by Sarah Hilary
‘I promised Terry Doyle I’d take him their names, once we know who they are …’ She drank a mouthful of coffee. ‘What’ve you got for me?’
‘The houses were built by Merrick Homes. I had a shufti on the internet and it looks like the development was due to start nearly six years ago, but it got stalled because of funding issues, or permissions. They didn’t go on-site until late in 2011. Blackthorn Road’s unusual in that all the houses are three-storey, built tall to take advantage of the views. They called it Beech Rise, after the trees that Merrick Homes thoughtfully preserved and incorporated.’ He paused. ‘That’s a quote from their website.’
‘It’s what else they preserved and incorporated that concerns me,’ Marnie said drily.
‘I have an address, and a name. Ian Merrick, owner and managing director.’
‘Good. Let’s pay him a visit.’ She checked her watch and stood, dropping her empty cup into the bin. ‘It’ll have to be tomorrow now. Get some rest while you can.’
‘I was going to swing past the refuge,’ Noah said, ‘and see how Ayana’s doing.’
Marnie scanned his face. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s just a visit. I know she’s fine, because she called me. I’d like to see her, though. I haven’t seen her since we got her out of that flat, away from her family.’
Into a witness protection scheme. Ayana was giving evidence against her brother, Nasif Mirza. A man had died after Nasif attacked him with a scimitar. An earlier attack, with a different weapon, had left Nasif’s sister Ayana blind in one eye. She was one of the most courageous people Noah had met, and he wanted to tell her so, in person.
‘Give her my best wishes.’ Marnie was tying her hair away from her face, working blindly; no mirrors in here.
Noah had never seen her consult a mirror. For someone so habitually neat, that was surprising. ‘We’re a team.’ Like Terry, he needed to know the boys’ names, and he wanted to be part of the effort that took them home. ‘What about Gutless Douglas?’ he remembered.
‘I’ve been trying his number, still no answer. He’ll have to wait until the morning too. I’ll brief the team first thing.’
Marnie nodded at Noah. ‘Get some rest while you can. I don’t agree with DS Carling’s pessimism regarding this case, but he’s right about one thing. It’s going to be a nightmare for the next few weeks.’
11
Marnie had no plans to move in with Ed Belloc, but sometimes you didn’t need a plan.
They’d been sleeping together for six months, at his place since hers was too much like a hotel suite; she’d caught Ed tidying the pillows. His flat was better, messier; lived-in. Hers could’ve been sprayed with plastic for all the impression she’d made on it. She’d liked her flat once, for precisely that sterile neatness, its estate-agent readiness, the sense of impermanence. But recently it had started to unnerve her, as if she was part of the mess it was trying to repel. Ed’s place, never neat, felt like home these days.
• • •
Ed was in the kitchen, stirring something red in a saucepan. ‘Pasta,’ he said. It smelt good. ‘I thought if you were late, it wouldn’t matter.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘I have Tupperware.’
She leaned into him for a second. ‘You’re getting domestic, Belloc.’
‘You should’ve seen how long it took me to find a clean saucepan …’
He abandoned the stirring and turned to look at her, searching her face the way he did whenever she came back here, as if it was a new miracle each time. Steam had stuck his brown curls to his forehead and freckled his nose. ‘Tough day?’
‘Dead kids …’ She wanted to shut her eyes when she said it, but she didn’t, letting him look at her because it mattered to him. ‘So yes, not the best day … How was yours?’
‘Nothing as bad as that. Do you want to talk about it?’
She unstuck a curl from his forehead. ‘Later. You’ve got pasta to make. I’m going to take a shower. There’s hot water, right?’
Ed nodded, letting her move away. ‘Take as long as you like. This’ll keep.’
• • •
In the bathroom, she undressed awkwardly, clumsy with fatigue. It was frightening how tired she was after one day on this case. Perhaps Ron Carling was right and she’d brought them all a thankless task. Six weeks from now, they might be no further forward, no nearer finding out what had happened to the boys. It bothered her that she couldn’t remember hearing about a manhunt four or five years ago. Missing children lit flags across the Met’s systems, pulling in people from across forces. How could she not remember? But she knew how.
Five years ago, she’d been trying to deal with the huge hole torn in her life by Stephen Keele. She’d thrown herself into work, couldn’t remember details of any of the cases she’d taken on. She hadn’t cared enough, that was the trouble, only interested in the solve rate, in scoring points with Tim Welland to earn her another case, harder and faster than the last. The human cost hadn’t registered. Or if it had, only as an echo of the bigger pain, fresh pressure on the bruise she was safeguarding. It had taken her years to rebuild the part of her brain that connected her compassion to her intellect. She was a better detective now. She didn’t solve cases as swiftly, but nor did she miss tricks because she failed to look where it mattered most: in the hearts of the people damaged by the crimes she was investigating.
She put her clothes aside for the dry cleaner’s. Maybe they’d be able to get the smell of the bunker out of her suit. Luckily, she had a change of clothes in Ed’s wardrobe.
She should talk with Ed, let him take custody of her tiredness and in return take custody of his. It was what couples did. Once, she’d have taken refuge in work, pulling its layers over her until she was numb. Even now, she was conscious of a nagging sensation in her skin, like an addict’s itch for caffeine or worse. Numb had felt so good, once.
She removed her wristwatch, concentrating on what mattered. Ed, and this new case.
Tim Welland was right, she had a good team. Debbie Tanner would make family liaison look easy. Ron Carling, once he was past his gut response, would work harder than anyone to find who did this. And Noah Jake was shaping up to be the best detective she’d worked with: compassionate, inquisitive and unsatisfied with easy answers. She was lucky.
She stepped into Ed’s bath, pulling the shower curtain carefully along its pole; like everything else in Ed’s flat, you treated it with respect or it fell apart. At her place, the water pressure was like a jet-wash, but Ed’s shower was gentle, serving the water softly, as if conscious of her skin’s sensitivity, the rawness she’d brought back from Blackthorn Road.
The Doyles had been playing and working in the garden for a year, digging a vegetable patch directly over the bunker. The developer, Merrick Homes, had planted the beginnings of the garden, but hadn’t bothered to add nutrients to the soil, deciding sand was good enough.
What other corners had they cut?
She imagined Merrick’s team unrolling cheap turf, tamping it down. Had they found anything, before they laid the lawn? Would they have cared if they had?
She didn’t see how they could have missed the bunker. It was only underneath three feet of soil. But if they were up against a schedule and a budget, perhaps they were told to ignore anything which got in the way of that. Sand instead of soil, the wrong sound under their boots when they walked across the hollow foot of the garden …
She was towelling herself dry from the shower when her phone buzzed: the station.
‘DI Rome.’
‘Boss?’ Ron Carling’s voice was ripe with disgust. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’
12
University Hospital, Durham
They’re all in the dark, each and every one of them.
The man sitting two seats down from us, he’s in the dark. The police who brought him here: in the dark. The man’s nose is broken and there’s blood down the front of his shirt, black under the lights. He’s holding a cardboard bo
wl. He’s been sick into it twice. The vomit is ninety per cent proof, its paint-stripper stink making our eyes water.
Esther’s sitting very still. I’m usually the fidgety one, but tonight I’m copying Esther and keeping like a statue, not wanting to be spotted. Too much is new, tonight.
It’s generally a lot quieter than this, which isn’t how I remember city life. Last time I looked, the city got lively after dark, dancing and dodging the night away before spilling its guts come morning. Things have changed. It’s been years since I saw a city after dark.
We’ve been away a long time, Esther and me. That’s why they think they can play games like this in a public place, somewhere we have no right being, even if we are keeping quiet, pretending to be statues sitting here.
It is nearly 2 a.m. and all’s quiet, except the man puking in the cardboard bowl. How long before the bowl soaks through and he’s sitting with a lapful of sick? Once upon a time they gave you a stainless-steel dish. Now it’s all cardboard, disposable, recycled. He’s probably puking into last year’s bedpan.
Clock’s chiming somewhere: 2 a.m.
I think I hear Esther murmur, ‘Bring out your dead,’ but I can’t be sure.
It wouldn’t be like her to say anything at all in a place where we might be heard, or seen. Sometimes she sits so still and quiet, I swear I’m the only one who knows she’s here.
The man ignores us, groaning self-pity through his broken nose. I wonder, briefly, who he is and why he’s here, but the train of thought requires too much energy and runs the risk that I’ll start thinking beyond this place and out into there.
Far safer to stick with these four walls, although counting them I see there are seven walls and one is made of glass. Safety glass, I bet. If I ran into it, or threw something – this plastic chair, for instance, which is crucifying my spine – it wouldn’t break easily, or usefully. No shards, or dangerous edges. Even so, it’s a hell of a lot less safe than the place we’ve come from, where they’ll return us before dawn and the arrival of the hospital cleaning crew. This experiment is risky enough. It makes me wonder what other risks they are willing to take. Do they really imagine we are ready for this, just because we’ve been good for so long?
Do they think it means we’re mended, that the bad we did is back in its box?
I don’t see how they can think that, not of me, certainly not of Esther.
The man with the broken nose is breathing thickly. I don’t like the sound of it, phlegmy, and wonder whether Esther is hearing what I am, if memory’s playing the same trick on her. It’s like the sound of a puppy whining, deep in the pit of its throat.
This is a waste of time, a criminal waste of time. Sitting us here, to see who sees us and what reaction it provokes, if we’re recognised any longer.
It’s been five years.
At least I think it has. I’ve lost track of time, thanks to the pills.
The self-pitying pisshead two seats down couldn’t care less. We could be invisible for all the signs he’s giving. Maybe we are. Invisible. Maybe after all the needles they’ve stuck in us and the answers they’ve sucked out of us and the pills they make us eat, endlessly, like sweets – maybe we’re so empty we can’t be seen.
Stranger things have happened.
The woman behind the desk (I don’t think she’s a nurse, just an agency worker paid to pick up the phones) isn’t interested in us. I don’t blame her. Personally, I’m sick of the sight of us. Me and Esther, sitting here in our borrowed clothes, trying to be normal, or pretending to be trying to be normal, in Esther’s case. She was always a sneaky one.
No, I don’t blame Ms Agency Worker, not even when she yawns and points her eyes at the clock, wanting her shift to be over so she can go home – to what, I wonder?
A husband? A family?
I bite my tongue to stop myself thinking any further down that dead end. Just the tip, where all the nerve endings huddle. The tip of my tongue is lumpy with scar tissue, from being bitten too much. I’m not as bad as Esther, whose mouth is full of sour, watery ulcers.
I look away, down the corridor to the glass wall that can’t be broken. Most people who come here are sick or scared, worried for themselves or someone else. That isn’t us. We’re not ill, or not in any normal way. Of course they say Esther was sick, very sick. But they also say she’s better now, and that’s why we’re here.
Esther was famous once. They think maybe the people who come here, sick or scared, will recognise us. Not that they’d know me; at least I doubt it. It was Esther’s face all over the news. But I’m not sure we’re all that different – same eyes, same size – although I’m an inch shorter and less skinny, at least than Esther used to be.
A hospital porter comes to collect the pisshead and I stiffen in panic. I’m the only one who does; not much can panic Esther. She has less to lose, of course, from this experiment.
I could lose everything.
Esther’s already lost that.
I should stop ascribing my emotions to her. That’s what the therapist, Lyn, says. ‘It’s good,’ she says, ‘that you feel empathy. Empathy is important.’
So now I scrabble after empathy, like I scrabble after forgiveness. And mercy too, except I shouldn’t expect too much of that, and so I don’t.
Believe me, I don’t.
You don’t do the things we’ve done and look for mercy.
13
London
In Westbourne Grove, the flat smelt warm and starchy, of rice boiling. Dan was cooking paella. Noah dropped his keys into the bowl in the hall.
He’d done a fair job of disguising his day when he was with Ayana at the women’s refuge. Her recovery was inspiring, and exhausting. Just for a second, he wished for a normal job, something that didn’t demand either humility or courage to get through a day’s work.
In the empty hall, he did what he hadn’t been able to do all day: stood with his head bowed and his shoulders shaking, not hiding any of it. Then he straightened and put the anger away, heading for the kitchen.
• • •
Dan was frying shrimp at the stove. He’d tuned the radio to tinny pop, moving his hips in time to the beat, an easy rhythm. Noah watched from the doorway until Dan’s dance moves had him smiling. ‘Hey, sexy disco man.’
Dan didn’t hear, over the radio and the wok. He was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt, bare feet on the tiled floor. Steam had stuck his blond hair to his forehead.
Noah moved noiselessly, slipping an arm about Dan’s waist and another around his shoulders, baring the back of his neck to a biting kiss.
‘Ow.’ Dan shook his hand, its thumb branded by hot oil. ‘Noah, you maniac … Get off.’
‘Mmm … Or I could do this.’ He lifted Dan’s scalded hand and sucked the burnt thumb between his lips.
‘You’re meant to use butter …’ Dan turned under his touch, until the small of his back was against the edge of the stove. His eyes were a dazed blue.
Noah leaned in to kiss him, for a long time, before he reached for the freezer door. ‘Butter leaves a scar.’ He found a tray of ice. ‘Better use this.’
Dan watched him crack the tray over the sink. ‘How was your day?’
‘Over.’ Noah filled a mug with ice and held it out. ‘How was yours?’
‘Quiet.’ Dan buried his burnt thumb in the ice. ‘Until now …’
Noah picked up the spatula to stir at the paella. ‘What’re we having with this? Beer?’
‘In the fridge.’ Dan took the spatula back. ‘You had a phone call earlier.’ He started serving the paella on to plates. ‘Sol.’
Noah took two bottles of Beck’s from the fridge. ‘What’d he want?’
‘He didn’t say. I told him he could come to supper. He said he might do that.’
Noah took the tops from the bottles. ‘I don’t see a third plate.’
‘This is Sol we’re talking about. I didn’t take him seriously.’
‘That probably means he’ll turn up
just to be awkward.’
‘Good. I made enough paella for three. And that’s why we have a sofa bed, so your jailbait brother can crash here whenever he needs to.’
‘My jailbait brother …’ Noah tossed the bottle-opener back into its drawer. ‘That makes me so proud.’
‘You can’t blame him,’ Dan said. ‘You stole all the big brother brownie points when you joined the police. He had to go off the rails, just to get a look-in.’
They sat at the table and started eating.
‘You like him,’ Noah accused, with a smile.
‘Like him?’ Dan repeated, with a mouthful of paella. ‘I bloody love him. He’s a wicked version of you. Without the great taste in men …’
‘Without any taste in men,’ Noah amended.
‘Yes. But is the West End ready for gorgeous gay gangsters?’
Noah’s response was reflexive. ‘He’s not a gangster.’
‘Not yet.’ Dan speared a shrimp on his fork. ‘Give him time.’
‘Me and half the magistrates in Notting Hill,’ Noah agreed, ‘when his luck gives out.’
Dan laughed. ‘Your jailbait brother,’ sketching a toast with his beer bottle. ‘Have you introduced him to your boss yet?’
Noah shook his head. ‘She’d eat him for breakfast. Sol’s only a hard man in his imagination. DI Rome, on the other hand, is the real deal.’
14
‘Un-fucking-believable,’ Ron Carling said. ‘Two kids go missing for five years and no one reports it? No one looks for them? No one looks for whichever bastard took them?’
‘I agree it seems incredible,’ Marnie said. ‘But we’re looking now. And Missing Persons haven’t given up; they’ve only just got started. We know how many children go missing every year. One every three minutes, isn’t that the latest statistic? We know this sort of investigation is tough. Every aspect of it is tough. We need to focus on what we have.’