Say You're Sorry

by Michael Robotham

  Sarah Hadley’s words are still grinding through my mind. Grief has kept her busy for three years, held her upright. The news of Natasha hasn’t restored her belief, it has caused her to doubt.

  “I want to ask you about Victor McBain,” I say.

  The DCI glances over the seat. “What about him?”

  “Nelson Stokes claims that he saw Natasha kissing her uncle in the front seat of his car. It wasn’t a peck on the cheek. He says he told police, but I can’t find any mention of it in his statement.”

  Drury seems to be chewing on my question, deciding how much to say.

  “We looked at Vic McBain,” he says, speaking to the windscreen. “You know how it works. When a child goes missing or is murdered we look at the family first, then friends. Ninety per cent of the time it’s a fair assumption.”

  “Why wasn’t the allegation included in Stokes’s statement?”

  “McBain threatened to sue the police if anyone repeated the claim.”

  “Were the allegations investigated?”

  “Of course.”

  “So there’s no truth—”

  Drury interrupts. “He gave Natasha some inappropriate gifts.”

  “What gifts?”

  “Bikinis, booze, condoms.”

  “Not the sort of things an uncle gives a niece.”

  “I saw Vic McBain three years ago. He would have torn this town apart to find Natasha. He also had an alibi for the morning the girls disappeared.”

  “What about the night of the blizzard?”

  Drury loses patience. “If you have new information, Professor, let’s hear it, but don’t play twenty questions with me. I don’t have the time.”

  “Sarah Hadley said she talked to a medium—some woman who was introduced to her by Vic McBain. This medium claimed that Natasha and Piper were being held somewhere against their will. She used the phrase ‘Beneath the earth but not a part of it.’ ”

  “Don’t tell me you believe this psychic shit? Do you know how many mediums and mystics we’ve heard from so far? Dozens of them.”

  “This could be different. This medium saw a smokestack or a windmill. The pathologist found traces of heavy metals on Natasha’s clothing. What if Vic McBain fed her some of the details.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s something else that bothers me. When the girls were planning to run away, Natasha told Emily that her uncle owed her money. When I asked Emily why, she clammed up and got upset.”

  “You think Natasha was blackmailing her uncle?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “OK, OK, we’ll take another look.” Drury squeezes his nose and blows out his cheeks as though adjusting the pressure in his head. “I’m getting a head cold. My daughter gave it to me. If you ask me, rats got a bum rap for the plague. I blame kids.”

  Phillip Martinez is causing a commotion downstairs at the police station, arguing with the desk sergeant, whose blood pressure is glowing in his cheeks. A dozen people are waiting to be seen. Emily hangs back, hands buried in the pockets of a donkey jacket.

  Martinez looks relieved to see me. “Professor O’Loughlin, you’ll understand.”

  “What will I understand?”

  “We have important information. Emily does. There’s something she didn’t tell the police. She received a letter.”

  “A letter?”

  “From Piper.”

  Drury is shaking out his coat and spins around as though struck. He yells at the desk sergeant to let Mr. Martinez and Emily through. A button is pushed. The door unlocks. Father and daughter are ushered quickly upstairs to the DCI’s office.

  Emily hasn’t raised her eyes. She doesn’t dress like most girls her age. No clunky shoes, acid-colored skirts or livid lipsticks. Instead, she’s wearing a long skirt and baggy jumper.

  I notice a music folder sticking out of her bag.

  “What do you play?” I ask.

  “The piano.”

  “What grade?”

  “Six.”

  “She’s taking extra lessons during the holidays,” says Mr. Martinez. “Her teacher says she has perfect pitch.”

  Emily looks embarrassed, wanting him to be quiet.

  Drury enters, apologizing for the delay. I watch Emily sidelong, looking for more signs of inner turmoil.

  Mr. Martinez does the talking. “She only told me about the letter this morning. I tried not to touch it. That’s why I put it in a plastic bag. I thought it might have fingerprints, you know, or DNA.”

  Drury takes the letter and places it on his desk. The paper is poor quality and almost perished at the creases, but the sentences are still legible, written in fading pencil.

  Dear Em,

  Please, please don’t tell anybody about this letter—not my parents or the police. You have to promise. This has to be our secret.

  Everybody knows we ran away now and hopefully they’ll stop looking soon. We’re living in London, by the way, just like we said. It’s a big house, but I’m not supposed to tell you the address.

  Tash is OK. We both miss you. We’re sorry we left you waiting for so long at the railway station, but it’s probably best you stayed. One day when we’re all eighteen we can get a place together.

  I guess my mum is happier now. She can concentrate on Phoebe and Ben without me getting in the way. They deserve better than me. I wish I’d been nicer to them.

  Until we meet again.

  Lots of love,

  Piper xxxooo

  I recognize the handwriting as Piper’s. The loopy letters and square capitals are penciled hard into the cheap paper, leaving specks of graphite glinting in the furrows.

  “When did you get this?” I ask.

  Emily brushes her fringe from her eyes. Her father answers for her. “I’ve told her she did the wrong thing. She’s very contrite. It won’t happen again.”

  “When exactly did it arrive?”

  Once more Mr. Martinez answers. “The envelope has a London postmark. The date is blurred, but it might be October 2008.”

  I look at Emily for confirmation. She nods.

  “Why didn’t you show it to anyone?”

  “Piper told me not to. She made me promise.”

  “That’s no excuse, Emily,” says her father. “You should have told me.”

  Drury has picked up the phone, asking forensics to collect the letter and envelope. Tests will be done on the paper and the stamp.

  “Does anything about the letter strike you as odd?” I ask Emily. She looks at me blankly.

  “How did Piper know that you waited at the railway station? You didn’t see her there. It was never made public that you were there.”

  Confusion fills her eyes.

  “Who else knew that you were waiting for them at Radley Station?”

  “Nobody.”

  I look at Phillip Martinez. “Did you know?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Did you tell anyone, Emily?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you go afterwards?”

  “I tried to call Tash, but she wasn’t answering her phone. I sent her text messages and went to the café where she worked on Sundays. I thought she might turn up.”

  “Who did you see there?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Think really hard. It’s important.”

  “I talked to the manager and the other waitress.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Natasha’s uncle was having breakfast at one of the tables. He saw my bag and said it looked heavy. He made a joke about me leaving home.”

  “Do you think he knew?”

  Emily shrugs. I glance at Drury, gauging his reaction. Something about this bothers me. Teenage girls don’t usually write letters. They send emails or texts or they phone.

  Drury is asking Emily if Natasha ever talked about her uncle. She shakes
her head more adamantly than necessary.

  “How did she get on with him?”

  “OK, I guess.” Emily looks at her father. “Can we go? They have the letter.”

  The DCI hasn’t finished. “When you planned to run away, what money did you have?”

  “Tash had money.”

  “Where did she get it from?”

  “She had a job.”

  “Was she selling drugs for her brother?”

  Emily seems to hold her breath, as though the answer can be avoided as long as she doesn’t exhale. She nods. Breathes. “It was just some pills and stuff.”

  “Where?”

  “Parties. It’s not like she was selling to pre-schoolers.”

  Phillip Martinez doesn’t hide his disgust. “Don’t try to defend her. It’s wrong!”

  Emily averts her gaze.

  Her father stands. “I think she’s said enough.”

  Drury pushes back. “She withheld important evidence from a police investigation.”

  “She made a mistake.”

  “She owed it to their families.”

  Emily blinks back tears, looking utterly miserable. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I thought they were in London.”

  Mr. Martinez gets to his feet. “We’re leaving. Come on.” He puts his arm around Emily’s shoulders and she shrinks under his touch. Drury doesn’t try to stop them.

  Pausing at the door, Martinez turns to me. “That research study I mentioned. I checked with my colleague. There are still places. I could recommend you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, embarrassed that the offer is so public. “I’ll look into it.”

  Drury leans forward in his chair, thumbs massaging his temples, a swarm of thoughts crowding together.

  “Is it genuine?”

  “Yes.”

  “So they were in London?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  I study the letter again, looking at the syntax and sentence structure. I have no doubts about the handwriting, but the language lacks Piper’s customary flourishes, her self-deprecating sense of humor, her fatalism or her swearing.

  “I think the letter was dictated. Piper was told exactly what to write, giving away as little as possible.”

  “Why send a letter at all?”

  “Let’s assume it was sent in October, two months after the girls went missing. That’s about the time the police were discounting the runaway theory. Maybe the kidnapper wanted to create more confusion.”

  “He expected the letter to surface.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Drury stands and walks to the window, staring in dull bewilderment at the street below.

  I still have questions. “How did Piper know that Emily was waiting at the station?”

  “Emily could have been lying about having no other contact,” he says.

  “She seemed contrite. Frightened.”

  “So what’s your theory?”

  “There are three possibilities. Either someone saw her at the station or Emily told someone, or the kidnapper gained access to information that wasn’t in the public domain.”

  “Vic McBain was at the café,” says Drury. “I’m going to put him under surveillance.”

  “It could still be a coincidence.”

  “Yeah, well, you know what they say about coincidences… some of them take a lot of planning.”

  He didn’t rape me.

  I threw up again… all over his little dead animals. The roast chicken came out quicker than it went in.

  George hit me across the face and I felt something warm dripping from my nose. Then he threw me back into my hole and took away the blankets.

  He left behind a walkie-talkie, a green plastic thing with a small aerial and a button on the side. It looks like something a child might play with.

  “When you’re nice to me you’ll get your blankets back,” he said, before closing the trapdoor and sliding something heavy on top of it.

  I’m curled up on the bunk. Aching. My bones are sore and cold against the thin foam mattress. I finally drift off to sleep but wake in the middle of the night, feeling strange and sort of shivery. Straight away I think of Tash. George said he was punishing her. Does that mean she’s in another room? Is she lying awake like me? Wondering.

  I pick up the walkie-talkie and press the button.

  “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

  Nothing.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  I jump when he answers. “Are you ready to be nice to me?”

  I drop the walkie-talkie and it bounces off the cement floor. A small piece of plastic breaks off, but it’s still working. George is talking, but I don’t answer. Instead, I curl up on the bunk and put a pillow over my head. Eventually, he goes away.

  I understand why Tash went up the ladder to be with George. She did it to protect me. She knew I was a virgin. Inexperienced. Naive. But each time she came back to the basement, a little less of her climbed down the ladder. It’s as though George took a piece of her as a souvenir or she left it upstairs.

  Tash loved me. Not in the same way I loved her, but I don’t care. I know what it’s like to love someone and not be able to tell her because it will screw up the friendship; and having that person as a friend is better than losing her completely.

  That’s what it was like with Tash. At first I thought it was just a schoolgirl crush, a girl thing, you know, but then I realized it was something more. Tash was always trying to line me up with boys, but none of them interested me. I wanted to spend time with her.

  Everybody fancied Tash: men and boys and grandfathers. The ones who asked Tash to babysit and offered to drive her home afterwards; the shopkeepers who hired her and the teachers who let her flirt with them. I caught my father sneaking glances at her. I used to stare at her too.

  It was just a game for Tash. She flirted, preened and teased, raising expectations and crushing them, inadvertently and on purpose. Expecting Tash to change was like telling the Pope to stop praying. She was full of contradictions—old before her time, young at heart, living on the edge.

  She used to tell me that she’d stop when she reached the point of no return, which didn’t make any sense to me. There’s no stopping at the point of no return. You’re over the edge. You’re falling through the air. Gravity can’t change its mind. Although I did once hear a story about a woman who jumped off the Clifton Suspension Bridge and her long skirt blew up and acted like a parachute. I remember thinking, Lucky cow, but she probably didn’t see it the same way.

  I’ve thought about suicide. Not so much killing myself but picturing everyone at my funeral—all the people who made my life so terrible. That seems childish now. My life wasn’t so bad back then. Things are pretty relative when you’re locked in a basement.

  There are worse things than dying. I saw Callum Loach come home from the hospital in his wheelchair. I have lived in this dark hole. I have watched my best friend wither and give up hope.

  When Callum came home the ambulance had a little ramp at the back and his folks built more little ramps all over his house and changed the dining room into a bedroom so he didn’t have to climb the stairs.

  A whole lot of people were there to welcome him, but he looked embarrassed rather than happy. He wanted to be left alone.

  He was home in time to give evidence against Aiden Foster at the trial. Photographers took pictures of him arriving at the courthouse, dressed in a suit, being pushed by his father. He didn’t have his prosthetic legs by then and his trouser legs flapped pointlessly where his legs used to be.

  His father sat stony-faced in the public gallery. They could have invented that description for Mr. Loach: “stony-faced”—he could have been chiseled out of rock. He could have been on Mount Rushmore.

  Aiden arrived wearing a suit and a haircut that made him look like a choirboy. He even had a side-parting. Instead of swaggering, he kept his head down and walked between his mum and dad.

  Emily had to give
evidence first. She was used to going to court because her parents were fighting for custody. I waited outside in the foyer, sitting next to my dad, who kept squeezing my hand, saying, “Just tell the truth. That’s all they want.”

  They called me. The big door creaked open. I walked between the benches and the tables. Aiden was sitting in a box. I had to raise my right hand and swear on a Bible. Then one of the lawyers began asking me about that night and what I saw. I told them what happened.

  Then Aiden Foster’s lawyer asked me more questions. He wanted to know how much Tash had been drinking and what drugs she took. He made her sound like some drug kingpin; and whenever I tried to say something nice about her, his eyebrows were riding high like he didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Do you have a problem with telling the truth?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, just answer my question—yes or no.”

  “Not every answer is that simple,” I said. “What about multiple choices?”

  People laughed, but the barrister had forgotten how. He just showed his sharper teeth.

  After the judge dismissed me, I got to sit in the courtroom and listen. Tash walked in like a movie star. When she got to the witness box she removed her sunglasses and tugged down her dress as she crossed her legs.

  Aiden Foster’s barrister couldn’t wait to get to his feet. Right through Tash’s statement, he pulled faces and fidgeted, showing his frustration. When it was time for the cross-examination, he smirked and smarmed and slimed his way across the courtroom.

  Every question seemed to have a double meaning. Whenever Tash tried to answer both possibilities, he would tell her, “Just yes or no, Miss McBain.”

  After a while she got confused, saying yes when she meant to say no. Once he found the slightest flaw, he wouldn’t let it go. He would twist this big invisible knife inside her, occasionally glancing at the jury to make sure they were listening.

  Aiden Foster wasn’t on trial. It was Tash. Every word she spoke was skewed and stretched, giving it a different meaning. She grew angry. She swore. The judge told her to mind her language. The barrister smiled at the jury.

  Before the misery ended, Tash was like a poor defenseless animal and the cross-examination was like a blood sport. Nobody felt sorry for her except me.