by Alex Walters
'Why didn’t Finlan call earlier? He must have known you'd be worried.'
'He didn’t. That was the thing. Luke told Finlan I hadn’t been expecting him tonight.' She smiled, weakly. 'Even a nine year-old’s smart enough to work out that that might be an issue. Unlike his idiot father. Finlan didn't have my mobile number. He tried the shop a couple of times, but there was no answer and he’d assumed I wouldn’t be going back there tonight. In the end, he managed to get hold of the number from one of the others from the Forum. Thank Christ for that. And for Finlan. Most people wouldn’t have even noticed he was there.'
'All’s well that ends well, then,' Wickham said. 'You’d better let the police know.'
'God, they’ll think I’m a total numpty, won’t they?'
'They’ll think you’re a mother who cares about her son, that's all.'
'Just not enough to actually be here when he turns up.'
'Not your fault, was it? You did the right thing. Anyway, might be useful ammunition if you want to make sure Tony doesn’t take advantage of you on the custody front.'
'If I have my way, he’ll never have custody again.' She stopped, the adrenaline seeping away so she could finally think more clearly. 'You don’t mind, do you? About Luke, I mean.'
She could see that he hesitated a moment too long before responding. 'Oh, shit. I’m taking things too fast, aren’t I?' she said, before he could answer. 'I keep forgetting we only met last night. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, hasn’t it? You only find out I’ve got a kid because he goes missing—' She realised she was talking too much again. 'Sorry. I’m just hoping that this might get more serious. You and me, I mean.'
'No, that’s fine,' he said, finally. He was smiling fully now. 'No. Me, too. And of course Luke’s not a problem. It's just been a lot to take in. Like I told you, I'm a bit of a creature of habit.'
'You think we should take it a bit more slowly, though. Step-by-step. Is that what you're saying?'
'Well—'
'Is this just a kind way of telling me to bugger off?'
'No, no. It really isn’t. I want to see you. I want to be with you. But, you know, it’s all new. Let’s keep going.'
She nodded. 'Yes, you’re right. You’re obviously right. As long as you’re not just finding a polite way to say goodbye.'
'I'm really not. I’m saying hello.' His smile was unwavering.
'But cautiously.' She laughed to show she was joking though she knew he could read the anxiety in her eyes. He put his arms around her and held her close. They were still standing by the uncurtained window, rain pouring down the glass in a steady stream.
'OK,' she said. 'I’d better brave the police before they waste any more public money on my behalf. Then I’ll get up to Finlan's to pick up Luke. Do you want to come with me?'
Another hesitation. 'I think I should leave you and Luke to each other tonight. He probably needs you and you definitely need him.'
Her head was still buried in his shoulder, so she couldn’t read his expression. 'You’re probably right,' she said. 'Will I see you tomorrow?'
'Yes,' he said. 'Tomorrow.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kate Forester slowly pushed open the door of the living room. For a strange moment, as she'd entered the house, she'd been certain it wasn't empty. That she wasn't alone. In her head, she could already see Graeme sitting there in the armchair facing the door. Perfectly positioned so that he could wait for her with that familiar mocking smile on his face.
The chair was empty.
Of course it was. The room was, as far as she could see, the same as she’d left it that morning. Nothing disturbed. Nothing moved. It had begun to rain outside, and she could hear nothing but the dull patter on the window. She couldn't imagine now why the thought of an intruder had even entered her head. Something as she'd entered the house, she thought. Some familiar scent. Some unexpected echo of Graeme.
It was partly because she so desperately wanted this place to be a sanctuary. She needed it to be somewhere safe, somewhere she could live with Jack without any fear that Graeme might turn up unexpectedly on the doorstep. She'd shared her address here with almost no-one beyond the necessary authorities and utilities, and her mail was still being forwarded from her mother's. She suspected that some of her older friends might be offended by her apparent secrecy, but she knew that, if he chose to, Graeme would be adept at worming information out of even her most loyal confidante. For the moment, she preferred to remain off the grid.
The result, though, was a continuing paranoia that somehow Graeme might track her down. Every evening, she returned from work with the same half-formed anxiety—that he'd be waiting on the doorstep or even, as she'd feared tonight, somewhere in the house. In reality, she knew he'd be more careful. He wasn’t going to give her the excuse to involve the police or the courts to keep him away. He’d managed to talk himself out of trouble when he’d taken Jack away, claiming it had all been a misunderstanding. That he'd understood she’d agreed to the trip. That he couldn’t imagine why she’d become so hysterical. After all, he’d had a long friendly chat with Kate’s mother when he’d come to pick up Jack. She’d obviously seen nothing untoward in his visit. But, well, he'd have told the police, Kate sees herself as a wronged woman in their relationship and you know what they say about a woman scorned.
She could imagine all too vividly how that conversation with the two police officers would have gone. Her own mental state at the point would have served only to confirm what he was telling them. By the time they finished with him, they would have seen Graeme as the victim and herself as the wrong-doer, at best hysterical and at worst malicious, with young Jack stuck in the no-man’s land between two antagonistic exes. The officers had told her they'd advised Graeme not to bother her again but she suspected they'd said it with the air of warning him to avoid a killer-shark or a mountain lion.
She'd been back at work a couple of weeks now, heading up the Psychology Team in a nearby women's prison. She liked her colleagues and her new team, and she'd been impressed by Tim Hulse, the young Governor-in-Charge. But it was a different type of establishment from anywhere she'd worked previously, and she'd already found the work more demanding that she'd expected. She'd wanted a complete change, a new role, a new location.
But now she found herself worrying that it was too much for her. Perhaps she’d returned to work too soon. She wasn’t ready for it. She wasn’t ready to take control of a team. She wasn’t ready for the workload. Above all, she wasn’t ready to deal with the lives and concerns of prisoners who, after all, had far worse problems than anything she’d ever have to face. She had found herself thinking that it was irresponsible even to think she was in a state to take all that on.
Just at that moment, arriving home at the start of another week, she was tempted just to pick up the phone and tell Hulse she’d had enough. She could put herself back on long-term sick, another victim of the stresses of the job. In practice, it would probably mean the end of her career—if not immediately, then before too long. Word would get around. But that might be for the best.
She opened the freezer door and stared inside, as if the solution might lie among the stacks of dinners-for-one. The closest she could see was a pepperoni pizza. Scarcely conscious of what she was doing, she tore off the packaging, switched on the oven, and thrust the pizza inside. Another healthy meal, then.
She poured herself a glass of wine and took it into the living room. When she'd first visited the house with the estate agent, she’d found this room light and airy, with its view out over the garden to the canal, the valley and the open sky beyond. Now, it felt bleak and impersonal and the vista outside simply left her feeling exposed. She pulled the curtains firmly shut before slumping lifelessly on to the sofa.
She flicked aimlessly through the TV channels, but nothing caught her attention. Eventually, she left it playing silently on a news channel and booted up her laptop instead. Sipping her wine, she began to check her e-mails in
the vague hope that it might help her feel more connected to the outside world. For the most part, the contents of her inbox had the opposite effect. Endless spam messages generated automatically in some back room in who-knew-where. Equally unengaging marketing bumf from companies who’d at some point got hold of her details. A couple of relevant but anonymous bulletins from the British Psychological Society.
Only a couple of the e-mails were actually personal, and one of those only marginally so. A e-mail alert that someone called Kevin Wickham wanted to friend her on a social media page. She idly clicked the link through to the Facebook page. The name rang no bells. The avatar showed a faded image of a child—presumably said Kevin Wickham at a younger age. The picture looked as if it had been taken on a holiday, with slightly too much sun in the frame. The boy was little more than a toddler, and the clothes suggested the picture had been taken sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s. There were no other clues. Wickham’s page contained no other public information that might help her identify how she knew him.
She’d occasionally been advised not to accept friend requests from strangers, but she’d never really seen the harm, even given her line of work. It wasn’t as if she actually used social media much or ever posted anything personal herself. It was just a way of keeping in contact with old acquaintances she was unlikely to see face-to-face. Once in a while, she’d stumbled upon some old friend or colleague who’d vanished out of her life years before, sometimes all but forgotten. She’d generally been pleased to make the contact, even when it led nowhere but to a desultory exchange of good wishes. After a moment’s hesitation, she clicked on the accept button and returned to scanning through her e-mails.
There was one other e-mail that caught her eye. A note from Greg Perry. She’d received a brief friendly note from him at her work address earlier in the week, wishing her well and promising to find an excuse to visit her new establishment before too long. It had been typical of him, she supposed. He’d remembered, or more likely had noted, when she was due to start the new job, and had taken the trouble to send his good wishes. The note had been short and business-like, but the sentiments had seemed sincere.
The e-mail was simply headed 'News'. It was unusual for Perry to contact her on her personal address, though he’d sent one or two messages of encouragement and support when she’d been unwell. Intrigued, she opened up the message.
Characteristically, it was short and to the point.
'Hi Kate
Still confidential so don’t go blabbing yet. Especially not to Tim. Got promotion to Area Manager or whatever they’re calling it these days. Thought you’d want to know you haven’t got rid of me just yet. Sorry about that. Official announcement in next few days so remember to look surprised.
Best
Greg.'
She’d always assumed that Perry was destined for the top, or somewhere close to it. But she hadn’t expected he’d progress quite so quickly. He’d been one of the youngest Governors-in-Charge when he’d first been appointed, and the expectation—his, as well as others, or so he’d said—was that he’d have to earn his spurs across various types of prisons before having any chance of progressing further. But after a couple of years running a relatively small Local, a year at a Cat A High Security, and then a similar period in charge of an admittedly high-profile Open, here he was slithering his way further up the greasy pole.
She could imagine that Tim Hulse, who was a similar age and had already held down a couple of challenging Governor postings, wouldn’t necessarily take kindly to having Perry leapfrog past him.
She could also imagine it might make her own life even more difficult. Hulse knew that Perry had rated her and that they’d had a relatively close relationship in her last posting. He might see her as Perry’s spy in the camp. The message from Perry, however well-intentioned, just made her feel awkward. She'd have to be careful how she handled the situation.
She tapped out a quick return note of congratulations. promising Perry she’d say nothing before the official announcement. She ended with a question: 'Are they going to allow you to take Bonnie to the Area Office?'
She suspected that Bonnie had already served her canine purpose. For a Governor in Change, the dog in the office was a mild eccentricity. It ensured Perry was noticed and talked about. People remembered that character who ducked out of meetings to feed his favourite pooch.
But Area Manager, or Deputy Director, or whatever they’d decided to call it this week, was a whole different animal. You spent your time bandying words with the Director-General and the top team, with local MPs and Councils across the region. You were much less operational and much more of a desk-driver. Above all, you were expected to be serious. Her guess was that poor old Bonnie wouldn’t make the transition to Area Office, and that Perry would be putting her out to grass.
Swallowing the last of her glass of wine, she made her way back into the kitchen, rescuing the pizza just before it was incinerated. Something was nagging at her mind. It took her a few moments to work out what it was.
The friend request. From—what was that name again?—Kevin Wickham. The name still rang no bells. But something about it had caught in her brain. Still chewing her pizza, she went to retrieve her laptop from the sitting room and opened it up on the table in front of her.
She clicked on Kevin Wickham’s avatar and peered at the image, zooming in to try to see more details. At this magnification, it was blurred and unclear, a haze of pixels. A young child, holding the hand of an adult, as if seeking protection from the camera lens, though it was impossible to read the child’s expression with any certainty. The adult hand and bare arm appeared to belong to a woman—the child’s mother? The background was largely obscured, although the visible patches of green suggested it was a garden or a park.
The image, or something about it, seemed familiar. She was fairly sure she hadn’t seen this specific picture before, but she felt she’d seen something similar. She stared at it for several minutes, trying to imagine why the image made her feel so uneasy. There was some memory there she couldn’t quite grasp.
She hesitated then she began tapping out a direct message to Kevin Wickham. 'Hi. Thanks for the friend request. Have we met somewhere?' She kept the note as short and impersonal as possible. No point in offering any kind of familiarity to someone she might well prefer to avoid.
She pushed the laptop away and helped herself to another slice of the pizza. Her next task would be to call her mother, have a pre-bedtime chat with Jack. That was the other thing that had kept her going. Half-term was only a week away, and then she'd be bringing Jack up here to join her. He even seemed excited by the prospect of a new school, a new life, new friends. She hoped that he was still young enough to make the transition without any undue trauma.
She poured another glass of wine and went back into the living room. She still felt anxious, but the thought of finally being back with Jack made her feel more optimistic. This was all new, she thought. It was bound to be frightening. But it was also an opportunity to start again, to do things differently. Perhaps everything would finally begin to work out after all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DC Roberta Wallace gazed at him for a moment as if weighing up his right to be there. After a moment she said: 'Yes, of course, that’s fine. Mr—?'
'Wickham,' he said. 'Kevin.'
Wallace held his gazed for a moment longer and then turned her attention back to Sue who was sitting coiled in a corner of the sofa. She looked, Wallace thought, as if she were about to be physically attacked. 'I can appreciate that this is stressful, Mrs Myers, especially after last night. But it’s nothing to worry about. Just a couple of things we need to check.' She turned and smiled at Wickham. 'And, of course, absolutely no problem in Mr Wickham sitting in if that makes you feel more comfortable.'
Wallace was only in her late twenties, but she carried herself with an air of confidence and authority. As Paul Wanstead had noted approvingly, her manner and tone of vo
ice managed to blend compassion with an undeniable implication that she’d suffer no nonsense. 'DC Wallace, but call me Roberta,' she’d said in her introductions, emphasising the informality of the discussion. 'It’s an awful name, but it’s better than Bert, which is what my colleagues call me.'
Sitting next to DC Wallace was DC Will Sparrow. He was a chunky, heavily built young man with short-cropped light brown hair. He was a year or two older than Wallace but generally seemed content to defer to her leadership. They were all sitting awkwardly in Sue Myers’s small living room. The previous night’s rain had long passed, and the late morning sunshine was streaming in.
Wallace pulled out her notebook, gesturing apologetically with her pen. 'Sorry. Just need to make a few notes. Memory like a sieve.' That was far from true, but Wallace liked to ensure that she had a written note of any interview she was conducting, however supposedly informal. She noted that Sue's eyes were fixed on the notepad as if it posed some kind of threat. For his part, Wickham was sitting motionless, his face blank.
'I'm sorry we're having to take you through all this again, but you'll appreciate that, given what happened up the road, we're keen to see if there's anything in Luke's experience that might help us with our investigation.'
'But nothing happened to Luke,' Sue said.
'No, of course not. But there are one or two points that seemed worth following up. Just to make sure we’ve got the facts straight. Luke, your son, arrived here what time yesterday afternoon?'
'I didn’t know he was coming,' Sue said. 'That was Tony—'
Wallace held up her hand, as if reliving her days on traffic duty. 'You don’t need to explain all that, Mrs Myers. We’ve already had a conversation with your ex-husband.'
'You have?'
'We had a chat with him this morning.' It had been a routine conversation, but they'd wanted to ensure that the two stories tallied. It sounded as if the ex-husband had simply been irresponsible, but the fact was that, whatever the circumstances, a young child had effectively been abandoned alone, in the late afternoon and in bad weather, only days after a child murder in the same neighbourhood. On the face of it, it didn't look good.