by T. M. Logan
‘You were waiting for nightfall, so you could get rid of us under cover of darkness.’
‘I was. But I was going to drive you out into the countryside and leave you somewhere so you couldn’t identify me straight away, couldn’t stop me taking Mia to safety.’
‘Safety?’
‘I wasn’t going to harm you, or her. I swear on my mother’s life.’
I edge sideways along the wall, inching nearer to my car and ready to burst into a run if he makes another move towards me.
‘I’m leaving now, Dominic.’
‘You’re going to run away again?’
‘I’ve never run away from anything in my life.’
‘You ran away to your friend’s house to play happy families with her three little boys.’
I flinch, stopping in my tracks. ‘How did you know I was staying with Tara?’
‘I had your phone, remember?’ He shrugs. ‘Your whole life was on there, birthdays, addresses, diary, messages. She was your most frequent contact. I’ve been keeping tabs on you.’
The sound of a car engine rises up from the ramp below and Dominic’s eyes flick to me, then in the direction of the sound. He slides back into the space between the two big SUVs. The new arrival, a small white Volkswagen, pulls into a vacant spot below us and we both watch as a young woman gets out and hurries to the stairwell at the centre of the level. While Dominic is distracted I circle around and further away from him, putting me a few feet closer to my own car.
He emerges from his hiding place once more, moving closer, cutting off my line of escape again.
‘Just ask yourself how you’d feel,’ he says, his voice low. ‘If something happened to one of those little boys.’
Noah, Lucas and little Charlie. A cold stab of fear slides between my ribs.
‘Is that a threat?’
‘It’s a hypothetical. Someone’s come after you twice already, who’s to say they’re going to stop? They found you once, why couldn’t they find you again?’
‘You lay a finger on any one of them and I’ll—’
‘Me? I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about whoever’s doing all this.’
‘Leon Markovitz?’
‘Possibly.’
‘If not him, then who?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. All I can say is that I think we both want the same thing, you and I. But I’ve run out of options. You’re the only one who can help her now.’
He comes closer and for the first time I notice a desperation in his eyes, an anguish, that I hadn’t seen on Tuesday. His big shoulders slump and his chin drops, the dark circles heavy under his eyes. He looks exhausted, bone tired.
‘Will you help Mia?’ His voice is barely above a whisper now. ‘Will you help me?’
It occurs to me that he’s never actually told me what his interest is in all of this. In the handful of hours we spent together on Tuesday, I assumed he was Kathryn’s ex-husband or rejected boyfriend, out for revenge. But I didn’t ask for the truth, and he never offered it.
‘Who are you, Dominic? Tell me, and I’ll think about it. Tell me the truth: is Mia your daughter, are you not allowed to see her anymore? Is that what it is, a restraining order? Are you Kathryn’s ex, denied access to your own flesh and blood?’
He looks at me for a long time, his eyes filled with a plunging sadness I’ve not seen there before. Eventually he shakes his head.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Mia’s not my daughter. And she’s not Kathryn’s either.’
41
‘So who are you?’ I say, trying to recalibrate everything according to what Dominic has just told me, to assemble all the different fragments of this puzzle. ‘And if Mia’s not your daughter, who is she?’
‘It’ll be easier for you if you don’t know. All you need to know is that she is in terrible danger, she’s out there, she’s defenceless and we have to get a warning to the people looking after her. You have to get her back. You’re the only one who can help me, because you’ll be able to get close to her. They won’t let me anywhere near.’
‘Then you should tell this to the police, they can—’
‘We can’t trust the police!’ There’s a sudden fury to him, anger crackling like a surge of electricity. He gestures to the car park around us. ‘Haven’t you got that yet? You’re not listening to me! Why do you think I’m like this, why do you think I’m constantly looking over my shoulder? Why do you think I have to bring you up here, to check you weren’t followed, to check you’re not working with them right now? The police messed up everything from the start. If it wasn’t for them none of this would have happened. Their investigation was screwed from the beginning and then they tried to fit me up, tried to make me take the fall for it because they couldn’t do their jobs properly. Such bullshit.’
I swallow hard on a dry throat. All the calm, the fatigue in his posture has gone. Instead there’s a furious tension in the set of his jaw, in the ridged knuckles of his clenched fists. Can he even distinguish the truth anymore? Can I trust anything he says? The wrench still clutched in my right hand feels small and light and useless against his anger, and I’m suddenly aware again how close we are to the edge of the roof. He could probably pick me up with one hand if he decides to throw me off.
‘Kathryn said that too,’ I say quietly. ‘About the police.’
‘Damn right,’ he growls. ‘She had a gut feeling for what was going on.’
I need to calm him down, avoid setting him off again. Keeping my voice soft, I say, ‘Is that why she ran?’
‘She’s a smart girl, she knew Mia was in danger. It’s been days now since I heard from her. She’s not answering her phone, she’s not been back to her flat.’
‘You think something has happened to her?’
He stuffs his hands deep into his jacket pockets. ‘It’s not like her to be out of contact. Something’s not right.’
‘You said in your message that Mia doesn’t have much time left. What did you mean?’
‘It’s only a matter of time now before they find out who she is. Exactly who she is. A day or two, maybe not even that. And there’s someone out there who will kill her to make sure that doesn’t happen. Who will make her disappear.’
‘I want to understand, Dominic, but it all sounds a bit . . .’
‘Crazy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you think Kathryn was crazy?’
Worried, certainly. Stressed out, definitely. But crazy? No.
‘She didn’t seem crazy to me,’ I say, realising abruptly that he’s now talking about her in the past tense. The thought jars me out of my train of thought for a moment. ‘She was just . . . scared out of her wits.’
‘Kathryn understood the danger, that’s why she took Mia. That was the reason she was running, the reason she handed her over to you, a total stranger, when she felt them closing in.’
‘Who was closing in?’
‘You don’t need to know. That doesn’t matter.’
‘It does to me.’
He sighs and crosses his big arms over his chest. ‘I can’t risk you relaying every word I say straight to the police. Gilbourne’s already got his hooks into you, I can tell.’
‘No, he’s just been trying to help.’ Before I can stop myself, I hear myself defending the detective inspector. ‘He’s been very kind, actually. Helpful.’
‘You can’t trust him. You can’t trust any of them, they’re all as bad as each other.’
‘He said the same thing about you.’
He barks out a short, humourless laugh. ‘Of course he did. But here’s the thing, Ellen: you’ve got to work out whose side you’re on, who you’re going to believe.’
‘Why do I have to be on anyone’s side? I’m on my own side. I’m on Mia’s side.’
He stares at me for a long moment, bloodshot eyes unblinking. ‘She needed you a few days ago, and she needs you again now.’
‘So how do I help her?’
&nbs
p; ‘Her grandparents – you have to warn them. They think they’re safe, shut in behind their walls and gates and cameras, they think they can keep her safe, but they can’t.’
‘I thought she was with social services?’
He shakes his head.
‘Back with family, which makes her a sitting target. They need to get her out of there, take her somewhere else. Somewhere no one knows.’
‘You could tell them that yourself.’
‘I tried. But we’re not exactly on speaking terms anymore. Haven’t been for a while.’ He blows out a breath. ‘I went up there to warn them yesterday and they wouldn’t even let me onto the property.’
‘That doesn’t seem completely surprising, if I’m honest.’
‘We’ve got history, but they don’t know you. They might listen to you, if you tell them you met Kathryn on Tuesday. If you tell them who you are.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll try. Can you give me a name, an address?’
‘Just like that? You don’t want to think about it a little longer?’
I shake my head. ‘I’ll talk to them.’
‘Thank you, Ellen.’ His lips barely part when he says it, as if it’s been so long he’s forgotten how to form the words. ‘Thank you.’
‘How do I find them? How do I reach you, for that matter?’
‘You don’t.’ He shakes his head, the moment of gratitude vanished on the wind. ‘I’ll call you. As of now, that burner phone is done, finished. I never use the same one for more than a day or two.’
‘Give me your new number then, I can call you.’
‘And have you pass it straight to Gilbourne so he can track my every move? I don’t think so.’
I feel a prickle of annoyance push through the fear, his assumption that I will pass everything on to the police. Which is what I should do, I suppose. But I don’t want to challenge him again, not when he’s let his defences down for the first time.
‘So where is she?’ I say instead. ‘Where’s Mia?’
He glances over his shoulder, eyes scanning the rows of cars, before his hooded eyes come to rest on mine again.
‘About ten miles north of here there’s a village called Prestwood Ash. Right in the sticks, middle of nowhere.’
‘Near Little Missenden?’
He gives me a strange look but seems unsurprised that I know the name. ‘It’s about another three miles north of there, further into the Chilterns.’
He’s interrupted by a car engine revving hard in low gear, tyres squealing as it climbs the ramp onto the roof level. I look over and see a blue Nissan people carrier accelerating hard between the rows of parked cars, the driver clearly visible.
Tara. She has followed me after all.
She is sitting forward in the driver’s seat, her head turning this way and that as she searches for me. Our eyes meet and I shake my head – I’m OK, back off – but it’s too late. She guns the engine into the turn, accelerating up onto the ramp towards us and aiming the people carrier at Dominic. He’s seen my gesture and he’s already backing away towards the stairwell, a look of disappointment and disgust on his face.
‘The one thing I asked you to do was come alone.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘I thought I could trust you.’
‘You can.’
‘I thought you wanted to help Mia, but you’ve got your own agenda just like all the rest.’
‘I will help, if you tell me where she is!’ I say to his retreating back. ‘The address! Please?’
He stalks away, pushing through the door to the stairwell, and then he’s gone.
42
DS Holt
The old woman wasn’t going to let him go upstairs.
He could tell, as soon as the first words were out of his mouth. As soon as he’d seen her face, blank, staring, shell-shocked with grief. Already numbed with the worst news that any parent could hear. Now she stood just inside her thickly carpeted hallway, staring at him, skinny arms slack against her sides, eyes red-rimmed with crying. He looked past her. There was a wide sweeping staircase against the far wall, curving up to the first floor. Mia was up there, Holt knew, up on the second floor in one of the six bedrooms. He’d already noted the security system beside the front door, reasonably old, a small black and white monitor displaying the camera feed from the gate intercom, a straight live feed without a recording facility. The dogs, thankfully, were locked away in a side room for the time being.
‘It’s just routine, madam.’ He still had his wallet open in his left hand, his warrant card there. He hadn’t actually anticipated the woman would be difficult about it, that she’d actually say no. It wouldn’t take him long to do what he needed to do. ‘It’s kind of a double-checking process that will assist us in the—’
‘I can’t cope with this, not today. We just need to be on our own together. I’m sorry.’
For a moment, Holt thought about telling her the real reason for his visit. Or he could try telling her they had no choice – that he had a warrant, or a court order or some other fictitious piece of paper – but he didn’t think she’d care. Not with the news they’d just received.
‘It’ll literally take a few minutes,’ Holt said. ‘Then I’ll be out of your hair.’
‘We’ve always dealt with Detective Inspector Gilbourne up to now,’ she said, her voice regaining some of its strength, some of its Merseyside lilt. ‘He’s been very good to us, very understanding. He advised us not to let anyone get close to her unless we knew them well and trusted them completely. And he said it would be Monday, not today.’
‘If you can just let me—’
‘And besides, Mia is asleep and we’ve only just got her down. I don’t want to put her through it again today when she was so upset the first time around.’
The husband appeared from the back of the house and Holt suppressed a sigh of frustration. He was a bit older than his wife, mid-seventies, tall and bald with a bushy white moustache that contrasted with the flaring-red complexion of his skin.
‘What’s this all about? Angela, what’s going on?’ He turned to Holt, staring at him like a tradesman who had just trodden dog shit into the carpet. ‘Have you got anyone in custody yet?’
‘I’m afraid not yet, sir, but I can assure you that we’re giving that our full attention. We have teams of officers working on the case as we speak. I was just explaining to your wife the reason for my visit.’
‘And what did my wife say?’
‘I said no,’ the woman barked, her voice cracking on the last word.
‘Well.’ The husband turned to him. ‘There’s your answer, detective. You’ve upset my wife, now please leave.’
Holt’s phone rang. Gilbourne again. He couldn’t ignore him for a third time.
‘DS Holt,’ he said.
‘Nathan, where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the last hour.’
‘Sorry boss, was interviewing witnesses earlier and my phone was still on silent, I didn’t realise.’
Gilbourne’s voice was loud with anger and he had to hold the mobile away from his ear.
‘You’re not a bloody librarian, Nathan. You do not put your phone on silent. Ever. Your colleagues, your teammates, need to be able to reach you at all times. I need to be able to reach you. At. All. Times.’ He enunciated each word individually. ‘Even if you think you’re a cut above all of us. Do you understand?’
Holt gave the woman a nod and stepped back out through the open front door. She seemed glad to get him out of the house, pushing the door closed behind him. He went out to the smooth stone porch, turned away.
‘Yes sir.’ He looked down the long gravel driveway, where the black iron gate out to the road still stood slightly ajar. ‘Of course, will do.’
There was a pause, then his senior officer’s voice came back quieter.
‘What’s going on, Nathan?’
‘Nothing,’ Holt said smoothly. ‘Nothing’s going on, Stuart. Just finishing up here and then I’ll
be right with you.’
‘I need you to get to South Ruislip to reinterview Sienna Parker’s parents. Give them the standard spiel, see if anything new shakes loose in light of recent developments, any possible links between her and the new victim. How quickly can you be there?’
Holt was ready for this one, had thought about what he would say. He looked round at the front lawn, the willow trees lining the drive, the stone wall around the edge of the property.
‘I’m just at Marylebone, sir,’ he said. ‘The station manager found some additional footage from Tuesday afternoon. There was no one from the tech team available so I just nipped over to pick up the DVDs.’
‘Anything worth seeing on there?’ Some of the anger had gone from Gilbourne’s voice. ‘Anything we don’t already know?’
‘Not sure, I’ll have a proper look when I’m back in the office.’
‘OK, get yourself over to Ruislip and keep me updated.’
Holt ended the call and turned back to the front door to find the woman standing there in the doorway, eyes narrowed. She hadn’t closed the door after all; she had been eavesdropping on his call.
She gave him a look that said I see you. I hear your lies.
‘Marylebone?’ she said.
Holt flashed her a smile, which she didn’t return.
‘Thanks for your time, Mrs Clifton. I’m so sorry for your loss.’
He crunched across the gravel to his Focus, feeling her eyes on his back every step of the way.
43
By the time Tara has pulled up in her car and jumped out, it’s too late to follow Dominic down the stairwell – even if I wanted to.
‘Are you OK?’ my friend says, her face flushed. ‘Who was that guy? Was it Max? He looked like a right thug.’
‘I’m fine, just a bit shaken up.’ I try to give her a smile. ‘You weren’t supposed to follow me.’
‘I was worried. Someone has to keep an eye on you, especially after the week you’ve had.’
She explains that she followed me all the way from the junction out of my little estate, slipping into traffic behind me and keeping her distance all the way to Rectory Park. Watching as I waited for a rendezvous that didn’t happen, then tailing me all the way to Hillingdon. It helped that people carriers were pretty much ubiquitous in this part of commuter land.