“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m fright—”
She doesn’t finish the statement. Her words are cut off and I hear masking tape being ripped from a spool.
Gideon’s voice replaces hers.
“Say good-bye, Joe, you’re not going to see her again. You think you can fuck with me. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“Charlie has nothing to do with this!”
“Call her collateral damage.”
“Why take her?”
“I want what you have.”
“Your wife and daughter are dead.”
“Is that so?”
“Take me instead.”
“I don’t want you.”
I hear more tape being pulled off the spool.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m wrapping up my present.”
“Let’s talk about your wife.”
“Why? Have you found her?”
“No.”
“Well, I have a new girlfriend to play with. Tell Julianne I’ll call her later and give her all the details.”
Before I can ask another question the line goes dead. I dial the number. Gideon has turned off the mobile.
Julianne doesn’t look at me. I wrap the quilt around her shoulders. She’s not crying. She’s not screaming at me. The only tears are mine, falling on the inside. They’ve never come so easily.
56
A dozen detectives and twice that many uniforms have sealed off the village and the access roads. Vans and trucks are being searched and motorists questioned.
Veronica Cray is in the kitchen, along with Safari Roy. They look at me with a mixture of respect and pity. I wonder if that’s how I appear when I confront someone else’s misfortune.
Julianne has showered twice and dressed in jeans and a pullover. She has the body language of a rape victim, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest as if desperately holding onto something she can’t afford to lose. She won’t look at me.
Oliver Rabb has two new mobiles to trace—mine and the one Gideon used when he first called Julianne. He should be able to track the signals up until an hour ago when Gideon broke off contact.
There is a ten-meter GSM tower in the middle of a field, two hundred yards northwest of the village. The next nearest tower is on Baggridge Hill a mile to the south; and the next closest on the outskirts of Peasedown St. John, two miles to the west.
“We need Tyler to phone back,” says DI Cray.
“He will,” I answer, staring at Julianne’s mobile, which is sitting on the kitchen table. He knew her number. He knew the house number. He knew what clothes she was wearing, what lipstick and jewelry she had on her dressing table.
Julianne hasn’t told me exactly what Gideon said to her. If she were a patient in my consulting room, I’d be asking her to talk, to put things into context, to deal with her trauma. But she’s not a patient. She’s my wife and I don’t want to know the details. I want to pretend it didn’t happen.
Gideon Tyler has been inside my house. He has taken everything important—trust, peace of mind, tranquility. He has watched my children sleeping. Emma said she saw a ghost. She woke and talked to him. He isolated Julianne. He told her what lipstick and jewelry to wear. He made her stand naked at the bedroom window.
I have always tried to put dark thoughts aside and imagine only good things happening to my family. Sometimes, looking into Charlie’s sweet, pale, changing face, I have almost come to believe that I could protect her from pain or heartbreak. Now she’s gone. Julianne is right. It’s my fault. A father is supposed to protect his children, to keep them safe and lay down his life for them.
I keep telling myself that Gideon Tyler won’t hurt Charlie. It is like a mantra in my head, but the message brings no comfort. I also try to tell myself that people like Gideon—sadists and psychopaths—are few and far between. Does that make Charlie one of the unlucky few? Don’t tell me there’s a price to be paid for living in a free society. Not this price. Not when it involves my daughter.
Recording devices are being attached to the landline of the cottage and a scanner programmed to pick up conversation on our mobile phones. Our SIM cards have been transferred to handsets with GPS tracking capabilities. I ask why. The DI says it’s a contingency. They may want to try a mobile intercept.
The village is framed through the window, looking like a page from a storybook with great billowing clouds streaked by the sun. Imogen and Emma have gone next door to Mrs. Nutall’s house. Neighbors have come outside to look at the police cars and vans parked in the street. They’re having casual conversations, exchanging pleasantries and pretending not to gawk at the detectives going door-to-door. Their children have been shooed inside, locked away from the unknown danger stalking their streets.
I hear the shower running upstairs again. Julianne is under the water, trying to wash away what happened. How long has it been? Three hours. No matter what happens Charlie will remember this day. She will be haunted by Gideon Tyler’s face, by his words, by his touch.
Monk ducks as he enters the kitchen, making it suddenly appear smaller. He glances at DI Cray and shakes his head. The roadblocks have been up for more than two hours. Police have knocked on every door, interviewed residents and retraced Charlie’s steps. Nothing.
I know what they’re thinking. Gideon has gone. He managed to get away before police sealed off the roads. Neither of the mobiles Gideon used has transmitted since 12:42. He must know we can trace the signals. That’s why he changes phones so often and turns them off.
As if on cue, Oliver Rabb arrives, shuffling up the front path like a nervous bag lady. He’s carrying a laptop computer in a shoulder case and is wearing a tweed cap to warm his smooth head. He wipes his feet three times on the doormat.
Setting up his laptop on the kitchen table, he downloads the latest information from the nearest base stations, triangulating the signals.
“It’s harder in areas like this,” he explains, brushing invisible creases from his trousers. “There are fewer towers.”
“I don’t want excuses,” says Veronica Cray.
Oliver goes back to the screen. Outside in the garden detectives are congregating in the patches of sunshine, stamping their feet to stay warm.
Oliver sniffs.
“What is it?”
“Both calls arrived through the same tower—the nearest one.” He pauses. “But they originated from a tower outside the area.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wasn’t in the village when he called you. He was already out of the area.”
“But he knew what Julianne was wearing. He made her stand at the bedroom window.”
Oliver shrugs. “He must have seen her earlier in the day.”
He checks the screen again and explains Charlie’s movements. She was carrying my mobile, which was pinging a tower about a mile south of Wellow while she was at Abbie’s house. The signal changed when she left the farmhouse just after midday. According to the strength analysis, she started moving towards home. That’s when Gideon knocked her off her bike and took her in the opposite direction.
Oliver pulls up a satellite image and overlays a second map showing the locations of phone towers.
“They headed south as far as Wells Road and then west through Radstock and Midsomer Norton.”
“Where did the signal die?”
“On the outskirts of Bristol.”
DI Cray begins issuing orders, unsealing the village and re-assigning officers. Her voice has a metallic quality, as if bouncing off one of Oliver’s satellites. The focus of the investigation is shifting away from the house.
She waves a hand at Oliver. “We know Tyler has two mobiles. If he turns either one of them on, I want you to find him. Not where he was yesterday or an hour ago—I want to know now.”
Julianne is waiting on the landing, hanging back in a corner between the window and the bedroom door. Her dark hair is still tangled and damp from the shower.
She has changed again, wearing black trousers and a cashmere cardigan with just enough makeup to darken her eyelids and shape her cheekbones. It shocks me how beautiful she is. By comparison, I feel decrepit and ancient.
“Let me know what you’re thinking.”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know,” she replies. I can barely recognize her voice anymore.
“I don’t think he wants to hurt Charlie.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispers.
“I know him.”
Julianne glances up, her gaze challenging me. “I don’t want to hear that, Joe, because if you know a man like this—if you understand why he’s doing this—then I wonder how you can sleep at night. How you can… can…”
She can’t finish the statement. I try to hold her, but she stiffens and twists away from me.
“You don’t know him,” she says accusingly. “You said he was bluffing.”
“Up until now he has been. I don’t think he’ll hurt her.”
“He’s hurting her now, don’t you see. Just by taking her.”
Her face turns back to the window and she says accusingly, “You brought this on us.”
“I never expected this. How could I have known?”
“I warned you.”
I can feel my voice failing. “I’m forty-five, Julianne. I can’t live my life on the sidelines. I can’t turn my back on people or refuse to help them.”
“You have Parkinson’s.”
“I still have a life to live.”
“You had a life… with us.”
She’s speaking in the past tense. This isn’t about Dirk or the hotel receipt or my jealous outburst at her office party. This is about Charlie. And amid the fear and uncertainty in her face, there’s something I don’t expect to see. Contempt. Loathing.
“I don’t love you anymore,” she says blankly, coldly. “Not in the right way—not how I used to.”
“There isn’t a right way. There’s just love.”
She shakes her head and turns away. It feels as though something vital has been cut out of my chest. My heart. She leaves me on the landing; an unseen string is pulling at my fingers, worked by a twitching puppeteer. Maybe he has Parkinson’s too.
The doors are open. The house is cold. SOCO have been examining the cottage for the past hour, dusting the smooth surfaces for fingerprints and vacuuming for fibers. Some of the officers I recognize. Nodding acquaintances. They do not look at me now. They have a job to do.
Gideon is a trained locksmith. He can open almost any door: a house, a flat, a warehouse, an office… There are thousands of properties lying empty in Bristol. He could hide Charlie in any one of them.
Veronica Cray has been conferring with Monk and Safari Roy in the kitchen. She wants a meeting to discuss tactics.
“We have to decide what we’re going to do when he calls back,” she says. “We have to be ready. Oliver needs time to pinpoint the source and location, so it’s important that we keep Tyler on the phone for as long as possible.”
She looks at Julianne. “Are you up for this?”
“I’ll do it,” I say, answering for her.
“He might only speak to your wife,” says the DI.
“We make him talk to me. Don’t give him any another option.”
“And if he says no?”
“He wants an audience. Let him talk to me. Julianne isn’t strong enough.”
She reacts angrily. “Don’t speak about me as though I’m not in the room.”
“I’m just trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
I’m about to argue but she explodes. “Don’t say another word, Joe. Don’t talk for me. Don’t talk to me.”
I feel myself sway back, as if dodging punches. The hostility silences the room. Nobody will look at me.
“You should both calm down,” says the DI.
I try to stand but feel Monk’s hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stay seated. Veronica Cray is addressing Julianne, outlining the possible scenarios. Up until now the DI has always treated me with respect and valued my advice. Now she thinks my judgment has been compromised. I am too closely involved. My opinions can’t be relied upon. The whole scene has become dreamlike and slightly askew. The others are businesslike and thoughtful. I am disheveled and out of control.
Veronica Cray wants to move the operation to Trinity Road to make it easier for the police to respond. The landline will be redirected to the incident room.
Julianne begins asking questions, her voice barely audible. She wants to know more details of the strategy. Oliver needs at least five minutes to track any call and triangulate the signals from the nearest three phone towers. If the clocks in the base stations are synchronized perfectly, he may be able to pinpoint the caller to within a hundred meters.
It isn’t foolproof. Signals can be affected by buildings, terrain and weather conditions. If Gideon moves indoors the signal strength will change and if the clocks are out by even a microsecond it could mean a difference of tens of meters. Microseconds and meters—that’s what my daughter’s life is coming down to.
“We’ve installed a GPS tracker and a hands-free phone cradle in your car. Tyler may issue instructions. He may want you to jump through hoops. We’re not ready for a mobile intercept, so you have to stall him.”
“For how long?” she whispers.
“A few more hours.”
Julianne shakes her head adamantly. It has to be sooner.
“I know you want your daughter back, Mrs. O’Loughlin, but we have to secure your safety first. This man has killed two women. I need a few hours to get helicopters and intercept teams ready. Until then we have to stall him.”
“This is crazy,” I say. “You know what he’s done before.”
DI Cray nods towards Monk. I feel his fingers close around my arm. “Come on, Professor, let’s take a walk.”
I try and twist out of the big man’s hand, but he takes a firmer hold. His other arm hooks over my shoulder. From a distance it probably looks like a friendly gesture, but I can’t move. He walks me into the kitchen and out the back door, along the path to the clothesline. A lone towel flaps in the breeze like a vertical flag.
There is a stale, unsavory smell in my lungs. It’s coming from me. My medication has switched off suddenly. My head, shoulders and arms are writhing and jerking like a snake.
“Are you OK?” asks Monk.
“I need my pills.”
“Where are they?”
“Upstairs, beside my bed. The white plastic bottle. Levodopa.”
He disappears inside the cottage. Police officers and detectives are watching from the lane, looking at the freak show. Parkinson’s sufferers talk a lot about preserving dignity. I have none of it now. Sometimes I imagine this is how I’m going to finish up. A writhing, twisting snake man or a life-sized statue, trapped in a permanent pose, unable to scratch my nose or shoo the pigeons away.
Monk comes back with the pill bottle and a glass of water. He has to hold my head still to get the tablets on my tongue. Water spills down my shirt.
“Does it hurt?” he asks.
“No.”
“Did I do something to make it worse?”
“It’s not your fault.”
Levodopa is the gold-standard treatment for Parkinson’s. It’s supposed to reduce the tremors and stop the sudden frozen moments when my body locks up, unable to move.
My movements are becoming steadier. I can hold the glass of water to take another drink.
“I want to go back inside.”
“Can’t do that,” he says. “Your wife doesn’t want you around.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“She looked pretty sure to me.”
Words, my best weapons, have suddenly deserted me. I look past Monk and see Julianne wearing an overcoat, being led towards a police car. Veronica Cray is with her.
Monk lets me get as far as the gat
e.
“Where are you going?” I shout.
“To the station,” says the DI.
“I want to come.”
“You should stay here.”
“Let me talk to Julianne.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you just now.”
Julianne has ducked into the backseat of the car. She tucks her coat under her thighs before the door closes. I call her name, but she doesn’t respond. The engine starts.
I watch them leave. They’re wrong. Every fiber of my being says they’re wrong. I know Gideon Tyler. I know his mind. He’s going to destroy Julianne. It doesn’t matter that she’s the strongest, most compassionate, intelligent woman I’ve ever known. That’s what he preys upon. The more she feels, the more he’s going to damage her.
The rest of the cars are leaving. Monk is going to stay. I follow him back to the cottage and sit at the table as he makes me a cup of tea and collects phone numbers for Julianne’s family and mine. Imogen and Emma should stay somewhere else tonight. My parents are closest. Julianne’s parents are saner. Monk sorts it out.
Meanwhile, I sit at the kitchen table with my eyes closed, picturing Charlie’s face, her lopsided smile, her pale eyes, the tiny scar on her forehead where she fell from a tree at age four.
I take a deep breath and call Ruiz. A crowd roars in the background. He’s watching a rugby match.
“What’s up?”
“It’s Charlie. He’s taken Charlie.”
“Who? Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“He called Julianne. I talked to Charlie.”
I explain about finding Charlie’s bike and the phone calls.
As I tell the story, I can hear Ruiz walking away from the crowd, finding somewhere quieter.
“What do you want to do?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I croak. “We have to get her back.”
“I’m on my way.”
The call ends and I stare at the phone, willing it to ring. I want to hear Charlie’s voice. I try to think of the last words she said to me, the ones before Gideon took her. She told me a joke about a woman on a bus. I can’t remember the punch line but she laughed and laughed.
Someone is ringing the front doorbell. Monk answers it. The vicar has come to offer his support. I’ve only met him once, soon after we moved to Wellow. He invited us to attend a Sunday service, which still hasn’t happened. I wish I could remember his name.
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