by A J Waines
‘Do you remember a party?’ he asked, once she’d settled. ‘A Christmas get-together in Islington for work. It was in 2014.’
Daniel couldn’t move. He held his breath, dreading what she was going to say next.
She fiddled with her lip and stared into space, then slowly shook her head. ‘In 2014? Why? Should I?’
‘You went with Cassandra. It was a bit boisterous apparently. She said there were people who weren’t invited…’
‘Oh, wait. I remember.’ She crumpled her nose. ‘It was awful. People were drunk and rolling around the place. I left early. I’d been sick and felt awful.’
‘Apart from Cassandra, do you remember who else was there?’
‘Why? What’s this about? You said it could affect Ben’s future.’
‘Was Rick there?’ His words punched the air louder than he intended during a tiny hiatus when the rest of the room had fallen quiet.
She thought about it, her face clear of any shadows. ‘Why would he have been there?’ Her voice came out in a whisper.
‘I don’t know.’
Was she going to deny it?
‘Wait…’ She tutted and threw her eyes to the ceiling. ‘He turned up – I remember now – with some people from the theatre. He was wired. On something, I think. He was raucous and pestering me and I didn’t feel well. So I left.’
‘With Rick?’
‘God, no! I slipped out when he was halfway through telling some vulgar joke.’
She must have slept with him around that time. Had she no shame?
‘You were away at some conference or other,’ she said. ‘Like I say, I had a bug or something and was feeling very sorry for myself. I remember really missing you and longing for you to come back.’
‘Really?’
‘You got back the day after, you remember? Late in the evening. Your train from Reading was delayed and I’d just got out of the bath…’
Yes – she was right. A wave of warmth flooded through him, bringing with it the ghost of remembered passion.
‘How does this affect Ben’s future? Was that a lie. So that I’d agree to see you?’
‘No, it wasn’t a lie. Can you bear with me? It is about Ben’s future – about all of us, but I don’t know for sure how everything fits together yet.’
She didn’t protest.
‘That time was a special one for all of us,’ she said wistfully. ‘I was on the pill, but I’d been sick at that dreadful party. When I counted back the days that was the moment Ben began his tiny life, smaller than a particle of dust.’
His lips barely formed the words. ‘The day after the party?’
Daniel wiped a trickle of moisture from his cheek, not knowing if it was a bead of sweat or a tear.
‘Yes,’ she said, a glow spreading across her cheek, ‘the night you got back…’
Chapter 69
After he left Stuart’s, Rick wandered to the local pub to bide his time. Sure enough, when he strolled back to the end of the street, a campervan had pulled up outside Stuart’s flat.
Rick leant against a wall on the corner and pulled out his phone, pretending to check for messages. Every so often he glanced along the road as Stuart and his mate bobbed in and out of the gate with boxes and bags. It looked like they were carting off enough stuff for a family of six to last a fortnight. Rick yawned. It was taking ages.
A tinny rendition of Blow the Wind Southerly made him jump as an ice cream van came careering around the bend, almost mounting the pavement. Rick was tempted to flag it down and buy a double 99 for the hell of it, but didn’t want to risk being spotted. Just as well, as Mr Softee was stopping for no one. He sped off and by the time he’d rattled through his jingle again, the campervan had gone.
Rick took the newly-acquired keys out of his pocket and strode along in search of his new courtesy car – thanks to Stuart’s inadvertent hospitality. Having shuffled behind the wheel, he fired up the engine and drove the blue Fiesta over to his own flat. He picked up what he needed and headed towards a little secret spot not far away from his place – namely an abandoned shed in the local allotment. Hardly the epitome of luxury, but that wasn’t a priority at this moment in time.
From his safe vantage point, he waited a few days to see if anything kicked off. He kept his eye on the local news, sent one of his teenage acolytes from school over to Portobello Road and checked in with the tenant who lived upstairs to see if he was getting any callers dressed in navy.
But in the event, it was all clear.
No police snooping around. No one on his tail. No obvious trouble heading his way following the scam with the fake pocket watch. Hank must have done a good job at covering their tracks. Although, it was in his own interests to turn woolly and forgetful over exactly how, when and from whom he’d got hold of it.
Ignoring pleading calls from his sister and with the stirrings of fresh ideas for the final stage in his plan simmering in his mind, he made his way through the streets of London. He had one humdinger of a shock to put into place for Danny-boy, then his work would be done.
Once he was outside the city, he kept clear of the motorways, choosing instead to weave through a web of back roads with no security cameras. He pulled onto a farm track and stopped. He’d left the items Stuart had so expertly made for him under a suitcase on the back seat. A pair of extremely credible fake number plates for the princely sum of three hundred pounds. Rick clipped them neatly to the front and back of the car and got back on the road.
He joined the M4 and drove for miles until he reached the remote village deep in the Welsh countryside. Stuart had bragged about his swish ‘holiday home’ several times and Rick had been careful to jot down the exact location. You never knew when that kind of information might come in handy.
Chapter 70
When Daniel drove up outside the house, he was unnerved to find a police car taking up his usual parking space. It had been left at an angle, sticking out into the road as though it had arrived in a hurry.
Was this about Rick? Had Louise called the police in the end?
He left the car a few doors down the road and was walking back when Edith shot out of her front gate at full pelt towards him.
‘I’m so sorry, Daniel…’ she sobbed, stopping in front of him, her hand clamped to her forehead. ‘I didn’t know. It’s all my fault… I’m so sorry.’
Daniel spent all evening walking the streets trying to find his son.
Edith had made a terrible error of judgment.
‘I came out of the nursery and Ben wanted to be in the buggy, so I took him the park way – you know, along West Street?’ She blew her nose loudly into a tissue. ‘My phone rang, just as he spotted a puppy inside the side gate. He wanted to stroke him. You know what he’s like.’
She’d already told the police everything. They were already out scouring the bushes in the park and the streets around the nursery.
Daniel wanted to shake her, slap her even, but instead he reached out and clasped his arms around her shoulders in a shared moment of anguish.
‘I only took my eyes off him for one second while I found my phone,’ she muttered, tearfully, into his collar. ‘And when I looked up, he’d stepped momentarily out of sight. I went straight after him, into the park. The puppy was rolling in the grass with a teenage boy, but Ben wasn’t there… he wasn’t anywhere.’
Franciska must have driven like the wind to get to Daniel’s house in such a short time.
‘No traffic,’ she said, avoiding his wide eyes.
She threw her jacket over a chair in the kitchen like she meant business.
‘There’s no sign of him,’ he told her.
‘We’ll find him,’ she said decisively, as she placed two steaming mugs of sweet tea between them.
He didn’t share her optimism. He trembled and nearly dropped the mug as he tried to pick it up, as if all the muscles in his body had lost their strength.
‘It’s Rick. I know it is. He’s snatched him.’ Dan
iel kicked the kitchen door shut to be out of earshot of the police officer who was winding things up with Edith. ‘That was why Rick was so keen to save Ben at the beach, wasn’t it – you remember? Why he’s been hanging around. He wants him for himself, don’t you see?’
‘But Ben’s nearly four years old. Why would Rick wait all this time?’
‘Maybe he only found out in the last few months that Ben was his child. Perhaps that’s why he’s been turning up all over the place. It’s not Sophie he wants, it’s Ben!’
Daniel strode out into the hall and without telling the constable why, told him he had reason to suspect Richard Fox was involved.
‘We’ve fallen out recently,’ he said, hoping that would be sufficient.
‘Over what?’
‘I’m not sure. He won’t tell me. He set out to ruin my marriage.’ He gave him the sketchiest outline possible about the altered photos. At this stage the details didn’t matter. The biggest priority was to find Ben and bring him home.
Daniel told him about Louise. About how she’d been worried ever since Rick failed to turn up for work. How a fellow tenant had seen him leaving with his belongings.
On his way out, the constable explained that a family liaison officer would be visiting the next morning and told Daniel to stay put. But he was having none of it. Once the officer had left, he grabbed his jacket.
‘You stay here,’ he’d said to Franciska, holding both her hands in his, ‘in case there’s any news.’
At around four in the morning, he returned from trawling the local streets to see if there’d been any updates. He must have drifted off on a kitchen chair for a few minutes, because he woke with a snap, wondering where he was.
This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.
And Sophie? Had they told her? What state would she be in? Of all the incidents likely to send someone over the edge, someone who was already hovering at the precipice – surely this was it.
He spread his toes and pressed them into the floor. His feet no longer felt attached to the earth and the earth around him seemed to be moving.
Chapter 71
The Sat Nav took ages to direct Rick to the right area, so he finally pulled up at the gate of a remote abandoned farm. True to form, Stuart had somewhat embellished the facts. There was no cottage at all, only a caravan. A poky one, at that; dragged into the mud and left to rust. It would never be going anywhere again.
‘Swish holiday home’, eh?
As he’d driven over, Louise had left another text to ask where he was. She also told him that a couple of police officers had just turned up at his flat. Ah. Things weren’t so cool, after all.
He opened the gate and brought the car onto a patch of grass under the cover of an oak tree. Before he got out of the car, he switched off his phone. Thank goodness he’d planned to lay low for a while. He’d claim he didn’t know the police were looking for him. He couldn’t cope with any of that right now.
A few days to get his head straight and work out the final details of his ultimate strike should be enough. Then he might think about getting some fake ID from Stuart, if the old bill hadn’t already tracked him down. If the worst came to the worst, he might have to bunk off on a plane back to Sydney.
But not yet.
He unlocked the door to the caravan, pulled down the handle and gave it a shove. Two things hit him as he stepped inside. Firstly, it stank of so many different odours it was hard to work out which one was the most offensive: the rotting fish, the mould, the rancid butter or the stale urine. He tried to force open the window, but it was jammed shut. He propped the door open with an aluminium deckchair and hoped for the best. The second thing was how cold it was. Even though the temperature outside was well into the high sixties, it felt damp and chilly inside.
No longer such a great choice for a getaway, he thought, cursing Stuart’s blatant lies about how swanky the place was. This wasn’t going to be the exclusive glamping retreat he’d had in mind.
He returned to the car and pulled out a box of provisions from the back seat. He went round to the boot, then changed his mind. He’d leave the warm bundle where it was for the time being and come back for it once he’d unpacked. What was wrapped inside was in no fit state to make a fuss, in any case.
Back inside, he opened the fridge door and slammed it shut again. He’d deal with that later. At least there was gas. He put the kettle on, switched the portable radio on and began to whistle along to the pop music.
Within the hour he was starting to feel at home. He’d shoved all Stuart’s bedding under the caravan and replaced it with his own duvet and pillows. After cracking open a can of lager, he checked the map for the nearest pub. It was about five miles away and would do nicely for an evening meal. He chose a name for the night: Bob Walker. Impossible to trace. He’d tie up his hair, too, and tuck it in under the flap cap he’d brought. Blend in with the locals.
He stretched out on the bunk, starting to feel pleased with himself. He’d bought some useful time. He could chill out in complete safety and decide what to do next. Sod the crap watch. And Stuart, too. He and Hank were on their own. Bunch of sodding amateurs. He deserved better. Right now, he needed to focus on the next stage: the unfinished business that needed taking care of. The final act of his cleverly constructed play.
He drank from the can and belched loudly, then went outside to the car to pick up what he’d left in the boot. He brought it inside, and seeing the blood oozing from under his fingers, he left it on a sheet of newspapers on the draining board.
‘If Danny-boy thinks everything is over he’s in for a rude awakening,’ he said, addressing the lager in his hand. ‘Give it a few days and it’ll be time to drop the final bombshell.’
He rummaged through his rucksack in search of a pen. ‘I’ll have a nap in a while,’ he said, continuing his running commentary, ‘but in the meantime, I’ve got another postcard to send.’
Chapter 72
It came to him while he was searching the streets for Ben, just as wisps of orange began flooding the inky sky at dawn. While Daniel’s eyes darted from shadow to shape back to shadow again, his mind was a tangle of inner turmoil, replaying the words from Sophie’s most recent diaries. Until finally, he could spit it out. Like a cat getting rid of a furball.
Of course, it was such an obvious explanation.
But time was not on his side. He needed to speak to Sophie again – urgently. He knew the prison wouldn’t permit another visit – he’d already used up his limit for that month – but he had to speak to her, just once more.
Back at home, he rang Kew to explain why he wouldn’t be turning up. Given the situation, he was granted compassionate leave straight away. With that out of the way, he paced up and down the hall, chuntering to himself, desperate for his wife to call. Surely, she’d ring as soon as she could to find out more about Ben’s disappearance. She had to.
Sophie finally called from the payphone using the special PIN card prisoners were given.
‘Have they found him? Is he okay?’ she pleaded.
‘Not yet.’
‘Why aren’t you out there looking for him?!’
‘Because I’ve looked every single place I can think of and I’m just getting in the way. The police have dogs, trained people who know what they’re looking for, ways of covering every inch of a local area.’
‘What about the boy with the puppy?’
‘They haven’t found them, yet.’
‘So, what other leads are there? Did anyone else see him in the park?’
He’d exhausted himself with these very same questions. ‘The police are doing what they can,’ he said wearily.
‘My boy…’
‘I know. Mine, too,’ he said, feeling the weight of irony in his words.
‘That silly, dizzy-headed girl – what was Edith thinking?’ Sophie snatched a breath. ‘She hasn’t taken him, has she?’
‘Edith?’
‘I’ve seen the way s
he looks at you. I imagine having me out of the picture has been a nice bonus for her.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’s been great. I admit… she might have a bit of a thing for me, but it’s completely in hand.’
‘You don’t think she might have taken him somewhere?’
Could Edith be involved? It didn’t seem to fit. ‘I really don’t see why,’ he concluded.
He told her he’d been called to do a press conference and would be making an appeal on television. ‘Someone must have seen him,’ he added.
Sophie dissolved into sobs.
‘Hold yourself together, please. Don’t hang up, stay with me, okay? It’s really important.’
He could hear the usual commotion in the background. Sophie had told him that using the phone was always a nightmare – aside from the complete lack of privacy, invariably a long queue stretched down the corridor and other inmates jeered and heckled when anyone spent more than a few minutes on a call.
Daniel got straight to the point. ‘I need to ask you more questions. Not about Ben, about something else. It’s really important.’
He heard her sniff.
‘Can you think back to when you first thought I was having an affair? Right at the start, before you were sent the photos at your office. The first little clue.’
He’d already read her account of that time in her diary, but he didn’t mention that. Nor did he mention that, only a few hours ago during those solitary hours on the barren streets, he’d begun to realise their implication. It could turn everything upside down. It was all there. Now he needed to hear if what she had to say backed it up.
‘It was in September. I was looking for tea lights and found that love letter in the pocket of your gardening jacket. I was in total shock. I didn’t know what to do, so I just started keeping my eyes open and checking.’
‘Did you notice any changes in how you were feeling physically at all?’