by Sarah Hilary
‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so. The way they were living, there wasn’t any room for them to go digging around. It was all caravans.’ Merrick made a sound of distaste. ‘Not the romantic gypsy kind, either. I’m talking top of the range, more than I could afford.’
‘And the police moved them on. When did that happen?’
‘A month or so before we went on-site. I can get you the exact date. It’ll be with the rest of the paperwork.’ He straightened himself out. ‘I thought you were here about the bomb.’
‘The bomb?’ Noah echoed.
‘There are UXBs all over this part of London. The Germans bombed the hell out of it. It’s why the site was closed for a couple of months.’ He glanced out of the chicken-wired window at the half-built high-rise. ‘You think it looks like a bomb site now … They keep finding the real thing all over here. This new development I’m talking about has German backing. You should’ve seen their faces when we told them about the delay. Blame the Luftwaffe, I said. That went down a storm, I can tell you.’
He stopped speaking at last, pulling his hands from the desk as if he was rescuing them from quicksand. The light winked on the bald dome of his head.
Noah felt sorry for Merrick. He’d got up this morning thinking it would be a day like any other, not thinking the police would come to his mobile office and look accusingly at his wall calendar, quiz him about planning permissions, bring dead children to his door.
‘So you have no idea,’ Marnie said, ‘who had access to the bunkers five years ago?’
‘None at all. I honestly thought they were filled. The paperwork …’
‘I’ll need it. And the name of the official at the planning office who provided it.’
Merrick nodded. ‘I’ll do that.’ He looked up at them. ‘The other bunkers … Have you looked inside those?’
‘Not yet,’ Marnie said. ‘It’s next on our to-do list.’
Merrick shuddered. ‘You’ll tell me if you turn up anything else?’
‘If there are questions, we’ll be back to ask them. Otherwise, you can follow it on the news, like everyone else.’
• • •
When they were back in the car, Marnie said, ‘You were right about the bunkers. Six or seven. We’ll have to move the whole road out.’ She rested her hands on the wheel, looking across the site to where the Thames ran away from them.
‘I think he’s on the level,’ Noah said. ‘Merrick. He seemed genuinely gutted.’
‘It’s going to hit him where it hurts: bad publicity.’
She started the engine. ‘Let’s see what the planning office has to say. I need to get back for the press briefing. A story this size is going to break soon, no matter how hard we sit on it. Did you get anywhere with the labels from the tins?’
‘Yes and no.’ He’d done a preliminary search as soon he’d got into work. ‘I found a match for the peach label, but it’s a huge mail-order firm that ships around the world. They supply some of the bargain-brand supermarkets too. I’ll keep digging, but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be less of a lead than Fran hoped.’
‘We’ll take whatever we’ve got,’ Marnie said. ‘Which means we’d better look into the travellers, too. Cover all bases.’
‘After gutless Douglas?’
Marnie pointed the car towards Blackthorn Road.
‘After him,’ she agreed. ‘And the press.’
16
Lawton Down Prison, Durham
Esther is facing the wall where she always sits. You’d think there was something to see, the way she studies it, something other than the new paint job over the old graffiti. The wall’s full of lumps and zits, like a teenager’s skin. I can’t stand it. It’s like looking at something I’ll never see. Something I can’t even remember properly, thanks to the drugs.
Esther takes everything they give us. I think she’d take more, if it was on offer. Me, I’d prefer something old-fashioned and brutal. Like ECT, or a baton to the back of the legs. A woman on the next floor got Tasered the other day. She’d gone for someone with a pair of scissors. They sat on her until she stopped shaking and I swear I could smell her burnt skin, like bad sunburn with a topspin.
Me and Esther …
We wouldn’t dare touch a pair of scissors, let alone the rest of it. We’re too busy being good. Esther with her face to the wall and me with my head stuffed so full of drugs I can’t remember what they smelt like, or how long ago they died.
Being good …
We’ll never be that. They should stop pretending it’s possible and get back to the business of punishing us. We’re back where we belong, at least. Behind bars. The public-places experiment is over, judged a success. I still can’t believe they’d let us out, knowing what we’ve done. Some things should never be forgiven.
Lyn, the therapist, says, ‘The important thing is that you’re better now.’
I can’t believe she believes this.
The important thing is that we’re punished.
The important thing is that we’re never let out, certainly not where there are children.
‘Rehabilitation is possible,’ that’s Lyn’s line.
Yes, but is it preferable? Is anything preferable to keeping the likes of us locked up?
If I was ever let out – and I can’t believe they’re even thinking about it, let alone sitting us in hospital waiting rooms, for God’s sake, as if there’s a cure for what we did, what we are – if I’m ever let out, there’s one place I’ll go, and only one place.
One thing I’ll do when I get there.
One way to say sorry, and one chance to say it.
I think Esther feels the same; in fact I know she does. You can’t live with someone the way she and I have lived – elbow to elbow in this place, sharing everything, sharing even the sounds and smells our bodies make – you can’t live like that and not know.
She’s the same as me, even if she never says it. If she sits facing the wall and doesn’t flinch for anyone, not for that silly sad bitch with the scissors, not even when they brought her down with the Taser.
Esther’s become an expert at hiding. And frankly?
That scares me.
I prefer my monsters out in the open, where I can see them.
It’s one of the reasons I’m stopping the pills.
I’ll take them, but I won’t swallow. The pills make everything foggy, and I want to be able to see clearly, to see and to think.
It isn’t right that I can’t remember how long it is since they died. I ought to have the number of days – hours, minutes – carved into the jelly of my brain. There ought not to be a single second I don’t remember. Instead, whole days go by, fog-banked by the drugs, until a crack emerges and a shaft of light stabs through – stabs me.
I want to be stabbed, over and over, by the memory of what I did. And by the other memories, the good ones.
How they looked, sleeping. The biscuit smell of their heads …
I think, if I stop taking the pills, I’ll remember.
I’d hurt more, but I’d forget less.
Lyn says it would be dangerous to stop taking the pills. It was because I stopped taking them all those years ago (how many? It should be carved into the red walls of my head) that the unforgivable, unforgettable thing happened. But I am forgetting, and that’s worse.
If I stop taking the pills, I’ll remember. I’ll remember why I must never be forgiven. And I’ll see clearly, too. I’ll see all my monsters. I’ll see me.
Lyn is pleased with Esther because she’s stopped answering back. She never questions the perceived wisdoms or challenges the platitudes.
‘Rehabilitation is possible. You’re living proof of that.’
Proof, perhaps, but I question whether we should be living. The lesson, I feel, would be more apposite if we were dead.
I’m almost sure Esther feels the same way. When we’re lying in the dark, so close we could reach out and touch hands, I hear so much in her silence. All
the shame and pain and wonder at the darkness that lives inside a person even when that person looks light, when it seems impossible that cold hard brick is behind that soft face, dim eyes …
There’s no other darkness than this: what’s inside us.
Where we hide; what we hide.
Esther hears me sobbing in the night. She hears me ripping at the pillow with my teeth because I’ve bitten my nails too short to tear at anything. She hears the blood seeping out of me once a month, a constant taunting of what I’ve lost and can never have back.
She hears when I hold my breath to bring them back, into my arms, into my bed. Even though I lie so quietly and carefully, and try so hard to keep the sounds to myself because I’m afraid of her hearing and holding out her arms – tricking them into her embrace instead of mine.
Children drift, like snow, like blossom.
I’m afraid they will drift back to her.
She’s got so good at hiding.
Not like me. I’m out in the open, where I want my monsters to be.
Have you heard of Kate Webster?
Women paid to see Kate in her Wandsworth death cell, in 1879. Old women. I don’t think they went to gloat. I think it was superstition. They peered into her death cell in the hope of reducing her. She must have looked monstrous hunkered in there, but sometimes fear can be succour. Kate Webster packed her elderly neighbour into a jam saucepan, in bits, and cooked her, and sold the dripping up and down the street. They hanged her, of course. What else were they supposed to do?
Esther is forgiven.
That is what I cannot believe.
After everything, she’s forgiven.
How can that be right?
17
London
Commander Tim Welland’s tie was skewed to the left and patterned with grease spots. A thumb mark from his breakfast spoiled the collar of his shirt. It was a studied look, one he only ever adopted for the press. His way of saying, ‘I’ve got better things to do than feed headlines to you lot.’
Marnie said, ‘Come here,’ and straightened his tie, neatening the knot and managing to hide most of the bacon spots. Nothing she could do about the thumbprint.
Welland looked her over, from head to heels. ‘You’re ready for this?’ His voice was a growl: Daddy Bear.
‘It could be the fastest way to find out who knew about the bunkers, and the boys.’
He grunted. ‘How contained is it?’
‘Well, it’s not on Twitter yet, if that helps.’
‘We’re about to put paid to that.’
‘Yep …’ She turned back, giving him a bright smile. ‘Put your press face on, sir.’
His scowl was a thing of thunderous beauty.
‘There you go,’ Marnie said. ‘You’re ready.’
• • •
The press room wasn’t packed, because the story hadn’t broken properly yet. Welland had been parsimonious with the facts and it was nearly lunchtime, not a journalist’s favourite hour for squeezing into an overheated room to hear what might be of only marginal interest.
The hard truth was that the press didn’t trust the police to bring them the best stories any more; they’d turned their attention to social media, teenagers on Twitter and middle-aged whistle-blowers. Had Welland broken the Snaresbrook story in any way other than via the official police channel, the press room would have been humming. As it was, a dozen reporters – young and keen, old and weary – were sweating in plastic seats, fiddling with their phones, looking for better stories online probably.
Welland kept the room overheated on purpose, not only because he was immune to the temperature. He knew the press wouldn’t want to linger here. He took the chair next to Marnie’s. Their audience continued to check their phones, apportioning a fraction of their attention to the stage. Someone took a photograph, blinding them with light.
Blinking, Marnie said, ‘Late yesterday afternoon, we found the bodies of two children in a garden in Snaresbrook. It’s too soon for the full post-mortem results, but we believe the bodies to be boys, and we believe they were buried four or five years ago.’
Now the room hummed. More flashes of light. Marnie couldn’t see any of the faces belonging to the questions that came thick and fast: ‘Have you made an arrest?’ ‘How did they die?’ ‘How old were they?’
Marnie waited it out. When they paused for breath, she said, ‘We’ll know more after the post-mortems have been carried out. Until then—’
‘Is this the Beech Rise development? Blackthorn Road?’ A man’s voice.
The rest of the room fell quiet.
Marnie too. Her pulse slowed, her skin pinched with cold.
That voice …
She was quiet for so long that Welland stepped in. ‘Further details will be released as and when we have them. Thank you.’ He stood, rubber squealing from the feet of his chair.
‘What do you know about the bunker?’ the reporter asked. His voice was cool, non-combative. ‘Or is it bunkers? I’m guessing there’s more than one.’
The light from the camera flashes was clearing, and the room came into focus, a slow bleed of colour into what had been whiteness.
Marnie looked for the man who knew about Beech Rise and Blackthorn Road …
There, at the side of the room, leaning back in his chair, bonelessly.
Six long feet of slouch.
Fair hair, blue eyes, easy in his own skin.
A smile like smoke from his eyes, just for her.
Adam Fletcher.
18
Noah was looking at the picture of a warehouse the size of an aircraft hangar, stacked with shelves of tins. One shelf alone held what must have been a thousand tins, all with blue and gold labels like the ones they’d taken from the bunker. The same label, chewed by damp, sat in an evidence bag at his elbow.
‘Sun-ripe peaches in syrup,’ the website said. It offered three purchasing options, the first being a six-month supply. The second was enough peaches to last a year. The third – ‘best value for money!’ – was three years’ supply. Enough peaches to make you sick to death of anything sun-ripened and preserved in syrup.
The website specialised in long-life tinned foodstuffs: ‘Apocalypse-proof! I got enough for my family for three years!’ They sold drums and saucepans, glass jars and barrels, salt and sterilising kits for home preserving. Everything the paranoid home-provider needed to feel smug in the event of a national disaster or the mass ransacking of supermarkets.
At first glance, Noah thought it was worth asking the site for a list of UK customers in the last six years. Surely, he reasoned, there couldn’t be many people who felt the need to bulk-buy as a precaution against a future where the survival of the human race depended on segments of heavily preserved fruit. But he was wrong. The website was peppered with reviews from the UK praising the civic thinking behind the paranoia.
‘Coffee.’ Ron put a cup by Noah’s elbow. ‘My round.’
‘Thanks.’
Ron peered at the website. ‘Shit … is that for real?’
‘People buy it. Too many people …’ Noah picked up the evidence bag. ‘Fran thought it might be a lead, but it looks like these tins could be all over London.’
‘Who’d eat that crap?’
They both winced. Their boys had eaten it. For days, maybe even weeks or months.
‘Have you heard of preppers?’
‘Nope.’ Ron pulled up a chair. ‘What’re preppers?’
‘It’s in the review here.’ Noah pointed at the screen. ‘“Perfect for preppers …”’
He opened a new window, and fed the word into a search engine.
‘Bloody hell,’ Ron said.
‘“Preparing for the best possible survival in the worst imaginable world”,’ Noah read. ‘“You’ll want food, water and secure shelter, above or below ground.”’
‘Below ground … What, in a bunker?’ Ron jabbed a finger at an image on the screen. ‘Safe, it says. Hidden. Just like our boys.’
He rubbed at his face. ‘Christ, you don’t think …?’
Noah shook his head. He didn’t know what he thought, not right away.
The best possible survival in the worst imaginable world.
‘What,’ Ron said, ‘if this insane fucker thought he was keeping them safe?’
19
‘We need to speak with the planning office who sold the land to Merrick,’ Marnie said. ‘He swears the bunkers were filled in before he started building.’
‘Bunkers plural.’ Welland looked ominous. ‘How did that cagey bastard know about it before we did?’ He meant the reporter from the press briefing, Adam Fletcher. ‘How did he know? I want that found out, as a priority.’
‘He did his homework.’ Unlike Marnie, when Adam was around. She’d been sixteen, easily seduced from schoolwork by a single smile. Crap. This was going to be hard enough without Adam slouching his way back into her life. She couldn’t believe he’d turned up at the press briefing, although heart-slamming surprise was his MO, always had been.
‘I’ll find out what he knows,’ she told Welland.
‘Are we going to have to dig up the whole street?’ he demanded.
‘Yes. That’s exactly what we’re going to have to do.’
‘Well stay on top of it, press included. Especially the one who’s doing his homework.’ Welland looked disgusted. ‘I don’t want tripping up by some bloody hack who thinks shaving his chin’s too much trouble in the morning.’
Five o’clock shadow. Marnie could feel the burn of it on her skin, even after all these years. Like fingers held too close to a campfire; worth it for the charred sweetness of marshmallow sticking to her lips. Except Adam wasn’t marshmallows, or campfires. He wasn’t skinned knees in the playground or stolen kisses behind bike sheds. He was …
Her shoulders bruised by a brick wall, an ache in her skin that wouldn’t go away unless she went back for more. And he was here now, making her job harder, making her afraid of what other homework he might have done, after sixteen years of staying away.
She took out her phone and texted Noah: I’m going to Blackthorn Road. Meet me there.
• • •
At Beech Rise, she parked under the trees that Merrick Homes had thoughtfully preserved and incorporated into their development. She’d beaten the press pack, but not by much.
