by M. A. Hunter
‘I love you, Dad,’ she said silently. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t a better daughter.’
Fresh tears came and as they fell she replayed as many happy memories of him as she could think of: trips away, the mess he’d made when they’d tried to make Mum a birthday cake, the way he’d always sing song lyrics wrong.
She must have fallen asleep still thinking of him, because when her eyes opened, the sky outside was darker than when they’d left school just before lunchtime. Changing out of her uniform, she decided she’d go and check on her mum. It was hard enough losing a dad, but for her mum it didn’t just mean losing the man she’d loved and married, it meant losing a co-parent.
Natalie stopped outside her room as the voices from the living room carried up the stairs. It was her mum and someone bickering about something… a man’s voice.
Was it possible? Had there been a mistake? Had her dad returned to prove that they’d misidentified his body? Is that why her mum was shouting? Natalie tiptoed down the stairs, certain she had to be dreaming, but wanting to enjoy every exciting moment of it. She could picture walking into the room and seeing him there, his arms open wide and beckoning her to him. Imagine the look on Mr Panko’s face when he realised he’d broken the news to the wrong child!
Natalie paused at the door, desperately wanting to hear the familiar echo of her dad’s voice to confirm his identity before she burst in through the door.
‘Please,’ her mum was saying. ‘You can’t do this to us. After everything he did for you – and I don’t just mean his civil duty – you owe us! You owe him!’
‘I’m sorry, it’s out of my hands. It’s army policy. You have sixty days.’
‘Please, I’ll do anything. Don’t throw us out. Not now. Not yet. Nat has her exams next year. Can’t we stay until then?’
‘I’m sorry, the wheels are already in motion.’
‘Bill, you’re more powerful than that. You could stop the wheels turning if you wanted to. I’d make it worth your while, you know. Sandra wouldn’t have to know; it could be our little secret. I remember the way you used to look at me when Geoff’s back was turned.’
‘No, Cheryl. Don’t degrade yourself like this.’
‘Fine! Well, I suppose I’m no longer your type anyway, am I, Bill? You like them much younger than me, don’t you?’
‘Stop it, Cheryl! Don’t say something we’ll both regret.’
‘Oh no, don’t worry, Bill, your secret is safe with me. I vowed to Geoff I’d never tell, and I won’t, but if you don’t want Sandra to know how you get your kicks, you should think twice about that sixty-day eviction notice.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and you’d do best to think twice before spreading malicious filth about me.’
The lounge door flew open and Lieutenant-Colonel Havvard almost barged into Natalie, stopping himself at the last moment. He considered her before saying, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Natalie.’ With that, he opened the main door and headed out.
Natalie continued into the room, sickened by her mother’s attempts to seduce Havvard, but refusing to make eye contact. ‘What was all that about?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ Cheryl replied, reaching for the nearly empty bottle of wine. ‘Just grown-up stuff. We’re going out for dinner tonight; get your shoes and coat on.’
Cheryl disappeared through to the kitchen, carrying the bottle of wine, her glass clunking as it was slammed against the kitchen table, the sound jolting another memory to the forefront of Natalie’s mind. This time it was a voice – her dad’s voice – from this very room. I know you didn’t mean what happened, which is why I helped you sort it out.
And then a second voice – Havvard’s voice – growling angrily. You don’t want to get on my bad side, Geoff. You know what I’m capable of.
That had been a year ago, on the night Natalie had reported Sally’s murder. The call made from this house. Could Havvard have found out and assumed it was Geoff who’d called 999? Was he really as powerful as everyone claimed? Natalie’s mind continued to make leaps and bounds, following no rational logic, until they arrived at one concrete conclusion that she couldn’t shake: she was the reason her dad had died.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Now
Weymouth, Dorset
I’m glad when I hear seagulls announcing the end of the night, after what has been a barrage of painful dreams all featuring Anna in some capacity or another. I don’t need to be an expert in understanding dreams to know that Freddie’s revelation is what caused the onslaught. Not his fault, but I could have done without it last night. I feel drained now as I lie in bed, feeling as though I’ve spent the entire night battling evil demons; I shouldn’t feel this tired after a solid six and a half hours of sleep.
Freddie, Rachel and I toured the pubs of Weymouth before ending up in an Indian restaurant where Rachel proceeded to recount embarrassing tale after embarrassing tale about my love-life failures while at Bournemouth University. It genuinely felt like they’d conspired to shame me into asking them to help alleviate my current single status. They were doing it in a kind way though, and I know they only have my best intentions when they tell me I should ask Jack out on a date. My hands feel clammy at the very thought. Despite their assertions to the contrary, I can’t see that Jack has any interest in anyone but his daughter Mila. Rachel and Freddie haven’t seen how he is when she’s around; there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for her, and I have no doubt that is the reason why he isn’t currently seeing anyone. That, and the fact that his job isn’t exactly conducive to starting new relationships, not without the aid of dating apps.
At least the conversation – as cringeworthy as it was – distracted me from what Freddie had said about the videos Jack had found of him on Arthur Turgood’s hard drive. I didn’t mention it to Rachel when she returned from the library where she’d been looking at newspaper archives; I’m sure the fewer people who know about it, the better for Freddie. It’s certainly not something I’d want the world to know about Anna.
That still leaves the question of how a video of Anna wound up on Turgood’s hard drive. If Turgood’s health continues to deteriorate, there’s a chance we will never find out how and why he had a video of my sister being abused in his possession at the time of his incarceration.
I saw a version of Anna’s video in my dreams last night, even though I’ve only seen the still frames that Jack was able to share. In my head, the video was in full high-definition Technicolor detail. Only, in my dream, she wasn’t the four-year-older version from the still shots, but the nine-year-old girl I still remembering leaving our front garden and walking innocently down the road towards our grandmother’s house. I’ve never hated having an overactive imagination as much as I did when I woke screaming and crying at four this morning.
Poor Rachel was scared half to death by the outburst and it took longer to calm her down than myself. She’d offered to stay awake and talk to me about the dream but I hadn’t wanted to share the horror of what I’d been forced to see. The only silver lining I can draw – and it really is scraping the bottom of the barrel – is that Anna’s appearance on that video means she wasn’t killed the day she went missing. All manner of horrible things might have befallen her from that moment onwards, but death wasn’t one of them.
I can’t decide if that is a blessing or a curse.
A gentle knocking at my door is followed by Rachel returning to the room, carrying a tray on which is a glass of juice, a mug of coffee and two slices of buttered toast. ‘I thought you would benefit from a little TLC this morning,’ she says, waiting for me to prop up my pillows, before resting the tray on my lap. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m okay,’ I say, biting into the toast. ‘Thanks for this; I can’t remember the last time I had someone bring me breakfast in bed.’
‘Well, don’t go thinking it will become a habit,’ she chuckles. ‘I’ll be expecting you to return the favour in the coming days.’ She pauses.
‘Your nightmare last night was about Anna, wasn’t it?’
I swallow the toast.
‘You were saying her name while you were asleep, right before the screaming started,’ she explains. ‘I didn’t want to push you on it last night because you seemed so upset, but I’m here if you want to talk about her or the dreams.’
‘Thank you. Jack found a video of her on Arthur Turgood’s hard drive, of all places. In it, she’s approximately thirteen years old… and being forced to do some pretty horrific things.’
The look of shock on Rachel’s face is what I was hoping to avoid but she deserves to know what caused her to be woken so abruptly during the night. Given she’s the co-trustee of the Anna Hunter Foundation, a charitable organisation we set up to support the families of missing people, it seems only right she understand what she’s now involved in.
‘I’m so sorry, Emma. That’s truly awful. Has Jack managed to speak to Turgood and find out where the video came from?’
I shake my head. ‘We tried; we even visited him in prison, but he kept his mouth shut. He probably sees it as the best way he can get revenge on me for exposing his abuses at the home.’
‘What about his co-defendants? Could they shed any light on it?’
I shake my head again. ‘The hard drive was Turgood’s personal property and not purchased until long after the St Francis Home had been closed down. Right now, he’s the only one who knows how and where he got it from.’
Rachel moves to the window before turning back to face me. ‘There is another thought of course, though I’m sure it’s one you don’t want to consider.’
I stay silent, waiting for her to elaborate.
‘Assuming Turgood didn’t make the video of Anna – which seems realistic given his penchant for young boys – then there’s every chance he isn’t the only one who has a copy of it. Now, I know you won’t want to think about any more perverts viewing the film, but it stands to reason that there would be multiple copies, and if that’s the case, it’s not an unreasonable leap to assume somebody supplied the videos, and if so—’
‘Then Anna could be mixed up in something much larger,’ I finish for her.
‘Yes, exactly! What if Turgood’s hard drive is merely the tip of the iceberg? Can you speak to Jack about it? The Metropolitan Police have an entire department that investigates that kind of behaviour, right? I’m sure they must do.’
I’m already reaching for my phone before she’s finished. ‘Jack? I need to speak to you about something urgently,’ I say, when the answerphone cuts in. ‘It’s about the video of Anna. Freddie told me what you also found and it got me thinking. Give me a call back when you get a moment, will you?’ I hang up, the cogs still turning in my head.
‘I’m going to jump in the shower while you wait for him to phone back,’ Rachel says.
‘Wait,’ I catch her, ‘before you do, how did you get on at the library yesterday? We never got the chance to talk about it before dinner.’
She stops and sits down on the end of the bed. ‘Oh yeah, so I was reading the journals Natalie left for you from the time of Sally’s disappearance and most of it is pretty standard pre-menstrual teenage girl stuff. There’s no mention of Sally until about a week after she disappeared, but even then the only reference is acknowledgement that a whole week has passed. There’s no mention of witchcraft or spells that I can deduce, unless she’s writing in some kind of code, but one thing I did find of interest is reference to someone called Pete. I assumed boyfriend at first because of the way she writes about how handsome he is, but then she wrote something about him leaving the base and how life would never be the same again, and that got me thinking that maybe he was a soldier at the time. I went to the base to try and see if I could take a look at their recruit records, but they wouldn’t let me beyond the security barrier, stating that I’d need to put my request in writing to the colonel in charge, but even then the guy I spoke to didn’t sound confident that my request would be granted. That’s what then led me to the library, in case the records were public access, but they weren’t. So while I was there I asked to have a look at archived copies of local newspapers, which might have carried more granular detail of the investigation into Sally’s disappearance.’
‘And?’
‘And, I found a picture from an article a month after the disappearance. It was midway in the edition, and was only confirming that the search for Sally continues, but the picture they’d used was of Sally and some friends – including Natalie – at some kind of drama club, and one of the names beneath the image was a Corporal Pete Havvard.’
Rachel leans over the edge of the bed and fishes into her handbag, extracting a sheet of printed paper and handing it over to me. It’s a photocopy of the newspaper article she’s just referred to, and in the grainy image I can see a young Natalie and the familiar face of Sally Curtis. Beside the two girls is a youngish man, with close-cropped hair and a stern jaw that I recognise from my meeting with Cheryl and Diane when the imposing Colonel William Havvard disturbed our private conversation.
‘He’s the son of the guy who runs the base,’ I say, studying the pixels closely. ‘He looks very cosy with the girls in this image.’
‘That’s what I was thinking.’ Rachel smiles, her eyes widening. ‘Apparently, he ran this drama club as an after-school activity at the time when Sally went missing. So, I reached out to the local police, and was given the name of one Detective Fiona Rimmington. She’s Detective Inspector now, but was just a DC when she headed up the initial investigation into Sally’s reported disappearance. She was only too happy to speak to me about the case. Apparently it riles her that they never found Sally. I asked her whether this Pete had ever been formally interviewed in the wake of the disappearance and having consulted her notes she said he wasn’t but that it had been a struggle to get the cooperation of the base to speak to any of their personnel.’
I recall something Cheryl told me when I first met her at her static caravan. Secrets don’t remain secret in a place like that, and when outside influences try to interfere with that lifestyle, the pack gathers close to defend itself.
‘You think this Pete Havvard was somehow involved in Sally’s disappearance… and his dad covered it up?’
Rachel shrugs. ‘It’s not the most outlandish theory. Definitely worth pursuing, even if it does turn out to be a dead end.’
I can’t forget the way Cheryl and Diane clammed up when Havvard joined us at the table in the pub near the base. It was like he had some kind of invisible control over them.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘You have a shower, and then we’ll see if we can’t go and visit Colonel Havvard for ourselves, and ask him a few awkward questions, see how he reacts.’
Rachel is gushing as she stands and races to the bathroom. I finish my toast and juice before carrying the tray through to the kitchen when I hear my phone ringing. Assuming it’s Jack, I pick it up, though my phone doesn’t recognise the number calling.
‘Hello? Emma Hunter here.’
‘Hi, Emma, it’s Sam Johnson. We met yesterday at Natalie’s cremation. I hope you don’t mind, but I got your number from the business card you left with Cheryl. I’d really like to talk to you about Nat, and why I think she killed herself.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Now
Weymouth, Dorset
I’m grateful when Rachel insists on accompanying me to meet Sam at the seaside café along the waterfront. We take a deliberately scenic route to reach the venue so it won’t be obvious from where we originated. Precautions, Rachel calls it.
‘You don’t know this guy from Adam,’ she repeats as we near the café. ‘For all you know he could be some serial stalker and rapist. You can never be too careful these days, Emma.’
I’ve already tried to explain that I did briefly meet him at the crematorium yesterday, and that I’m sure Cheryl wouldn’t have given my number to a psychopath, but she’s not having any of it.
‘Doesn’t mean h
e isn’t a weirdo too, you know. This one woman I know went on a blind date with a friend of a friend – they’d been set up – and the friends had described him as a really great guy. Apparently he worked in a dog shelter and voluntarily did the collection basket at his local church every Sunday. Well, when they went back to her place after the date to… you know, she went into the bathroom to get changed and when she emerged, he was lying in bed dressed in her bra, pants and stockings!’
I’m not sure how much of this story is true, and how much is Rachel’s imagination trying to justify her point. What is clear is how much London has changed her outlook on life. She never used to be so fearful of strangers, and whilst she’s right about women needing to be more careful in this day and age, not every stranger is a pervert or deviant.
Sam is already sitting at a table in the window as we enter. He has a bottle of mineral water in front of him, but no mugs of tea or coffee.
‘Hi Sam, this is my friend Rachel. She’s a journalist too. I hope it’s okay that she’s here as well?’
He looks at Rachel before nodding. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Do you want a cup of tea or coffee?’ I ask pleasantly, as Rachel hangs her coat on the back of one of the chairs.
‘No thanks,’ he replies, lifting the bottle. ‘I’m on a detox.’
Who on earth does a detox in the run up to the festive period? I totally understand why so many people cut out toxins and try to start the year with better fitness plans, but Christmas is a time for over-indulging, surely?
I order a gingerbread latte for me and a frothy cappuccino for Rachel, and carry the drinks over to the table.