by Sarah Hilary
‘Any sign of the press yet?’
‘Not yet, but you know what they’re like. The OCU’s on his way.’ Debbie hugged her arms under her chest. ‘Kiddies are always headlines.’
Not these children, or not five years ago, otherwise Missing Persons would have given them names by now.
So who were they? And why had no one reported them missing?
4
The dirt from the Doyles’ garden had been trodden into the house, a dark trench from the garden through to the kitchen. The same dirt was under Terry’s fingernails, and his wife’s.
‘We’re putting in a vegetable patch, encouraging the kids to be self-sufficient.’ Terry wiped his hands on his jeans. They were raw, as if he’d washed them more than once since finding the pit. ‘I was on my own out there, thank God.’
Marnie needed to take his boots, and maybe his clothes, depending how close he’d been to the bodies. ‘You said there was nothing on the survey to suggest a bunker?’
‘Nothing. It’s why I thought it’d be safe to lift the manhole.’
‘How easy was it to do that?’
‘It wasn’t hard. I’ve lifted flagstones that weigh a lot more.’ He cringed, as if he was afraid she’d interpret this as machismo. He was a shade over six feet tall and slim, in good shape for a man in his early forties. ‘If I’d known what was inside … As soon as I saw them down there, I called the police. But I disturbed a crime scene.’ His mouth wrenched. ‘I’m so sorry. If I’ve made it harder for you to find who did that … I’m so sorry.’
‘It can’t be helped.’ Marnie picked up the mug of tea he’d made, asking the next question as gently as she could. ‘How far down did you climb?’
‘Four, maybe five rungs?’ His voice was ashy at the edges, fierce tears in his eyes, the kind you fight to hold in.
‘Did you – I’m sorry – did you touch anything, other than the ladder?’
He flinched. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Good. I’ll have to take your boots, to rule out anything that might’ve been dislodged.’
He nodded his acceptance and she waited a beat, to let him know that this part of the interview was over. ‘You’ve done a lot of work out there.’ The earth had been dug over, more than once. ‘Is this the first time you’ve found anything unusual? I don’t mean the bunker. Other things, maybe clothes or jewellery?’
‘Nothing like that. We’ve been digging for a few months, getting it ready for the planting. The soil wasn’t worth much when we started. We’ve managed to make it better.’
‘How do you do that?’ Marnie asked. ‘Make soil better?’
‘It was mostly sand when we moved in. I guess it’s a cheap base for the developers to use, but it’s no good for growing anything. No nutrients, for one thing, and it won’t hold water. I had to put a lot of compost down, keep turning it during the winter.’ He mimed the action. She could see the strength in his wrists. ‘By spring we had a halfway decent bed for the veg.’
‘Terry’s a great gardener,’ Beth said. ‘He does most of the gardens in the street.’ It was the first time she’d spoken since the three of them had gathered in the kitchen. ‘It’s good for the kids to have a sense of permanence, and to be self-sufficient.’
‘Will we have to move out?’ Terry asked. ‘While you’re investigating?’
‘I’m afraid so. It’ll be for the best. Things are going to be busy here for a while. You won’t get much peace.’
The press were coming. She could feel the heat of their curiosity at her heels. OCU Commander Tim Welland was on his way too. In his words, ‘To check the fan’s working before the shit hits.’
‘If you can find us a place big enough to stay together as a family,’ Terry said. ‘I know we’re not conventional, but it matters. We’ve worked really hard for this.’
Not conventional?
Beth said, ‘Tommy’s sleeping. I managed to put him down for a nap.’ The toddler she’d held on her hip earlier. ‘Carmen will be home from nursery soon. One of the other mums brings her. I take her little boy in the mornings …’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Then there’s Clancy …’
Terry reached for Beth’s hand and held it. ‘We’re new foster parents.’ He forced a smile. ‘For our sins. If you could find us somewhere we can stay together …’
Marnie knew what Tim Welland would say. Her priority was protecting the crime scene; she owed her first duty to the dead, not the living. ‘How new?’
‘Since we moved here. It’s one of the reasons we wanted a big house.’
‘How many kids are we talking about?’
‘Just Clancy, for now.’ Terry squeezed his wife’s hand. Marnie would’ve missed it, if Beth hadn’t turned the flinch into a smile. ‘Clancy Brand.’
‘How old is Clancy?’
‘He’ll be fifteen in a couple of months.’
‘He’s not in school?’
‘He’s not … a hundred per cent at the moment,’ Terry said.
‘We kept him home today,’ his wife added. ‘In case it’s catching.’
The lie stained her neck dull red.
Some people could lie without colouring, but Beth Doyle wasn’t one of them. She was pretty, in a passive way. You’d struggle to remember her face when it wasn’t right in front of you. Soft mouth and eyes, the kind of fair hair that looks grubby unless it’s just washed.
‘So with Tommy and Carmen … Clancy makes three kids in the house?’
‘Four.’ Beth put a hand to her stomach. She wasn’t showing yet, the bump hidden under a denim smock.
‘Congratulations,’ Marnie said.
‘It’s a big house. It needs children. Everyone says we’ve too much love for three kids …’
They’d put their stamp all over the big house, judging by the kitchen: comfortable and chaotic, cup rings on the table where it looked like a grenade had gone off in a jar of Marmite; fall-out from the family breakfast. Children’s drawings were Blu-tacked to the walls, next to dirty thumbprints at toddler height. Marnie wasn’t a fan of mess, but mess meant living – risk, courage and failure, all the things that mattered.
A noise in the street brought Beth to her feet. ‘That’ll be Vic, with Carmen.’ She headed in the direction of the front door.
Terry stood and started clearing mugs from the table. Marnie helped, taking an abandoned plate of wrinkled orange segments to the pedal bin. ‘Compost.’ Terry intercepted the plate with a grimace. ‘Thanks.’ He deposited it in a green plastic container with a slatted lid.
He washed the cups, running hot water sparingly at first and then for longer, scrubbing at his already raw hands, strong wrists wringing repeatedly under the flood from the tap until they turned first white then red from the heat.
‘If you need to talk,’ Marnie said, ‘I know someone in Victim Support.’
‘Thanks.’ Terry stopped washing and reached for a towel to dry his hands. ‘I’ll be okay. I’m thinking the fewer strangers in the house the better, at least for a bit.’ He blotted at the wet between his fingers, his eyes blank and grieving.
The paramedics had given him the all-clear, but Marnie was familiar with the tricks shock could play, how it went into hiding only to jump out at you, repeatedly. ‘The person I’m thinking of is very good. He won’t ask questions. He’ll listen, if you need that. You’ve got a lot on your plate here. I can’t see you wanting to talk to Beth about what you saw.’
‘Not in her condition,’ Terry said mechanically.
‘I saw it too,’ Marnie said. ‘I know how hard this is.’
He nodded. ‘Thanks. If you could leave a number for Victim Support, I’ll make the call a bit later, when it’s quiet here.’
Marnie wrote down Ed Belloc’s name and number, handed it to Terry.
He folded the slip of paper once, and then again. ‘When you find out who they are … will you tell me their names?’ He folded the paper a third time, scoring the fold with his thumbnail. ‘Please. I’d like to know
their names.’
Marnie nodded. ‘Yes.’
Beth came back into the kitchen with a scowling three-year-old in a pink duffle coat, yellow hair in fraying plaits, small mouth shut above an obstinate chin.
‘Carmen’s home,’ Beth said. ‘Here’s Daddy, see. Say hello to Daddy.’
Carmen marched across the kitchen to her father, buried her face in his shins and started to howl. Terry didn’t pick her up, squatting instead on his heels. ‘Did you have a hard day, honey-bee?’ He put an arm around her shoulders and stroked her hair in a steady rhythm.
Carmen wept into his chest. Tears of outrage, Marnie guessed, from the angry noise she was making. Terry looked a question across at Beth, who shook her head defeatedly. He kept stroking the child’s hair. ‘Honey-bee, it’s all fine now. You’re home now.’
Beth said, ‘Let’s you and me go for a walk, yes? Let’s put our wellies on and find some puddles to jump in …’ She reached for the boots that Terry had taken off.
‘Sorry,’ Marnie reminded her. ‘I have to take those.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ Beth looked around for another pair of wellingtons.
When she tried to take the child from Terry, Carmen stiffened and started to scream, the kind of noise that made car alarms sound sweet.
She was still screaming five minutes later, when Marnie left the house.
5
In Blackthorn Road, Noah was making small talk with a PCSO, who was describing in forensic detail how much better crime-scene tape used to be, back in the day. ‘Wouldn’t wipe my arse on this new stuff … ’
When Marnie came out of number 14, Noah headed in her direction.
‘How’re they doing? How’s Terry?’
‘In shock, trying to cope …’ She turned to look at the Doyles’ house. ‘I left him Ed’s number. What did Fran say?’
‘That she’ll call as soon as she has something. They’re too young for her to tell if they’re boys or girls.’ He paused. ‘I think from the clothes, they’re boys. What’d you think?’
‘Boys,’ Marnie said, ‘but I may be wrong.’ She was studying the house.
Noah had done the same. The back of a house was only half the story; they needed to see the face it showed to the street. Houses are among the biggest lies we tell ourselves, hadn’t he read that somewhere? Most weren’t about the necessity of living; they reflected money or taste or aspiration. Mortgages meant you didn’t have to have, you just had to want.
Number 14 Blackthorn Road was bland and unsmiling, its broad shoulders shrugged up against the house to its left. It was an end-of-terrace, where the weight of the other houses rested. The front door had been painted white, ruined by the weather. Fingerprints stained the area around the lock. A trio of wheelie bins was parked to the left of the door. As lies went, number 14’s was a modest one. The terrace was aggressively uniform, in the manner of most new-builds. Seven houses on each side. Number 14 was a little larger, but not by much. Every house had three floors, the third being a faux attic conversion. They didn’t look like they’d been standing more than a couple of years.
‘What was here, before the houses?’ Noah asked.
‘Fields,’ Marnie said. ‘And beech trees.’
The beech trees had survived, flanked at the foot of the Doyles’ garden. The houses weren’t built when the children were buried in the bunker.
Noah said, ‘You were here, eighteen months ago …’
‘When the houses were brand new, yes.’
‘Did you meet whoever was living in number 14?’
‘No one was living here. It was the last house to be sold.’
‘The last?’ Noah looked at her in surprise. ‘It’s a good size. End terraces usually go first. Was it a lot more expensive?’
‘No, just a lot less finished.’ Her voice was dry. ‘It was the developer’s show home. They cut corners to get it ready in time. Then someone noticed the ventilation pipes weren’t connected. The overflow fed into the walls instead of outside. Little things like that.’
‘That and the bunker in the garden … You think the developers knew about it?’
‘Someone did.’
‘They built the houses … over the boys?’
‘If they’re boys,’ Marnie said. ‘Yes.’
A movement at the window on the third floor made them look up, too late to see anything other than the curtain dropping back into place.
‘Clancy,’ Marnie said, in the same dry voice as before. ‘The Doyles are fostering him. He was watching me in the bunker, too.’
‘Yes, I saw him at the house …’ Noah hated the feeling of being watched. He imagined Marnie felt the same.
They looked at the window for a minute, but the curtain didn’t move again.
At his side, Marnie shivered. ‘Come on. Before the ghosts get the better of me.’
She started walking in the direction of the squad car, carrying the wellington boots she’d taken from Terry.
Noah followed. ‘Ghosts?’
‘This road,’ she swung back to look at him, ‘is full of ghosts. Can’t you feel them?’
6
Lawton Down Prison, Durham
The ghosts are out in force today. I can smell them. Sweet and biscuity, like just-washed hair before bedtime. I want to tuck them in and lie down beside them, breathe their sweet smell, bury my nose in their little necks and whisper through the dark.
I daren’t, of course.
For one thing, Esther would hear.
The ghosts are scared of Esther. They won’t come close when she’s here, no matter how wide I spread my arms. It’s as if she’s still killing them, over and over.
She can’t stop. I don’t think she ever will.
It’s who she is.
Everyone is scared of Esther, even grown men, policemen.
She’s a special kind of monster.
My kind.
7
London
OCU Commander Tim Welland looked like an avalanche waiting to land, his big face fisted in a frown. ‘Where’re we up to, detectives? And don’t sugar-coat it.’
‘Two small children,’ Marnie said, ‘dead and down there at least four years. Fran’s doing the post-mortems as a priority.’
Welland looked the length of Blackthorn Road. ‘Who found them?’
‘Terry Doyle. It’s his garden, but four years ago there weren’t any gardens, only fields. We’re looking for someone who knew this place before the houses went up.’
‘Missing Persons haven’t turned up any names, is that right?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Four years ago …’ Welland pulled at his lower lip.
‘At least four years.’ Marnie glanced at her watch. ‘Fran should have some answers for us soon. Nothing definitive perhaps, but she’ll have something. And Missing Persons; two small children can’t have vanished without someone reporting it. Not even in London.’
‘Right …’ Welland leaned on the word until it buckled. He sniffed. ‘I smell scumbag … The media’s en route. You’ll want to field that, detective.’
‘I’ve got it.’ Marnie nodded. ‘Press briefing at the station in a couple of hours.’
‘Have you spoken with the Finchers?’ Welland said next.
‘Not yet.’
‘And that neighbour of theirs, what was his name? Dougal …?’
‘Douglas. Doug Cole.’
‘Right, gutless Douglas …’ Welland curled his lip. ‘Have you spoken with him?’
‘Not yet. I don’t want to waste time. We’re looking for someone who was here four or five years ago. Cole and the Finchers have lived here less than two years.’
‘You’re not looking for someone who was living here, just someone who knew about the bunker down there.’
‘And you think Mr Cole might have known that?’
Welland tipped his face to the sky. ‘What do I think about Mr Cole?’ He brought his stare down to Marnie’s face. ‘I think gutless Douglas is exactly the kind
of freak who’d buy a house close to where he buried bodies years ago.’
Marnie was silent for a second. Then she said, ‘Okay. I’ll look into that.’ She made it sound like a dead end. ‘Maybe someone will remember the bunker being built.’
Welland sniffed again. ‘And find the bastard who put houses over it. We’ll hit him with a planning violation, if nothing else.’
Noah said, ‘There’s a housing estate a couple of streets away, built in the sixties by the look of it. Someone there should remember any building that went on.’
Marnie nodded. ‘We could use some extra hands,’ she told Welland.
‘Let’s hear how loud the press yelp first. That usually gets us attention in high places.’
‘You don’t want to try for a pre-emptive strike?’
‘On this budget? The only thing I’m pre-empting is an overdraft. You’ve got a good team.’ He nodded at Noah. ‘Stretch it.’
Movement at the upstairs window of number 14 made him frown in that direction.
‘Who’s the ghoul?’
Same curtain as before. It fell back into place when they looked up.
‘Clancy Brand,’ Marnie said. ‘The Doyles are fostering him.’
‘How old?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘Terrific.’ Welland wiped his nose with his fingers. ‘Try and keep his teenage hormones clear of our crime scene.’
• • •
After Welland had left in his car, Marnie and Noah walked up to number 8.
Douglas Cole’s house was a mid-terrace with the same unsmiling face as number 14. Marnie knocked on the door and they waited, but there was no answer. No car parked in the resident’s space. Empty bins outside; Noah checked.
‘Bin day,’ Marnie said. ‘I asked the Doyles. He’s probably on his way home. Come on.’
They headed back to her car.
‘Did you speak with Clancy?’ she asked Noah. ‘When you saw him at the house?’
