Stranger Child

by Rachel Abbott

‘Don’t hurt my baby,’ she screamed. ‘Shoot me, but don’t hurt my baby, please.’

  She looked directly at the woman and gasped. What had happened to her poor face? But the woman had Ollie, and at that moment it was all that mattered.

  ‘Give me the gun, Melissa.’

  Tom. Thank goodness.

  Without a word of protest, Melissa turned the gun around, and handed it to Tom. With both hands free, she clasped Ollie tightly one last time and stood up to hand him over to Emma.

  ‘He’s lovely, Emma. I’m so sorry for everything.’ She sat down again as if her legs had given way, a dazed expression on her face.

  But Emma barely heard her. Ollie had stopped crying when he heard his mummy’s voice, and Emma pulled him tightly to her. So tightly that he gave a small ‘ay’ of protest, and then she was laughing and crying at the same time. She lifted him away from her so she could look at his soft skin, his pudgy little cheeks and his fine hair. Ollie lifted one hand towards Emma’s tears and stroked them with his fingers. ‘Mumumum’ he said softly, a big smile spreading across his face.

  She pulled Ollie close again and looked at where Tom was lifting a body from the floor, rolling him onto his back. Underneath the body, covered in blood, lay Jack. Without his wild hair and unshaven cheeks he looked so different, but at the same time, so familiar.

  Emma couldn’t breathe, certain that he had sacrificed himself for Ollie.

  Then Tom reached out a hand and Jack’s eyes opened – looking first at his brother and then over at Emma and Ollie, his eyes searching hers, making sure she was all right.

  He took the outstretched hand and Tom hauled him to his feet.

  ‘Christ, Guy’s heavier than he looks,’ he muttered.

  ‘Never, ever, do anything as fucking stupid as that again, Jack. If it hadn’t been for Mel, you’d be dead now. What were you trying to do, for God’s sake?’

  ‘You forget, Tom – as I said to Guy, I’m already dead. He would have killed us both. He nearly killed me by falling on top of me. But at least if he’d shot me you’d have had a second or two to take him down.’

  Tom exhaled a breath of air and shook his head.

  ‘Later, Jack. We need to sort Ollie out. Melissa – Julie said she’d given him a sleeping tablet. Do you know anything about it?’

  Emma spun her head round to stare back at Melissa, her body rigid with tension. Melissa seemed dazed, staring at Guy’s dead body, a hint of a smile on her lips. She spoke without lifting her head.

  ‘It’s fine. She’d given it to him just before I got there. He was probably crying because he was thirsty – she won’t have thought to give him a drink. His little mouth was dry, and the tablet was stuck under his tongue where she’d shoved it. I peeled it off, and wiped away any residue with a tissue. Then gave him loads of water. He’s been asleep, but he’s fine now.’

  Mel was still staring, trance-like, at Guy’s body.

  ‘Thank you,’ was all Emma could think of to say.

  ‘I still think we need to get Ollie to a doctor,’ Tom said. ‘I’m going to take Emma outside and hand her over to an officer who can look after both of them until the ambulance gets here.’ They could hear sirens close by, and the steady throb of a helicopter overhead.

  Tom turned to Jack and Melissa.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you two, but my first priority is Ollie. I’ll be two minutes. Stay here – both of you.’

  Emma walked towards the door, holding Ollie tightly. But her eyes were on Jack, boring into him, trying to read what was in his mind, trying to show him what was in hers, and in her heart.

  ‘Jack,’ she said quietly.

  His eyes softened as he gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head and lifted his chin as if to tell her to go. She had to, for Ollie, but there was so much still to say.

  As Tom closed the door behind her, Emma felt certain she had lost Jack for the third time in her life, and this time was the saddest.

  67

  Tom wasn’t happy to be leaving a murder scene, but Ollie had to come first, and Tom needed time to think. He put an arm round Emma’s shoulders and steered her towards the front door, collecting his radio and phones on the way. An out-of-breath policeman was standing doubled over halfway up the drive.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the policeman said. ‘She said she needed a pee, so I could hardly follow her. I’ve been looking everywhere for her.’

  Tom gave Emma a look, but he couldn’t really blame her. He hurried her towards the gate, looking anxiously for the promised ambulance.

  ‘You’ve been amazing, Emma,’ he said as his eyes searched the lane. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I am now. What happened?’

  ‘Jack played the hero, the stupid bastard. Guy had a gun against his head, but Melissa was hiding another gun down the side of the chair. She shot Guy. He fell on top of Jack, and for a moment I thought they’d fired at the same time. I thought Jack was dead too.’

  And that had been a strange feeling. A brother who he already thought of as dead, dying again. How could he feel such pain twice over one person?

  ‘Melissa was never Jack’s lover, was she?’ Emma asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. She was always Guy’s – and his watchdog – living with Jack to make sure he complied with Guy’s ever-increasing demands. I guess she became fond of Jack and helped him escape.’

  Tom looked at Emma’s face, wondering if that made everything that had happened better, or worse. She was staring at Ollie, almost in wonder. He had snuggled up close to her, and she was trying to wrap her arms more tightly round him. Tom slipped his coat off and put it round both of them, relieved to see a flashing blue light approaching.

  ‘Did you know what Jack was doing, Em?’ he asked. ‘I’m not accusing you of anything, but I just wonder how he got himself in so deep.’

  Emma was quiet for a second, as if deciding what she should say.

  ‘I knew about the hacking. But in the months before we split he seemed to be battling with something – I didn’t know what. He was angry all the time – with himself, not with me. I guess it was because of the things that Guy was forcing him to do. He’s not a bad person, Tom. He made some mistakes as a kid and got in too deep.’

  At that moment, Tom wished he could be somewhere else. Jack had just tried to save Tom’s life, probably saved Ollie’s, and had put his own life at risk to get Guy Bentley locked up.

  But he was a criminal. And Tom was a policeman.

  ‘Well, when all this is put to bed we’ll have to see what happens, but Jack’s committed crimes and I can’t pretend he hasn’t.’

  Talk of past crimes reminded Tom that Emma still didn’t know what had happened to David. He pushed thoughts of Jack to the back of his mind.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Em, but I’ve got some bad news. After you left home earlier, your house was broken into and David was badly injured. He’s been taken to hospital.’

  He looked at Emma’s bewildered face.

  ‘How bad?’ she asked.

  ‘Bad,’ Tom answered.

  ‘Oh God. Poor David. They didn’t hurt Tasha, did they?’

  ‘When our men got there, they searched the house, but there was no sign of her. I’m so sorry, Emma. They must have taken her.’

  After everything Natasha had done, Tom would have thought there might be a sense of relief that she had gone, but one look at Emma’s stricken face, and he knew she didn’t feel that way.

  ‘She’s in trouble, Tom. They must realise that Tasha knew I’d involved the police. I’ve no idea what they’ll do to her. Find her for me – please? I don’t want anything to happen to her.’

  ‘We’re looking for her. We’re not giving up on her.’

  Tom signalled the officer to take Emma and Ollie as the ambulance pulled onto the drive.

  ‘I need to get back inside. Is that okay?’

  Emma nuzzled her nose against the top of Ollie’s head and nodded vacantly, shrugging off Tom’s coat – cl
early concerned only with holding her little boy close, driving all the other horrors out of her mind.

  Tom turned back towards the house. He should be euphoric. They had saved Ollie, Guy Bentley was dead and Finn McGuinness was in custody – soon to be followed by the rest of the gang. But he had two people to arrest, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  *

  Tom stood in the open doorway of Melissa’s house and watched the ambulance leave. He knew he was putting off the inevitable – procrastinating, as Leo would say – but he did need to call Becky.

  ‘Ollie’s safe, Becky’ – he heard a whoop from his inspector – ‘and Guy Bentley’s dead. That’s my good news. Now tell me we’ve found Natasha.’

  Becky’s voice changed from delight to sadness as she answered his question.

  ‘Not a sign, Tom. I’m sorry.’

  Tom felt a cold fury at the thought of what this child might now be suffering. He should have protected her better than he had.

  ‘Arrange for somebody to arrest that bastard Rory Slater, and his wife for that matter. Make sure the house is searched thoroughly. Emma told me about a place under the cellar that they called The Pit. If Natasha’s been taken, that’s where she’ll be, poor kid. ‘

  ‘I’m on it,’ was all she said.

  Tom ended the call and decided there was one other person he should speak to.

  ‘Paul – how far out are you? There are a couple of arrests to be made, and I don’t particularly have the heart for either of them.’

  ‘Understood. Just keep them there. The firearms team should be with you any time now. I’ll be about ten minutes.’

  Tom added the news about Guy and heard a cheer go up from the car that Paul Green was travelling in. It was a good night for Titan.

  With a heavy heart Tom pushed open the door to the sitting room and stepped round Guy’s inert body.

  Mel had turned her face back to the fire.

  ‘Mel – where’s Jack?’

  ‘Bathroom,’ Mel answered, without turning round. ‘Washing some blood off, I think.’

  Tom walked across the room and took a seat opposite the woman who had saved Jack’s life.

  ‘Thank you for what you did tonight. I feel uncomfortable saying this, but other officers are on their way, and they will have to arrest you for shooting Guy. I don’t understand why you did it, though.’

  Tom could see a sad little smile on the unscarred side of Mel’s face.

  ‘You’ve seen what Guy did to me for helping Jack. What do you think he would have done if I’d handed the baby over to you?’ Tom couldn’t find any words that wouldn’t sound like platitudes. ‘I hadn’t planned to kill Guy; the gun was for Finn. I couldn’t let him kill a baby. Finn wouldn’t have turned a hair, but I knew he’d come for Ollie as soon as he’d spoken to Julie – and I was ready for him.’

  ‘How did you know I was coming?’ Tom asked, aware that Mel had shown no surprise at his appearance – only at Guy’s.

  ‘After Jack tracked me down and told you where I live, he called me. He took a huge risk, you know. He couldn’t be sure whether I’d tell Guy. But Jack said all he cared about was getting Emma’s baby back to her. I didn’t know who’d get here first – you or Finn. I wasn’t expecting Guy, though.’

  ‘You saved the baby, you saved me, and you saved Jack. I’m sure the courts will understand that and be lenient.’

  Mel laughed.

  ‘I want to go to prison, Tom – can you believe that? In a women’s prison I’ll feel relatively safe. Out here, Finn will see to it that I suffer, even if he’s locked up in Strangeways for life – which he should be. But I’m not blameless.’

  Tom listened as Mel talked about her life with Guy and the mistakes she had made. But she was talking too much, and Tom knew why. He glanced behind him at the door.

  ‘Jack’s not in the bathroom, is he Mel?’

  She turned her ruined face towards him, affecting a look of innocence that would have fooled nobody.

  ‘Who are you talking about, Tom? There’s only you and me here. There’s only ever been you and me here.’

  68

  Natasha plodded along the narrow track, head down to hide her tears. There was nobody to hide them from, but she had been taught not to cry and was ashamed of the sobs that threatened to choke her. She had no idea where she was going, but all paths led somewhere, didn’t they?

  It hadn’t been hard to sneak out of the house. She’d just had to wait for the right moment. David had been feeling sorry for himself in the kitchen, wondering whether the police would ever find out what he’d done. His last words to her had been ‘We don’t need to tell anybody about this, do we Natasha? It was a mistake, that’s all. A stupid mistake.’

  She trudged down the ruts where tractors had been, her trainers soaked and covered in mud. The rain had seeped through her old duffle coat and she could feel icy droplets running down her back, but she still had a lot of walking to do. She knew where she was going, but she wouldn’t make it before it was light. She was going to have to find somewhere to hide during the day. They’d be looking for her – Finn and Rory. Not because they wanted her, though.

  That was the thing, really. Nobody wanted her. David hadn’t wanted her back when he’d had the chance, and although Rory’s lot would insist she came home – at least, what had passed for home for the last six years – it wasn’t that they wanted her. They just wanted to show her there was no escape, and they wanted the good money she could bring in. She knew too much – all the scams, the routes on the trains, the dealers for the stolen phones.

  This had seemed like an easy job. All she’d had to do was refuse to speak to anybody, tell nobody anything, then find the right time to walk out of the house with the baby, phone Rory, and then go back to the house and watch her father suffer for a few hours until the job was done, then leave again.

  She’d known David and Emma would be mad at her and thought they might slap her around a bit when she told them that Ollie was gone – just to make her talk. But she was used to that. What she hadn’t expected was to feel the way she did when she had seen how much Emma loved Ollie. For a while she had even thought that maybe, just maybe, she could have some of that for herself.

  She hated David, of course, but Emma had been kind to her. And what had she done in return? She’d stolen her baby. That’s what.

  Natasha let out a wail of grief that had been building in her for days, which faded unheard into the night.

  And now she had done something else that they would hate her for. She might have left all the nice clothes that Emma had bought for her, but there was one thing she had needed, that she’d had to take.

  Money.

  She didn’t need much because she could nick stuff to eat. But she might need a bit of cash, and she was a rubbish pickpocket. She had tried when she was little, but the bloke had grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and shaken her, so she’d stuck to nicking things from shops. The trouble was, Emma had taken her purse with her, and David’s wallet was in his jacket pocket – with him in the kitchen.

  It had left her with only one option – one that she had hated to take. She pushed the thought of what she had done to the back of her mind. They hated her anyway, so it wouldn’t make any difference.

  The place she was heading to was full of kids like her – kids that nobody wanted, or who had been forced to escape from something even more dreadful than living rough. She was heading for the tunnels that ran under Manchester, a huge network of spaces built over a century ago. She thought she might be safe there, but she was going to have to walk for miles, all at night along the back roads and alleyways. Natasha didn’t even know where she was, but she had seen some signs when they were out shopping, so had an idea that Stockport was the closest big town. If she could find her way there, she could probably get somebody to help her for a few days until she made it to Manchester.

  Her mind kept going over things. Had she made the right choice? Should she have
stayed?

  The thing was, if she was still there – living with her dad and Emma – she didn’t think Finn and his boss would let Ollie go until they got her back. David and Emma would have had to make a choice. Her, or Ollie. And there was no contest, was there? Better to leave now than to listen to their excuses as they told her she wasn’t wanted. But if she’d gone – disappeared for good – Finn had no reason to keep Ollie.

  Maybe she should have stayed, though – stayed so that Emma had some bargaining power – stayed and sacrificed herself so Emma could get Ollie back. She kicked a clod of wet earth in front of her. She couldn’t even do that right.

  She scrubbed at her tears with the heel of her hand and lifted her face to the rain, her body shuddering with the force of her unhappiness and the sense of loss.

  *

  Becky Robinson was keeping out of the Joseph’s kitchen. It was crawling with crime scene technicians, and there was nothing to see – except blood, of course. Emma was at the hospital with Ollie, where he was being checked over, and the news was good. There didn’t seem to be any lasting effects from any grains of the sleeping tablet that he might have swallowed.

  Becky didn’t know if Emma had been to see her husband or not. She wouldn’t really blame her if she hadn’t, having learned what David did all those years ago. Everything that had happened since, to Natasha, to Caroline, and now to Ollie and Emma was a direct result of his actions six years ago.

  Jumbo and his team had finished in all the rooms except the kitchen, so Becky was free to look around the house. She went into Natasha’s bedroom. The bed was made, and the room was tidy – the kind of tidiness that you don’t normally associate with thirteen-year-old girls – at least, not if they’re anything like Becky had been.

  She opened the drawers. Inside were good clothes – perfect for a girl like Natasha – all folded neatly as if somebody really cared about them. She thought back to what Natasha had been wearing when she had first met her. She remembered the red jumper with the loose thread and searched the room. It wasn’t there.

  Where are you, Tasha?

  She wasn’t at Rory Slater’s house. It was empty. All the children had been taken into care and both Slaters were locked up.