by Sarah Hilary
Stephen tipped his head, light sliding down the side of his face. He knew she’d broken the rules, bringing the tin in here; she saw him calculating what it might mean. A dozen recessed bulbs in the ceiling gave him a dozen shadows, in all directions at once. He didn’t speak.
This was what he did. How he kept control. By keeping his mouth shut.
‘You know.’ She waited a beat. ‘Don’t you? You’ve seen it before.’
She was tired and angry, and she didn’t bother hiding it.
She had always taken care to hide it, in the past.
Stephen registered this change in her, the skin stiffening under his eyes, where it was thinnest, where she could see the blood under the surface.
‘I know you’ve seen this before. You know how I know? I read your notebooks. I was looking for clues, some reason for what you did. I found doodles. Gibberish, at least that’s what I thought, but it wasn’t, was it? It meant something.’
She put her hand on the tin. ‘It meant this.’
Still Stephen didn’t speak.
‘No? All right.’ She put the peaches away and took out the torn page from Clancy’s notebook. ‘What about this?’
Stephen didn’t look at the page, keeping his eyes on her face.
Marnie tried to take his pulse from his stare, the fractional changes in his pupils. ‘Bruton says you wanted to see me. You’ve been completing a lot of visitor orders.’ She put her hand on the torn page. ‘Well, here I am.’
His eyes flickered as if she’d told him a lie.
‘Or were you just practising your handwriting, filling in time … You must get bored. Bright boy like you, in a place like this. Isn’t that what the psychologists say? You’re bored.’
Stephen was half the size of the shadows he was casting. Always so much smaller than she remembered him being, when she was away from here. He hooded his eyes from her stare. Looking different. Not scared, not that, but different. Not quite so much in control.
Good.
‘You’ve been getting parcels, too. Things you didn’t ask for. Food, mostly. Bruton hasn’t passed any of it to you, he says, because that would be breaking the rules. You have to fill in a form if you want someone to send you a parcel. And they have to fill in a form. No forms, no food. That’s how it works. But you’ve broken the rules before, haven’t you? Smuggling my dad’s spectacles in here, and my mum’s brooch. Bruton thinks he’s too smart to let that happen, but he’s not so smart. He thinks you’re just a kid.’
Stephen’s eyes flickered again.
‘Who brought those things in here? The glasses, the brooch? Who’s sending you parcels? The same person, that would be my bet. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a detective. I find this stuff out for a living. Bruton may not be smart enough to figure it out, but he’s not me.’
This time, the only part of his eye that flickered was the iris.
‘Then there’s this.’ Marnie touched the tin of peaches. ‘It was left outside a house where two boys died. Most people leave flowers, or toys if children are involved. Cards with messages. Candles. We have to check the messages, in case one was written by the killer. I’m sure you know the kind of thing I mean.’
‘What did they leave for you?’ Stephen asked.
His voice was the same, too deep and old for a nineteen-year-old.
What did they leave for you?
It took her a second to realise he wasn’t talking about the Doyles’ house. He meant her parents’ house, five years ago. His eyes hadn’t left her face.
She wanted to rub at the stain put there by his stare.
When she didn’t speak, he filled the silence with, ‘Flowers? Or toys, because a child was involved?’ He sounded genuinely curious. ‘Why do people do that?’
‘I don’t know, Stephen. Why do people do anything? Why did you do what you did?’
He measured her with his stare, stretching the moment thin and taut, until it was in danger of snapping. Then, ‘I did it,’ he said softly, ‘for you.’
Behind them, on the other side of the wall, some kid was playing music in his room; the dead beat of a bass, no rhythm to it and no rhyme.
‘You …’ She didn’t want to rub at his stare on her face. She wanted to tear at it, with something sharp. ‘Say that again.’
He lowered his lashes at her in a slow blink, dark blue. ‘I did it for you.’
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Places of exile,’ Stephen said. ‘It’s written on your hip.’ He paused. ‘Your left hip. I knew what it meant. Places of exile. I knew how you felt.’
She felt beaten, out of breath. ‘And the parcels? Who’s sending those? Who’re you in touch with?’
He shook his head. ‘No one. I thought it was you.’
‘You thought I was sending you food parcels?’
He nodded.
‘Why would I do that?’
He shifted the slope of his shoulders. ‘Places of exile,’ he repeated, as if this answered her question.
‘I’ll find out,’ Marnie said. ‘I’ll find out who it is.’
‘Good,’ Stephen said, ‘because the fucker’s freaking me out.’
They looked at one another across the short distance of the table.
Was he telling the truth? She didn’t know, but she doubted it. Doubted that he knew what the truth was, let alone how to tell it.
‘There aren’t many people who know you’re in here. Your legal team. Your parents.’
That landed. His stare sparked, coldly.
‘Theo and Stella Keele,’ she said slowly. ‘Have they been in touch?’
He didn’t answer, reverting to a lush silence she knew he wouldn’t break, not this session. He had what he wanted. Her, on the back foot again. He was happy because she’d come here, dancing to his tune. She should have known better.
‘You think you can play games with me?’
She stood, so smoothly he blinked. ‘I’ll play. You’ll lose.’
• • •
Ed was waiting in the car. ‘Home?’
‘Home.’ She swung into the driver’s seat, fastening her belt.
It wasn’t yet 2 p.m. If nothing else, this trip had been quick. Plenty of time left in the day for what mattered, checking in with Noah and the team. Just as well.
She’d learnt nothing useful about Clancy’s notebooks. She still didn’t know who’d left the tin of peaches outside the house in Blackthorn Road. She’d thought there must be a link, a connection, to the preppers perhaps, knowing what little she did about Stephen’s past.
Or had she used that as an excuse to break her new rule and come back here? Chasing answers, not for this new case but for the old one. Adam had said he was sorry, about her parents, and she’d hoped … she’d let herself believe that Stephen might finally be sorry too. Ready to talk, to give her the answers she needed to make peace with her parents’ deaths.
I did it for you.
It couldn’t be true. All the way back into London-bound traffic that felt safe, like burrowing into anonymity, she told herself it couldn’t be true.
I did it for you.
It was a lie, like everything Stephen gave her. Just another lie, only this time he’d twisted it into such a terrible shape that whichever way she tried to take hold of it, she cut herself on its sharp edges. He was finding new ways to make her hurt. It was what he did. His madness kept moving, so she could never get an angle on it, never second-guess him.
So she could never lose interest.
The traffic thickened, slowing to a crawl.
Ed was watching her, quietly, but with concern. ‘What happened in there?’
‘I’ll tell you. Just … Let me try and make sense of it first.’
Ed nodded his acceptance of this.
Marnie rested her head on the door frame and watched the sun strip the metallic paint from the retreating traffic. ‘I will tell you,’ she promised.
The car fumes helped. She brea
thed them gratefully, a smell she understood. An honest, overpowering smell, wiping her out.
Her phone, on hands-free, played Noah’s tune.
She answered the call. ‘What’ve you got?’
‘Names,’ Noah said. ‘I think I’ve got names for our boys.’
44
‘Connie Pryce was living in the flat next door to Denis Walton, five years ago.’ Noah handed Marnie a cup of coffee from the takeaway stand near the station. ‘She left when the travellers left. Denis says she went with them, overnight more or less.’
‘Why?’
‘Denis didn’t have any theories. But Connie’s daughter had two small boys, Fred and Archie. Connie’s little angels … I’ve got Debbie chasing the housing department for details of Connie’s whereabouts, and her daughter’s.’
‘Does the daughter have a name?’
‘Denis couldn’t remember. He never met her. Something Old Testament, he thought.’
Noah had tried as many Old Testament women’s names as he could remember, without hitting on the one Denis half remembered. ‘But the boys were Fred and Archie. Connie talked about them all the time.’
‘Fred and Archie,’ Marnie repeated.
She was trying the names for size, as he had done, to see if they fitted their boys.
‘Did you get anywhere,’ he asked, ‘with the peaches?’
‘Nowhere.’ A full-stop in her voice.
‘There’s something else,’ Noah said, ‘about the daughter.’
Marnie worked the lid from the coffee. ‘Go on.’
‘Denis is pretty sure that she worked for Ian Merrick.’
Marnie stopped what she was doing and looked at him.
Noah nodded. ‘Connie went with the travellers when Merrick moved in to start building Beech Rise. Good riddance, Denis says, but I know he was fond of Connie. Her daughter was different. From what Denis says, they fell out over the housing development. He was pretty bitter about Merrick Homes, said they flattened everything in their way, ruined his views. The travellers lost their home, and it wasn’t gentle. The way Denis tells it, the police more or less bulldozed them out.’
‘And Fred and Archie?’
‘Denis doesn’t know what happened to them. Just that when the travellers were moved on, Connie went with them. Overnight. Left everything in her flat, even photos and books she’d liked reading to the boys. The council had to sort it all out. It doesn’t make sense that she’d go like that, leaving her grandchildren behind. Not unless something had happened.’
Marnie held the cardboard cup in both hands, not drinking. Steam from the coffee softened the hard line of her jaw. ‘Debbie’s going after names and addresses?’
‘Yes. And Ron’s chasing an address for the travellers. In case Connie’s still with them.’
She glanced up at him. ‘You don’t think she is?’
‘Denis said it was a snap decision, one he’s sure she lived to regret. He couldn’t believe she’d move away from Fred and Archie, for one thing. He says she lived for those kids.’
‘So if she went, it could be because she knew they were dead.’
‘It seems like a leap,’ Noah admitted. ‘But the way Denis spoke about Connie, and the fact that he’s so certain her daughter worked for Ian Merrick …’
‘Let’s see what Debbie can turn up. We need to ask Merrick what he knows. And we need to find these travellers, and Connie. Sorry,’ she handed back the coffee, ‘I’m all caffeined out.’
Noah emptied the coffee into the gutter, walking to the nearest bin to get rid of the cup.
When he walked back, Marnie was checking her phone.
‘Fran?’ Noah asked.
‘Not yet.’ Marnie put the phone into her pocket. ‘There was something else, though. From the bunker. Soil that matches the Doyles’ garden.’
‘From Terry’s boots?’
‘Not unless he lied to me. We need to look into that possibility. This soil was right by the bed, right by the boys.’
‘What are you thinking? Not … Clancy?’
‘Why not Clancy?’
‘Because he’s a kid, not much older than they were.’
‘Not much, but enough. Julie Lowry said she saw him hanging around in the garden.’
Noah shook his head. ‘She said he was watching the garden, from his bedroom window.’
‘She told Adam Fletcher she saw Clancy digging, right where the bunker is.’
‘That’s not what she told me. Maybe she elaborated, for the press.’ Remembering the way Julie had flirted with him, and how good-looking Fletcher was, Noah had no difficulty imagining that scenario. ‘You think Clancy found the bunker before we did?’
‘Someone went down there. Someone left the tin of peaches, too. Who would do that, unless they knew what was inside the bunker? Only two other possibilities: the killer came back, or someone on our team talked. I’m not keen on either of those options, are you?’
‘Debbie was chatting with Fletcher—’ Noah was speaking aloud, without thinking. He shut his mouth the second it was out. ‘I didn’t mean …’
‘Didn’t you?’ Marnie cut her eyes away. ‘I did. At least … I gave the idea headspace.’
Noah processed this, in silence. ‘She wouldn’t do that,’ he said at last. ‘None of us would. The boys matter too much.’
Marnie nodded. ‘I hope so.’ She checked her phone again. ‘Let’s get moving. As soon as we’ve got a name for Connie’s daughter, we can question Ian Merrick, see if there’s something he didn’t tell us first time around. And we need to know more about Clancy, and the Doyles. Debbie can get on to that.’
She started walking, then turned back to Noah. ‘You thought you had something, first thing. Before you saw Denis Walton?’
‘Yes.’ Noah fell into step with her. ‘About the pills you found. It could be nothing, but I’ve got Sol staying at the moment. He reminded me that Mum takes pills sometimes, for anxiety, panic attacks … The pills usually help to start with, and then she stops taking them, or she builds up a resistance, I don’t know exactly.’
Marnie listened, but didn’t speak. Her silence made it easier to keep talking.
‘When she stopped taking a prescription, I’d sometimes find the bottles, or strips like the one Clancy had, and I’d keep them. I don’t know why. It made me feel safe. Anyway, I looked up those pills that Beth found. Haloperidol? It’s used to treat all kinds of psychosis in all kinds of people.’
‘Go on.’
‘That’s it. I didn’t dig any deeper but I thought it was worth mentioning. In case we’re wrong about Clancy. In case they’re not his pills.’
Marnie’s silence was sceptical. If he hadn’t told her about his mother, he was certain she’d have shot his theory into tiny pieces. As it was, she said, ‘Okay. Let’s say he found them and hid them. Whose pills are they? And where did he find them?’
‘Like I said, it might be nothing. Me seeing connections where there aren’t any.’
‘Too many connections,’ Marnie said. ‘That’s my problem with this case. Soil by the bed, peaches in the street … Someone’s playing games.’
Noah heard the flare of anger in her voice, white hot. They’d reached the station steps.
‘Find Connie Pryce,’ Marnie said. ‘And get a name for her daughter, see if she was on Merrick’s payroll. I’d like to give him a hard time about that.’
Her phone buzzed. ‘Fran? Go ahead.’
Her face changed as she listened, her eyes moving away from Noah, away from everything other than whatever Fran was telling her. ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
She shut her phone. ‘We need to go. Fran’s got something.’
He followed her at a jog, in the direction of the car park.
‘You were right. They’re Connie’s little angels.’ Marnie unlocked the car. ‘Fred and Archie Reid.’
They climbed in. She fired the engine.
‘They weren’t in the missing persons database for a good
reason.’
Noah reached for his seat belt. ‘Why?’
‘Someone had decided they were already dead.’
45
‘When you told me Missing Persons had nothing …’ Fran held a sheet of paper between her hands, delicately, as if it was a living thing. ‘I didn’t want to look for them in the only place I could look, but I did.’ She surrendered the sheet. ‘That’s where I found them.’
Marnie took custody of the printout, holding it where she and Noah could read it together. Death records, for two boys.
Fred and Archie Reid.
Fred was a Christmas baby, born 25 December 2005. Archie was the older, by three years, born 20 March 2002. They were five and eight when the report said they died.
Parents: Esther and Matthew Reid.
‘DNA confirms it,’ Fran said. ‘Esther’s the mother. The boys you found are hers.’
The printout was black and white, mostly white. Whoever wrote the report hadn’t known how the boys really died. It was a sterile summing-up of the horror and sadness that Marnie and Noah had uncovered in the bunker.
Fran said, ‘There’s someone else.’ She passed a second sheet across the desk.
Another death record, for Louisa Reid, just eight months old when she died.
‘A baby sister?’ Noah’s skin felt too tight for his skull.
‘Drowned,’ Marnie read from the report. She looked across at Fran. ‘It says all three of the children drowned, five years ago. We know that’s not true.’
Fran turned her laptop towards them. ‘They found Louisa’s body in the Thames, or rather a fisherman did. Fergus Gibb, poor man … I have an address for him, in case that helps.’
She pointed at the monitor. ‘The mother confessed. She said she drowned all three children. The evidence supported her confession. The boys’ clothing and personal effects were at the scene. She was convicted on three counts of manslaughter.’
Marnie wrote down Fergus Gibb’s name and address. ‘Manslaughter. Not murder?’
‘Diminished responsibility, which brings me to these …’
Fran put a foil strip of pills on the desk. ‘Haloperidol is an anti-psychotic. Used, among other things, to treat post-partum psychosis. Where did you find these?’
‘Post-partum psychosis,’ Marnie repeated. ‘That was the mother’s plea?’ She referred to the death records. ‘Esther’s plea?’