‘What do you mean, “something plotted”?’ Tom thought it was a very odd choice of phrase.
‘You know bugger all about Robert Brookes, do you?’ Sophie’s nose flared and her top lip curled as she shook her head. ‘He’s the most manipulative, controlling, fucked-up person I’ve ever met. And always was, if you ask me. A real piece of work.’
The door from the hall was nudged open, and Becky came in bearing a tray.
‘Let’s get back to why you were pretending to be Olivia, shall we.’ Tom had no doubt that Sophie had some strong words to say about Robert, but for now he wanted facts.
‘She needed to get away. She wanted to be somewhere he knew nothing about. She was setting up her escape route, and I was only too happy to help her. Nobody was ever supposed to find out that it was me in Anglesey. I guess I’ve screwed that up big time.’
‘What was she afraid of, Sophie? What did she think Robert was going to do to her?’ Becky asked as she placed the tea and toast on a small table close to Sophie.
‘What do you think? Look, guys, she wanted to leave him, but Robert is mental. There’s no way he would ever let Liv go. Never, ever. So I was helping her. I will always help her, and I pray to God he never finds her.’
‘So where is Olivia now?’ Tom asked. ‘Where is this hidey-hole she’s found?’
Sophie shook her head. ‘I told you last night. I honestly don’t know. She would never tell me. Just in case Robert tried to get it out of me, I suppose. Not that I’d ever have told him. I’ve dealt with bigger bullies than him.’
Sophie sat back and folded her arms. Becky gave an exasperated sigh.
‘You must know something, Sophie. For God’s sake. We just want to find her – make sure that she and the children are safe.’
‘I’ve told you; I don’t know where she is. The arrangement in the past has always been that I cover for her during the holiday, and she’s always back home at the end of the week. This time was different. This time, I knew she was never coming back. We usually have a handover meeting – when I give back the debit card I have to use so Robert can see some activity on it, the bill from the guest house, that sort of thing – but not this time. And she was adamant that I had to know as little as possible. She wouldn’t let me help her unless I agreed to that.’
Tom looked at Becky. They were getting nowhere fast. Either she really didn’t know, or she was a bloody good actress. Given her background, it could be either and he couldn’t call it.
‘And have you heard from her?’ Tom asked.
‘No, and I’m worried sick. If Robert got wind of what she planned, anything could have happened to her.’
Tom’s thoughts exactly.
‘Tell me about Dan. When did he get back in touch?’
Sophie shook her head slightly. ‘I can’t remember precisely. Some time last year, I think.’
‘Why did he go in the first place? Do you know?’ he asked.
Sophie shuffled around on the sofa, pulling a face tight with pain as she tried to make herself more comfortable. ‘I know some of it. It was to do with his brother, Samir. I don’t know all of it, but I know that much. Samir came over for a visit to try to persuade Dan to return to Iran. Dan refused and things seemed to settle down. Then Liv was pregnant, so he couldn’t leave even if his feelings of family guilt had got the better of him. But something happened between Dan and Liv – she told him something about Samir. And the next day Dan was gone.’
‘So where is he now?’ Becky asked. ‘We need to speak to him. I’ve tried the mobile number you gave me, but it seems to be switched off.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. He came to find me in Anglesey. I told him Liv was trying to work out what to do for the best, but she had to think of the children. Dan said he’d had enough of it all. He was going to have it out with Robert – tell him to let Liv go.’
‘How did Dan plan to arrange this confrontation with Robert?’ Tom didn’t like the sound of this.
Sophie shut her eyes for a moment and dropped her head to her chest. ‘That was my fault too. I knew where Robert was staying in Newcastle. Liv always told me where he was in case of an accident or something, particularly because she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. I gave Dan the number of the hotel, and he called him. He said he was going to ask Robert to meet him at the house – I can’t remember the details. One night last week, I guess.’
‘Did he get through to him?’
Sophie nodded.
‘What did Robert say?
Sophie gave a sigh of exasperation, rather exaggerated in Tom’s view. Whether it was at their questions, or at Dan’s insistence on meeting Robert, he couldn’t quite be sure.
‘I don’t know. I thought Dan was being stupid. I wanted no part of it. He was going to tell me, but I was half asleep and I just put my head under the pillow and told him to fuck off.’
Sophie lifted her shoulders and held out her hands, palms uppermost. Her nonchalance and apparent lack of interest didn’t ring true with Tom, but at least they could check with the hotel to see if Robert received any calls.
‘Do you know what time he made the call, Sophie?’
‘It was late, I know that. But he used my phone because his battery was flat, so you can check the recent calls if you like. I never delete anything. My phone’s in my bag – have a look.’
Sophie pointed to where her bag was lying on the floor and Tom picked it up to pass it to her, but she just waved her arm around in a gesture which he took to mean ‘just get the bloody thing out of my bag’. So he did.
He knew Dan was at the guest house a week last Tuesday, so with a nod from Sophie he started to scroll through her calls. The code for Newcastle was 0191 and he quickly found what he hoped was the correct number. He made a note of it and replaced the phone in Sophie’s bag.
As he’d scrolled through, he had been hoping to see the name ‘Liv’ come up, but he was out of luck.
‘Thanks for your help,’ Tom said. ‘If you think of anything else, just give me or Becky a call please.’ Tom handed over his card as he stood up, then paused. ‘Just one last question. You seem to have Robert Brookes’ measure. What do you think he’s going to do next?’
‘He’s going to try to find her, and I don’t think he will ever give up until he does. Have you ever looked obsession in the face, Chief Inspector? Strip away the mask of normality, and it’s a hideous, contorted serpent that lurks beneath the skin, writhing with frustration until the object of its desire is under its control.’
35
Robert couldn’t remember the last time he had slept, but exhaustion had finally overtaken him, and he had drifted off for about thirty minutes. It was a restless sleep full of dreams and images from the past, which faded to dust the minute he opened his eyes. There had been something there, though; something he remembered that had seemed odd.
An image flashed into his mind. He’d gone back out to the car to get his suitcase on Friday evening and he’d heard a voice say, ‘Robert.’ For one moment when he turned and saw the shape of a woman backlit by a dying sun, he had imagined it was Olivia. But of course it wasn’t. It was Edith Preston – possibly the last person he had wanted to see on this earth. She must have been watching through her window for his return. He had been too distraught to really listen to what she’d had to say, but suddenly it came back to him.
‘I was getting a little concerned about Olivia because I haven’t seen her or the children for days, and then when your car appeared in the early hours of Thursday morning, I was convinced something was wrong. But you’d gone again by the time I woke up. Is everything okay, Robert?’ she had asked. At the time, he had been too busy trying to get rid of her to respond, or even to think about what she was saying, but he remembered it now.
He lay on his side and curled his legs up to his chest. She would have told the police this, he was certain. One more piece of evidence stacked up against him.
Where are you, Olivia? What are you playing a
t?
Robert straightened his legs and pulled a creased envelope from the back pocket of his jeans. He wanted to read what Mrs Stokes had said, just in case it gave him any clues to Olivia’s thinking. Maybe she had let something slip when she’d said she was taking the children out of school. He didn’t hold out much hope, though.
He shuffled up the bed a little so that his head was resting on the greasy padded headboard, put his thumb under the flap of the envelope to rip it open and withdrew four pages.
The first page was a letter from Nadine Stokes asking them to reconsider their decision regarding the children’s schooling. She pointed out that their education was about more than learning – it included social development too, and in her view that meant mixing with other children.
Blah, blah, blah, thought Robert. She was probably right, but it didn’t help him at all. She went on to talk about each of the children and their development. He couldn’t really be bothered reading this. They all knew Freddie was still a bit of a baby – but, as Olivia said, he’s only four and one of the youngest in his class – and Billy could be a bit of a show-off. He was sure Mrs Stokes was right and both would benefit from being with other children, but it was the least of his concerns right now.
He was about to screw the letter up and chuck it when he saw the first line of her report on Jasmine.
Of late, we have started to feel that Jasmine is losing a little of her concentration. For a child who has always been so painstaking in her work, recently there has been a decline. One example that springs to mind is in regard to her work on the Second World War. When she returned from the Easter break she seemed delighted to be able to stand up in class and tell us all she had learned about evacuees. She said the island the family visits on holiday was fully evacuated during the war. Even the adults were forced to leave.
Her teacher gently pointed out that children were evacuated to Anglesey not from it, and the island was overrun with evacuees from Manchester and Liverpool arriving on the island, not leaving it. Unfortunately, Jasmine became very upset. Her teacher said she went red, buried her head in her folded arms and started to cry. This behaviour is so unlike Jasmine, and we were quite worried. Not so much because her facts were inaccurate, but because she seemed so concerned about her mistake. We were keeping a careful eye on her to see if anything else was upsetting her, but there was nothing specific other than a slight reticence to speak of anything that happens in the home. Try as we might, we weren’t able to draw her out about her holiday again.
Robert wasn’t in the habit of analysing his children, but even he could see this was totally out of character for Jasmine. She was such a pernickety child. He put the letter down on the bed, and lifted his hands to rest them behind his head. What could she have been thinking?
Jasmine would not have got this wrong. He pulled his iPad towards him and switched it on. Think, Robert, think.
‘Come on, come on,’ he said out loud. Why did it have to take so long to boot up? And no Wi-Fi in this shitty hotel, of course. He would have to rely on 3G. Even bloody slower. Finally he managed to get Google up and running.
‘Island evacuated during Second World War,’ he typed.
The search results were displayed. The top result was Crete. Robert dismissed that. There was no way they had gone to Crete on holiday when they were supposed to be in Anglesey. They didn’t have passports and anyway the boys would have talked about the flight.
Next down was ‘Occupation of the Channel Islands’ – a bit closer to home. Guernsey evacuated all children. But that couldn’t be right. Jasmine had said adults too. He read on: ‘The authorities in Alderney, having no direct communication with the UK, recommended that all islanders evacuate, and nearly all did so.’
Alderney. A tiny island in the Channel Islands, a speck in the sea between France and England. But why did it ring a bell?
Robert put the iPad down on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of an early evening a few weeks ago. There was something about Jasmine – some strange reaction one day when they were watching the television that he couldn’t quite remember.
What was it?
Something Billy had said, he was fairly certain. They had been watching a wildlife programme on television. Robert had been reading the paper when Billy had suddenly said, ‘Look, Jaz – it’s our island.’ Robert had looked up at the screen, but it clearly wasn’t ‘their’ island at all. The sand was too white.
Robert shot upright. That’s what was wrong. When he had looked at the beach in Anglesey, the sand was too dark. Nothing like the image that Olivia had shown him through the camera on her laptop at all.
He raised his knees and leaned forwards, wrapping his arms round his legs and resting his chin. What had that programme been about, and what was wrong with Jaz’s reaction?
He closed his eyes. Jaz had been sitting on the sofa at right angles to him, and Olivia was to his left. As he had looked up at the screen when Billy mentioned ‘our island’, he had intercepted a glance between Jasmine and her mother. Jasmine’s eyes had been wide open and her lips slightly apart. But Olivia had nudged him and he’d looked away from Jaz and towards his wife. He remembered she had whispered to him.
‘Isn’t he cute? He thinks every island with a beach is Anglesey. Perhaps we need to take him somewhere else soon, so he knows there are other beaches and other islands.’ They had shared a fond smile, and the memory was forgotten. Until now.
What the hell was the programme about? Shit, why hadn’t he been paying more attention? Still, it was only a few weeks ago.
He grabbed the iPad again and logged on to the BBC website. He was sure it was the BBC; they would have put the television on after the news. And it was definitely a weekday, because every weekend recently he had been working on laying the new terrace until it went dark.
He scoured the programmes.
‘Got you,’ he said, a grin spreading from ear to ear. He had found the right programme – now all he had to do was look back through the listings. Robert could feel his heart thumping in his chest. His fingers prodded hard at the screen in a futile attempt to speed it up.
‘That was it – hedgehogs!’ How could he have forgotten? Freddie had wanted them to build a hedgehog home in the garden; he vaguely remembered listening to him wittering on about it to Olivia.
But these were no ordinary hedgehogs. These were white hedgehogs and, according to the programme summary, there was only one place in the UK to find these in the wild. Alderney.
Robert pushed the iPad to one side and lay back with his hands behind his head. A huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders and he felt a rush of elation. He knew where she was.
Sleep tight tonight, my darling. Because tomorrow, I’m coming to get you.
36
When Sophie told me about Robert – who he was, and how he had always been there when we were at university – it was as if a light had been switched on in my head. Everything began to make sense and some terrible thoughts invaded my mind, ideas I couldn’t allow to fester because I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings.
I had honestly believed that the first time I’d met him was the day he came to view my flat. And he was so kind to me when my life turned upside down. But all that time he had known me – known who I was, what my life had been like with Danush. Why had I not listened to Sophie when she said there was a man stalking me? I thought she was exaggerating, and I never noticed him. I only had eyes for Dan.
Sophie was so much more observant than me. She watched people. It was her passion, and one she planned to turn to good use in her career. I would never have picked Robert out of the crowd at a party or in a club, but Sophie would home in on anybody whose eyes were only focused in one direction. I should have listened.
It’s only now that I believe her – only now that I can look back on those days and realise the evidence that was in front of me, if only I had seen it. How could I forget the night that I walked home alone from the
pub – a walk I had done many times since Dan and I had moved into our flat together? As I passed the park, a swing was gently swaying even though it was a still, cold night, and I was certain that I was being followed. I could feel hot eyes boring into the back of my neck; I had started to run, desperate to be home.
I was sure that my stalker was behind me, gaining on me with every second – and when a dark figure stepped out from behind a tree to catch me, I thought my heart would stop.
It was Dan. He had arrived home and found the flat empty, so he was on his way to meet me. When he saw how terrified I was, he wanted to go and check each of the drives along the road in case my pursuer was hiding. But I was too frightened and just wanted to get home. He hadn’t seen anybody on the shadowed street behind me, and in the end we’d decided it was all my imagination. I never walked home alone again at night after that, though.
Could that have been Robert? Or maybe it was just some random pervert lurking in the bushes of the park. I would never know.
Was it a coincidence that Robert came to look at my flat the very day it went on the market? I can’t believe that now. It was all part of his plan to get close to me.
I have lain next to this man for years. He knows every inch of my body, and yet all the time he has been hiding who he really is.
As Sophie told me everything she remembered and my memories came flooding back, the reality sank in. I felt a tightness in my gut and hoped to God I wasn’t going to be sick – because I couldn’t stop thinking of my beautiful baby boys. How could I wish that I had never met Robert, because then they wouldn’t have been born?
I had to get away from him. Our whole life together had been a lie, and all I could think of were his threats. If I was going to have any chance at all of escape, I was going to have to plan carefully, and it wasn’t going to be easy without money or freedom.
But we’ve done it. We’re here, and we’re safe. Thank goodness.
It’s been a terrifying year and a half. There hasn’t been a moment when I haven’t been afraid. I never thought I could act, but for my children’s sake, I had to learn. It was bad enough dealing with Robert on a day-to-day basis, eating meals together, sharing a bottle of wine – all the time behaving as if this man were my saviour – but the nights…
Tom Douglas Box Set Page 99