Finally, she looked at the newspaper’s Twitter feed. This one tended to be much quieter than Facebook – perhaps the readership was generally more comfortable with the former as it had no character limits and comments were easy to add and follow. She saw that there were sixteen notifications and two direct messages. The messages were usually from disgruntled readers pointing out spelling errors or other inaccuracies, but they had to be checked, just in case.
The first message made the hairs on Natalie’s arms rise and pull at their cuticles. Was this finally it? A big story?
She didn’t recognise the name of the sender – it looked like a local woman, somebody involved in a parish council who’d contacted the newspaper before – but the message was clear.
Being held hostage at Fellbeck School. Armed men. Don’t know how to contact police. Can you help?
It was a prank. It had to be. Why would a grown woman be held hostage at a secondary school? Natalie navigated to the school’s website and clicked on the staff list. There was no Lois Morton listed. She went back to Twitter and had a closer look at the woman’s profile. It looked genuine but it was almost impossible to know these days. Another tweet had come in.
This is my mum’s account. Please call the police.
That made a bit more sense. A student playing a trick using a parent’s Twitter account. She was tempted to message back, playing along to see how long the kid would keep it up but she had better things to do.
This isn’t a prank. Help. Please.
Whoever it was they were determined to get her attention – it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. She navigated back to the school website and rang the listed phone number, counting eight rings before the answering service kicked in. She tried again, assuming that the line was engaged, with the same result.
‘Odd,’ she said to herself, looking round to see if anyone had overheard. If this was something big, she needed to keep it to herself until she was certain of the facts and then she could pass it on.
She looked around the office, assessing which of the scant group of colleagues might be of most use. ‘Hey,’ she said to Val, the advertising manager. ‘Doesn’t one of your kids go to Fellbeck?’
Val looked up from her computer and ran a hand through her thick grey hair as though making sure of the tidiness of her appearance. ‘Our Raph’s in year eight.’
‘He hasn’t contacted you this morning. Nothing unusual?’
Val shook her head sending the mane of hair into instant disarray. ‘Not heard owt. What’s up?’
‘Probably nothing,’ Natalie said. ‘Just a kid playing a trick.’
‘Do you want me to text Raph? If he’s in a lesson he won’t get back to me until break but I’m happy to help.’
Natalie was tempted to say no. To leave it alone and get on with her assigned tasks for the morning, but there was a niggle of doubt that wouldn’t let her concentrate on anything else. What could it hurt? If Val’s son was in his lesson, then surely there was nothing wrong at the school.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Can you keep it casual though? Ask him what he wants for his tea or something? I don’t want to cause a panic.’
Val frowned at her and seemed like she wanted to ask a question but instead she picked up her phone, still connected to her PC by its charging cable, and typed in a quick text. ‘I’ve asked him what he wants on his pizza tonight. He’s bound to respond – he loves pizza.’
Val put the phone back on her desk and started pecking at her keyboard with both index fingers. A ping stopped her, and she looked at Natalie wide-eyed as she picked up her mobile.
‘It’s Raph. He says pepperoni.’
‘How come he’s not in a lesson?’ Natalie asked as her colleague’s phone pinged again.
‘He says he might be home early. The whole school’s been evacuated. He’s in the theatre. They’re just waiting for an announcement from the teacher in charge. Bugger, I’ll have to sort out a lift for him if they don’t go back. He’s…’
Natalie tuned her out as she contemplated the implications of Raph’s response. The school could have been evacuated for all sorts of reasons. It could be a gas leak or a flood. Maybe one of the kids had set the science labs on fire and they were worried about an explosion. Or maybe the Twitter message was real.
Natalie considered her options. She could pass the information on to one of the baby reporters who might be able to find out what was going on but there were only two of them and neither was in the office. She could give the information to the editor, Morgan Stannard, and see what she made of it. But Natalie had been on the receiving end of Morgan’s wrath twice in the past few months for pushing stories that ‘weren’t in keeping with the ethos of the group’ and she didn’t want to risk another disappointment.
Her final choice was to do some digging of her own. If armed gunmen were on the school site and the school had been evacuated then the police would already have been informed – hence the evacuation. She had two friends who were serving police officers and one owed her a favour. It was time to call it in.
‘Cassie,’ she said as soon as her former schoolmate answered the phone. ‘You okay?’
The noncommittal noise from the other end of the line suggested that either Cassie couldn’t talk freely, or she was suspicious of Natalie’s motives for calling.
‘I’ve heard that there’s an incident at Fellbeck School. Can you get me any information?’
The response was disappointing. Cassie hadn’t heard anything and was about to go into a training meeting but would be free in a couple of hours. Natalie would have to wait.
A dead end. Still no answer when she rang the school. Now what?
She leaned towards Harry, working at the desk next to hers.
‘I’m off out for a bit. Personal. If anybody asks, I’ve got a dentist’s appointment.’
Harry didn’t bother looking away from his screen, he just nodded and continued typing. Natalie grabbed her bag from under her desk and shrugged into her down jacket, zipping it up to her chin in anticipation of the icy December weather. Five minutes later she was pulling out of the car park.
The drive to Fellbeck Academy reminded Natalie of everything she hated about west Cumbria. She’d managed to get tangled in Sellafield traffic and had slowed to a crawl round Whitehaven before finally hitting the speed limit near Maryport. Then a series of road closures forced her back towards the coast before she could finally get back on track. Just as she thought she was over the worst of the obstacles to her journey, she flicked on the wipers to clear the thin coating of grime that had accumulated on her windscreen from the filthy roads only to hear a desultory whine – the reservoir was empty.
‘Fuck!’ Natalie yelled, bashing her hand against the steering wheel.
Her view was dangerously impeded, leaving her no choice but to pull into the side of the road and use the bottle of water in her bag to clear the mess.
As she was scrubbing the glass with a dried-up piece of chamois leather which might as well have been plastic coated for all the water it retained, she stepped into an icy puddle of filthy water.
‘I hate this county!’ she screamed, hopping on one foot and shaking the other. A van driver honked his horn as he passed dangerously close and she gave him a vigorous one-fingered salute before slipping into the driver’s seat and easing back onto the road.
Ten minutes later she pulled up at the entrance to the school car park, the metal barrier halting her progress. There was an intercom speaker on a post to her right, so she wound down her window and pressed the button next to the speaker. She heard a buzzing sound and then nothing. Two more presses later, Natalie realised that there was nobody on reception. The car park was full of staff cars but all the lights in the main building were off and there was no movement on the site at all.
Something was seriously wrong.
Before
Cam scanned the accident report again. The details were as painful as a series of stabs or slaps – he felt every w
ord and punctuation mark as a physical assault. Possible mechanical failure. Over-compensate. Oncoming traffic. The dry technical language was intended to spare the reader the true horrors of death in a car accident, but Cam couldn’t stop the images created by each part of the description. Chrissie’s car had been travelling at speed, she’d braked on a bend and the power steering had failed, making the car veer into the opposite lane. The driver of the supermarket delivery lorry hadn’t seen her until it was too late for him to take evasive action. It wasn’t his fault. The police had been extremely careful to stress that point to Cam. The driver had done nothing wrong – he’d been the one to call the emergency services. He’d been the one to hold Chrissie’s hand as she died trapped in the mangled wreckage of her car.
The report was clear, and it all made sense.
Except for one thing.
Chrissie had told Cam that she was meeting Laura, an old school friend, in Maryport for coffee and a natter. When she’d crashed, she’d been heading in a completely different direction – heading away from Carlisle.
The police hadn’t been able to offer an explanation, but Cam hadn’t expected them to. Why would they care why she’d been on that road? All they were concerned with was the cause and outcome of the accident. They’d asked him endless questions about his wife’s health and then her mental health as though they suspected that she might have done this deliberately. And they’d questioned Tom – which was unacceptable and intrusive.
What the police couldn’t seem to accept was that Cam loved his wife and would never want to hurt her, or to have her hurt herself. If he’d been a little domineering or possibly too proscriptive about her behaviour at times it was all because he wanted the best for his family. She hadn’t minded staying at home to look after Tom when he was little so why should she mind staying at home to look after the house and her men after Tom had started school? Cam didn’t understand. He was happy to provide everything. She had a fantastic wardrobe, an expensive car and all the high-spec tech she wanted. He didn’t mind her seeing her friends during the day when he was at work as long as she was at home when Tom got back from school. He gave her the perfect life.
He couldn’t remember when he’d first started to doubt her. It hadn’t been one specific incident – it was more a gradual, creeping thing, a niggle. Twice Tom had to be sent home from school – once after a serious nosebleed and once with a sickness bug – and Chrissie hadn’t been able to collect him straight away. She’d claimed to be out with friends in Keswick or Cockermouth but neither location was more than twenty minutes away from the school. Why had it taken over an hour for her to pick up her son?
Then there was the time she’d decided to go out in the evening instead of in the daytime. She hadn’t given much of an explanation beyond wanting a change, but Cam hadn’t been convinced and was hurt that she didn’t want to spend her evenings with her family.
Her attitude had changed as well. She’d been more likely to challenge his views and ideas and less inclined to take his advice about her clothes or how to look after the house. It had gradually dawned on Cam that somebody else was influencing his wife in a way that he didn’t appreciate, and he had to find out who this person could be.
Hiring a private investigator proved more straightforward than Cam had expected; paying for her, less so. He couldn’t have Chrissie spotting an unusual charge on his credit card or from their joint bank account so he’d had to be creative and find a solution that she couldn’t possibly trace.
School funds offered the perfect solution. He could take the money and pay it back gradually, telling Chrissie that he was making small donations for sponsored events – or some similar bullshit. But he’d never had the opportunity to lie about his finances. Just two weeks after hiring the investigator, Chrissie was dead, he was a widower and Tom was motherless. And Cam didn’t have a clue why. The PI had been following Chrissie but hadn’t found anything concrete after the first week and Cam hadn’t been able to face getting in touch with her since the funeral.
Now he felt like it was time.
He picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found ‘LEA Jack’, his coded entry for the private investigator. He tapped the name and put the device to his ear, still holding the police report in his other hand.
‘Stacey?’ he asked as soon as the person at the other end connected.
‘Yes. Who’s this?’
‘Cam Cleaver. I’ve got the police report, but I haven’t had your report yet from the last week of my wife’s life. It’s been over two months.’
He heard a sigh from the other end of the line. ‘Cam, I don’t think it’ll do you any good to read my report because I don’t have any answers. All I can offer is speculation based on where Chrissie was going. She didn’t leave a trail, as you know, and I have nothing concrete to suggest that she was having an affair.’
‘Can we meet?’ Cam asked. ‘Now I’ve got the facts I want to see how they link with what you’ve got.’
Silence. Then, ‘I assume you’ll pay me. I still haven’t received the last instalment. I know you’re grieving, and I haven’t wanted to hassle you, but you do owe me money.’
‘You’ll get the cash,’ Cam assured her. ‘When I get the report. Where and when’s good for you?’
The woman tried to put him off with a lot of excuses and promises to email but Cam wasn’t going to be fooled. He’d been stupid to hire a woman he realised now. Stacey might have been sympathetic towards his wife – she might have thought Chrissie was justified in having an affair. A man would have been safer; more reliable. In the end she agreed to meet at The Elland Arms on the way to Allonby – a pub Cam knew well, which was safely out of catchment.
Stacey was early. Cam had planned to get there first to find an appropriate table away from the rest of the early evening drinkers, but he saw he’d been outplayed as the woman had picked a table in the middle of the lounge with no privacy at all. As Cam crossed the room towards her, he realised that she’d already attracted the attention of several of the men at the bar. He could understand why. Dressed in an oversized burgundy jumper and skin-tight black jeggings, Stacey couldn’t hide her height or her build. She was what he’d heard some of the sixth-form boys refer to as ‘stacked’ and the folds of her sweater couldn’t disguise the contours of her breasts. Her long blonde hair and trendy black-framed glasses did nothing to detract from the overall impression of her as a stunning woman.
‘Drink?’ Cam asked even though he could see that she had an almost full glass of Coke.
Stacey looked up at him and shook her head. Her face, caught in the full glare of the ceiling spotlight, showed what the hair and body didn’t. Stacey was at least Cam’s age, possibly older and she wore no make-up to hide the years.
‘Got one, thanks. Can’t stay long.’ The sentences were clipped as though she wanted to ration her words and not give too much away even in small talk.
Cam glanced at the bar, thought about ordering a pint and then decided against it. They might as well get this over with. ‘Have you got the information?’ he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting next to the investigator.
Stacey slid a cardboard folder out of her bag and put it on the table. ‘It’s all here. Dates, times, photographs.’
‘What about your report?’
‘In the file.’
Cam flipped it open and quickly scanned the few sheets of paper. Each held an account of his wife’s movements on a particular day, none held any opinion of Chrissie’s actions. He got to the photographs. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. There she was; his beautiful Chrissie. Having coffee with Laura, laughing with another friend, buying a book at the independent shop in town. Nothing unusual or worrying.
‘Is this it?’
Stacey nodded. ‘I only had a couple of weeks. You didn’t pay me to check up on her every day. In fact, you’ve still not paid in full.’
There was something odd about the woman’s tone. Cam looked up to see her
frowning at him, the hand that she’d rested on the table was clenched into a fist.
‘You don’t trust me, do you?’ He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew an envelope which he handed to her. ‘It’s all there but I expect you’ll count it anyway.’
Stacey smiled and flicked through the bundle of notes, lips moving as she checked the amount.
‘I thought you’d at least wait until I’d gone,’ Cam said with a smile. He admired this woman’s caution and reserve even though he didn’t especially feel comfortable with her.
‘You’re right, I didn’t trust you,’ Stacey said, stuffing the envelope into her bag. ‘But now you’ve paid I need to give you the full report. I don’t know if it’ll help you; to be honest, I don’t know what it means but you’ve paid for these. I took them both in the week before your wife died.’
She gave him another folder containing only two sheets of paper. Each one was a printout of an image which looked like it had been discreetly shot on a mobile phone. One was in a café which looked like the one next to Maryport Dock where Chrissie often met friends, the other was gloomier and could have been a pub or a bar in town. In each shot, Chrissie was facing the camera. In the first one she seemed to be listening intently to her companion and, in the other, her head was thrown back in an unselfconscious laugh.
Cam studied them closely, reading every detail of Chrissie’s face, focusing on her lips, her eyes, her expression while desperately trying not to look at her companion. If he didn’t look, he didn’t know. And, if he didn’t know, it didn’t make him feel like his body had been turned inside out and everything about him was on display for the world to gawk at and laugh. What an idiot he’d been.
In both pictures, Chrissie was with a man. He had his back to the camera, but it was unmistakeably the same person in each shot. The dark hair, the broad shoulders, the confident posture.
Don't Breathe Page 16
