by Cara Hunter
‘I finished the novel. Room.’
It takes me a moment to remember. ‘Right. OK. But I really need to get back – can you tell me tonight?’
‘There’s a bit at the end – after the girl is released. Her little boy has to adapt to a world he’s never seen before.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘He has to learn new things. Things he’s never done before because he’s spent all his life in one room. A room on one level. With no stairs.’
I turn to look at the boy. He’s banging on the window again, shrieking with laughter. I try to remember – try to picture him –
‘He can do it,’ she says, reading my mind. ‘I’ve seen him. Several times.’
‘And he did it straight away?’
She nods. ‘He had no trouble at all climbing the stairs. Because he’d clearly done it before.’
* * *
* * *
Quinn parks the Audi along by the old prison quarter, now prinked out as a swanky hotel and a paved courtyard with bars and pizzerias. People are sitting outside, drinking coffee, talking, smiling in the sunshine.
‘The store manager’s been told to keep her there until we arrive,’ he says, turning off the engine.
‘You were bloody lucky Woods overheard uniform radioing in that shoplifting report,’ says Gislingham, just a bit resentful now that fate seems to have handed Quinn a get-out-of-jail card. Or perhaps he just wanted to collect all the available brownie points himself.
Quinn shrugs. ‘He knew I was trying to track her down, so I guess the name must have jumped out.’
‘And it’s deffo the same Pippa Walker?’
‘I’m pretty sure – apparently this girl nicked a handbag pom-pom. A pricey designer job. I’ve seen her bag – she has loads of those things.’
‘What the fuck’s a handbag pom-pom anyway?’ mutters Gislingham as he follows Quinn up towards Carfax, struggling at times to negotiate the unwieldy crowds, the people not looking where they’re going, the small children who don’t keep to the rules and lurch out at erratic angles; the shoppers, the idlers, the lost. The high-end fashion store is – appropriately enough – on the High. In the plate-glass window, chrome cubes display jewellery, shoes, bags, sunglasses.
Quinn points at one of the shelves as they push open the door.
‘Right,’ says Gislingham, ‘so that’s a handbag pom-pom when it’s home. Who knew, eh – who bloody knew.’
The manager has clearly been hovering by the door on the lookout, and quickly ushers them away from a couple of extremely thin elderly Americans poring over leopard-print headscarves.
‘So,’ says Quinn, looking around. ‘Where is she?’
‘I asked her to wait in the office,’ says the manager, lowering her voice. ‘She was starting to get a bit, well, loud.’
I bet she was, thinks Gislingham.
‘Can you show us?’ says Quinn, clearly agitated now.
They follow her through to the back, which is dark, cluttered and pokey after the sparse over-white brilliance of the sales floor. The manager kicks a box of promo leaflets to one side and opens the office door. But there’s no one there. Just a plastic chair, a computer and shelves stacked with paperwork. Quinn turns on her. ‘You were supposed to be keeping her here – where the hell is she?’
The manager has gone pale. ‘She can’t have gone out the front – I’d have seen her. And Chloe’s been back here stocktaking all morning – or at least she was supposed to be –’
There’s noise then – a sound of flushing – and another door swings open. A woman comes out, sees them and blushes.
‘Chloe – weren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye on Ms Walker?’ says the manager sharply.
The woman looks flustered, holding one hand to her stomach. ‘She’s in the office, isn’t she? She was there a second ago. Honestly, I was only in the loo a minute – I held on as long as I could but you know what it’s like when you’re pregnant –’
Quinn throws up his hands. ‘Shit – she must have bloody heard us.’
‘Is there another way out?’ interrupts Gislingham.
The manager gestures. ‘There’s a back exit on to the Covered Market, but we only use it for the bins –’
But the two men have already gone.
Quinn clatters out of the door into the market and checks each store as he passes. Sandwich shop, Thai takeaway, boutique, bakery. The place seems full suddenly of long-haired girls. Same voices, same clothes, same long blonde hair and expensive highlights. Faces that turn to his, startled, irritated, bemused. One of them even smiles at him. And then he’s in the open space in the centre, seeing Gislingham racing down towards him from the opposite side. The two of them stand there, turning, scanning the alleys. Picture framer’s, pie shop, cobbler’s. The racks of plants outside the florist’s, the noticeboard of posters for concerts and art shows and plays in college gardens. Avenues leading off in all directions. It’s like looking for a rat in a maze.
‘Can you see her?’
‘Nope,’ says Gislingham, his eyes on the crowds. ‘We can’t cover this whole place on our own – she could be anywhere.’
Quinn is breathing hard. ‘If you were trying to hide in here, where would you go?’
Gislingham shrugs. ‘Somewhere with an upstairs?’
‘That’s more like it – what’s that place called – the coffee shop – ?’
‘Georgina’s,’ says Gislingham, ‘but I can never bloody find it –’
But Quinn has already gone, running now. ‘This way.’
He rounds the corner and crashes up the wooden stairs into the café, coming to a halt at the top and barely missing a waitress with a tray of coffee. Half the people in the room turn to look at him. But none of them is Pippa.
‘Sorry,’ he says. Then turns and goes back down, slower now. Where the hell is Gis?
His phone beeps.
‘I’ve found her,’ says Gislingham. ‘Market Street. And move it.’
When Quinn emerges into the open air he realizes at once where she went. And why.
‘Is she inside?’
Gislingham nods. ‘Went in a couple of minutes ago. There’s only this exit. All we have to do is wait.’
‘Fuck that – let’s go in.’
‘It’s the Ladies – you can’t –’
But Quinn’s already pushing past the queue of patient middle-aged women, flashing his warrant card.
‘Police. Move aside please. Move aside.’
The women retreat, muttering and affronted, and Quinn starts to bang on the doors. ‘Police – open up.’
One by one the doors swing open. An Asian woman in a headscarf scuttles out with a child, her face down, making no eye contact. An elderly lady follows, moving with difficulty. Then a sturdy woman in tweed who complains loudly about ‘reporting this to your senior officer’. Until only the door at the far end remains. Quinn goes up to it. ‘Miss Walker,’ he says loudly. ‘We need to speak to you. Open the door please or I’ll have to break it down.’
His heart is beating hard with the running. Or the adrenaline. Hard to tell.
There’s a silence, then the sound of the bolt drawing back.
* * *
* * *
When I was a kid I had a thing for those Escher pictures. You know the ones – all black and white and geometrical. There were no fancy websites then so all we had was paper, but I loved optical illusions and those were the best. I had one of the Escher pictures on my bedroom wall, Day and Night. You’ll have seen it – it’s the one where it’s impossible to say whether it’s white birds by night or black birds by day. And that’s how I feel as I push open the door to the incident room. It’s not what you’re looking at, it’s where you’re standing that determines what you see.
The team look up. See my face.
Fall silent.
And then I tell them what my wife said.
There’s a long pause as they take it in, and then suddenly we’re all looking at Gow.
‘It’s possible Harper was letting the child out too,’ he says finally, taking off his glasses and pulling out his handkerchief. ‘That the girl negotiated that.’
‘But?’ Because there is a but here. A big one; I can see it on his face.
‘When she denied being ashamed of compromising with Harper, everything about her body language suggested to me that she was telling the truth. So whatever it is she’s struggling with, it’s not that. So how, I ask myself, are we to explain the fact that this child has clearly not, as Ms Neale alleges, spent the whole of his short life imprisoned in that cellar? Personally,’ he says, putting his glasses back on and looking at me, ‘I would tend towards the most obvious explanation.’
Occam’s razor. The simplest answer is invariably right.
There’s a ripple of incredulity as they work out what Gow is actually saying.
Surely not – surely she couldn’t have –
But I think she did.
‘She made it all up,’ I say. ‘The abduction, the imprisonment – the whole thing. It’s all a fake.’
I can hear them draw breath. Gow glances at his watch and gets to his feet. ‘I have a seminar to give in exactly thirty-five minutes. But you can call me later, if you need me.’
When the door closes behind him, people shift, change position. There’s a sense of time shunting forward suddenly, after days of going round in circles.
‘Makes complete sense to me,’ says Baxter, folding his arms, thoroughly vindicated. ‘There’s no need to escape if you were never imprisoned in the first place. That girl has been camped out there all this time. Living in Harper’s house. Eating Harper’s food. No wonder the poor old sod has been losing weight.’
Somer turns to me. ‘You really think she could have been living there for nearly three years? I mean, I know she was looking for somewhere cheap to live, but that’s ridiculous. And in any case, surely someone would have noticed?’
I point to the photograph. ‘I’m not so sure – look at that place. No one’s used the top floor for years. The only neighbour was an old lady who wasn’t likely to hear much through those walls. And the only person who visited didn’t stay any longer than fifteen minutes and never went upstairs –’
‘Walsh did,’ interrupts Baxter, ‘to steal those netsuke.’
‘Exactly,’ says Everett, ‘and when he did he heard something he thought was a cat. But I bet you any money you like it was Vicky’s baby.’
‘But what about Harper?’ asks one of the DCs. ‘Both of my kids screamed the bloody place down when they were babies. Surely Harper would have heard something all those months, even if he was losing it?’
There’s a silence. A silence that ends with Everett:
‘Remember those sleeping pills forensics found upstairs? What if Vicky found them? She could have been drugging the old man to keep him quiet.’
‘Not just him,’ says Somer quietly. ‘He wasn’t the only one she wanted to silence.’
‘I’ll call Challow,’ says Baxter grimly. ‘Get him to run some tests on the samples from the boy. If that’s what she was doing, they’ll be able to prove it.’
Somer shakes her head. ‘Even a small dose would be incredibly dangerous for a child that young. She could have killed him.’
Everett shrugs. ‘From what I’ve seen, I don’t think she’d have cared. There is absolutely no bond between those two. You see enough dysfunctional relationships in this job, but this is the first time I’ve come across a mother and child with no relationship at all.’
‘But that’s the real question, isn’t it?’ says Somer quietly. ‘The child. Not the relationship between them. The fact that he even exists –’
Baxter turns to her, realization dawning. ‘Because if it wasn’t imprisonment it can’t have been rape, either, can it? And the one thing we do know for a fact is that Harper is the father of that kid. So if he didn’t rape her, then what? She actually wanted to have sex with him? That’s just gross – I mean, why the hell would she?’
This time it’s not Occam’s razor I think of. It’s Gislingham. Gislingham, who’s still not bloody here, incidentally. Gislingham who always says that if it’s not love, it’s money.
I turn to the pinboard. And there it is: the answer. It’s been right there in front of us from day one: 33 Frampton Road. Worth, even at a conservative estimate, somewhere north of £3 million.
‘She’s going to sue Harper,’ I say. ‘Accuse him of rape and false imprisonment, and then claim compensation. That child will give her a stake in everything William Harper owns. He’s not a “child” at all; he’s a money-making scam.’
I look around the room. Oddly enough, the women seem to be buying it more than the men. Though at the back, Somer is frowning.
‘But could a girl like her actually do that?’ asks one of the DCs, turning to Everett. ‘I mean, would you?’
Everett shrugs. ‘It’s a lot of money. She might well have thought a couple of quick shags would be worth it for that sort of cash. Shut your eyes and think of England, and all that.’
Baxter gives a low whistle. ‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘That poor old bastard –’
‘OK,’ says Somer, interrupting him. ‘Let’s get this straight. Somehow or other Vicky found out that Harper lives alone and sees pretty much no one from one week to the next. She moves in and starts living on the top floor – all without him noticing. She manages to get herself pregnant, also – if you believe Harper – without him noticing –’
‘My money’s on the turkey baster,’ quips one of the DCs, to slightly embarrassed laughter.
‘– and then she frames him for kidnap and rape by faking a journal of her captivity and locking herself in the cellar.’
Everyone’s staring at her now.
‘Only, she didn’t, did she? Lock herself in, I mean. That door was bolted from the outside.’ She looks around at the room. ‘So who are we saying did that?’
I nod to Baxter. ‘Did we get any prints off that bolt?’
He turns back to his screen, clicks on the forensics report and scrolls down. ‘Nope. Just Quinn’s. From when they rescued her.’
So someone could have wiped it. Must have wiped it.
‘If you ask me,’ says Baxter, ‘it had to be Harper. He said, didn’t he, that he was frightened because he could hear noises down there. He must have crept down one day, realized there was someone in that inner room and slipped the bolt. Vicky got trapped by her own scam – which would be pretty bloody ironic, when you think about it.’
Somer nods slowly. ‘I guess that’s possible, even though he doesn’t seem to remember doing it –’
‘He doesn’t remember much at all,’ snaps Everett. Which is really not like her. I see the same thought on Somer’s face, and then Everett flushes a little when she catches my eye.
‘Whether he remembers it or not, it’s a plausible theory,’ I say. ‘So let’s see if we can confirm it, shall we? And for now, send Vicky back to Vine Lodge. We need to get our facts straight before I talk to her again.’
* * *
* * *
Sent: Weds 10/05/2017, 11.50 Importance: High
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Urgent – Frampton Road
This is to confirm that the blood, hair and particles of brain matter found on the car cover are definitely from Hannah Gardiner. The killer clearly used it to prevent the leakage of body fluids on to the floor, which is why we haven’t been able to determine a precise murder scene elsewhere in the house. The victim was probably rendered unconscious then dragged on to the plastic befo
re the second and fatal blow. There are scrape marks on it that would tally with that. The only fingerprints are those of William Harper, which, of course, is only to be expected, given it was on his car. If someone else handled it, they must have worn gloves.
* * *
* * *
Interview with Pippa Walker, conducted at St Aldate’s Police Station, Oxford
10 May 2017, 12.10 p.m.
In attendance, DS G. Quinn, DC C. Gislingham
GQ: For the benefit of the tape, this interview is being conducted under caution. Miss Walker has been informed of her rights, including the right to have a lawyer present. She has confirmed that she doesn’t want one.
PW: I don’t need anyone. Rob’s the one who’s guilty, not me. I haven’t done anything.
GQ: But that’s not true, is it? You’ve lied. A very serious lie. And we can prove it.
PW: I don’t know what you mean.
GQ: You gave us a statement three days ago, claiming that Hannah Gardiner caught you and Rob in bed, and there was a terrible row.
PW: So?
GQ: Our forensic scientists have done a thorough examination of the flat at Crescent Square. There’s nothing to suggest Hannah Gardiner died there. Nothing at all. Why did you lie?
PW: I didn’t lie. It’s two years ago. He’s had it redecorated twice since then.
GQ: That wouldn’t make any difference. There would still be something. You’d need a special type of bleach and even then –
PW: Yeah, well, he’s a scientist, isn’t he. He’d know what to do.
GQ: The point is, Miss Walker, that we now have reason to believe Hannah died at 33 Frampton Road, where her body was found. We have forensic evidence linking her death to that house.
PW: [silence]
CG: What have you got to say to that?
PW: What’s it got to do with me? I’ve never even been there.
[getting up]
Look, can I go now?
GQ: No. Sit down, please, Miss Walker. You still haven’t answered the question. Why did you lie about what happened at the flat?