Like a child, I lift my hands to cover my ears. I don’t want to hear what he is saying. I want to get out of the room, but he is between me and the door, and he’s still talking. Still telling me how I am the only thing that matters in his life.
He comes towards me, and reaches out to grab my arms and pull them down to my hips. I don’t try to resist. He stands very close – so close that I can see the individual pores of his skin.
He leans forwards to whisper in my ear and I feel his breath, hot on my cheek. ‘If you leave me, Olivia…’
PART TWO
TWO YEARS LATER
7
Friday
There was a buzz in the air as Tom Douglas walked into the pub where members of his team were celebrating their latest success. It was impossible to identify individual voices through the hubbub, but somehow noise had a different feel to it when it was celebratory. Voices were pitched higher, people spoke more quickly, odd bursts of laughter penetrated the general commotion. This, however, was one hell of a night for a celebration.
Tom had been back in Manchester for several months now after a brief sabbatical in Cheshire following his resignation from the Met, and he was loving his new job. He’d inherited a good team, with one or two notable exceptions that he knew he needed to deal with. He couldn’t put it off for much longer, but it would have been a mistake to cause any disruption when they were so close to cracking a major case. And today it had all paid off. Two years of hard slog – most of it before he joined the team – had finally resulted in getting the irrefutable evidence they needed to arrest a serial rapist.
Pushing his way through to the bar, Tom lifted his hand in greeting to various members of his team and tipped his open fist back and forth in the air in the universally understood gesture for ‘Do you want a drink?’. Several pint glasses were raised, with index fingers pointing, suggesting a refill would be good. Tom turned to the barman.
‘Can I give you my credit card, so you can keep them coming?’ he asked.
It was no secret that Tom had money, although most people had no idea he had inherited it all from his brother. His team deserved their drinks and Tom was delighted that he could afford to buy a few rounds. They’d worked hard, and the bastard who had been grabbing these girls at knife point and then waving two fingers at the police because they couldn’t find a single scrap of evidence was going down for a very long time. He liked to think Manchester was now a safer place. And so it was – but he wasn’t daft enough to think that in the overall scheme of things this was going to make a huge difference. So many crimes, and always so much more to do.
He decided to stay for an hour, and then leave them to it. Most of his team were reasonably relaxed around him, but the younger ones and the lower ranks – with the possible exception of the cocky Ryan – were intimidated by him, and they’d have a much better time when he was gone.
Anyway, he was debating whether to call round and see Leo. It had been a while and neither of them seemed quite ready to break the apparent deadlock in their relationship – if that’s what you would call it. It looked like it would be down to him, and not for the first time.
Leonora Harris. The joy and the pain in his life. It was nearly a year since he’d met her, and he had hoped they would become close. When he had first bought the cottage in Cheshire next to Leo’s sister, he’d had no thoughts at all about starting a new relationship. In fact it was probably bottom of his list of priorities. But Leo was so different from other women. Straight as an arrow and honest to the point of painfulness, she had suffered a difficult childhood and had been scarred by the indifference of her father. She had made it clear that she kept all men at arm’s length, but Tom was hoping to be the exception to that rule.
There was something special about Leo. She had a unique style, carrying her tall, slim body with a careless elegance. She tried so hard to hide her vulnerability beneath a slightly acerbic manner, but Tom had never been fooled.
He had known it wasn’t going to be easy to get close to her, but had hoped that by always treating her with honesty and respect he would be able to break down the barriers against men that she had been building all her life. She was hard work, though. It was a case of two steps forwards and one back – although sometimes he felt it was the other way round and that he was constantly in retreat. She seemed to want to see him and be with him, but then suddenly the barriers would come up and she would push him away, making herself unavailable for sometimes weeks on end. He didn’t know if she was testing him, but he suspected so. How long was this going to go on?
Leo had been very clear from the start that she ‘didn’t do relationships’. Sex was one thing – but he mustn’t assume that would make them a couple. And he mustn’t assume that if it happened once, it would happen again.
Tom exhaled a deep breath. He couldn’t live like that, not knowing whether he was in a relationship or not, and always living by her rules. She wasn’t having it all her own way, but he knew that once they had made love he would be lost. He was just holding on to the very edges of sanity where Leo was concerned, and being that close to her would tip him over the edge.
‘Sir!’ There was a yell from behind that jolted him out of his reverie. He turned round, and saw his team raise their glasses to him in a toast. He grabbed his pint off the bar and saluted them back. ‘Cheers,’ they all yelled in unison. That felt good. He would put Leo out of his mind, and maybe not go round to see her tonight. He didn’t want to play games – it wasn’t his style. But if he called to say he was out celebrating, she would be fine. ‘You didn’t have to call. If you hadn’t turned up, I would have assumed you were busy,’ she’d say, just to let him know there were no obligations on either side. Bloody woman.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Speaking of bloody women, here was another one – his boss, Detective Superintendent Philippa Stanley. She’d become even more serious, bordering on officious, in the intervening years since she had worked for him, and she had received one promotion after another. He’d like to think she was ringing now to congratulate the team for a job well done, but it was unlikely. She would do that formally, but she would never call him in the pub for that purpose.
Lifting the phone to his ear, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hear a word she said.
‘Hang on, Philippa, I’m going to go outside. It’s a bit rowdy in here.’
Tom put his pint back down on the bar. He wasn’t much of a pint drinker so it was no great loss, but he didn’t think it would do his credibility much good to order a glass of red wine. Forcing his way back through the group pushing towards the bar for their free drinks, Tom finally made it outside on to the pavement.
‘Sorry, Philippa. There’s a bit of a celebration going on and I couldn’t hear a word.’
‘Can you hear me now?’ she said, completely ignoring all mention of the festivities.
‘Yes – loud and clear. What can I do for you?’
‘I thought you should know that we’ve been called out on a missing-from-home case. We sent somebody out to do a risk assessment, but one of the advantages of having a duty sergeant who looks as if he should be stuffed and stood in the corner is that he has a memory as long as my arm. So he flagged this one with me even before it got into the system.’ Philippa paused and Tom waited, knowing she hadn’t finished. ‘Do you remember that I called you in London a couple of years ago about a girl from way back – the one whose Iranian boyfriend disappeared, and then her parents died?’
‘I do, yes. The husband had taken their kids out somewhere and hadn’t come home. Is that right? I seem to remember you sent me an email to say they’d all turned up safe and well. What’s happened now?’ Tom asked, knowing she wouldn’t have called him out of the blue about an old case.
‘This time the husband has come home from a business trip and claims that she’s disappeared. The wife, Olivia. And so have the children.’
Bloody hell. What was it with this family? Tom lifted his hand and
ran it through his short hair.
‘And is it for real this time or another waste of resources, because in the past nobody actually did disappear, did they? We all ran round like silly buggers only to find that there was a perfectly valid explanation all along.’ Tom said. ‘It might seem as if Olivia’s life has been nothing but a sequence of disappearances, but it feels more like a series of communication problems to me. What’s your thinking this time? I presume you don’t believe it’s just another stupid game or you wouldn’t be calling. You sound concerned.’
He could hear a sigh from the other end of the phone. At this point in the investigation, it wasn’t something that would normally bother a Detective Superintendent, but he could tell she was worried.
‘Philippa?’ he said, pushing her for a response.
‘According to the PC who went to check it out, it’s a very odd situation. Her car is in the garage, her handbag’s in the kitchen. If she’s just upped and left, she hasn’t taken a purse, clothes, or any of the children’s things. Nobody leaves with nothing, so I’m not sure what to think. Our guy – PC Mitchell, I believe – is still at the scene, of course. Done a basic search, but we need to get somebody more senior out there to assess it.’
‘How long has she been missing?’
‘The husband doesn’t know. He claims he knows for sure she was there earlier today, but when he came home this afternoon, they were gone. It’s ten o’clock now, and he called it in at about eight. The youngest boy is still only four years old, so he can’t believe she’d have kept him out this late. But she wasn’t expecting her husband home until tomorrow, so it may be absolutely nothing.’
‘But you don’t think so.’ This wasn’t a question. Tom could hear it in her voice.
‘It’s something she said when he – her husband – didn’t come home with the children the last time. I got involved because of the history, and I spoke to her personally. She kept repeating the same phrase over and over: “He wouldn’t do it. Tell me he wouldn’t do it.”’
‘Wouldn’t do what?’ Tom asked.
‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. But whatever it was, it was scaring her senseless. I'll be honest with you, Tom, the look of terror on her face when she said it has haunted me ever since.’
8
Tom pushed his way back into the packed pub, his eyes searching for Becky Robinson. It had made his day when he discovered a few weeks ago that she had applied for a promotion to Detective Inspector for the Greater Manchester force, but he had been less happy when he had seen her. She was too thin, and her eyes seemed to have sunk into her face. He wondered whether he would get an opportunity today to find out what had happened to her, because whatever it was it had certainly knocked her for six.
He had enjoyed working with Becky in London when she was his sergeant, and had found her smart and perceptive – just the kind of person he needed on this case. But he had to be sure she was up to it.
Becky was standing with the rest of the team clutching a glass of what looked like orange juice, but although she was smiling, her eyes looked blank and glassy. Tom lifted his hand, and Becky plus several others turned to look at him. He beckoned Becky towards him, and she turned as if with relief to put her glass down on the nearest table. Nobody looked disappointed that he hadn’t signalled them.
‘Sir?’ she said, turning her dark eyes towards him.
‘We’ve got a job, Becky. Woman and three children missing from home. I’ll just pay for the drinks, and I’ll fill you in on the way. Is that okay with you?’
‘No problem. Would you like me to drive?’ Becky asked, as Tom signalled the barman, making signing gestures with his hand.
‘A kind offer, but no thanks,’ Tom answered, remembering some of the white-knuckle rides he had had with Becky at the wheel in London. ‘Come in my car, and we’ll get somebody to give you a lift back when we’re finished.’
They walked in silence across the road to the car park. Tom flicked the car’s remote and waited until they were both strapped in with the engine running before speaking. He glanced sideways at her but she was staring straight ahead, clearly trying to avoid eye contact. This was so out of character.
‘Becky, you know I was delighted you’d applied to come and work in Manchester, and even more delighted when you got the job. There was stiff opposition, and these days it’s not always easy to get transferred, as we both know. But what’s it really about? You’re not yourself, and you look as if somebody’s kicked you in the gut, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ Becky said, but at least there was a glimmer of a smile, and Tom could feel some of the tension in her spine ease a little. ‘I’m okay though. Glad to be away from London, and I really don’t want to talk about it. Not even to you. If it affects my job, just tell me please, sir, but otherwise can we just not mention this again. Nobody else knows me from before, so they probably think I’m always a miserable sod. I’d rather it stayed that way.’
Tom nodded his head slowly, pulling the car out of the car park, and pointing it in the direction of the Brookes’ home. He knew the feeling, and if she didn’t want to tell him, he’d leave it at that.
‘Well, I hope you realise you can talk to me any time you want to. You know I’d never repeat a word. And by the way, when we’re on our own, Tom’s still fine. You don’t need to go all formal on me.’
‘Okay, got it. Are you going to tell me about the case now, or what?’ she asked, a flicker of her old, slightly cheeky self coming to the surface.
While he was driving, Tom filled her in on everything Philippa had told him about Robert Brookes’ disappearance two years ago, and then took her through all he could remember of his first meeting with Olivia Brookes almost nine years previously.
‘I know at the time my radar was telling me there was something more to it, but I can’t remember exactly what. I was with Ryan and he just ran through the queries as if by rote, not even trying to dig deeper when the occasion arose.’
‘When you say “Ryan”, do you mean our Ryan – as in Ryan Tippetts?’
Tom gave a single nod of the head.
‘Oh, bloody hell. Poor girl.’
It clearly hadn’t taken Becky long to get Ryan’s measure.
‘So what do you think happened to the boyfriend then?’ Becky asked.
‘I’ve no idea. Last we heard there was evidence of him booking a flight, so we can only presume he left the country.’
They were both quiet for a few moments. Saying that Olivia had been distraught at her boyfriend’s disappearance wouldn’t adequately convey the shock and fear that the girl had appeared to be experiencing. Any woman whose boyfriend abandoned her, leaving her with a new baby, might be expected to be distressed, but it had seemed more than that to Tom.
‘That was only the start of it,’ he continued. ‘Two months later, both her parents were dead, and she was the one who discovered them.’
Tom had a vision of a hysterical Olivia as she screamed over and over again that this could not have been an accident. But try as they might, they couldn’t find evidence of any crime. They’d even suspected the missing boyfriend. He was studying for a PhD in engineering, and maybe – just maybe – it was all a clever ploy to get the insurance money.
‘So, if I’ve got this right, boyfriend one does a runner. Parents are found dead. Future husband comes to the rescue. Seven years later he buggers off with the kids. She says he lied about where they were going – so what did she think? That he was abducting them?’
‘I don’t know. Philippa thinks there was something odd about it.’
‘So if his abduction scheme failed two years ago, is this his second attempt, only with slightly more finesse?’
Tom glanced at Becky with raised eyebrows. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Well, if he really wanted the kids so much two years ago, he could have seen off the wife for good this time, and abducted the kids again – have them in hiding somewhere. He’s had two ye
ars to plan it.’
Tom’s phone interrupted them at the perfect moment, before speculation took over, and he pressed the screen on his dashboard to answer. A voice filled the car through the Bluetooth speakers.
‘DCI Douglas?’ It was the gruff voice of the duty sergeant.
‘Speaking,’ Tom answered.
‘Just had a call from PC Mitchell, who’s at the Brookes’ house with the father, Robert Brookes. I gather you’re heading over there now?’
‘That’s right. We’ll be there in about ten minutes. Problem?’
‘Well, there might be. It’s odd, anyway. PC Mitchell has been filling in the missing-from-home form, and he asked the father for some photos of the kids. The usual stuff. He says Mr Brookes went to the sideboard to get some, and the photo box was empty. He thought his wife might have shifted them, but to make life easier he said he’d print one off his computer. There are none there, and no trace that any have ever been there – none in the trash. Nothing. Same with his phone. Same with his wife’s phone, which is still in her handbag, by the way. According to Mr Brookes, there isn’t a single image of his wife or any of his children in the house.’
9
Becky was delighted that Tom had asked her to go with him tonight. It wasn’t that she was naturally anti-social, but she was struggling to be normal around anybody at the moment, and at least Tom knew her ‘from before’, as she thought of it. Nowadays, she always imagined people were looking at her and pointing, sniggering behind their hands like schoolchildren.
She had no evidence at all of this behaviour since arriving in Manchester, but life had been like that for weeks before she left the Met, and any time she entered a room she assumed that people stopped talking, or changed the subject because they were gossiping about her.
Tom Douglas Box Set Page 84