The Family Lie

by Jake Cross

  Bennet reached inside and pulled the bonnet release lever.

  There was a dead rat in the passenger footwell, fur matted to the carp— ‘Hang on, this isn’t Anna’s car. The carpet.’

  ‘What about the carpet?’ Bennet said.

  ‘A couple of days before we scrapped it. We had some painting gear in a bag. My foot broke the lid of a bottle of turps. It bleached a big piece of the carpet on this passenger side. There’s no mark here.’

  Bennet was tall enough to see this over the centre console. He shrugged. ‘It actually makes sense.’

  But not to Nick. ‘So why are we here? Someone start explaining.’

  Bennet looked at Miller, who was by the front of the car. Nick looked, too, but she said nothing, and a moment later she disappeared behind the bonnet as she raised it.

  ‘Tell me!’ Now he was almost dizzy with confusion. ‘I want to know what’s going on. Right now.’

  Bennet reached across to slap a sheet of paper on to the passenger seat. ‘We got this from the DVLA.’ It was a certificate of destruction. He pointed at the Vehicle Identification Number. Nick looked down at a little metal plate near where the passenger seat was fixed to the floor. The VIN, stamped into the metal, matched the one listed on the certificate. No two cars had the same 17-character code. And the customer’s name was Anna Middleton, with her old London address. One Fiat Punto scrapped by the issuing establishment of Watson-Bruce Salvage. There was also a small sale receipt stapled to the certificate, and the registration number there matched. Sale of one 05 Fiat Punto from Anna Middleton to Watson-Bruce Salvage. It was Anna’s car. He was puzzled by the carpet. No bleach stain. Just the rat.

  Bennet’s finger touched the date printed on the destruction certificate. Same as the sale receipt: 19th September 2011.

  Nick said, ‘The date she scrapped it. So? Look, I’m getting a headache.’

  Bennet reached out to him, a car key on a card tag dangling from his fingers. Nick took it. He recognised it. In handwriting the tag simply listed make and model, and a tiny printed number: 1051.

  Bennet said, ‘These key tags are from a book. Sheets of them, serrated, and each tag is numbered, so you tear them off in order. This is the one after.’

  Bennet held out another key, which Nick took. This tag listed make and model, but also registration, and the date. A Renault Mégane, 2003, tag number 1052.

  But the date was 12th September 2011.

  ‘You’re saying Anna sold her car before the 12th? You’re saying she sold it on that first occasion when she came down? No, she drove it back. She had it another week or so. The damn police came to look at it, remember.’

  ‘And you spilled a bottle of turps in it,’ Bennet said.

  Miller stepped into the dim little corridor created by two towers of cars. ‘Well, the police investigating the hit-and-run on Horsenden Lane North in Greenford were checking all blue Puntos within a whole bunch of miles of that area. It was a long process, just like it’s been for us – you know, the Volkswagen Passats? It’s a simple job, really. No need for the cars to be whipped off to the lab. No time for that, either. A lot of cars. If a car slams into three hundred and fifty pounds of stationary meat and bones, well, there will be damage, and blood. And if the registration on the car matches the one registered to the owner, well, why check the VIN?’

  Nick remembered the policemen who came all those years ago; remembered that they’d been gone fifteen minutes later. Understandable: respectable working woman with an alibi, paperwork in order, no damage to the car, no blood – no reason for doubt. His chest seemed to shrink, painfully compressing his heart.

  ‘Anna sold her car on the 10th, five days after that hit-and-run. The scrapyard held off with the paperwork until the 19th. Nick, apologies, but it took the police ten days to get to Anna’s car. The 15th.’

  He fell back against the ruined Fiesta behind and had to grab rusty metal to prevent a collapse to the hard dirt. The 15th. Five days after she sold it. ‘But she – she didn’t sell… she… drove it home.’

  ‘Same registration plates, same make and colour, and soon afterwards to receive a bleach stain, but that, I’m afraid, was not Anna’s Fiat Punto. The police couldn’t be allowed to get near Anna’s car. Because hers had killed two hikers.’

  Twelve

  He was shaking his head, unable to believe, or even understand. He was sure he’d misheard, or misread, or dreamed the whole day. Bennet stared him dead in the eye as he reached a long arm through the car and laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder.

  ‘Look here,’ Miller said.

  He slipped out of the gloom, into the burning sun, and to the front of the car. Inside the engine bay, the detective was shining a torch on to the old engine. He could clearly see faint little stains, and she illuminated some on the broken grille, too.

  Blood.

  He didn’t want to believe it, but everything made sense. On the night of the hit-and-run, Anna had returned home in a frightful state. She had gone out to pick up her boss, Marc Eastman, to take him to a stuffy function, but afterwards, according to her, a man with a knife had threatened her for her car.

  For two days she had been reserved and nervous, confined to the house, barely eating, napping in the day a lot, and talking about leaving the city. Strange half-asleep mumblings about a fresh start soon became a sincere desire to leave London. Wildly in love and eager to please, Nick had agreed that getting out of London would be a good fresh start for them both. Aided by her father, who’d bought her a house in Sheffield to guarantee that his daughter – and the child she planned to have – remained close, she and Nick had been packed and gone within two weeks. But not because goat lovers swore vengeance, or because a thief with a blade proved the city had dangerous streets.

  Anna had fled because she’d killed a pair of hikers on a dark road.

  Bennet was suddenly by his side again, giving the dead eye. ‘Why take the car out of the city, Nick, when London has a thousand scrapyards? A connection. By Anna’s reaction to the name, I knew that connection wasn’t anything as lowly as simply scrapping her car here based on a friend’s recommendation. Something bigger. Something she couldn’t tell the police. Something that propelled her to run today. Normally we would assume that connection was a person. But she scrapped a perfectly good car based on some robbery attempt story never reported to the police. She scrapped it right around the time that police were looking into similar cars because of a hit-and-run. And then she left the city under a new name.’

  Hearing it like that, it all seemed so obvious. But still Nick refused to believe it.

  Miller spoke next. ‘Nick, once Anna’s car was cleared by the London police, that was the end of their interest in it. They didn’t know she later scrapped it and drove way out of the city to do so. They didn’t know she’d been a shivering wreck after an incident on the night of the hit-and-run. And of course they couldn’t possibly know that someone from that scrapyard would kidnap her daughter eight years later.’

  Back to Bennet. ‘The people who took her know what she did. They knew about the swapped cars because they set it up and fudged the paperwork, which was the final piece of evidence we needed in order to be sure of our suspicions. The kidnappers took Josie because of the hit-and-run.’

  They were both crowding him, like a bully tag team. Miller’s turn: ‘It’s why Anna ran away. She couldn’t tell us what she knew, because, well, the truth couldn’t come out. But if Anna could get away while we were distracted, maybe she could get to these people and get Josie back without anyone knowing anything about what happened in the past. And the kidnappers must have told her how to do this somehow. Whatever it is they want, it’s more than just money.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Nick, apologies, but do you understand all of what I just said?’

  His head was clear enough now that pieces were tumbling into place. He believed. But right now Anna’s position as a double-killer didn’t even matter as Miller’s claim sought the spotlight. More
than just money. It gave him a feeling of deadness inside.

  ‘You’re saying this is about dues after all. But not mine. These people want Anna alone so they can kill her. Both of them. My wife and my daughter. It’s payback.’

  On the drive back, while Nick was still trying to accept recent bombshells, Bennet got a call from a colleague and relayed it to the DCI. ‘Something perhaps we should consider connected: Larry Middleton’s home garage was broken into a short while ago. The security company called him when the alarm went off. He says nothing looks to have been stolen, but the place is a mess, as if someone was looking for something. Any other day, I’d discount it, but…’

  Nick realised that Anna’s father and sister would be awaiting news. He didn’t have a number for either of them in his head, but Middleton’s mobile was listed on the website for his casual dining restaurant in Sheffield because he liked all customer feedback to go through him. He asked Bennet for use of his phone.

  ‘DS Bennet, where are you?’ Middleton answered. He must have stored the DS’s number. ‘Anna left a secret message for Jane. What’s happened down there?’

  ‘What? What mess… explain that.’

  ‘Nick? What’s happened down there?’

  Nick blurted a flash version – minus the part about dead hikers and cloned cars – so he could quickly return to Middleton’s shocking revelation. For the second time, he was careful not to say something that would alert the listening detectives.

  ‘The message said, “Trust me, don’t tell police. I know what they want. I’m going to get Josie back.” Do you know what she’s doing, Nick? This looks planned. Did anyone forget there’s a little girl’s life at stake?’

  Trust me, don’t tell the police – it gave weight to the theory that Anna had escaped the house in order to fix this problem alone. And preserve her terrible secret. Somehow, he managed to sink lower.

  ‘No one forgot. That’s our daughter. My daughter,’ Nick said. ‘Anna’s just trying to find her. Where was the… where was it?’

  ‘It was Braille. She punched little holes in some stickers and put them on the handle of the kettle. Jane knew as soon as she picked it up. It was quite creative. No one but Jane would have had a clue. She wanted us to not worry, I think. Though Lord knows why she didn’t just tell us.’

  ‘You just answered the phone by trying to tell the police, that’s why.’ That line, although disclosing nothing, made the detectives cock their ears.

  ‘Nick, do you know where she is? If you do, you must tell the police.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He could hear a car engine in the background. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Just arriving back there. Jane called me about the message. My garage was burgled and I had to go check.’

  ‘Tell me about how Jane hurt her foot again?’

  There was nothing wrong with Jane’s foot of course, and Nick hung up before Middleton could voice his puzzlement at a line meant mainly for the detectives to hear. Then, with the phone still clamped to his ear to make the detectives think he was listening to a story, he sent Anna’s father a text by feel alone:

  Meet me at Sir Jack, Aston

  Once sent, he deleted it, said goodbye to a dead line, and handed the phone back. He prayed Middleton wouldn’t call back or send a return text.

  A little later, Miller signalled to leave the M1 and take the A630 east. Nick sat up. When the traffic slowed at the end of the slip road to join the Catcliffe roundabout, he threw his door open. No line about needing to urinate this time: he simply powered his legs and vanished into the trees.

  He heard his name shouted, and then honking horns that suggested the detectives had blocked the road by exiting their car. But Miller was in heels, Bennet was too big and unstable, and their desire to catch him fell far short of his determination to find his wife.

  HIKING COUPLE KILLED IN HIT-AND-RUN

  Joanne Padley, twenty-one, and her boyfriend Jon Adams, twenty-three, were killed when struck by a car that failed to stop while they hiked the Capital Ring in Greenford on the 5th of September.

  The hikers had been partway through a week-long trek of the Capital Ring, a series of walking trails surrounding central London. That night, walk number nine, Greenford to South Kenton, but in reverse. They drank at the Ballot Box, an old pub on Horsenden Lane North, and walked south along the lane, somewhat parallel to the Capital Ring, planning to regain the trail at the canal bridge.

  But about four hundred metres from the pub they were hit by a car that failed to stop. CCTV in the local area has so far proved unable to help, but forensic scientists have analysed paint flecks found on the bodies and the police have released information that they wish to trace lido blue Fiat Puntos registered between September 2004 (54 plate) and March 2006 (06 plate).

  Anyone with information should call either…

  ‘You think Anna was driving? Preposterous?’ Middleton said.

  ‘Can’t be,’ Jane wheezed.

  Thankfully, Middleton hadn’t brought the police to the meeting at Sir Jack’s restaurant. During the wait, Nick had thought hard about how best to tell his tale, and in the end he decided to get the worst of it out early. He’d rushed to the car and jumped in the back before it had fully stopped, and immediately unloaded:

  ‘The police think Anna was involved in a hit-and-run killing.’

  Jane had uttered her shock, her puzzlement, and her absolute disbelief. Middleton, though, had said nothing until he was parked up. And then he’d told Nick that he’d had two calls from Detective Bennet, which he’d ignored until after he spoke to Nick. He’d got Jane calmed down then ordered Nick to explain. Nick had snatched up Middleton’s mobile from the centre console, already planning to use the Internet to prove his case.

  Middleton had read the newspaper article aloud for Jane. Twice. Then came a period of silence as Anna’s family sought reasons to disbelieve the old news story. Jane had been first to submit to acceptance. She had started to cry. This seemed to tip the scales for Middleton, whose head had slumped forward.

  Now, he said, ‘The carjacking story was a lie?’

  Nick took the mobile out of Middleton’s limp hand and said, ‘I think it was to explain how shaky she was that night. How scared. She came home, utterly distraught. I couldn’t really get much out of her at first. Just the basics. Some guys cut in front of her and tried to steal her car. She kept saying she didn’t want to talk about it. She made me promise not to bring it up again. Even today we don’t mention it.’

  ‘It explains why she didn’t want the police involved,’ Middleton said. ‘I hate to say it, but I remember thinking how weak I considered her because of it. A man tries to rob her, and she’s distraught for days, and then decides she needs to get out of London. And throw away her job.’

  But Jane was silent. Nick put his hand on her shoulder. It made her jump and prompted: ‘She told me that she wanted to have children and bring them up in a quieter city. But I thought…’

  He didn’t know what to say. Middleton broke the silence again. ‘So this is why Anna ran. Because she thinks the police will arrest her. Do you think she hopes to solve this herself? That she can get Josie back and the police will never know what she did?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nick said.

  ‘This hit-and-run. So many years ago. Why now? How is this connected to my granddaughter being taken?’

  ‘The police think Dominic Watson-Bruce knows what Anna did. Somehow he found out, and he contacted a family member or friend of one of the… hikers.’ He was careful not to use the word dead. Never again.

  ‘And these people, they heard his wild tale and decided, rather than expose her, they would threaten Anna for money to get some kind of revenge?’ He was shaking his head, totally unconvinced. It was indeed a bizarre story. But his next words were delivered quietly, his face grim, and Nick knew Middleton had suddenly reversed his denial. ‘Was this why they kidnapped my granddaughter? Was this so that I would be forced to pay? They knew I had money an
d they chose that instead. So I caused this after all.’

  ‘It’s not just about money.’

  This was the part he had been least looking forward to, even over telling Jane and Middleton that their family member was a killer.

  ‘The money might have been Dominic’s pay for information, for help, but they got the money. And still they got Anna to run.’

  Both were intent on him, even though Jane’s eyes saw nothing. He took a deep breath.

  ‘I think they want her to do something. I think taking Josie was to make sure she did it. I think the police turned up and ruined their plan, so they got a secret message to her somehow, somewhere. She ran right around the time I delivered the money. She didn’t wait. Her message to Jane said she knew what they wanted. She waited until everyone was distracted by following the money, and that’s when she ran. Because she had to do this alone. And they wanted her alone.’

  Middleton almost shrieked. ‘You’re talking about revenge, aren’t you? They’ve fooled Anna into thinking she can get Josie back, but that isn’t it. She’s running into a trap. They want to hurt her. They want payback for killing their children.’

  Nick had, of course, had the same black thought: how better to exact retribution than to make Anna suffer the loss of a child – an eye for an eye – before killing her? But Miller and Bennet had quickly shut down that theory and he now tried to calm Middleton and Jane with the detectives’ reasoning:

  ‘I don’t think so. If it was revenge, they could have got to Anna anytime. They could have killed her when they broke into the house. They could have run her down in the road, just like she…’ He stopped himself before he could say it. ‘No, they told Anna where to meet them. They want her to do something for them. They must have told her what in their secret message. And that’s why I need your help.’