by Louise Voss
I forced Alice and Sean from my mind. Did everything I could to forget they existed.
The only thing I wanted was a baby. But I couldn’t get pregnant, no matter how hard we tried. Later, Howard blamed his impotence on my constant nagging desperation. Later still, I went out looking for young studs in local bars. One afternoon, Howard came home to find me riding a twenty-year-old called Chesney, trying to fill myself with his sperm. I continued to fuck young Chesney even as Howard writhed on the floor, the heart attack killing him right there in our bedroom while Chesney tried to get out from under me.
I still wasn’t pregnant.
With Howard’s money – some of which I had to give to Chesney to keep him quiet about the circumstances of Howard’s death, in case his family tried to contest his will – I was able to pay privately for IVF. But it didn’t work. After the third attempt the doctors told me I needed to accept it, that I should get on with my life, which could be rich and fulfilling without children.
I went home, stocking up on booze from the supermarket and pills and weed from my dealer on the way.
Six weeks later, I awoke from my solo bender on the patio beside the pool. I was naked. My inner thighs were bruised and there was blood in my hair. The booze and drugs had run out. I couldn’t remember the last six weeks at all, just fragmented snapshots of flesh and water and the taste of bourbon and weed.
But I knew what I had to do.
It was time to go home – to England.
Finding Sean was easy: fifteen minutes searching on the internet and I knew where he worked – he had his own business now – and where he lived. I flew to Heathrow via Dubai, and took a train to Richmond.
I had plenty of money so I rented a hotel room. But I didn’t like it – it made me feel trapped – so I bought a camper van, a classic VW, a vehicle I’d dreamt of owning when I was a girl. I would park it on Sean’s street sometimes and watch his house, making sure he didn’t see me.
I watched the teenage Alice come and go. I expected to feel a rush of maternal longing for her, but I felt nothing. She was almost an adult, a stranger. She wasn’t what I wanted.
I saw Sean – he had gained weight and lost hair but was still as handsome as the day we’d first met; part of me wanted to drag him into the van and watch him gasp as he realized who I was. In my fantasies he would be thrilled, and he would undress me slowly like he used to, whispering my name, telling me he didn’t care, it didn’t matter, we couldn’t and shouldn’t fight it …
That could never happen.
When I saw his new woman I almost suffered Howard’s fate. She looked like me. Another black woman, dressed in a prissier way, smaller tits, skinny arse. But we could have been sisters.
That made me laugh.
I found out which gym she went to and signed up, stood on the cross-trainer beside her and struck up a conversation. She was eager to talk, which made me think she was lonely, lacking in friends. We even exchanged emails and Facebook messages during which she told me about her and Sean’s sex life, which sounded so different to the incredible sex Sean and I used to have. I made up stories about a pop star father and a glamorous life with a lucrative job and swanky flat. She talked about her daughter, Frankie, incessantly. I had seen Frankie, of course, watched from across the road as Sean and Helen took her out. She was perfect, beautiful. Seeing her made my ovaries ache. She was the child I had dreamt of all these years. The child I had left behind, the child I wanted in my future.
The injustice made me sick. Why should Sean get to have his perfect family while I was all alone? Frankie should be mine.
The universe owed me. And Sean, who had got off so lightly, deserved pain: to feel some of the suffering I’d been through.
I watched them, and I waited for an opportunity. I sometimes stood outside their house at night. Frankie saw me from her window once or twice, standing beneath the lamp post in my hoodie.
Then one night, while I was driving around, watching the house, I saw the other teenage idiot, the redhead, come out with Frankie.
I rescued her. And like I said, I wasn’t going to keep her, but the opportunity was impossible to resist. A child of my own at last. And for Sean to finally feel the pain I have endured. By keeping in touch with that fool Helen over the last week I’ve had a hotline to their pain. It was exquisite seeing her at the gym, the van containing a knocked-out Frankie, parked outside. Thrilling to read her moans about how she wasn’t getting any from Sean any more.
So here we are.
I leave Frankie sitting on the bench and walk to the edge of the roof, looking down. Anyone falling from here would be killed instantly.
I can hear commotion below. That boy, the one I had to shoot, using the gun I bought from a shady man in a backstreet pub, has brought the police running. But that’s OK, as long as I can see Helen and Sean.
It’s time for Frankie and me to say goodbye.
Chapter 45
Patrick – Day 7
On the radio on the way over, they were talking about how this was the hottest day in London for seven years, the temperature busting through the 30-degree mark, and Richmond Park was thronging with picnickers and kids playing with Frisbees; dogs panting in the heat; young lovers lounging on the grass as a lone, wispy cloud drifted lazily across the sky. There were no shadows for Patrick to imagine ghosts in today. No missing children hiding in the city’s dark spaces. The sun had emerged to shine a brilliant spotlight on London, to expose its secrets at last. And here, in a hotel on the edge of this urban lung, Patrick knew he would find the truth.
Whether it was too late for that truth to mean anything, he didn’t know.
He and Carmella reached the hotel just as the security guards were locking the revolving door. Patrick banged on the glass and held his warrant card up for the guards to see.
A security guard in his sixties unlocked the side door and let them through.
‘Blimey, that was quick. We only just called you.’
‘Called us?’ He and Carmella exchanged a worried look. ‘What about? And why were you locking the doors?’
Confused, the guard said, ‘Aren’t you here about the shooting?’
‘Shooting? Show me. Now.’
The guard, whose name badge read Len Hudson, huffed and puffed as he led Patrick and Carmella towards the stairs, several more security staff following behind. The lobby was packed with guests shouting and arguing with staff, wanting to be let out. Nobody seemed to know what to do. The manager was standing on the front desk, waving his arms, appealing for calm. There was no sign of Helen or the woman she had come to meet.
They pushed through the crowd. Len said, ‘We’ve shut down the lifts so we’ll have to take the stairs.’
‘What happened?’
Len sweated as he climbed the stairs. ‘Some young bloke has been shot in the honeymoon suite.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yes. I haven’t seen him but apparently his …’ Len mimed someone having their head blown off.
‘Sweet Mary mother of Jesus,’ murmured Carmella, crossing herself.
‘Hang on, was this guy staying in the honeymoon suite?’ Patrick asked.
‘No. There’s a woman staying in there on her own, apparently. Bit weird, eh? I asked one of the girls about it and she said the woman told her it was where she and her former husband stayed on their wedding night. Like she wanted to relive the old memories.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Sorry, I don’t know.’
Patrick swore. He should have spoken to them at the desk before coming up here. But it would have taken forever to get to the reception desk. And it had to be Penny. But where was Helen now? And Frankie?
‘Did the woman have a kid with her?’ They were halfway up the flight of stairs now. Patrick’s chest burned. So much for the e-cigs making him healthier.
‘Yeah, that’s the bit I haven’t told you yet. They’re on the roof, the roof garden.’
Patrick ignored the bur
ning in his chest and increased his pace, running up the steps, taking them two at a time. Carmella followed, her breathing much easier than his, and they left Len floundering behind.
By the time they reached the top, Patrick was swimming in sweat. He paused to call the station, pantingly checking that back-up was on its way. They went out onto the top floor and found a couple more security guards and a hotel assistant manager standing outside the door of the honeymoon suite, her face as white as the lilies that drooped in a vase beside the door. Her name badge read Elaine Flint.
‘Police.’
The hotel staff stood aside to let them into the room, which stank of blood and shit, plus the smell of gunpowder that always reminded Patrick of fireworks. The body on the floor was clearly that of a young man. He was wearing designer sports gear and pristine trainers. There was a dark, bloody hole where his face used to be, bits of brain and skull splattered on the lovely carpet. Patrick crouched and fished in the man’s pockets, pulling out a wallet containing a driving licence and about £300 in cash.
‘Jerome Smith. Shit.’
‘He found her before we did,’ Carmella said, shaking her head.
As soon as Georgia had told them about Jerome and his dog, Patrick had sent a couple of officers to his known address but he hadn’t been there.
Patrick recalled Georgia’s ruined face; he knew what a petty thug Jerome Smith was, suspected of multiple beatings and muggings. He still felt some pity, though, for this young man whose death would be celebrated by the residents of the Kennedy estate more than it was mourned. But it wasn’t a great deal of pity.
‘Don’t let anyone else in this room. Don’t touch anything.’
The assistant manager, Elaine, nodded.
‘There are more police and an ambulance on its way. I was told the woman who was staying here is on the roof with a child, a little girl?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Had anyone seen this little girl before?’
‘No,’ said Elaine. ‘We have no idea where she came from.’ Elaine was in her early thirties, pretty, with an immaculate blonde bob, but stress had added ten years to her face. Patrick suspected she would be off on long-term sick leave for quite some time after what she’d seen today.
‘She looks like that girl off the news, the missing one,’ one of the guards interjected. ‘Frankie.’
Patrick ignored him. ‘Would it be easy for someone to get a child into this room without anyone noticing?’
‘It’s a busy hotel, people coming and going all the time. It wouldn’t be that hard.’
‘And how long has this guest been staying here?’
‘She checked in yesterday.’
Patrick and Carmella stepped aside. ‘What shall we do? We should wait for back-up, right?’ Carmella said.
‘We should – but we can’t.’
‘You mean you don’t want to.’
‘It’s not a case of want, Carmella.’
Before she could respond, he heard banging coming from within the room opposite the honeymoon suite and someone shouting, ‘Let me out!’
Patrick raised an eyebrow and Elaine looked at him sheepishly. ‘A woman tried to get up to the roof just before you got here. We put her in there for her own safety. She was going crazy.’
‘Open the door.’
The security guard obliged and Patrick found himself face to face with Helen Philips.
She rushed out of the room. ‘Detective Lennon. Where is she? It’s Sean’s ex-wife, she’s not really dead, she pretended to be my friend, she …’
‘I know,’ he said gently, though he hadn’t known she had pretended to be Helen’s friend. Oh god, he thought. She doesn’t know about Sean. But this was not the time to tell her.
‘We need you to stay here, Helen,’ he said. ‘We’re going up. I need to check that Frankie is OK, try to talk …’
‘What? Frankie? She’s here?’ Stunned comprehension hit Helen like a slap. ‘Oh. Oh …’
She tried to dash past him, towards the exit, but Carmella caught her.
‘Let me go!’ Helen was crying now. ‘I need to see her. Frankie! Frankie!’
Patrick grabbed her upper arms and spoke in a low voice. ‘Helen, please, you need to stay calm. I need to you to remain here. More police are on their way. We will get Frankie back for you. I promise.’
She looked up at him, her eyes spilling over with tears. She was smiling and crying, overwhelmed at the news that her daughter was still alive, but still afraid. ‘Don’t let her hurt my baby. Please. Oh god, I’ve missed her so much …’
Patrick gently guided Helen into the arms of Elaine the assistant manager, who led her back into the room where she’d been locked up.
He walked towards the stairs. So many things had gone wrong on this case. There had been so many mistakes. He knew well that this could be another. But there was no way he could stand by and wait for back-up while Penny was on that roof with Frankie.
They emerged through a doorway into dazzling sunlight. Small trees and shrubs in large stone tubs had been arranged in what Patrick thought of as a kind of Japanese-style garden, with neat beds of grey pebbles in a square pattern that stretched across most of the rooftop. Beyond: London. The great, grey city. St Paul’s looked like he could reach out and scoop it up. He could see all the way to Essex, but he couldn’t immediately see Penny and Frankie.
A man wearing the by-now familiar hotel uniform of white shirt and navy jacket, his name badge informing them he was called Kurt, hurried up to them.
‘Police? Oh thank God.’ He looked over Patrick’s shoulder. ‘Er, where are the rest of you?’
‘On their way. Where is she?’
Kurt pointed towards the far corner, which was obscured by trees and a couple of large parasols. ‘Over there. She’s got a little girl with her. And a gun.’
Patrick took a deep breath. ‘Is this the only exit, Kurt?’
‘No. There’s the main entrance-exit over there. But we’re guarding it.’
‘Okay. But, listen, if she comes out, you all just get out of the way. I don’t want anyone trying to be a hero, OK?’
Kurt put his hands up. ‘Hey, don’t worry about that. Not on our wages.’
Patrick and Carmella walked slowly past the garden, the sun beating down on them. As they neared the edge of the rooftop, the woman they had been seeking for what felt like a lifetime came into view.
Penny Philips – or Marion Ellis as she called herself now, as he had learned from her Facebook exchanges with Helen – was standing in the corner, her back against a low wall. Frankie Philips was lying, curled up, at her feet. He knew small children had the ability to go to sleep in the most unusual circumstances, but Frankie had to be drugged. If she was alive.
Penny, who had been staring at the concrete in front of Frankie, noticed them, her head snapping up. She lifted the gun and pointed it first at Patrick, then back at Carmella, then at Patrick again.
‘Keep back,’ she said. ‘Don’t come a step closer.’ She had an accent, a hint of Australian mixed with Estuary English.
Patrick spoke soothingly. ‘Penny … is it alright to call you that?’
Surprise briefly registered on her face, before she affected confusion. ‘My name is Marion.’
‘No. It’s Penny. But we can call you Marion if you wish. And I know you haven’t hurt any …’ He was about to say anyone but remembered Jerome downstairs with his head missing. ‘… any children. How is Frankie? Is she OK?’ He took a step closer. His heart felt like it was trying to escape his chest.
Penny jerked the gun at him. ‘I said, don’t come closer.’
He stopped. But now he was a little nearer he could see Frankie’s chest rising and falling. She was alive. Oh, thank God.
‘I’m sure you’ve been looking after her, right?’
Still keeping the gun trained on him, Penny crouched down and stroked the unconscious child’s hair.
‘Little Alice,’ she said. ‘Such a go
od girl.’
Patrick and Carmella exchanged a look.
‘She is a good girl,’ Patrick said. ‘And we don’t want her to get hurt, do we? Why don’t you give me that gun?’
Penny ignored him. Instead, she stared down at Frankie. ‘My little angel. We’re going to be together forever.’
With surprising speed and strength, she scooped Frankie up, the child lying limp in Penny’s arms, and took a step backwards towards the edge of the building – and the sixty-metre drop.
Patrick and Carmella took a couple of swift steps towards them. Where the hell was back-up? Penny swung Frankie over her shoulder like she was made of feathers and retrained the gun on Patrick.
‘Where’s Helen?’ she said. ‘She’s supposed to be here. And Sean – I want to see him too. I want them to see this.’
Her voice was hard, especially when she said – or spat – Sean’s name.
Patrick said, ‘Helen’s downstairs. She’s waiting to see her daughter. You’re not going to harm her, are you?’
Penny’s face darkened with anger. ‘Frankie is not her daughter any more. She’s mine. That bitch doesn’t deserve a child and neither does Sean. Why should he get to be the one with the perfect life, with the perfect family? I deserve it. Me. All I’ve wanted was a child of my own, someone to love me. No one is going to take Frankie away from me, you understand?’ She took a half-step backwards towards the edge of the building, causing Patrick’s stomach to lurch.
He said, ‘But you have a child. Alice. Maybe we can arrange for you to see Alice, talk to her, if you let Frankie go. Helen is Frankie’s mother. She’s desperate to see her, Penny. You’re a mum. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘Alice? That monster? I don’t want her. She’s impure.’
What was she talking about?
Before he could formulate an answer, Penny said, ‘I made friends with that bitch. Helen. I wanted to see what she was like, why she had everything I didn’t. And do you know what I learned? She’s not fit – not fit to be a mother. Not fit to be Sean’s wife, either. I watched her with Frankie, saw her lose her temper with her, saw her ignore her while she was staring at her phone. She left her on her own in the house while she and Sean went out drinking! Is that something a good mother would do? No. No, it’s not.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘That’s why I had to keep Frankie. Because she’s mine, you understand me? Mine.’
