by T. M. Logan
‘I think you do, Max,’ I say. ‘They were together on Tuesday. That’s what Detective Sergeant Holt was just talking to you about, wasn’t it?’
‘How’d you know his name?’ He frowns, his heavy forehead bunching. ‘That cop?’
‘I’ve talked to him too.’ I sense him withdrawing again, putting more pressure on the door. ‘Listen, I was at the pub just now, the Red Lion, and the landlord mentioned Kathryn’s sister? I wondered if you’d heard from her too, if you’d spoken to her recently?’
He freezes, the red rising further up his cheeks, his jaw clenching and unclenching. ‘What?’
‘Has DS Holt already spoken to her?’
‘No.’ His voice is low and flat with an undercurrent of barely-controlled rage. ‘I think you should go now.’
I take a business card from my purse and quickly write my mobile number on the back of it. I hand it to him and he studies it, front and back, as if he’s not quite sure whether to hurl it back at me.
‘If you give me your number too, Max, I can let you know if I hear—’
But he’s already closing the door.
I walk down the steps and across the courtyard. In the silence of my car I sit and think about what Max had said, replaying his lies in my head. Don’t know what you’re talking about. What baby? Was he aware of the role played by Dominic, the angry ex-boyfriend, in the events of these past few days? After a few minutes, I type ‘Seer Green’ into the satnav, and make the short drive to the small train station where Kathryn got off the train on Tuesday.
It’s another picturesque Chiltern village, a few miles nearer to London. Why didn’t she get off in Great Missenden, which was nearer to her flat? Was that where she got on? And what was here? There’s a pub, a church, a primary school. Not much else. I park at the little train station and walk up onto the platform through open ticket barriers, staring down the two parallel tracks carving their way through the Buckinghamshire countryside and flanked by trees on both sides. It’s a little two-platform stop that looks like it hasn’t changed much since the 1950s, I guess mostly used by commuter-belt workers heading in and out of London. Was Kathryn meeting someone? Or avoiding Dominic, waiting for her at the end of the line in London? And most important of all, why leave Mia behind?
On the drive home, I can’t stop thinking about Holt visiting Kathryn’s flat without Gilbourne. The way he’d looked when he left: furtive somehow, as if he didn’t want to be seen. Max lying about Mia. His reaction when I asked about Kathryn’s sister. I’m still trying to decide whether I should ask Gilbourne about her as I pull up on the drive of my house, still mulling it over as I find my front door key and fit it into the lock.
The side gate slams in the wind, the wood banging against the frame like a gunshot. I flinch, my pulse spiking. I’m sure the gate was bolted when I left. I push it open carefully in a creak of hinges and walk around the little block-paved path at the side of the house, cold fingers of unease at the tip of my spine. I stop at the edge of the garden.
The kitchen door has been kicked in.
27
I can see through the busted door that the kitchen is a mess.
Run. That’s my first instinct. Get away. Go to Tara’s house, to a hotel, anywhere but here. I take a step back towards my car, engine still ticking as it cools on the drive. But at the gate, I stop, the heat of shame rising up from my chest, the prickle of frustration and anger. I’ve never run away from anything in my life. I’ve stood and faced everything head-on. This is my house. My home.
Heart thumping in my chest, I turn back around and walk over to the patio to look in through the kitchen windows. Cupboards and drawers hang open, pots and pans and cutlery and food strewn across the floor. The lounge is worse. Through the closed patio doors I can see books and DVDs scattered everywhere, chairs knocked over, the sofa cushions ripped and scattered. The drawers of my antique writing desk pulled out and upturned, contents spilled. A bookcase knocked down, framed pictures lying in shattered glass, dark earth spilled across the carpet from pot plants knocked to the floor. There’s no sign of Dizzy and I look around the garden in case he’s waiting for me but he’s nowhere to be seen. He’s a smart little guy – he would know when to run and hide, where to wait out the storm.
I can’t see anyone inside. Phone in my hand, I step carefully into the kitchen and listen, waiting, straining my ears to hear any sound of movement. But the house is silent, as if it is exhausted, broken by this ordeal. The kitchen door hangs drunkenly, half off its hinges, fragments of wood and plaster from the wall scattered just inside on the kitchen floor. I’m about to try to push it closed when I remember I shouldn’t touch anything: my house is a crime scene now, there might be fingerprints. Evidence.
Gilbourne’s words ring in my ears again, the scepticism in his voice when I had called him about last night’s intruder. ‘The baby’s on your mind, it’s a pretty intense experience you’ve had. I can see why you might want to see a link between the two things.’
I’m not imagining this.
There is a spilled bag of rice near the kitchen door, grains scattered in a long white arc across the tiles, and I step over it into the hallway. It’s the same in here, coats thrown across the floor, their pockets pulled inside out. I pick up a few books and magazines spilt from the side table onto the stripped wooden floorboards, feeling something hard at the bottom of the pile. My iPad. I check the lounge again. The TV is still here, too.
I stop at the foot of the stairs, listen again with my phone in my hand. Silence.
One careful step at a time, I go slowly up the stairs. A faint smell of something here, of exhaled breath and disturbed air. The same faint scents as last night when I found my kitchen door unlocked, earthy and dark. Did I know they would come back for a second visit? Maybe. Perhaps I’ve just been in denial.
All four doors off the landing are open and it is clear that none of the bedrooms have been spared. The master bedroom is a riot of clothes on the bed, on the floor, bags and shoes and coats, all the drawers and wardrobes open. My bedside drawer is open and scattered beneath are my passport, a few credit cards and a small box of jewellery that includes a few items inherited from my grandmother. Diamond stud earrings that I haven’t worn in years, a silver chain bracelet. Still here.
When I go into the little box bedroom that looks out over the garden, all my fear turns to angry tears, a hard weight brimming behind my eyes.
Last night I was terrified at the idea of my home being invaded while I was upstairs. My sanctuary, my refuge from everything, being violated by a stranger. I’ve had an uneasy feeling all day that someone might be watching me, following me. Last night they left the house untouched but were close enough to hurt me if they wanted to. Today I was far away, safe, when they returned – but it’s still much worse, because of what they’ve done to this room.
It’s the room we once decorated as a nursery, sunshine yellow walls and soft cream carpet, one feature wall papered with circus animals. Neutral yellow, not pink or blue. Ready for pine furniture, a cot and a wardrobe and maybe a chest of drawers with a changing table on top. This would have been the baby’s room, and then when he or she got big enough we were going to move them into the spare room to make way for a sibling, maybe two. Richard and I decorated it together one weekend, Radio Two on and sunshine streaming through the window, me in the first trimester of the only natural pregnancy we managed to conceive. I was already allowing myself surreptitious visits to Boots and JoJo Maman Bébé to buy a few sleepsuits and vests and scratch mittens and all the things I knew I shouldn’t – but I wanted to dive into it, to be fully immersed in it, to be properly ready. Ignorant of what was to come. That was before the worst years started, before the brutal cycles of IVF and the endless waiting, hoping, praying, wondering in sleepless hours whether I had somehow cursed it – cursed my pregnancy – by buying baby clothes too far in advance.
I haven’t been into the nursery for months and normally I keep the door shut.
It’s a snapshot of a life that will never be, a museum exhibit, preserved in aspic and frozen in time.
Now it’s in an even worse state than the rest of the house. Everything is torn, opened, strewn on the floor. Drawers pulled out and turned upside down, smashed, the wood splintered and snapped. Everything opened, emptied, ripped. Hurled against walls and stripped of their contents. The destruction downstairs is methodical; but this is on a whole different level. It looks like venom. Like anger.
The tears spill then. I’m furious at myself, but I can’t help it. I cuff the tears away with the heel of my hand, not wanting to look at the ruin of the nursery but unable to look away. I pick the little doll off the floor and set it on the small painted chair by the door. It doesn’t make sense. There is literally nothing in here worth stealing. Nothing of value. I haven’t even set foot in the room since . . . I don’t know when. Maybe the summer, a few months ago. I nudge the shattered remnants of a wooden drawer with the toe of my shoe. Then I begin setting some of the furniture back upright to clear the floorspace a little.
And I realise there is something missing.
The half-dozen sleepsuits – soft white cotton never worn or washed – are gone. The little nought to three month vests are gone. The scratch mittens and a few other items of baby clothing, bought years ago during those furtive visits to Boots, all gone.
A thought pushes its way through the anger and fear: this is all about Mia. But she’s never been here in my house, not even once. Did they see the little nursery in the box room and connect it to her? Did they take the baby clothes as the next best thing, as evidence of her presence here? That doesn’t even make sense. Or was someone trying to send me a message? I have no idea what the message might be, apart from the fact that it somehow relates back to Mia.
Everything relates back to her.
In the bathroom I find a box of tissues among the bottles and creams knocked off the shelf, dry my eyes and blow my nose. I go into the spare bedroom last, survey the damage there. More of the same, wardrobes open and searched, everything flung to the floor, blankets and old clothes and pillows piled up to complete the wreckage of my house.
I’m about to go back downstairs when I notice something. Feel something. A draught. A breeze. Just a touch of cold autumn air coming through an open window across the room. Pulling the sleeve of my shirt over my hand to avoid messing up any fingerprints, I shut the window and turn the key in the lock, making sure the latch is fully down. I need to call 101, and when I’ve done that I’ll call Gilbourne as well.
I turn to leave the room and immediately freeze in place, the breath stolen from my chest.
There is a man standing behind the door.
28
I register two things in the first split-second of shock.
He is dressed all in black.
His face is covered with a balaclava.
Pure liquid terror rushes from my stomach down to my toes, a wash of fear so powerful it almost knocks me off my feet. My mind fills with an image of the stranger from the train two days ago. Thin build. Staring eyes. Fingerless gloves. He’s found me. We stare at each other for a moment and he takes a step forward into the room, a black spider unfolding itself from the shadows.
A masked stranger in my house. A stalker. Maybe a killer.
I move towards the open door but his left hand shoots out and slams it shut, the sound of varnished timber hitting the doorframe like a shotgun blast in the silence. He shakes his head slowly – no – his eyes two pinpricks of light inside the balaclava. In the mask he looks like a terrorist, an assassin – but there is a familiarity in the way he moves, in the articulation of his limbs. I scan the jumble of items on the floor at my feet for something I can use to defend myself with; blankets and sheets, clothes, pillows. Nothing solid, nothing that might do damage.
He takes another half-step towards me and I back away, further from the door, holding up my hands in a calming gesture.
‘Take whatever you want,’ I say, my voice taut. ‘And just go.’
His eyes take me in. A predator sizing up prey.
‘Not. Yet.’
His voice is smooth, calm, both ‘t’s’ pronounced clearly and precisely. As if he’s happy to take his time.
‘Just go, please,’ I say. ‘I won’t call the police, I won’t try to stop you.’
He snorts.
‘Put your phone on the bed.’
I’d forgotten I still had my mobile in my hand. I lean down and drop it onto the bare mattress without taking my eyes off him. He scoops it up in one fingerless black glove and switches it off, puts it up on top of the wardrobe.
I take a step back, away from him.
‘Keep it,’ I say. ‘There’s an iPad downstairs too, some money in my purse, jewellery in the master bedroom. It’s all I have that’s worth taking.’
He gestures at the mess on the floor, his eyes narrowing. ‘What? You think I did this? You think I broke into your house?’ Anger shimmers beneath his words.
‘You’re here, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ he snaps. ‘This was not me. I didn’t do this.’
‘I believe you, I’m sorry.’ I have to keep him talking. ‘I just assumed—’
‘I simply came over to take a look at your place for background and I saw your back door was open. I thought someone might be hurt.’
Background? I think. What is he talking about? He has a black rucksack on his back, big enough to hold all the baby clothes that have disappeared from the room next door.
‘OK,’ I say.
‘I was about to leave but then you came back and caught me by surprise.’
‘That makes two of us,’ I say.
Is he carrying a weapon? I can’t see one.
He moves forward again, edging me back towards the corner, his black-clad frame blocking the door, sucking all the light from the room.
‘Someone did quite a number on your house though, didn’t they? What do you think they were looking for?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Clearly they were searching for something.’
‘They?’
He shrugged.
‘Whoever did this. You must have something they want.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Did they find it, I wonder?’
He’s testing me, I realise. Checking to see if I give the right answer, or try to fool him with the wrong one. If I tell the truth, I can’t trip myself up.
‘I have no idea, I don’t even know what it is. All that I’ve found missing so far are some baby clothes.’ I want to say in the nursery but it sounds foolish, ridiculous, a word I haven’t said out loud for a long time. ‘They were in the little box room.’
He stares at me for a moment, his eyes narrowing. Weighing up my answer. Finally, his cheeks stretch beneath the black wool of the balaclava in what I assume is a grin.
‘This just keeps getting better,’ he says. ‘You don’t even know who the child is, do you?’
‘Child?’ I frown. ‘You mean Mia? How do you know about her?’
‘I know a lot, Ellen. About you. About her. All kinds of interesting details.’
I back away again, towards the window.
‘How . . . how do you know my name? How did you know where I live?’
‘I’m good at finding things out. It’s what I do.’
‘You’re the guy from the train,’ I say quietly. ‘The one who sat down at the table opposite me.’
The weirdo who took photographs, followed me off the platform.
‘I wanted to help her, to help Kathryn,’ he says tonelessly. ‘I want to help you, too.’
‘Help me with what?’
‘You handed the baby over to the police, did you?’
‘Of course.’
‘You trusted the police.’
‘Yes.’
He sighs and shakes his head. ‘Mistake.’
‘Why?’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’
‘
They let him get away once already.’
‘They let who get away?’
‘The husband. Don’t you know? It’s always the husband.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I say, thoughts tumbling around in my head. ‘Kathryn’s husband?’
He sighs, as if disappointed. ‘The one who wants to take her away. To take the baby away.’
‘Tell me,’ I say, desperation creeping into my voice. ‘Please. Why was it a mistake to hand Mia over to the police?’
He moves closer. I take another step away from him and almost stumble on a cardboard box that has been thrown to the floor. He is close now, close enough that I can smell him, sickly-sweet sweat and a tang of bleach beneath it.
‘Because,’ he says, leaning into my face, ‘it will make her easier to find.’
His fists are clenching and unclenching by his sides, as if he is struggling to control himself. Black fingerless gloves, just like on the train. I notice for the first time that his fingertips are covered too, in smooth transparent latex, like a surgeon.
No fingerprints. No DNA.
Fear wedges in my throat like a splinter.
‘Why are you wearing gloves?’ I say quietly.
He doesn’t answer. His cheeks broaden beneath the balaclava again but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes and it’s gruesome, false, as if he learned it by rote from watching TV. Think. There are two ways out of this room. Through the door to the landing or out of the window, dropping down onto the back patio. Both shut. If I run for the window, will he try to stop me? Of course he will.
There is a third way out of this room, I realise with a cold certainty: carried out on a stretcher or zipped into a bodybag. An image pops into my head of crime scene officers in white boiler suits standing here later this evening, or tomorrow, or next week. Examining, photographing, looking for clues. Sifting through the wreckage of my house as they try to connect victim and killer. The scene jolts me as if I’ve just grabbed a live wire.
I am nobody’s victim.
I nod towards the closed door, as if expecting it to open at any moment.