In the Dark

by Cara Hunter

  AB: I see. I believe that when Mrs Gardiner first went missing you told us you thought her husband might be having an affair?

  BD: Yes, I did. But it’s not about that. Well, not directly.

  AB: So was he having an affair or wasn’t he?

  BD: I don’t think he was. Not then. But it started pretty soon after. That childminder – nanny. Whatever it is she calls herself. Pippa something. I saw them with Toby about three weeks ago in Summertown. I reckon they’re definitely an item – she was all over him. Men can be so gullible.

  AB: And how does this relate to the disappearance of Mrs Gardiner?

  BD: I’m getting to that. When it all happened, you said – the police – that she’d disappeared at Wittenham. Only now you say she never left Oxford at all.

  AB: That does appear to be the case.

  BD: So how did her car get there? How did Toby get there?

  AB: Well, clearly whoever was responsible for the death of Mrs Gardiner must have taken the car to Wittenham, knowing that was where she was supposed to be that day. To make us think she was there. As a decoy.

  BD: But how many people knew that – that she was supposed to be at Wittenham?

  AB: She’d arranged to do an interview at the site. There was a BBC crew. A number of people must have known.

  BD: But this man Harper. At Frampton Road. The one you think killed her. How did he know?

  AB: I’m afraid I’m not able to comment on the current investigation.

  BD: But Rob knew, didn’t he? He knew where she was going. And it’d make more sense that Toby was there, if it was Rob.

  AB: I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to tell me, Miss Dyer. Are you suggesting that Mr Gardiner killed his wife and abandoned his two-year-old son alone up there –?

  BD: [becoming agitated]

  Look, there’s something I didn’t tell you at the time. A couple of weeks before it happened I saw Hannah. She had a mark on her face. A bruise. She had make-up on it but I could still see.

  AB: Did you ask her how she got it?

  BD: She said it was Toby. That he was getting to be a handful and had caught her face with a toy car by accident.

  AB: Did that seem feasible to you?

  BD: I suppose it could have happened like that. Toby was a bit hyperactive – I thought he might be ADHD but she told me I was being ridiculous. But she had definitely been preoccupied those last few weeks. I’m sure she was worried about something. And she was very guarded about Rob that day. I think they were having problems. I do know she wanted another child but he wasn’t keen.

  AB: Why didn’t you tell us this two years ago, Miss Dyer?

  BD: The press kept saying that you had that other suspect - the one who was at the camp. And there were all those people who saw her there – so I thought it couldn’t be Rob. But when you didn’t charge that man, I thought –

  AB: Yes?

  BD: Well, to be honest I thought she might just have left him. Rob, I mean. Made it look like she was dead just to get away. So no one would look for her. I saw a TV programme like that once. One of those crime things. And her parents live in Spain so I thought she might have gone there.

  AB: That strikes me as highly unlikely, Miss Dyer. Abandoning her child. No passport, no documents –

  BD: I know. It sounds crazy.

  AB: And wouldn’t she have got in contact with you? If not immediately, then some time later, when the dust had settled?

  BD: [pause]

  AB: After all, you were her best friend, weren’t you? Or have I got that wrong?

  BD: [silence]

  AB: Miss Dyer?

  BD: Look, if you must know, we didn’t part on the best of terms. That time I told you about – it wasn’t the last time I saw her. We had a row after that. She claimed I was after Rob. That I’d been flirting with him at her birthday party.

  AB: Was that true?

  BD: He was flirting with me. Of course he told her it was the other way round – well, he would, wouldn’t he. But it wasn’t. And in any case nothing happened. Even if he’d – even if –

  [pause]

  Look, I wouldn’t have done that to Hannah. OK?

  AB: I see.

  BD: And all these years you never found a body. I suppose I just wanted to believe that meant she was alive somewhere. But now I can’t. Because now I know she’s dead and I can’t get rid of the feeling that he had something to do with it.

  * * *

  * * *

  If there’s one thing I loathe it’s watching myself on TV. Even now, after half a dozen appeals, I still can’t stand it. So when the rest of the team gather to watch the news I make my excuses and head for the coffee shop on St Aldate’s. It’s like the answer to one of those linear programming things I was so crap at in school: large enough that you usually get a seat, far enough from the main tourist drag that the big chains haven’t snapped it up. Which is why it amuses me, momentarily, to see a snake of Chinese tourists coming down the pavement towards me, following a woman holding high a bright red umbrella, marching confidently in entirely the wrong direction. Because whatever architectural masterpiece they’ve been promised, they aren’t going to find it down the Abingdon Road.

  I’m at the counter when my phone goes. Challow.

  ‘You want the news or the good news?’

  I swear silently as I hand over a fiver to the barista; I’m not in the mood for Challow’s mind games.

  ‘Don’t tell me. The DNA results.’

  ‘Sorry. Still waiting.’

  ‘So I assume that’s the news, rather than the good news?’

  ‘Can’t you tell?’

  ‘Look, just tell me, can’t you.’

  Challow laughs drily. ‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself?’

  * * *

  * * *

  ‘Adam? Is that you?’ The voice on the speaker is breaking up, but I recognize it straight away.

  ‘Hold on a minute, Dad. I’m driving.’

  I pull over to the side of the road and pick up the handset.

  ‘I’m here. Is there something wrong?’

  I can hear him huffing slightly. ‘Why do you always assume there must be something wrong?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just that –’

  ‘We saw you on the news, your mother and I.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Right.’

  ‘You were very good.’

  Somehow or other, he always rubs me up the wrong way.

  ‘It’s not some sort of “appearance”, Dad – it’s not about me.’

  ‘I know that, Adam,’ he replies. He sounds as tetchy as I do. ‘What I meant was that you came over very well. Calm. Authoritative.’

  And now I feel like a shit. As usual.

  ‘I know you don’t think we’re proud of you, son, but we are. The police force wouldn’t have been our first choice for you, but you’ve managed to make a creditable career of it.’

  That’s an evil little word – ‘managed’. And then I tell myself that I’m imagining it – that I need to stop seizing on every possible negative inference. I’m not even sure he meant it that way.

  ‘Look, Dad. It was great of you to call, but I have to go. I’m on my way to the lab.’

  ‘Your mother says hello and she’s looking forward to seeing you. And Alex, of course.’

  And then the line goes dead.

  * * *

  * * *

  As the day wears on the clouds gather and by mid-afternoon the sky is as dark as November. Slow summer rain patters in the trees in the centre of Crescent Square. Two squirrels chase each other across the grass.

  In the flat, Pippa is curled up on the sofa, playing Candy Crush on her phone. She can hear Rob talking in the other room. It’s Hannah’s parents. She’s
never met them but she knows exactly what they’re like. Gervase and Cassandra – even their names are up themselves.

  The door to the study opens and Rob appears in the doorway. He’s dressed for work, but perhaps she can change his mind. She stretches out her legs and flexes her bare feet.

  ‘The office called,’ he says, ignoring her. ‘Some sort of crisis. I don’t mind going in. It’ll help take my mind off things.’

  ‘How did it go – on the phone?’

  A flicker of irritation at that. ‘Well, what do you expect? It’s hardly a social call, is it, “How’s the weather, oh and by the way they found your daughter buried in some old pervert’s shed.”’

  He walks over to pick up his car keys. ‘I don’t know what time I’ll be back.’

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Well, it’ll have to wait,’ he says, moving towards the door. ‘I said I’d be there by four.’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  He turns. Looks at her. She still has the phone in her hand.

  ‘You’re pregnant.’ His voice is dull. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Of course it’s possible, Rob.’ She flushes slightly. ‘I kept wanting to tell you. There never seemed to be a good time.’

  ‘You said you were on the pill.’

  ‘I was. I am. Sometimes it happens. You do science – you should know.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he says, his voice dangerously soft. ‘I “do science”. And that’s how I know that that kid you’re having isn’t mine.’

  ‘Of course it is – it has to be –’

  ‘Why?’ he says softly, coming towards her. ‘Because you haven’t slept with anyone else?’

  ‘No,’ she stammers, terrified now, ‘of course I haven’t.’

  ‘You,’ he says, standing over her, stabbing the air with each word, ‘are lying.’

  She flinches back at the violence in his voice. ‘I don’t understand.’

  He smiles a horrible smile. ‘No? Not worked it out yet? I can’t have children. That clear enough for you?’

  Her cheeks are bright red. She looks down at the phone – more to avoid looking at him than anything else – but it’s the wrong thing to do. He reaches for it and hurls it across the room. Then he grabs her hard by the wrist and wrenches her to her feet. ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you.’

  His face is so close her skin is peppered with spit.

  ‘You’re hurting me –’

  ‘So who was it? Whose brat are you trying to pass off as mine – some random student? The bloke who reads the meter? Who?’

  He takes her by the shoulders and shakes her. ‘Have you been doing it here – in my flat?’

  ‘No – of course not – I wouldn’t. It was only the once – it didn’t mean anything –’

  He laughs. Nastily. ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘I don’t love him – I love you –’

  She bites her lip till the blood comes. There are tears now. She’s pleading with him.

  Rob laughs. ‘Love? You don’t know the bloody meaning of the word.’

  He pushes her back hard on to the sofa and walks to the door, where he turns. He watches her sobbing for a moment.

  ‘When I get back, I don’t want to find you here.’

  ‘You can’t,’ she wails. ‘What about Toby – who’s going to pick him up? Who’s going to look after him?’

  ‘I’m perfectly able to care for my own son. Leave the keys and go. I never want to see you again.’

  * * *

  * * *

  29 Lingfield Road, Banbury. Semi-detached. Neat gravelled drive. Geraniums.

  ‘What do you think?’ says Gislingham, turning off the engine.

  Somer considers. ‘Looks just like what it is – a schoolteacher’s house.’

  Gislingham nods slowly. ‘Can’t see it featuring in a future episode of Unsolved Crimes, but you know what they say about still waters.’

  At the gate she turns to him but he makes a gallant gesture. ‘After you.’

  She smiles, a trifle tightly, then reminds herself that just because most men like to stare at her backside doesn’t mean Gislingham must be one of them.

  At the door, she pauses then rings the bell. Then a second and a third time. Gislingham moves to the front window and squints in. Through a gap in the nets he can see a sofa and armchairs too big for the room, a coffee table with a pile of magazines, their edges neatly aligned.

  ‘No signs of life,’ he says. Somer joins him and looks in. Neat but uninspiring. Austere without elegance. They know from the records there’s no official Mrs Walsh but she’s beginning to suspect there’s no unofficial one either.

  ‘He obviously likes his knick-knacks,’ says Gislingham, gesturing at a cupboard on the far wall. ‘I mean, with those weird little shelves, that’s not for books, is it?’

  Somer frowns slightly. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen something like that before.’ She shakes her head. Whatever it was, it’s gone.

  ‘Shall we try the school?’ says Gislingham. ‘I thought it was half-term, but perhaps those posh private places have different holidays to the rest of us?’

  Somer shrugs. ‘You’re asking the wrong person. But yes, why not. It’s only ten minutes away.’

  As they walk back towards the car a woman emerges from the house opposite, struggling with a pushchair and a toddler.

  ‘I’m just going to see if she knows Walsh,’ says Somer, starting towards her. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  Gislingham gets back in the car and digs his newspaper out of the side pocket. When a mobile starts ringing it takes him a moment to realize it’s not his. And when he reaches across to the glovebox and pulls out Somer’s phone the screen says ‘Gareth’. He’s grinning mischievously as he answers the call.

  ‘Hello? PC Somer’s phone?’

  Silence. Three beats, four, five.

  ‘Gislingham?’

  ‘Yes, who’s that?’

  ‘It’s Quinn. As you know bloody well.’

  ‘Sorry, mate, didn’t expect it to be you.’

  Another silence. A silence eloquent with ‘like hell you didn’t’.

  ‘I was just calling to see how it’s going,’ Quinn says eventually. ‘With Walsh I mean. I didn’t realize you’d gone up there too.’

  ‘We haven’t tracked him down yet. Shall I tell her you called?’

  Quinn hesitates. ‘No. Don’t bother. I got what I was after.’

  Yeah right, thinks Gislingham as he rings off. Like hell you did.

  * * *

  *

  Petersham College is an Old School old school, at least from the front. Two Victorian Oxford-copy quads complete with dining hall and chapel and stained-glass windows. Gislingham parks in a bay marked ‘Visitors’, and they follow a large yellow sign to what announces itself as the ‘Porter’s Lodge’.

  ‘Just the one then,’ says Somer. ‘Wonder what they do when he’s off sick.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Grammar nerd joke. Forget it.’ She spent two years attempting to teach English in an inner-city comprehensive before deciding that if she was going to spend her days dealing with drugs, knives and random violence she might as well get paid to do it professionally.

  The porter, meanwhile, turns out to be a ‘she’ not a ‘he’. A middle-aged woman in a burgundy jacket and pleated skirt.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asks, looking at them over her glasses.

  They show their warrant cards. ‘Could we see Mr Walsh, please? Donald Walsh?’

  She leans forward over the desk and points. ‘His room is in one of the new blocks – Coleridge House. Go through the archway on the far left. I could call him and let him know you’re coming, if you want to tell me what it’s about?’

 
Somer smiles at her; she’s clearly gagging for a whiff of scandal. ‘There’s really no need. Thanks anyway.’

  They make their way across the quad. A couple of boys pass them, hands in pockets. Their voices are slightly too loud; rather like their blazers. There are teachers’ names listed on a board at the bottom of each staircase, and a little wooden sign that can be slid across to show ‘in’ or ‘out’. Gislingham moves a couple, just for the hell of it.

  ‘Blimey, they do all right for themselves here, don’t they?’ he says, glancing in as they pass at the leather armchairs, the shelves of books, the over-sized stone fireplaces. ‘Though it beats me why people pay through the nose to send their kids to places like this. Education’s education. The rest is just the bloody packaging.’

  ‘That’s the point though,’ says Somer. ‘It’s the packaging they want.’

  But once through the archway it’s a very different story. A jumble of Portakabins encroaching on the staff car park and two heavy 1970s extension blocks named, rather incongruously, after Romantic poets. I bet they don’t bring prospective parents in here, thinks Somer, as Gislingham pushes open the door to Coleridge House. Harsh echoes and a smell of disinfectant. Walsh’s room is on the third floor and there’s no lift, so they’re both huffing a bit by the time they get to the door. The man who answers has a check shirt and a knitted tie and a pair of well-shined shoes. He looks very like the man Elspeth Gibson described.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘DC Chris Gislingham, PC Erica Somer, Thames Valley Police. Could we have a word with you?’

  He blinks, then glances back into the room. ‘Actually, I’m taking an after-school class. Can you come back later?’

  ‘We’ve come from Oxford,’ says Gislingham. ‘So no, we can’t “come back later”. Can we come in?’

  The two men stare at each other for a few moments then Walsh steps aside. ‘Of course.’

  The room inside is more a classroom than a study. No leather armchairs here, just a desk, a row of hard-backed chairs, an old-fashioned blackboard and a couple of framed posters. Madam Butterfly at the ENO; an exhibition of Japanese artefacts at the Ashmolean. And fidgeting a little at one of the desks, a red-haired boy with an exercise book on his lap. Eleven, maybe twelve years old.