by T J Stimson
He patted the bed beside him and she flew to him, burying her face against his chest as he enfolded her in his arms. ‘I know the strain you’ve been under,’ he murmured, his chin against the top of her head. ‘It’s not surprising you’ve dropped the ball a few times. It’d be more surprising if you hadn’t. You’re human, Mads. And you’re not the only one.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll be in the middle of a meeting and suddenly realise I’ve got no idea what anyone’s said to me for the last half an hour. I got all the way to Homebase the other day and sat for twenty minutes in the car park trying to figure out what it was I’d gone there for.’
‘I’m not crazy,’ she said thickly.
He gave her a hug. ‘Of course you’re not crazy! But the stress we’ve both been under is unbearable. And we all react to it in different ways. I’ve seen the way you zone out sometimes. I’ll be talking to you and it’s like you’re in a world of your own. Honestly, I think a bomb could go off under you and you wouldn’t notice.’ His smile took the sting from his words. ‘You lost a child, Maddie. I’m not a doctor, but if I had to guess, I’d say that business with the nursery was some kind of PTSD.’
Post-traumatic stress. It had never occurred to her that’s what her blackouts might be. But now that Lucas had suggested it, it made sense. Losing track of time, zoning out, memory loss: PTSD would explain everything.
Except, of course, her blackouts had started before Noah died.
‘Have you thought about talking to Calkins again?’ Lucas asked gently. ‘I know you don’t want to, but you need to talk to someone who knows how to help you, before this gets any worse.’ He hesitated, clearly afraid of upsetting her again. ‘What you did to Noah’s room, Mads, with the paint, ripping up the carpet, that frightened me. There was so much anger there.’
Abruptly, she pulled away from him. ‘You think I hurt Noah, don’t you?’
He hesitated just a fraction too long.
‘You think I had some kind of breakdown and killed Noah. I can see it in your eyes!’ She leaped up from the bed, feeling utterly betrayed. ‘How could you, Lucas?’
‘I didn’t say—’
‘That’s what all this has been about, isn’t it?’ she cried. ‘All this sympathy and understanding. You’re softening me up, trying to get me ready for the men in white coats, so I don’t kick up a fuss when they come to take me away!’
‘Maddie, calm down. This isn’t a conspiracy. I just want what’s best for you, what’s best for all of us.’
‘What’s your end game, Lucas?’ she demanded furiously. ‘Is the plan to get me out of the way, have me arrested or committed, and then sell the sanctuary? Is that it? Was taking out a mortgage on our house and putting everything we have at risk not enough for you?’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Maddie, do you have any idea how delusional you sound?’
He was right. She sounded paranoid, utterly crazy. She didn’t make sense, even to herself. And that was exactly what he’d wanted all along, wasn’t it?
Chapter 26
Tuesday 2.30 p.m.
The smell of smoke woke Maddie first. She’d been dreaming of bonfires and fireworks, laughing with the children as they waved their sparklers and jumped up and down in their wellies, the flames catching the Guy Fawkes effigy on top of the bonfire.
She jolted awake, blinking hard to clear her head. She must have fallen asleep at her office desk. It took her a few moments to realise she could still hear the crackle of flames, even though she was wide awake and Bonfire Night was months away.
She leaped out of her chair. Thick coils of grey smoke were already roiling beneath the door of her office, filling the small Portakabin with shocking speed. She pulled up her sweatshirt to cover her mouth and nose, coughing as she inhaled a lungful of acrid smoke. Outside, she could hear the horses whinnying with terror in their boxes, their hooves banging against the walls.
She groped for the door handle, then let it go with a gasp as the hot metal burned her hand. Heat radiated through the thin cabin walls. For a moment, she was too terrified to move, but the sound of Finn’s frightened whinnies gave her courage and she yanked the door open.
A wall of flames greeted her. The stable block was fiercely ablaze, fire leaping a dozen feet high into the sky. A sweet, nauseating smell filled the air. The horses were burning alive.
Sparks flew from the burning building, raining down around her. She was already cut off by a sheet of flames ahead of her and to her left. Her only option was the alleyway to her right, leading towards the old barn where they stored the feed and farm implements. If she could make it to the barn, she could get through to the upper meadow and safety. From there she could double round to the back of the stable block and reach the horses that way.
She was almost blinded by smoke. She could hardly breathe, the hot, gritty air searing her lungs. She briefly glimpsed a figure on the other side of the yard, behind the burning stable block, though she couldn’t see who it was. A violent fit of coughing forced her to bend double, her hands on her knees as she gasped for breath. When she looked up again through streaming eyes, the figure had gone, and she wondered if she’d imagined it.
She wiped her eyes, trying to see through the smoke. For a brief moment, it cleared, and with a shock, she realised the figure was Lucas. He was just standing there with his back towards her, gazing at the blazing stables. Why wasn’t he opening the back gate to let the horses out? Why wasn’t he doing anything?
The barn roof collapsed with a mighty crash and he turned and stared straight at her. She knew he’d seen her. And still he did nothing.
She was cut off, now. Flames surrounded her on all four sides. The oxygen was being sucked up by the fire and her lungs heaved with effort. She couldn’t get enough air, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe—
‘Maddie! Maddie! Wake up!’
Izzy was shaking her awake. Maddie gasped in a deep lungful of air, her heart pounding, the image of the flames still dancing behind her eyes. ‘Oh, God, Izzy! I was having such a terrible nightmare. The stables were on fire, and Lucas was just standing there—’
‘Never mind that now. The police are here to see you.’
‘It was so real,’ she insisted, still only half-awake. ‘Everything was on fire. I couldn’t get the horses out—’
‘Maddie, pull it together. The police want to talk to you.’
With an effort, she cleared her head and shook herself awake. It was a measure of how unreal her life had become that she didn’t even question why the police were here. She’d been expecting them, after Jacob’s near miss yesterday. She was surprised they hadn’t arrested her in a dawn raid at home, even though she’d done nothing wrong. ‘Where are they?’
‘Outside by the ring. Do you want me to send them in?’
‘No. I could use some fresh air.’
She stood up, trying to force the harrowing images from her mind. She’d had nightmares ever since Noah’s death, dreadful dreams in which she ran down endless dark corridors in search of her son, her legs moving horribly slowly as if she were struggling through quicksand. But she’d never dreamed of a fire like this, of feeling her own skin melt around her bones. The horses; it made her sick just to think about it. And Lucas, standing there with that awful smile on his face, doing nothing as he watched her burn.
The red-haired detective was leaning against the splitrail fence by the upper paddock.
The bright afternoon sunlight caught the woman’s hair and gave her a fiery halo that reminded Maddie queasily of her dream.
‘Sorry to bother you at work,’ DS Ballard said.
She didn’t sound sorry. ‘What do you need?’ Maddie asked shortly.
‘I heard about the scare you had with Jacob yesterday. That must have given you quite a fright.’
Maddie opened the door to Finn’s box as he nickered and rubbed a whiskery pink nose against her face. Her heartbeat started to return to its normal rate, the nightmare fading in Finn’s reassuring presence. ‘Before you
ask, no, I don’t know how Jacob managed to get the bottle open, and yes, I’m sure I screwed the lid on properly. It’s one of those things you do automatically when you have kids, like tugging their seat belts after you buckle them in.’
‘You’d be amazed how many parents don’t even bother with car seats,’ DS Ballard said.
Maddie stroked Finn’s long nose. ‘Well, I’m not one of them.’
She adjusted his hay net and checked his water. It was low, so she picked up the heavy black plastic bucket and headed towards the standpipe in the centre of the stable yard.
DS Ballard followed her, like a bad smell she couldn’t leave behind. ‘Remind me, Maddie, who else was in the house yesterday afternoon?’
‘I’m sure you’ve already checked,’ she said testily. ‘It was just me and the children. Lucas was at work.’
‘I believe his sister stopped by, too?’
Maddie hefted the full water bucket and turned back to Finn’s box. ‘Yes, but I didn’t see her. I was asleep.’
‘Can I help you with that bucket?’
‘I’m fine.’
She gave Finn his water. DS Ballard fell in step with her as she headed towards the lower paddock to check on two new rescue ponies who’d arrived at the weekend, pointedly acting as if the policewoman wasn’t there.
‘It’s not the first time Jacob has been admitted to casualty, is it?’ DS Ballard asked.
Maddie didn’t break her stride.
‘According to his medical records, he’s been treated there twice in the past year,’ the woman continued, keeping pace. ‘Last summer, he was admitted with a broken arm, apparently from falling while climbing a bookcase at home, and then just before Christmas, he allegedly shut his hand in the door.’
‘He’s a little boy,’ Maddie snapped, infuriated by the policewoman’s obvious scepticism. ‘It’s what they do. They climb trees and play with matches and stick their heads through railings.’
She was so tired of everyone questioning her mothering. She didn’t know if Lucas really thought she’d hurt Noah and Jacob or if he just wanted her to doubt herself for some dark reason she couldn’t fathom, but deep in her bones she knew she’d never deliberately harm her children. She wasn’t perfect and she made mistakes, like every other mother, but that’s all they were: mistakes.
‘Do you have children?’ she asked DS Ballard suddenly. She needed this woman to understand.
The woman looked surprised. ‘No. I’m not married.’ ‘A brother, then?’
‘Two brothers and a sister.’
‘And how many times did your mother end up in casualty?’
‘She probably lost count,’ the detective admitted.
‘If you combed through their medical records, I’m sure you could make a case for abuse, but that doesn’t mean your mother was guilty of anything other than having two normal little boys.’
DS Ballard suddenly stepped into her path, forcing her to stop. ‘Frequent visits to casualty are also a common indicator of domestic abuse, Mrs Drummond. It’s my job to look into them and determine if an investigation is warranted.’
‘I wasn’t even with Jacob when he broke his arm,’ Maddie retorted. ‘You can check with the hospital if you don’t believe me. My mother had arranged for me to go away for a few days, to give me a break. The Burgh Island Hotel in Devon, if you want to check. I was depressed, she and Lucas thought it’d be a good idea. The accident happened while I was away. They didn’t even tell me until I got home, because they didn’t want me to worry.’
The detective’s interest sharpened. ‘Who was looking after Jacob, then? Your husband?’
‘No, I don’t think so. It was a weekday trip, the hotel was doing some kind of two-for-one deal. He’d have been working.’ She stepped around the other woman and opened the gate into the lower paddock. ‘I think my mother was looking after Jacob, but it might have been Candace.’
‘Your sister-in-law was babysitting Jacob when he broke his arm?’
She suddenly got what the policewoman was driving at. A chill settled in the pit of her stomach. All roads seemed to lead to Candace. ‘I don’t know,’ Maddie said. ‘Maybe. I wasn’t there, I told you.’
‘And when Jacob got his hand stuck in the door. Who was with him then?’
Maddie pulled a carrot from her pocket as the ponies trotted across the paddock, her mind working overtime. Could her sister-in-law really be capable of hurting her own brother’s children? Why?
‘We were all there,’ she said slowly. ‘It was two days before Christmas, everyone was in the house – Lucas, the children, my mother, Candace, Izzy and Bitsy, plus a couple of friends from down the road. I wasn’t in the room, so I didn’t see what happened, but somehow Jacob got his hand shut in one of the kitchen cupboard doors.’ She gave each of the two rescue ponies a carrot, gentling them as they nuzzled against her. ‘I didn’t think it was broken, but it was really swollen, so I took him to hospital just in case. The swelling had gone down by Christmas morning.’
The detective rummaged in her pockets and produced a pack of Polos. ‘May I?’
Maddie looked surprised, then nodded.
‘I used to go riding every Sunday when I was a child,’ DS Ballard said, unwrapping the mints as the ponies whickered and butted their heads against her shoulder. ‘I always kept a packet of Polos in my pocket. This takes me back. I don’t think I’ve been on a horse in years.’
‘We do refresher lessons for returning riders,’ Maddie said absently. ‘Talk to Izzy. She could arrange something for you.’
‘I might do that.’ The detective gave the ponies the last of the mints and patted their noses. ‘So, your sister-in-law, Candace, was with you at Christmas, too?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you get on well with her?’
‘I’ve always loved Candace. She’s kind and very sweet with the children.’
‘But?’
Maddie hesitated, her loyalties torn. Despite everything Candace had put them through with her drinking over the years, she did love her sister-in-law. She’d never questioned Candace’s love for her niece and nephews in the past, and even now she found it impossible to picture her ever wanting to harm them. But she knew Lucas’s sister had been irrevocably scarred by the loss of her parents. How deep did that damage really run?
‘She’s had problems in the past,’ she said finally. ‘With alcohol. She lost her job a few years ago and Lucas has had to help her out quite a lot.’
‘She has financial troubles?’
‘She’s never been very good with money, but, obviously, after she lost her job, things were a bit tight. She had to sell her flat in London and move down here. Lucas lent her the money to start her own IT company about a year ago and she’s got some good clients, but she’s still getting it off the ground.’
‘You must have quite a lot of financial commitments yourself, running this place,’ DS Ballard observed. ‘You don’t mind your husband lending his sister money?’
Maddie shrugged noncommittally.
‘Would it be fair to say this isn’t an issue on which you and your husband see eye to eye?’ She took Maddie’s silence as assent. ‘I understand the two of you took out a second mortgage recently. Your husband told us it was to help his sister buy somewhere to live.’
Maddie looked startled. ‘He told you about that?’
‘It’s all part of our wider investigation,’ DS Ballard said blandly. ‘So your husband has lent his sister money for her company and you’ve both helped her to buy a flat. Do you have plans for any further loans? If your sister-in-law needed additional funds to keep the business going, for example.’
‘No,’ Maddie said shortly.
‘I also understand your husband recently doubled your life insurance,’ the detective said.
‘Because of the mortgage, yes. The bank insisted on it.’ Maddie dug her hands into the pockets of her padded vest. ‘Look, where are you going with this?’
‘And of course
he also arranged cover for your three children,’ DS Ballard continued. Her gaze didn’t leave Maddie’s face. ‘Ah,’ she said softly. ‘You didn’t know.’
Lydia
They don’t know what to do with her. When she was being held before her trial, they stuck her in an ordinary care home for teenage girls, then refused to let her mix with them in case her wickedness was catching. After she’s sent down, smuggled out of the courthouse under a scratchy grey blanket, they take her to an adult prison where she is kept in isolation in the hospital wing while they try to work out where to send her next. They don’t have a prison uniform small enough to fit her, so they give her an adult one that trails on the floor and makes her seem even younger than she really is.
It’s as if it hasn’t occurred to anyone until now that she might be convicted and they’ll have to find somewhere to keep her. She knows she isn’t the first child to be jailed for murder, or even the youngest, but the whole notion is so unpalatable, so unthinkable, they’ve all been burying their heads in the sand and hoping she’d go away.
But she didn’t, so here she is, in her baggy uniform with the cuffs turned over and the legs rolled up, stuck in a bare cell with a window too high for her to see out and a plastic bucket in the corner for her to piss in.
Being locked up doesn’t bother her. She quickly gets used to the sounds of the prison: the keys, the barked orders. At night, the lights are turned out and she’s alone but not frightened. She has regular meals and hot showers, and best of all, there’s no Mae and no Jimmy. She feels more free in jail than she ever did at home. In a way, the rules make her feel safe.
But of course she can’t stay in an adult prison. They still don’t know what to do with her, so after two weeks, they move her to a short-term remand facility for young offenders with high-security provisions – she laughs when she sees the razor wire: do they think she’s going to go on the lam, at eleven years old? – but at least this time they don’t lock her up on her own.
To her surprise, the other girls welcome her like she’s one of them, sharing their cigarettes and pointing out the decent screws. They know who she is, why she’s here, and for the first time, she discovers the benefits of her notoriety. In here, she’s a celebrity, like Jack the Ripper.