When She Was Good

by Robotham, Michael

  Manning looks at the time again on his phone.

  ‘I really do have to go. We’re holding a fundraiser at the Opera House. They’re doing La Bohème.’

  He closes his eyes briefly and sighs, beating out a little rhythm on his desk with his fingers.

  ‘I wish I could help you, Cyrus, but you seem to be asking questions about men who are dead. We help people rebuild their lives. Some of them are damaged. Some were once dangerous. If you discover that one of our employees has broken the law, we will not shield them. I promise you that.’

  37

  Evie

  Having Ruby around is like having a pet. Right now, she’s lying on my bed, flicking through my magazines – the ones I haven’t already cut up to make collages on my walls; creating big pictures out of smaller ones in a series of bespoke jigsaw puzzles.

  Ruby is a talker, but I stop listening after a while because her voice is like elevator music. Right now, she’s telling me how her stepfather ran off with ‘some tart’ he met at a motor show and didn’t come home for five months; and her mum threatened to ‘cut off his balls’ if he ever came back, but she did ‘sod all’.

  It’s been two days since Cyrus came to visit. Two days since I was sedated. I know he’s trying to discover who I am, even though I begged him not to. He showed me that photograph of the missing boy, and I lied to him about never seeing him before. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t want Cyrus finding out who I am … what I’ve done.

  Ruby nudges me. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When you get your period, do your boobs get sore? Mine do.’

  Ruby is wearing black woollen tights and a T-shirt with Kurt Cobain on the front. We don’t know who Kurt Cobain is, but he looks kind of hot in a skinny, meth-addict-with-teeth sort of way. Ruby’s taste in music is pretty shite and she likes watching those TV talent shows where contestants come up with a sob story about how they’re singing for their dead granny or their little brother with leukaemia. Ruby cries every time.

  ‘How did your mum die?’ she asks, turning another page.

  ‘She suffocated.’

  ‘Is that like being strangled?’

  ‘No. Yes. Maybe. Don’t ask me stupid questions.’

  She twirls one of her ear-studs, a nervous habit, or just a habit.

  ‘How come they don’t know how old you are?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m turning eighteen in September.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not your real birthday. The judge made it up. He could have chosen any day. You should have picked January fourteen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s my birthday. We could be like twins.’

  ‘Sharing a birthday wouldn’t make us twins.’

  Ruby turns more pages while I change the song playing on my iPod speakers.

  ‘I could pierce your ears if you like,’ she says. ‘All we need is a needle, an ice cube and a cigarette lighter.’

  ‘We don’t have any of those things.’

  ‘No.’

  Davina walks along the corridor, shouting, ‘Twenty minutes, ladies.’

  That’s when the doors are locked for the night and won’t be opened again until seven forty-five in the morning.

  ‘Can I stay here?’ asks Ruby. She takes a gulp of air and seems to be holding her breath.

  ‘I can’t afford any more trouble.’

  ‘We won’t get caught. Please.’

  I don’t want to be alone either, so I say yes. Ruby goes back to her room and sets up her bed to make it look like she’s sleeping under her blankets. The cameras in the corridors will show her coming and going, but the place is so busy before lock-down that nobody takes much notice of the movements, as long as everyone is in their own room at ten o’clock.

  Ruby arrives back in my room wearing her pyjamas and dressing gown, holding a battered-looking hippopotamus that needs washing or burning, but she won’t sleep without it.

  The trick with a room switch is to hide in the bathroom until the doors are locked and the observation hatch is closed. Once the rooms have been checked, Ruby sneaks out and crawls beneath the covers, wedging herself against the wall, out of sight.

  ‘You’re lucky you don’t have a family,’ she whispers. ‘Mine don’t want me around. They like my baby brothers and sisters, but not me. They aren’t cruel to me, but I don’t get any kisses and hugs – not like before.’

  ‘I thought you said your stepfather touched you.’

  ‘Nah, I made that up.’

  ‘That’s a pretty wicked lie.’

  ‘I know, but I hate that bastard.’

  Her voice goes on steadily in the darkness.

  ‘One day I’m going to have my own babies and they’re going to love me completely. And I’ll make sure they get all the kisses and hugs and we’ll live in a nice cottage in a village and I’ll have a hairdressing salon and a really fit husband who looks like Will Yeoman.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ I ask sleepily.

  ‘A boy at my old school.’

  Then she’s off again, telling me about all the beautiful ideas that float around in her head; talking herself to sleep and taking me with her.

  * * *

  I dream of the house in north London, sitting on Terry’s bed, watching TV. The dogs were downstairs, whining and scratching at the door, and I’d locked them outside because Terry said he’d be home early from work. When I heard his car, I turned off the TV and pulled aside the edge of the curtain. I saw him lean across the back seat to grab his jacket before he locked the car and crossed the grass verge to our front path. A shadow stepped from behind a tree and I saw two red dots appear on Terry’s chest, followed by a flash of silver. Terry collapsed, his body jerking and writhing on the ground.

  Two more men stepped from the darkness. They grabbed Terry’s arms and half dragged him towards the house. Sid and Nancy were barking, but soon they whimpered and went quiet. Glass broke. I scrambled across the bed and crawled into the wardrobe, disappearing behind the walls.

  I heard them climbing the stairs and searching the rooms, checking and rechecking, arguing when they couldn’t find me.

  I sat with my back to the panel, hugging my knees, trying not to make a sound.

  ‘Where is she?’ asked a man.

  ‘Who?’ answered Terry.

  ‘Don’t be a smart arse. Where’s the girl?’

  ‘She left me that first night. I put her on a train. Gave her fifty quid. She said she could make her own way home.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘So how do you explain this?’

  They found my things. The clothes in the washing machine. My shampoo and hairbrush in the shower. Terry had always told me not to leave stuff lying around, but I got lazy and so did he.

  I could hear them arguing.

  ‘The bitch has to be somewhere.’

  ‘She could have run away. He could have warned her.’

  ‘How? We took him by surprise.’

  ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘Look again.’

  They went back to searching, banging doors, lifting mattresses, pulling out drawers …

  When they couldn’t find me, they brought Terry upstairs to his bedroom.

  ‘Hold his fucking legs,’ said a voice. ‘Put the belt around his neck. Tighten it another notch.’

  ‘We don’t want to choke him.’

  ‘He won’t choke.’

  I heard the blows landing and the air leaving his lungs. Terry told them a new story. He called me a whiney bitch who was so annoying that he kicked me out.

  They didn’t believe him.

  He made up other stories: how I went back to my family, or he left me at a train station, or I got sick and died and he dumped my body in a mine shaft. The beatings continued. The screams. I covered my ears. I covered my head. I curled up in my box. I wished it would stop but there was nothing I could do. No way to save him.

&
nbsp; 38

  Cyrus

  It’s after nine o’clock when we reach home. Tired. Hungry. I suggest a takeaway, but Sacha has other plans.

  ‘This is a little something I prepared earlier,’ she says, sounding like Jamie Oliver. She takes a heavy-based pot from the fridge and lights a gas ring on the hob. I try to peek over her shoulder and she waves me away, telling me to open a bottle of wine.

  ‘I don’t have any wine.’

  She points to the worktop. ‘You do now.’

  I open the wine and pour two glasses.

  ‘I still don’t understand where Evie comes into this,’ says Sacha. ‘The notebook, the flight log, the prison charity – what does that have to do with Angel Face?’

  ‘Hamish Whitmore felt they were important.’

  ‘Maybe Eugene Green has nothing to do with Evie.’

  ‘She recognised the photograph of Patrick Comber when I showed it to her. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘OK, but the other children were kidnapped and dumped. Why would they keep Evie alive?’

  ‘The other victims were snatched off the street. Their faces were all over the newspapers and TV. They were recognisable. The whole country was looking for them. Nobody knew Evie was missing, which means nobody was looking for her.’

  ‘How is that even possible – to keep a child a secret? Where is her family? What about her visits to the doctor, her vaccinations, her schooling …?’

  ‘Maybe Evie was never on the grid. Her birth was never recorded, or she was born somewhere else and smuggled into the country. People trafficking is the third biggest criminal enterprise in the world.’

  ‘Yes, but children?’

  ‘If nobody knew she existed, nobody ever went looking.’

  ‘Surely a DNA test would reveal her background.’

  ‘Not where she was born. It isn’t that specific. Genetic testing can tell you if you’re part Scandinavian or south European or British or Irish or African, but those results are based on percentages over a thousand years. It can’t link a person to a particular town or family unless they have someone to test the DNA sample against.’

  Talking out loud helps me lay out the pieces, looking for patterns.

  ‘Terry Boland’s sister said Terry was arrested and charged with an armed robbery of a post office in Manchester, but the charges were inexplicably dropped. Today at the warehouse, Billie mentioned that the Everett Foundation provides legal services for ex-prisoners. What if Boland received those services? His sister said a top silk negotiated his release. How does someone like Terry get that sort of representation?’

  ‘Why would the Everett Foundation help him?’

  ‘Maybe it didn’t want to be embarrassed by seeing one of its beneficiaries charged with a serious offence. It’s not a good look for a charity. Fraser Manning made clear that his job is to protect the reputation of Lord Everett and the foundation.’

  ‘Nothing links Boland to the charity,’ says Sacha, still not convinced.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Sacha lifts the lid of the pot. Steam escapes. Smells.

  ‘It’s just vegetable soup,’ she explains. ‘A Maltese dish – Minestra. Beans. Pasta. Rice. My mother’s recipe.’

  ‘You’re Maltese?’

  ‘My mother is. My father’s family came from Norway.’

  ‘Hence the red hair.’

  ‘My ginger genes.’

  She also takes out a loaf of crunchy bread from the oven.

  ‘The man usually serves.’

  ‘That’s not very me-too.’

  ‘No, but my mother is a stickler for tradition.’

  I ladle the thick soup into bowls, while Sacha breaks the bread into chunks and pours olive oil on to her side plate.

  ‘When is the last time you saw your parents?’ I ask.

  ‘I phone them most weeks … or write them postcards.’

  ‘You must miss them.’

  Sacha eyes me suspiciously. ‘Don’t analyse me. I’m not one of your patients.’

  ‘I didn’t mean …’ I pour us each another glass of wine.

  ‘I don’t usually drink,’ says Sacha, whose cheeks are flushed.

  After we’ve eaten and plates have been cleared away, I collect my laptop from the library and type in the name of Phillip Everett. The first article is a profile in Forbes magazine. Born in 1946, Everett was the eldest of four, and the only son of Lord William Everett, the 5th Baron of Helmsley. After being educated at Eton, he read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, before joining a merchant bank in the City of London. He took his seat in the House of Lords aged thirty-two, after his father died in a riding accident. Death duties almost bankrupted him, but he held on to the family’s seven-thousand-acre estate in Norfolk and subsequently amassed a property portfolio that put him in The Sunday Times Rich List.

  I find more articles, mostly covering his prison reform campaign and charitable work with the Everett Foundation.

  On a hunch, I type in the names ‘Eugene Green’ and ‘Lord Everett’. The results surprise me. The first headline reads: PEER OFFERS REWARD FOR MISSING SCHOOLBOY. Another declares: LORD EVERETT VISITS CHILD SEX KILLER ASKING: WHERE DID YOU BURY THE OTHERS?

  The articles include photographs of Lord Everett emerging from the prison gates, where he told reporters: ‘Eugene Green has assured me that he doesn’t know the whereabouts of Patrick Comber. I am inclined to believe him, but I’ve promised the Comber family that I will not stop searching.’

  Another link takes me to a YouTube video of a TV interview given in September 2019 after Eugene Green was convicted. Lord Everett, dressed immaculately in a dark suit, is speaking in a studio. His silvery hair is swept back in a wave and he sits casually with his legs crossed. The interviewer asks if he still opposes the death penalty; or if exceptions should be made for child killers and terrorists.

  ‘Ask me again when we have a perfect legal system, with no miscarriages of justice,’ he replies.

  ‘But surely, a monster like Eugene Green forfeits the right to be treated with mercy or compassion?’

  ‘A lot of people do unspeakable things, but a modern liberal democracy should not go down the path of institutionalised killings. This is the United Kingdom, not the Republic of Gilead.’

  Sacha has been sitting alongside me, her chair close to mine, our thighs touching.

  ‘He’s an impressive man,’ she says.

  ‘With a perfect cover.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting …?’

  ‘He has a private jet and deep pockets.’

  ‘That doesn’t make him a master criminal.’

  She’s right. I’m grabbing at crumbs, desperate to find some link between Evie and Eugene Green. Hamish Whitmore became convinced that Green had an accomplice or was kidnapping children for someone else. Terry Boland could have been a collaborator, until he developed a conscience and tried to save Evie. That would explain why he couldn’t go to the police and instead tried to hide her.

  ‘Why hasn’t anyone else looked at this?’ asks Sacha.

  ‘There wasn’t the need. Eugene Green confessed. Terry Boland was dead. The story seemed complete.’

  ‘Until Evie came along.’

  ‘Until you found her. When the police couldn’t solve Boland’s murder, it made sense to label him a paedophile and suggest that he got what he deserved.’

  ‘The age-old rule of policing,’ says Sacha. ‘When in doubt, blame it on the dead guy.’

  39

  Evie

  Something stirs me. A sound out of place. Not of the night. Ruby is snoring gently next to me. A tap drips in the bathroom. A toilet flushes in another room. I lie still, listening, my heart beating too quickly.

  The doors unlock automatically. It’s too early for wake-up and the alarms are silent. I can’t smell smoke and it’s not a fire drill. Hair covers Ruby’s face. I shake her. She mumbles.

  ‘We have to get up.’

  ‘Let me sleep.’

  I hear footste
ps in the corridor. Muffled voices.

  Wide awake now, I roll out of bed quietly and go to the bathroom. I crouch in the shower, behind the plastic curtain, sitting on my haunches, holding my knees. The soft glowing square of the window throws light over the sink and the toilet.

  I listen to the sounds. There is a chestnut tree outside the window that creaks when the wind blows. Papa knew the names of all the trees and how to find Venus and Mars in the night sky. He used to take me on night walks, looking for truffles. He said the best time to find truffles was at night, but I think he was avoiding the other pickers, who would punish anyone who trespassed on their patch.

  Crouching behind the plastic curtain, I’m aware of my heart beating and the blood in my ears. A shoe creaks. Ruby wakes.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asks, but her voice is cut off.

  I hear a muffled sound. A struggle. The mattress moving. Weight upon it. Knees. A man grunting in effort. Ruby fighting for her life. Losing.

  My fists are clenched so tightly that my fingernails dig into my palms. I want a knife. I want a gun. I want to put the barrel in my mouth. I want to put the blade against my skin. I imagine pulling the trigger. I imagine cutting my wrists.

  Time doesn’t slow down. It moves without me, leaving me scrabbling and clawing at the tiles until my fingers are bloody, trying to dig my way out before they find me.

  My mind breaks. I’m back in the hidden room behind the wardrobe, listening to Terry being tortured, but not broken.

  ‘This can stop now,’ a man says. ‘Just tell us where she is.’

  Terry doesn’t answer.

  ‘Give her up and I’ll let you go home. You can visit your boys. Or maybe we should bring them here. Would you like to see them?’

  ‘No, please,’ he moans. ‘I swear, she’s gone. I gave her money for a ticket. I put her on a bus.’

  ‘You said it was a train.’

  ‘It was a coach.’

  ‘Tell us where she is and I’ll stop hurting you.’

  ‘You’re going to kill me.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’ll do it quickly. You have my word.’

  They began again and I heard the blows landing and his muffled screams. I cannot unmake the sounds. I cannot unhear them. They come back to me whenever I put my head under running water, or beneath a pillow, or when I see bombs being dropped on villages, or children starving in Africa, or bodies being pulled from rubble, or whenever some lonely sound separates itself from all the others.