She walked into the house via the door to the kitchen. It was clean and tidy; she allowed a smile. This might not be too bad, and it was well past time to finish this episode. “Serena, I’m back. I hope you’re hungry,” she called out.
There was no answer.
Chapter 18
There was no music, no smell of toast or coffee, which seemed to be a staple of her niece’s life. Lights were burning, but only the ones set on timers. As Tanya walked across the hall and into the living room, she knew already that the house was empty.
Anger flared. She had been clear. She had told the girl to stay at home. It wasn’t late. There was food and comfort, no reason for her to have gone anywhere. Tanya sighed. She went back into the kitchen and turned the oven on low. She slid the pizza in to keep warm.
Though she knew already that it was a waste of time she shouted up the stairs, “Serena. I’m back.” Of course, there was no response and she didn’t even bother to go to the bedroom. Not until she noticed that both of the girl’s jackets were missing from the hall stand. There were no trainers or shoes under the shelf. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “Oh, shit.”
Now she ran up the stairs and burst into the guest room. The wardrobes were empty, the bed was rumpled and unmade. Tanya closed her eyes for a moment and tried to calm her breathing. So, the stupid girl had either pulled another disappearing act –surely not, not after last time – or… Her mind was blank, and then she saw the note on the dresser.
Tanya
I have taken my daughter home. It is obvious that you have had enough of helping your family. You never were particularly reliable. I have cancelled the standing order for her keep.
Fiona
That was it, no ‘thank you’, nothing at all from Serena herself. Although it had been exactly what Tanya was hoping for, it was gutting. They had never been close, and even though she had saved the family from tragedy, Tanya had left Scotland on bad terms with her sister. A few steps in the right direction had been made in the past few weeks, but now, well now, it seemed it was all over.
She didn’t know how to feel. Their parents had been dead for a while. With no other siblings, Fiona was the only link with a past that Tanya remembered as a long succession of disappointment and anger. She had been the second best, the ‘also ran’. Now, here was an opportunity that she had believed she had always wanted. Total freedom from her younger self. This could be the end of any residual sense of duty. But, inexplicably, she felt hurt and sad.
Then, of course, there was the final line in the note. The cancellation of the standing order. Fiona had been generous. Maybe guilt, possibly genuine gratitude. Whatever the reason, the money had been a lifeline for Tanya. Her overdraft, which was recently arranged, was already stretched to the limit. She had reasoned that it was there to use so she might as well use it, but incredibly quickly the extra couple of thousand had been swallowed up. Boredom during her sick leave had placed her in front of the computer, and again the online shops had been too much temptation. She had been relying on the money from her sister, far more than she would spend on food for Serena, and now it was gone.
She didn’t need to log on and look at her bank statement to know that the next mortgage and utilities payment would plunge her back into the red. On one level she knew her thinking was selfish and she ought to be more upset about the rift in her family, but that wasn’t the way it was.
She turned around and left the room, the bed unmade, the curtains open, and stomped back down the stairs.
In the living room, with the pizza on the table in front of her, she logged on to her laptop and opened her notes. Her sister and niece could look after themselves, she would handle the financial problems in due course; for now, she had to do her job. It was the one area where she could not allow herself to fail.
Chapter 19
Ana pulled the duvet close around her chin. The day had seemed endless. By the time the van dropped herself and Emilia back at the caravan she was shivering, coughing, and every joint ached. She had taken some more paracetamol and pleaded with the driver to arrange for a doctor for herself and Emi, or at least to bring them some stronger medicine; she asked for antibiotics.
He had sneered at her. “Better you drink hot tea, get in your bed. Be ready for work tomorrow. There are no medicines, this is England – there is no doctor unless you are official. You are trouble now and we don’t need trouble. You stop being trouble, yes?”
With that, he had clambered back into the old VW and slammed the door. The comment about doctors worried her, she had been told that in England everyone could have health care, even the very poor. It was another lie.
Bogdan had never been kind, not from the first day when he had picked her up from the ferry and thrown her bags into the boot of a clapped-out old car. But now, both he and his mate – another bulky, rough thug – were worse every day. She would have appealed to his kinder side but was convinced that, if he had ever had one, it had been brutalised out of him. Maybe the war, maybe fear and worry, or perhaps he had always been a heartless bully. She could try and charm him, offer to give him the only thing she had, but the idea of sex disgusted her, and it would start down a road that she knew would only lead to more torment, more degradation.
The bullying was worse since Dani and Elian had gone. Maybe the men had been held responsible and punished. Probably there would be more repercussions, probably things would never improve, and she was here now in this stinking little place becoming more and more unhealthy, more and more desperate, and perhaps soon she would die. Thoughts of death were often with her and she could never be sure whether it was fear or longing that was the overriding feeling.
She wondered what they would do then. Would they send her body home? She couldn’t imagine them spending the money. Would they leave her at a hospital, a police station, maybe a church? At least at a church they would take care of her body and maybe her blackened soul. In her fevered mind, the thoughts grew until she was convinced that she would succumb to whatever was ailing her. The idea of her body being discarded somewhere in this inhospitable, foreign country segued into nightmares and she tossed and twisted under the thin duvet. In her tortured sleep the tears leaked from under her eyelids to soak the pillow.
In the early hours, she opened her eyes. The night was silent, she was no longer shivering, and her fever had broken. She slid from the bed, filled a cup with cold water from the tap, and swallowed more pills. There was no sound from the other end of the place, not even the snoring she was used to, and there was a moment of panic. But then the rustle of bedding reassured her that Emilia was still alive.
With the thought, her dream came back. The image of her body, naked and undignified in the gutter. A crowd gathered around, peering down at her, pointing and shaking their heads in disgust. She had seen such things herself, but that had been in a country at war, not here; not in this green and pleasant land.
She bent and dragged her bag from under the bed. Her few clean clothes were stored in there already, and it took just a couple of minutes, working by the light of the moon through the window, to push in the other few bits she cared about.
The door was locked. She knew that every night the thugs did rounds when it was growing dark. They secured the caravans and she had heard them shouting at the men in the cottage. But this was a thin, feeble door. They didn’t imagine any of the women would risk running. They had faith in the power of their threats. Dani and Elian had slipped away from the factory during the day. They had left with nothing, but they had disappeared during one of the toilet breaks. It wasn’t until the evening that it was noticed they were missing. Dani had tried to tell her the plan, explained that she had hidden things in readiness, but Ana had refused to listen. She had been too afraid to know anything. In truth, she had never really believed the other woman would go. But she had, and they hadn’t brought them back. So, it seemed that, in spite of everything, it was possible to escape. Dani and Elian had proved it and if th
ey could do it, so could she.
The door lock proved tougher than it appeared, and she had to give up. But the window frames were old and warped. She climbed onto the bed and levered the handle of a spoon under the aluminium.
“Ana?” The quiet murmur from the other side of the room stopped her for a moment.
She spoke in their native language thinking it would be more comforting. “It’s okay, Emi, I just need some air. Go back to sleep. It’s okay. Sorry I woke you.” She waited, quietly, not moving, hardly daring to breathe, until at last, she heard guttural snoring.
The sky was lightening outside, and she had to hurry now. The thin handle of the spoon bent in her hand and she pushed it back into shape. She could feel a draught under the corner of the window as she worked at it with the thin metal, prising and twisting. It wasn’t making enough difference. Of course, she realised, this wasn’t the way. She must work on the lock, on the middle of the frame.
She moved along the bed, feeling with her fingertips until she found the edge of what was left of the lock. The little handle had been sawn away on the inside. It had never been intended for the residents to open it. If it had been screwed closed, or glued maybe, then she was lost. The draught she had felt on her fingers from the corner gave her small hope. She pushed the handle of the spoon under the lock. It bent again, and when she tried to straighten it, the thin metal snapped. She peered down at the two pieces in her hand and let out a sob of frustration. She could break the window; she could hammer at it with her shoe. But then Emi would wake, and anyway, the driver’s own caravan –a smarter, warmer, better one, almost a little bungalow – was too near. He would hear, his big dog would hear. He prowled at night with the animal; she had seen him through the thin curtain, pacing across the grass, the red glow of his cigarette flaring as he inhaled. The thought of him and the big black animal made her sob. If he found her outside, she knew he would be enraged.
She shook her head, there was nothing left to lose. Once she was free, she would have to call Mama, to tell her brother that they were in danger, give them a chance to take precautions. Then it could all be alright. Not the bright future that they had wished for, but better than this. Even going back to the poverty at home would be better than this. First though, to get free.
She tried again to lever the window frame. As it flexed and bent, tiny pieces of dried out sealant fell on the back of her hand. She brushed them aside impatiently until more crumbled and she understood it was the answer.
Chipping and picking with the broken end of the spoon handle made short work of the old, rotten filler. Then she felt the Perspex of the window shift and move as the crumbled dust fell down onto her bed.
With a swift glance at the dark hump of the sleeping Emilia, she leaned against the pane and pushed from the corners. She wasn’t afraid it would shatter as glass would have done, but she didn’t want to risk it jamming half in and half out, foiling her escape and worse, showing how she had tried. She thumped at it sharply with the heels of her hands.
In the event, it popped out in one piece and landed with a dull thud onto the grass at the back of the caravan. She pushed her bag through and slid out of her jacket, also bundling it outside.
She had lost weight since her arrival and now she was glad of her new skinny, bony frame. The womanly body that she had when she left home would never have been able to squirm and wriggle through this space. She went through head first, but knew at once that it had been a mistake. It was too late. All she could do was push and heave her way forward until her hips were through and she was braced against the side of the van with her straining arms on the outside and her bent knees holding her against the interior. It wasn’t far to the ground and with one final heave, and a thrust with her legs, she let herself fall, tucking in her head as she tumbled onto the damp grass.
She rolled to her feet, grabbed her things, and without a glance back, she ran across the narrow area between the caravan and the hedge. She forced through, scratching her hands and head on the thorns, protecting her face with her jacket, but then her feet hit the tarmac of the road. For a moment she hesitated, dragging on the nylon coat, and then, for no other reason than it was the direction of the sunrise, she turned to the right and ran, her breath clouding the air in front of her, her shoes thudding on the hard ground. She was free.
Chapter 20
Tanya’s house felt unnaturally quiet in the early morning. She had been irritated often by the sound of music from Serena’s room, she had been annoyed by the messy evidence of overnight snacks in the kitchen, but now that it was her own again, the place felt somehow depleted.
Not bothering with breakfast, she bought a takeaway latte and a muffin on the way into the office. From the first day of working together, she and Charlie Lambert had shared this routine. Today she didn’t buy a second pastry for Brian Finch… she considered it, but only briefly.
When she walked into the office, she was glad she hadn’t bothered. In the corner, on a small table, was a shiny coffee maker, a box of coffee pods and a carton of milk. The air smelled of coffee and croissants.
As she plugged in her laptop and logged on to check the overnight reports, she heard footsteps in the corridor. She popped off the lid from her cup and held it in her hand, sipping as he walked through the door, and she scrolled through the list of occurrences.
“Morning, Tanya,” Finch said.
She glanced up and nodded. Again, he was dressed in a suit and he slipped the jacket off to hang it on the coat stand. She frowned, since when did they have a coat stand? His shirt and tie were immaculate, his hair styled and gelled. So, yesterday’s neat turnout hadn’t been him trying to make an impression. She wondered if a bit of this might rub off on Paul Harris. Probably not, she had never seen the detective sergeant in anything but jeans and a hoody; just cleaner, smarter ones on the couple of occasions when they had met socially. She doubted that he even owned a suit. Perhaps his wedding one from a year or so past, but even then, she wouldn’t put money on it. Perhaps he’d worn his uniform – she grinned at the thought.
She nodded. “Detective Inspector. Did you have a good evening, out with the troops?”
“Yes, it was fun. They seem like a tight team, in spite of the recent hiatus. That’s down to you, I reckon. We ended up talking about the case, I always think that’s a good sign. They’re focused.”
She ignored the compliment. She had never known how to react to praise – there had been so very little in her past. Not until she had passed out from the police college had her mother at last been proud of her.
“We need to move this on though, don’t we?” she said. “We have next to nothing up to now. There’s no ID for either victim, no weapon, no real idea of motive. I’m open to any and all ideas. Did anyone have any flashes of inspiration?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Not really, it was just round and round to be honest. Quite a lot of ‘what ifs’, but nothing we could really work with.”
“Okay, so today I’m going back to the golf club. I’d like you to come with me and see where the first body was found – it would be good for you to visit the location. We’ll go on to the lake after that. The dive team are probably going to finish there today and up to now they’ve found nothing.” As she spoke, she began to collect her things together.
“Later, I’m going to re-interview the two blokes who found the body. They might have seen something in the time before the storm, and I’m sure they’ve been mulling it over. They were both pretty shocked, they won’t have been able to forget it, and something might have clicked with them,” Tanya continued.
It was well known that witnesses often remembered details days after they had been interviewed and were unwilling or embarrassed to get in touch.
“We’ll have the rest of the team telephone the other golf club and fishing club members with the same enquiry. I don’t want the civilians doing it, they can keep on with the CCTV viewing. I think people take it more seriously if they hav
e a copper on the phone. We’re looking for anything at all in the last month. People loitering, anyone who doesn’t fit; anything at all. You know, dumps of litter, piles of fag ends, stuff like that. We did a fingertip search after the discovery in the hut, but I’m looking for things from before then. Things that may have been cleared away by the groundsmen, caretakers, even the fishermen at the lake. We need ANPR records from the nearest cameras, so we can try and find the people who’ve parked or driven past more often than seems normal. There’s a restricted exit road from the motorway; we need to find who has access and whether they’ve noticed anything untoward,” she said.
“There are services not all that far away, but we’ll get to that. Already it’s wide ranging and tedious, needle in a haystack stuff, but we don’t have a choice. I’m going to update the DCI now, though I’ve nothing much to tell him. Can you brief the others, see they’re all getting on with it? I’ll meet you in the car park, in…” She glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes?”
As she finished speaking, she pushed back from her desk, threw the empty coffee cup in the bin and nodded at the table in the corner. “Nice machine.”
“Hmm.” He glanced across. “Can’t stand instant, never could. Help yourself, anytime. There’s decaf if you prefer it.”
As she left the room, she noticed the discarded box in the corridor. So, he didn’t like instant and had splashed out on a new machine for the office. Not a pack of ground coffee, a whole bloody pod machine. “More money than sense.” She winced when she heard herself mumbling one of her mother’s favourite put-downs.
Chapter 21
Ana ran as far and as fast as was possible. It wasn’t very far – she still felt ill and weak. The road was damp with dew and she slowed to a frantic, scuttling walk. She was aware of birdsong; she hadn’t heard it for so long. There had been the shriek of gulls at the ferry terminal and now and then chattering in the bushes near the caravan. But the last time she had heard the birds singing had been on the day before she left home, as she had sat with her brother on the steps of their house. They had listened to the local birds going to roost and hadn’t realised that it was another pleasure that she was going to relinquish, now all the promises were broken, and all her hopes were betrayed.
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