. ‘Look, we’re not done. But there’s something there. I get your theory about Ruth but I’m not into it.’ She must see my disappointed face because she adds, ‘I’m sorry, this must all be very tough for you.’
Tough is an understatement, but I say, ‘It’s better to know, isn’t it.’ Although I still can’t quite work out if I agree with that idea.
Madison calls the police. I’m alarmed to see her balancing the phone precariously between ear and shoulder while driving way too fast. She tells them that Oliver Horfield has taken Claudia and Bethany and that she believes they are in immediate danger. My stomach starts doing a nauseous dance.
Madison is still talking to them as we park and I follow her into the office, thinking a lift with her is like a near-death experience in itself. She leaves me with Emma who clucks around. She feels motherly, though I realise when I look at her face that she’s probably not that much older than me. She makes me tea and adds sugar without being asked. She takes my coat and gently squeezes my shoulder.
Madison’s office door slams and Emma flinches slightly. She busies herself tidying around me and then stops, sniffing the air above her. She tuts. ‘Smoking out the window again. I daresay it’ll be the air freshener next.’
As if on cue we hear the spray. We’re both giggling, despite the situation, when Madison comes out. She frowns but ignores it.
‘According to Oliver’s company he’s on annual leave,’ she says. ‘Took it at the last minute – apparently got a good deal on a late booking.’
‘But his phone was ringing.’
She looks at me as though I’m stupid. I fall in a second too late. ‘Have you tried calling his house?’