Little Face

by Sophie Hannah

  6

  3/10/03, 1.30 pm

  There was no sign of Charlie in the CID room. Shit. Without her, Simon could hardly find out from Proust what David Fancourt had said. Colin Sellers and Chris Gibbs, two of the other Ds in Charlie’s team, were working their way through a tower of files with what looked to Simon like slightly overdone urgency. For which there could only be one explanation.

  Simon turned and saw Detective Inspector Proust in his office in the corner of the room. It was more of a glass box than an office, a bit like an exhibition case in an art gallery, one in which you might find the cross-section of a dead animal, except that the bottom half was made of cheap plasterboard which, for some reason, was carpeted – the same drab, ribbed grey as the CID room floor. The inspector’s top half was visible through the glass as he orbited his desk, holding the phone in one hand and his ‘World’s Greatest Grandad’ mug in the other.

  David Fancourt must have left, then. Unless Proust had handed him over to Charlie. Perhaps that was where she was, in an interview room with that bastard. Simon sat down beside Gibbs and Sellers, drumming his fingers on the desk. The CID room closed in on him, with its peeling green paint and smell of stale sweat, its constant computerised hum. A person could suffocate in here. Pinned to one wall were photographs of victims, blood visible on some of their faces and bodies. Simon couldn’t bear to think of Alice in that condition. But she wasn’t, she couldn’t be. His imagination wouldn’t allow it.

  Something nagged at his subconscious, something to do with what Charlie had told him about the Laura Cryer case. He wasn’t wise enough to stop fretting about it and allow it to come to him effortlessly later. Instead, he sat in his chair, shoulders hunched, and made his brain pound trying to dredge it up from the murky depths of his memory. Pointless.

  Before he was aware he’d made a decision, Simon was on his feet again. He couldn’t sit and twiddle his thumbs when he had no idea if Alice was okay. Where the fuck was Charlie? Free, for once, of her restraining influence, he marched over to Proust’s office and knocked on the door, hard, beating out a rhythm of emergency. With Proust, you normally waited until you were summoned, even if you were a sergeant, like Charlie. Simon heard Gibbs and Sellers speculating in whispers about what his problem was.

  Proust didn’t look as surprised as he might have done. ‘DC Waterhouse,’ he said, emerging from his cubicle. ‘Just the man I need to see.’ His voice was stern, but that told Simon nothing. The inspector always sounded severe. According to his wife Lizzie, whom Simon had met at a couple of parties, Proust used the same tone when he spoke to his family that he used in court and at press conferences.

  ‘Sir, I know David Fancourt’s been in.’ Simon got straight to the point. ‘I know his wife and daughter are missing. Is he with Charlie?’

  Proust sighed, flaying Simon with his glare. He was a small, thin, bald man in his mid-fifties, whose bad moods were able to travel beyond his skin and contaminate whole rooms full of people. Thus he ensured that everyone benefited from keeping him happy. The Snowman; Proust knew about the nickname and liked it.

  ‘Listen very carefully, Waterhouse. I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth, even if you know it means big trouble for you. If you lie to me . . .’ He paused to stare portentously at Simon. ‘If you lie to me, Waterhouse, you can consider your career in the police force to be at an end. You will rue this day. Do we understand each other?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Pointless to say that neither of the alternatives sounded particularly appealing.

  ‘And don’t think I won’t find out if you lie, because I will.’

  ‘Sir.’ Frustration coursed through Simon’s veins, but he tried to look calm. There was no short-cut when talking to Proust. You had to jump through the many hoops he set up. He started each conversation with a firm view about how it ought to be structured. He spoke in paragraphs.

  ‘Where are Alice and Florence Fancourt?’

  ‘Sir?’ Simon looked up, startled.

  ‘Is that the only word you know, Waterhouse? Because if it is, I’d be happy to lend you a Thesaurus. I’ll ask you again: where are Alice and Florence Fancourt?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I know they’ve gone missing, sir. I know that’s why Fancourt came in this morning, but I don’t know where they are. Why would I?’

  ‘Hmph.’ Proust turned away, rubbing his nose. Deep in thought, perfecting his next line. ‘So anyone who suggested that you and Mrs Fancourt are closer than you ought to be would be incorrect, would they?’

  ‘Yes. They would, sir.’ Simon feigned indignation. With some success, he thought. Proust’s controlled pauses raised the stakes so high that he ended up watching everybody’s finest performances. ‘Who said that? Is that what Fancourt said?’ Or perhaps it was Charlie, the traitor. Simon knew only one thing: he couldn’t lose this job. He’d done it better than most, first as a bobby and then in CID, for seven years. He’d half-wanted to lose all his previous jobs, to go out in a blaze of misunderstood glory once things started to go wrong. The dental hospital, the tourist information bureau, the building society – he hadn’t cared about any of them. They were full of dullards who droned on about ‘the real world’ every time they saw Simon with a book in his hand. As if books weren’t as real as cash ISAs, for fuck’s sake. No, he’d regarded getting the sack from those shit-holes as a tribute, proof of his worth.

  His mother had disagreed. Simon could still picture the way her face had drooped when he’d told her that he’d been fired from his job as an art gallery security guard, his fourth in two years. ‘What will I tell the priest?’ she’d said.

  No reply from the Snowman. Simon could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead. ‘Fancourt’s a liar, sir,’ he blurted out. ‘I don’t trust him.’

  The inspector took a sip from his mug and waited. Alarmingly cool, like an ice cube down your back on a hot day.

  Simon knew he probably ought to keep his mouth shut, but he found he couldn’t. ‘Sir, shouldn’t we look at the Laura Cryer case again, in the circumstances?’ Proust had nominally been in charge of the investigation three years ago, though it had been Charlie, Sellers, Gibbs and the rest of the team who’d done all the work. ‘I’ve just told Char . . . Sergeant Zailer the same thing. Alice Fancourt didn’t trust David Fancourt either. It was obvious she didn’t. And women know their husbands, don’t they? Sir, given that Fancourt’s first wife was killed and now Alice has gone missing as well, shouldn’t Fancourt be our prime suspect? Shouldn’t that be our first line of enquiry?’ He wasn’t normally so talkative. Proust would have to see the logic of what he was saying if he repeated himself enough.

  ‘“Women know their husbands!”’

  Simon jumped. The sudden increase in volume told him that his turn was over and he had used it unwisely. Proust was going to make him pay for trying to determine the direction of their dialogue. He shouldn’t have said so much, so urgently. He’d introduced a new element; Proust hated that.

  ‘Women know their husbands, do they? And on that basis, you suspect David Fancourt of murder?’

  ‘Sir, if . . .’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Waterhouse. Every Saturday night, my wife and I have dinner with some-tedious-body or other, and I have to sit there like a prat while she makes up stories about me. Giles this, Giles that, Giles doesn’t like lemon meringue pie because he was forced to eat it at school, Giles prefers Spain to Italy, he thinks the people are more friendly. Seventy-five per cent of these stories are fiction, pure and simple. Oh, there’s a grain of truth in some of them, but mostly they’re made up. Women do not know their husbands, Waterhouse. You only say that because you’re not married. Women talk drivel because it entertains them. They fill the air with random words, and they don’t much care whether what they’re saying has any basis in fact.’ Proust was red in the face by the end of his speech. Simon knew better than to reply.

  ‘A pretty, manipulative woman spins you a yarn and you fall
for it! Darryl Beer killed Laura Cryer because she fought for her handbag. He left half the contents of his scalp all over her body. What are you playing at, Waterhouse? Hm? You could end up where I am if you play your cards right. You could be a seriously good detective. I was the first person to say so, when you were here on secondment. And you’ve struck lucky more than once recently, I’ll grant you that. But I’m telling you now, you can’t afford any more mistakes.’

  Struck lucky? Simon’s fists itched to fly through the air in the direction of Proust’s smug face. The inspector made it sound as if anyone might have achieved what Simon had in the past month, when he must have known damn well no-one else could or would have, certainly not anyone presently working in CID. At least, no-one else had, and that was what fucking mattered.

  And what was all this shit about ‘any more mistakes’? Simon had had a couple of Reg 9s but never anything serious. Everyone had the odd Reg 9, minor disciplinary stuff. And, unless his memory was playing up, Proust had just described Alice as manipulative. That opinion must have come from Charlie, who was herself capable of being ruthlessly manipulative. Alice seemed to Simon to be an utterly straightforward person, entirely without guile. He clamped his mouth shut and started to count inside his head. By thirty-two, he still wanted to knock Proust to the ground. And Charlie, while he was at it.

  ‘What is it with you and women, Waterhouse? Why don’t you get yourself a girlfriend?’

  Simon froze, eyes fixed on the floor. This was something he definitely didn’t want to talk about. To anyone, ever. He kept his head down and waited for Proust to finish his rant.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on in your personal life, Waterhouse, and I don’t care, but if it affects work then I care. You come in here, giving it “Charlie this” and “Alice that” – this is CID, not a tawdry soap opera. Sort yourself out!’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Now was a bad time to start shaking. It was probably the effort of suppressing all his anger and frustration. Simon hoped Proust hadn’t noticed, Proust who noticed everything. Why had he said that, about girlfriends?

  ‘Look at the state of you! You’re a mess!’

  ‘I’ll . . . sorry, sir.’

  ‘So let’s be absolutely clear: apart from your official involvement with Alice Fancourt over the allegations she made about her baby, you’ve had no contact with her at all. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You aren’t carrying on with her?’

  ‘No.’ This, at least, was true. ‘She had a baby less than a month ago, sir.’

  ‘What about while she was pregnant? Before she was pregnant?’

  ‘I’ve only known her a week, sir.’

  Was it really only last Friday? It felt like longer. Simon had been on his way to pick up some CCTV footage his team needed for an ongoing misper, when he’d heard PC Robbie Meakin’s voice on his radio, asking for any car to go to a residence called The Elms, on the Rawndesley Road. ‘Woman by the name of Alice Fancourt. Says her baby’s been abducted.’

  Simon had been struck by the coincidence. He’d passed that property only about twenty seconds earlier and noticed the open, wrought-iron gates that must have been specially made to incorporate the name of the house in two large circles: ‘The’ on the gate on the left, ‘Elms’ on the right. Classier than those painted wooden signs, Simon had thought. ‘I’m there. I’ll take it,’ he’d told Meakin. Reluctant though he was to be saddled with another case when he already had more than enough in his crime cue, he would have felt guilty ignoring this one when he was on the spot. It was a baby, after all.

  He pulled in, turned the car round and headed back in the direction of Spilling. He’d barely accelerated when he found himself in front of The Elms. He could see a long driveway, a slice of tall, white house at the end of it, cut off by trees on one side and what looked like a barn on the other. In front of the barn, on the side nearest to the road, there was a paved area on which two cars were parked under bent, overhanging trees – a metallic blue BMW and a maroon Volvo that looked four hundred years old.

  Simon waited not so patiently for a gap in the oncoming traffic so that he could turn in to the driveway. As he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, Meakin’s voice emerged from the static again. ‘Waterhouse?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Are you confidential?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re gonna love this. The woman’s husband’s just phoned. He reckons the baby hasn’t been abducted.’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘There is a baby in the house. They both seem to agree on that. Husband reckons it’s the one they brought home from hospital, wife says it isn’t.’ Meakin chuckled.

  Simon groaned. ‘Fucking hell!’

  ‘Too late. You said you were taking it.’

  ‘You bastard, Meakin.’ Finally the traffic stopped and Simon was able to get across the road. Not that he wanted to any more. Why hadn’t he left this one for uniforms to deal with? He was too bloody conscientious for his own good. An abducted baby was one thing. That was serious. A woman claiming her baby was the wrong baby, that was a whole different kettle of fish. Simon was sure he’d landed himself a real winder. Alice Fancourt, he had no doubt, would turn out to be a hormonal housewife who woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning and decided to waste everybody’s time.

  And so more paperwork was generated. It didn’t matter how absurd the allegation was. In these days of ethical crime reporting, every load of nonsense had to be crimed, given a case number and assigned to a sergeant, who in turn would assign it to a detective. It was part of the police force’s attempt to pretend that it took all members of the public seriously. Which of course it didn’t.

  It wasn’t the paperwork that worried Simon. He’d been in his element, while on secondment to CID, as evidence officer. He was less comfortable with the messy and often horrific human pantomimes he encountered on a daily basis, the ferocity of feeling that his work sometimes brought him into contact with. He was embarrassed to be present at many of the scenes that required his presence, and did most of his best work alone with his thoughts, or with a stack of files in front of him. Away from other people, anyway, other people and their mediocre ideas.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing,’ said Meakin.

  ‘Yes?’ It was unlikely to be good news.

  ‘The address, The Elms – it’s got an information marker against it on the computer.’

  ‘Saying?’

  ‘Just says “See linked incident”, and the incident number.’

  Simon sighed and scribbled down the number Meakin gave him. He’d check it out later.

  He parked next to the BMW and the knackered Volvo, noticing that the former was covered in dead leaves from the trees above, while the Volvo had only two on its bonnet, one red and one brownish-yellow. Simon walked up the driveway and rang the bell. The front door was solid wood and looked absurdly thick, as if it might be as deep as it was wide. The house was palatial, with a perfectly square, symmetrical façade. Its blank tidiness made Simon think of an article he had once read in a newspaper about a hotel that was made of ice. There was something forbidding about the apparent perfection on display that made Simon look even harder for chips and cracks. He found none. The white paintwork on the outer walls and window frames was immaculate.

  After a few seconds, a slim, clean-shaven man wearing a checked shirt and jeans opened the door. He was a few inches shorter than Simon, and the vastness of the house made him appear even smaller than he was. His hair was light brown and looked as if it had been expensively cut. Simon guessed that most women would find his regular, well-proportioned features attractive.

  David Fancourt. He had looked guilty, or embarrassed, or furtive. Something, anyway. No, not guilty. Simon hadn’t thought that at the time. That was hindsight, backwards projection, like when you watch a film you’ve already seen and you know what’s going to happen in the end. ‘At last,’ Fancourt said impatiently as he opened the d
oor. He was holding a very young baby in his arms and a bottle of milk in one hand. The baby had a rounder head than many Simon had seen. Some looked dented, squashed. This one had hardly any hair and a couple of tiny white spots on its nose. Its eyes were open and it seemed to peer with intense curiosity, although Simon was sure he’d imagined that part. More memory tricks.

  Behind Fancourt, he saw a spacious hall and a curved staircase made of dark, polished wood. How the other half lives, he thought. ‘I’m Detective Constable Waterhouse. You reported the abduction of a baby?’

  ‘David Fancourt. My wife has gone mad.’ His tone implied that this was, if not Simon’s fault, then at the very least his sole responsibility now that he had turned up.

  And then, at the top of the stairs, Simon had seen Alice.

  7

  Friday September 26, 2003

  There is only one policeman. I’m sure they send two when they think it’s serious. That’s what happens on television, at any rate. I could scream with frustration. I decide not to. David has just told Detective Constable Waterhouse that I am mad, utterly mad, and I must not behave in a way that will instantly prove him right.

  The policeman spots me at the top of the stairs and smiles briefly. It is a worried smile, and he continues to look at me long after it has faded. I cannot tell if he is trying to assess my mental state or find clues somewhere on my person or clothing, but he certainly stares at me for a long time. He is not wearing a police uniform. He described himself as a detective. Maybe these are both good signs. I think I remember someone telling me that plain clothes policemen are more senior.

  I am heartened by his appearance. He is not handsome, but looks solid and serious. Best of all, he seems alert. He does not have the air of someone who is coasting along on autopilot, doing the bare minimum to get through his working day.