by Neil White
No reply.
I was frantic. My hands were on my head. I could feel my heart beating fast, the adrenaline, the fear racing through me. I went to the front door and looked out. All I could see were fields, dry-stone walls, and Turners Fold in the valley below. Bobby wasn’t out there.
I went back into the house, tried to stay calm, tried to think of when I had last seen him. It was only minutes before. I turned around, hoping that he might just appear from somewhere. He didn’t.
‘Bobby, if you’re hiding it’s not funny,’ I shouted, my voice strained.
I put my hands over my face and slumped onto the floor. It was my fault. I had left him unsupervised. But I had only been upstairs.
And then I heard a knocking sound, coming from the kitchen. I felt sick as soon as I heard it.
I ran into the kitchen and saw what I had missed before. That was when I moaned. The back door was open, and the breeze was making it rattle against the doorframe.
Bobby was gone.
Chapter Forty-seven
Sam walked through the office. He knew where he was headed, but as he made his way along the narrow corridor that connected all the rooms, he thought it seemed quieter than usual. The clerks were normally kicking up some noise by this time. He could hear faint murmurs, but nothing else.
As he turned into Jon Hampson’s room, he saw them all in a huddle by his window. They all turned to Sam at the same time. They looked worried. Jon Hampson just stared at him, his glare hostile.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Sam.
They exchanged glances, unsure what to say. One of them asked, ‘Is the firm in trouble?’
Sam’s eyes narrowed. Most criminal firms worried about the future. Defence lawyers were an easy budget cut with no political negatives. Sam saw the worry in their eyes again. They had mortgages and children, just like everyone else, and he could tell that these were new worries.
‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.
The clerks all looked towards the door. ‘It feels different around here this week, sort of tense,’ one said.
‘What have you heard?’
One of them put his hands in his pockets and fidgeted, but no one answered.
Sam felt his resolve weaken. There was more than just himself to think about. He could get a job elsewhere. He could even retrain and become a civil lawyer. The people he was looking at were crime clerks, nothing else. Civil firms didn’t need police-station runners.
‘I’m sure everything will be okay,’ said Sam quietly, and then looked away before anyone could say anything.
He set off again. His cheeks were flushed, but he knew what he had to do.
I had the telephone in my hand, ready to dial, when I heard him. It was a giggle. I put my head back and sighed. Then I rushed to the back door. There was Geoff. My stomach turned over and I had to lean against the doorframe as they turned into the garden path.
‘Hello, Jack,’ shouted Bobby as he bounced on Geoff’s shoulders, his laugh carrying towards me on the breeze blowing through the valley. ‘Daddy’s here.’
I nodded, breathing heavily. ‘So I see,’ I said, and I began to laugh in sheer relief.
As they got closer, I saw Geoff glare at me.
‘A child shouldn’t be left on his own,’ he said.
‘I was in the shower.’
He put Bobby down and tapped him on the bottom. ‘In you go.’ When Bobby had gone inside, he stepped closer. I could smell the early start on his breath. ‘I’ll rephrase that. You don’t leave my son on his own. I could make things difficult for you. Remember, children go missing round here.’
‘I thought you were collecting him from the school.’
He sneered at me. ‘I wanted to see where Bobby was living, so I set off earlier. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, have you?’ As he said it, he looked around, took in the view, tried not to look impressed.
‘It’s called fresh air,’ I said flippantly. ‘I think he likes it.’
Geoff’s cheeks went red as he glared at me.
‘Don’t get too cosy, northern boy. She’ll get bored.’
‘She? That would be Laura, I presume.’
‘Don’t get smart. Don’t you think she’s been here before? Young love?’
I looked back into the house and saw Bobby dragging a bag of clothes towards the front door.
‘He’s a giveaway.’
Geoff’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah, she’s good at the start. We had a real good time. But she’ll get bored, maybe only fuck you once a week. Maybe even less. She turned into a real old rag doll towards the end. You’re the journalist. What word would you use?’ He pointed at me. ‘Unresponsive. That’s the word. Fucking unresponsive. She knew every fleck of paint on the ceiling by the time I left.’
I could feel myself starting to get angry, but I tried not to show it, knowing that’s what he wanted.
‘Young mothers get tired,’ I said, deadpan. ‘I understand that.’
Geoff was about to respond, the skin around his eyes mottled red with anger, when Bobby came out. ‘Come and look at my bedroom, Daddy.’ As Geoff felt Bobby tug on his hand, he looked at me and nodded, as if to say Don’t get too comfortable.
‘Let’s inspect your house. I need to see if it’s good enough for my son,’ and then he went inside, glaring at me as he went.
When he was out of view, I heaved a sigh of relief again, my breath short. I now had a sense of what it must be like for a child of your own to go missing.
The scuffed Perspex in the bus shelter gave him cover, but he could still see her as she brushed her hair. Her hands moved slowly, just like the night before. He saw flashes of blue, a school jumper, someone moving quickly, running around. She seemed almost absent-minded.
He smiled to himself. Things would be different later. Her senses would be heightened like never before.
He looked at the other people in the bus shelter. It seemed like they were edging away from him. Maybe it was because he looked unkempt, or maybe it was something about his mood that scared them off, but they had noticed him. That wasn’t good.
He tried to look natural, inconspicuous, but he felt himself tense when he saw her leave the house.
She didn’t go to the car. He had seen her the night before, brought home by her husband. His car was gone, and her car was on the drive, the front all twisted and bent. She would have to walk right past him, he knew that. He knew where her son went to school, half a mile away. It was a long walk for the youngest one, but there was a shortcut by the canal, along a brick path, dotted by cast-iron moorings and overhung by bramble bushes.
He had walked the route the night before, knew where he would get a view as she made her way home. He had guessed right. She headed straight towards him. As they got closer he could hear the boys jabbering to each other, pushing, bickering. They both stepped into the road to get past the bus queue, but she didn’t notice. It seemed like she didn’t have the energy to tell them off. They talked to her but she wasn’t listening. Her head was down, her hair lying straggly over a camel-coloured coat, her skin looked pale and blotchy, her eyes heavy. He turned away as she got near, worried that she might recognise him, but she barely glanced at him as she went past.
He smiled to himself, took a long, deep breath. He looked down at his hands, thought of mother and son. He was going to bring them closer together. It’s what he did. His fingers ached as he thought of it.
He watched them walk away. His smile turned into a sneer as he thought about her unhappiness. Why was she unhappy? She had two beautiful boys. A house. Money. Why wasn’t that enough?
His hands curled into fists. He knew it wasn’t enough. He would make it better. He had done it before. He had changed people’s lives, made them more precious, made them realise that the most valuable things come free.
He looked at his hands. They were precious. He turned them over, the fists clenched hard, and saw the bite marks again. Healing hands.
* * *
Sam ru
shed into the cellar, to the room at the end, past all the archived files. The door was open, he knew it would be. It was where the cleaning fluids and all the household things were kept. But in the corner was the thing Sam had come looking for: the CCTV.
Like most solicitors’ firms, Parsons had been the victim of burglaries. Criminals worked out the layout of the building during their visits, when they saw the laptops and computers. The building was protected by alarms, but Harry installed security cameras as well a few years earlier, after some of the staff cars were broken into before Christmas, when the car park turned dark before everyone went home and cars were filled with presents hidden from children. A large light now illuminated the car park, and a static camera covered the area, along with ones pointed at the building, and at the front, just to see who tried the windows.
It was a simple system. It recorded the footage onto a hard disk. It wasn’t great quality, but it was good enough to make out clothes and glimpses of faces. It recorded continually, and the secretaries were convinced that it was a snooping device. But it wasn’t. It was just what it was: a security camera. After twenty-four hours it created a video file, numbered from one to nine. On the tenth day, it went back to one, overwriting the earlier file. Simple and maintenance-free.
He clicked on the monitor and went into the hard drive. Sam’s eyes remained on the door as the machine whirred, waiting for Harry to walk in, convinced that the machine must be fitted with an alarm. The software was slow, though, and it seemed like an age before he could open the video file.
It started in late afternoon, so he had to scroll through a few hours of footage, the cursor moving across the screen, nothing to see except the flickers of the rest of the staff leaving.
Sam almost missed it. He was moving fast through the footage but the image didn’t change, just an empty car park. But then he thought he saw some ghost footage, just a faint blur at the top of the screen.
He stopped and went back, saw the ghosts in reverse, and then he pressed play.
There wasn’t much to see. A car pulled in and stopped for a few seconds. Then the rear door opened and someone was dragged from the car. From the clothes, Sam recognised Terry McKay. He wasn’t moving in the footage. He had slumped onto the floor by the car wheels. Sam thought the car was about to drive away when some legs appeared at the top of the screen. Then the body appeared, and Sam recognised him. It was the man seen with Jimmy King at the office, bald and intimidating. Sam’s breath caught as he saw the shine on another pair of shoes. As the rest of that figure came into view, Sam saw that it was Jimmy King. Both men dragged Terry McKay away from the car, their hands on his jacket as his legs made dust clouds in the gravel.
Sam put his hand over his mouth as they stood over him. Terry wasn’t moving.
The two men went to leave, but then Sam saw Jimmy King stop and return to Terry. He stood over Terry, still. Sam noticed a dark patch spread on Terry’s jacket. He felt sick when he realised what was going on. Jimmy King was pissing on Terry McKay as he lay there on the floor.
Sam stepped back and shook his head, shocked. He didn’t feel good about himself for leaving Terry, and he would have to come to terms with that, but Jimmy King had burned off the man’s hand and then pissed on him like Terry wasn’t even human.
He rummaged through the drawer next to the CCTV unit until he found what he had been looking for: a blank DVD. He put his ear to the door. Still no one there. He copied the video file onto the blank disk and then left the room.
He knew where he was headed next.
Helena turned back onto the canal path, her time at the school gate cut short. Zach had been quiet during the walk. He sensed that something wasn’t right, that there were tensions at home, and he didn’t look back as he went through the gate. Little Henry had been the same as always, a pocket of energy, running everywhere. How would she deal with it once he was at school too and she would return to an empty house?
Her hands were thrust into her coat pockets. She had a headache, a pounding behind the eyes, and her stomach was turning cartwheels, waves of nausea sweeping over her. Alcohol withdrawal. She recognised it. She had tried to fight it before, but had always lost the battle. Maybe because when she was drunk, her life seemed so much better than it did when she was sober.
An image of Sam flashed into her head. It wasn’t the Sam who came home every night, the distant lawyer with greying hair and a suit, pompous and self-satisfied. It was the Sam she had known a decade earlier, the one who had talked about changing the world, who had made her feel warm inside with just a look, a sideways glance, the man who had once held her so tight that she wasn’t sure if she’d ever want to breathe again. She fought back a tear when she remembered how he had been the night before. How she had been the night before. They’d made love, tender and emotional, like they had discovered each other again, and afterwards, she had sobbed into his chest, his hands stroking her hair until she fell asleep.
The path ahead looked hazy, the water shimmering as the low morning sun was reflected off the surface. She shielded her eyes. She could see Henry skipping ahead. She shouted out that he was getting too near the edge. As trees gave some shade for the moment, she had a better view. He looked back and waved, and then skipped off again. She clenched her jaw and walked on, not feeling good.
She didn’t look to check whether there was anyone watching.
He was in complete shadow, tucked into the bushes on the other side of a bridge. The little boy had run ahead. He would have to deal with the mother first. As he peeped around the corner of damp brickwork, he saw them getting closer.
He checked along the canal bank. There was no one ahead. No pleasure barges cruising down. The opposite bank was filled by an empty mill building, the roof in pieces, the windows broken.
He heard their footsteps come under the bridge, the soft shuffle turned into a loud echo, Henry talking about his father, shouting questions back along the towpath. The responses were short and empty. She sounded like she wished he wasn’t there. He’d teach her.
As Henry emerged into the sunlight first, he saw that the boy was skipping.
He dropped lower down into the bushes.
Then he saw her come out from under the bridge, her head still down, her thoughts wrapped up in herself, not focused on Henry, not watching, not caring.
He reached into his pocket, feeling for the cloth. He soaked it in diethyl ether again, handling the bottle of fluid carefully.
He stepped out from behind the bush and joined them on the canal bank, his footsteps nimble, almost silent as he made his way towards them.
Helena tried to break the day into sections as she walked on. Just get through to lunchtime, she thought. Do some housework, maybe, or just take Henry for a walk again. What about meeting Sam for lunch? If she could hold out until Sam came home, he would help her through the evening.
But her mouth felt dry and her hands weak.
She looked up, saw that Henry was still running ahead. She opened her mouth to shout, just to call him back.
She didn’t get the chance.
She heard a noise, the quick rumble of feet. She started to turn, suddenly scared, when she felt someone grab her from behind, a strong arm around her neck. Her shout turned into a scream, but it was snuffed out by a cloth, clamped tight over her face.
She began to struggle, but the arm tightened around her. She could smell something strong. It was sweet and hot.
She tried to thrash her arms, kick back with her legs, but she was held too tightly. And then she felt her legs become weak, and her arms too. Her struggle slowed down.
She saw Henry in the distance. He had turned round, was watching, eyes wide, teeth bared, his hands over his ears. She tried to reach out to him, to shout out to him, to tell him to run, but she could feel herself slipping into darkness, the view ahead fading out, as Henry blurred into the background.
The gleam from the water grew, and everything turned bright white. The last word she heard wa
s, ‘Mummy.’
Chapter Forty-eight
Laura crinkled her nose as she went down the stairs to the morgue. There was a strong smell of disinfectants, and the tiles along the stairs were cracked with age, cream at the top, green at the bottom. It seemed like all the death through the years was embedded into those walls. Pete walked behind her, trying to keep up, but he was hesitant. She turned around.
‘You okay, Pete?’
He took a deep breath. ‘Never liked this place.’
‘Queasy?’
He shook his head. ‘No, it just gives me the shivers.’