Say You're Sorry

by Michael Robotham

  Fryer waves his gloves dismissively. “That’s a big call from someone who’s only been here for a few days. This case has been the subject of two police investigations and a judicial inquiry.”

  “If you close the file you’re giving up on Piper Hadley.”

  “I’ve kept an open mind on this, Professor, but there isn’t one piece of credible evidence to suggest that Piper is still alive. If she escaped with Natasha McBain, we’d have found her by now. If she didn’t, the question is why? My guess is that she’s dead. She died three years ago or sometime between now and then.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “In all fairness, Professor, neither do you.” His voice softens. “You’re the sort of poker player who doubles down because you’re losing badly and you think that’s the way to catch up. It’s not. You double down when you’re winning, not losing. Trust me. Walk away.”

  The chief constable turns to Drury. “What’s your plan of action?”

  “I’ve organized a media conference with the Hadleys. In the meantime we’re doing another search of the area, checking alibis and re-interviewing witnesses. If nothing comes up, I’ll scale the investigation down for Christmas and prepare a file for the coroner.”

  Fryer nods approvingly. “Covering the spread. Wise move.”

  32

  Ruiz joins me in the lift and we ride down together in silence. My medication is wearing off. I can feel the other “man” waking inside me, ready to dance like a drunk.

  “They don’t believe Piper is alive,” I say.

  “Maybe they’re right.”

  “She deserves more.”

  The doors slide open. My right leg stops swinging and I pitch forward. Ruiz catches me. I straighten and pull back my shoulders, trying to pretend that nothing has happened. I can see our reflections in the large pane of glass beside the door—a man with a limp and another with a twitching arm. Both proud. Both damaged.

  “You don’t have to stay,” I tell him. “You should go back to London. Where are you spending Christmas?”

  “Claire has invited me to her place. I’m worried Miranda might be there.”

  Claire is Ruiz’s daughter. Miranda is his most recent ex-wife, the one he’s still sleeping with.

  “I thought you two were tearing up the sheets,” I say.

  “I’m not complaining about the sex but she wants me to have feelings.”

  “Feelings?”

  “I told her that I have three of them.”

  “Three?”

  “I’m hungry, horny and tired—in that order.”

  “How did that go down?”

  “Not so well.”

  We’ve reached the main doors. I remember to ask him something. “That mate of yours—the computer geek.”

  “Capable Jones.”

  “Are you still in touch?”

  “I own his soul. What do you need?”

  “Can you ask him to access aerial maps and photographs of Oxfordshire. I’m interested in factories, past and present, that manufactured pesticides, plastics or synthetic rubber, that sort of thing. The forensic report showed traces of heavy metals and chlorinated hydrocarbons beneath Natasha’s fingernails.”

  “What’s the search area?”

  “Four or five miles from the farmhouse.” He gives me a look. “You think I’m clutching at straws.”

  “Atheists aren’t supposed to ask for miracles.”

  Downstairs in the charge room Victor McBain is being released after ten hours in custody. Dressed in a blue paper boiler suit, he signs the release form and is handed his clothes and personal possessions, sealed in plastic.

  “I hope you washed and pressed them,” he says.

  “No, but we checked for traces of accelerant,” says DS Casey, unmoved by the sarcasm.

  Opening one of the plastic bags, McBain pats his trouser pockets and pulls out his cigarettes and a Zippo lighter. In one motion, he flicks the lighter open and strikes the wheel with his thumb. Holding up the flame, he smiles at the detective before flipping it shut again.

  “Where can I get changed?”

  Casey points him down the corridor. McBain recognizes me as he passes, blinking with gin-pale eyes.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “You.”

  I hold his gaze. He pushes past me.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Been there, done that.”

  “I’m not the police. We’re not being taped. I’m just trying to understand a few things. Why did you give your niece condoms?”

  McBain looks at me for a long time, his nostrils flaring and his lips curled back as though he’s talking to someone who is completely deaf or stupid.

  “She asked me for them.”

  “Why?”

  “Her parents wouldn’t buy them.”

  “You don’t think it’s slightly odd—a man your age buying condoms for a teenage girl?”

  “She was having sex. I wanted her to be safe.”

  “Who was she having sex with?”

  “Her boyfriend, I assume.”

  “You assume?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nelson Stokes saw you kissing your niece in the front seat of your car when you dropped her at school.”

  “Who the fuck is Nelson Stokes?”

  “The school caretaker.”

  “She gave me a peck on the cheek.”

  “And you slipped her the tongue.”

  McBain screws up his face. “You’re a sick bastard! You repeat that in public and I’ll sue you for slander.”

  “Were you having sex with your niece?”

  “Get out of here! You have no right to come in here saying stuff like that.”

  McBain is pulling on his trousers, cinching the belt. He pushes his arms into a T-shirt before looping it over his head.

  “On the night before she disappeared, Natasha came to see you. She asked you for money. Was she blackmailing you?”

  “No.”

  “So she didn’t come and see you?”

  “No.”

  “Why would Emily lie about something like that?”

  “Sometimes Tash did some work for me, filing and stuff.”

  “Did you see Tash on the night of the Bingham festival?”

  “Yeah, I saw her.” He crouches to lace his boots. “I don’t know what the big deal is. Tash didn’t go missing until Sunday morning.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Alice McBain made a mistake. She didn’t see the girls that morning, she heard Natasha’s radio.”

  The realization dawns on him. His mouth opens and closes.

  “What time on Saturday night did you talk to Natasha? Maybe you were the last person to see her.”

  He doesn’t speak now. His mind is weighing up the possibilities.

  “You don’t have an alibi for that night, do you? Just like you don’t have an alibi for the night of the blizzard.”

  “I was with my brother.”

  “No, you weren’t.”

  He opens the door and strides along the corridor. I try to block his path.

  “Listen, Vic, the police are looking at you now. They’re going to pick apart your life. They’re not going to stop until they find something. Where were you during the blizzard?”

  He steps around me and crosses the foyer, reaching the main doors, which slide open automatically. Reporters and photographers have surrounded a car outside. Sarah and Dale Hadley appear from the open doors, quickly flanked by detectives, who shepherd them into the station.

  Vic McBain stops and steps back as the couple approach the door. Sarah Hadley looks up and their eyes meet. She looks away. In that moment something passes between them—a knowledge that goes beyond the familiar. Pain. Hurt.

  Sarah passes through the revolving door and takes hold of her husband’s hand. There are hairline cracks in the make-up around her lips. McBain watches her, studying her body as she enters the lift and the doors
close. Turning, he pushes past the media scrum, head down, his shoulders hunched.

  I have seen that look. I have seen it in the mirror. I saw it last night in Drury’s eyes when he couldn’t comfort Victoria. It diminishes a man when he can’t make a woman happy… when he makes her unhappy. The world is no longer rich and colorful. All he can see is the poverty of things.

  How did it happen? I wonder. I picture Sarah Hadley standing beside Piper’s bed, holding an article of her clothing, as if discovering something new about her daughter. Recalling the best moments. Trying to keep her alive. She clutched at every piece of misinformation and rumor, consulting psychics and fortune-tellers. Vic McBain introduced her to one of his girlfriends who claimed to have the gift. She told Sarah the girls were alive. She gave her comfort. Hope.

  Mourning can be lonely. Grief can be shared. Sarah couldn’t look at her husband because he reminded her too much of Piper. Vic McBain understood. And then one night they came together, most probably in some out-of-the-way hotel room or a clumsy adolescent-style coupling in the back seat of a car. I don’t know who seduced whom. It doesn’t matter. Vic McBain had made it possible for Sarah to be herself again—not the campaigning mother or the media spokesperson or the woman locals took pity upon when they saw her pushing a trolley in the supermarket…

  She could escape the whispers and stares, becoming anonymous for a few hours, suspended between fantasy and reality, feeling pleasure instead of loss, or perhaps feeling nothing at all.

  For all her campaigning and sacrifice, Sarah Hadley has a streak of self-loathing that is wider than the M25. She married an unattractive man with money, a man who loved her, but she didn’t feel the same way about him. She fucked her way to the middle rather than the top. She could have accepted that and slept in the bed she made, but then her daughter went missing and she blamed herself, thinking she deserved to be unhappy. She deserved a marriage on life support and sordid sex in a cheap hotel room overlooking a cut-rate carpet warehouse.

  Vic McBain has reached the corner and is waiting for the lights to change. I catch up with him.

  “I know what you’re hiding,” I say.

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Just tell me one thing. After that I promise I’ll leave you alone. On the night of the blizzard, were you with Sarah Hadley?”

  He blinks at me, a strong, silent man, lost for answers.

  “I’m not going to tell her husband,” I say. “Nobody else has to know.”

  He wipes a finger across the corner of each eye.

  “She deserves better than me,” he says. “She deserves to find her daughter.”

  33

  Behind the glass door of the conference room a volley of flashguns are blasting light through the frosted panels. From outside it looks like a gunfight without the noise. Reporters and photographers are crammed into the overheated room, taking up every vantage point.

  Dale and Sarah Hadley enter through a side door. The light seems to imprison them. Phoebe is clutching her mother’s hand, eyes downcast. The younger children have been left at home, cared for by friends or relatives.

  The family are seated at a long table. Camera shutters continue clicking. Once again Piper Hadley has captured the nation’s attention. For a second time her fate is being debated across garden fences, in pubs and office canteens. Comparisons are being drawn with other high-profile kidnappings, names like Sabine Dardenne, Elizabeth Smart and Natascha Kampusch; the miraculously returned.

  DCI Drury takes a seat beside the Hadleys. He waits for the camera shutters to fall silent.

  “The body recovered from Radley Lakes six days ago has been identified using dental records and next of kin of the deceased have been notified. I am now in a position to formally release the name. We are investigating the death of Natasha McBain, aged eighteen, who went missing from the village of Bingham on the weekend of August 30, 2008. The official cause of death is drowning.”

  There is another volley of flashguns.

  “We have reason to believe that Natasha was kept imprisoned somewhere prior to her death. Her former home, a farmhouse outside Bingham, was the scene of a double homicide on Saturday evening. We are now certain that Natasha was at the farmhouse at some point that evening. We don’t know if she played a role in the deaths of William Heyman and his wife Patricia, but it appears that she fled from the farmhouse before the fire started and fell through a frozen lake, succumbing to the cold.

  “As I’m sure everyone is aware—Natasha McBain didn’t disappear on her own. Another teenage girl also went missing that day: Piper Hadley, then aged fifteen. On behalf of the families I want to appeal for public help in both these cases.

  “Someone knows what happened to Piper. Somebody knows where she and Natasha were held. Perhaps you’ve seen the girls or you’ve seen someone acting suspiciously. It could be a friend or a neighbor or a loved one who has a secret life, a basement or a lock-up that you’re not allowed to visit. Someone who keeps strange hours.”

  Drury pauses.

  “I have more than eighty officers and volunteers searching the surrounding farmland. We’re using helicopters, tracker dogs and ground-penetrating radar. The search will continue until we have ruled out every possibility.”

  A reporter yells from the floor, “Has there been any contact?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any proof that Piper is alive?”

  “No.”

  “So she could be dead?”

  Sarah Hadley confronts the questioner with steel in her voice. “Our daughter is alive.”

  Drury puts a hand on her shoulder. Sarah falls silent.

  “The chief constable has ordered a review of the original investigation in light of the new information. In particular, we are seeking witnesses who may have seen Piper Hadley and Natasha McBain on the evening of Saturday, August 30, 2008. That was the last night of the Bingham Summer Festival.” Drury looks directly at the TV cameras. “Did you see the girls? Did you talk to them? Did you see them getting into a car? Please ignore past information that has been made public. Whatever you may have heard or read, don’t assume the police know everything about the last movements of Piper and Natasha.”

  Drury takes a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolds it on the table.

  “I’m going to take the unusual step today of releasing details of a psychological profile drawn up by Professor Joseph O’Loughlin—a clinical psychologist who has been assisting our investigation. I’m not going to release the full profile for operational reasons, but I will give certain details, which I hope will trigger memories or encourage witnesses to come forward.

  “According to Professor O’Loughlin, the suspect we are looking for is likely to be aged between thirty-five and fifty-five, of above average intelligence, with a detailed knowledge of the area. This wasn’t a random kidnapping—he chose Piper and Natasha for a reason. He may well know them.

  “He is likely to live alone or in a domestic arrangement where nobody questions his movements or unexplained absences. He has an isolated house or a secret room or basement where he was holding Natasha McBain. He brought her food, water, clothing… someone must have seen him come and go.

  “He was out in the blizzard last Saturday night. Perhaps you saw him. He may have smelled of smoke or had stained clothing. Please come forward if you have any information.”

  Again the questions start and Drury raises his hand, calling for quiet.

  “Please, I will leave time for questions. For the moment, can we let Mr. and Mrs. Hadley speak?”

  He pushes the microphone along the table. Dale Hadley leans forward.

  “First of all, I want… I mean, we want… we want to thank the public for its support and kindness. We also want to offer our condolences to Natasha’s family and say how sorry we are that she didn’t make it home. I know they never gave up hope.” He takes Sarah’s hand. “Neither have we. That’s why we’re appealing for your help. Whoever did this has torn my family a
part. So if you do know something, if you suspect someone, if you have seen or heard something suspicious, please pick up the phone.”

  The flashguns are firing, revealing every tic and tremor, pain measured in micro-expressions. Sarah takes the microphone. There is something cold and brittle about her, like ice forming into crystals. The search is what sustains her. It is the sinew that holds her together. Everything else might crumble, but not her desire to find Piper. She will not rest. She will not sleep. She has to know the truth.

  I have experienced that sense of certainty. When Gideon Tyler kidnapped Charlie. When he knocked her from her pushbike and chained her to a sink with masking tape wrapped around her head and a breathing tube in her mouth. When these things happened, I remember how my throat tightened and my bowels liquefied and panic carved through my soft organs. But I knew one thing for certain. I would never stop looking until I found her.

  Sarah stares directly into the cameras. “If you’re the person holding Piper, if you’re listening to this or watching this, the time has come to let her go. Let her come home.”

  Questions come again, shouted from the floor.

  “Do you blame the police?”

  “Will you consider taking legal action?”

  “Have you talked to Natasha McBain’s parents?”

  “What makes you so sure Piper is alive?”

  Answers become shorter. Yes. No. I don’t know. The media conference is curtailed. Police officers flank the family as they leave through a side door. Phoebe has almost been forgotten. She lowers her head and follows her parents, running to catch up.

  The family pauses inside the rear doors of the station, waiting for their car. Phoebe looks up and notices me.

  She smiles. “Are you going to find Piper?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “Do you think she’ll still like me?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Mum says that she’s still with us. That’s why we hang up Christmas stockings and set a place at the table and have a cake on her birthday, but that scares me a little because she’s like a ghost. There’s an empty chair and an empty bed, but she’s still here.”