The Reckoning

by Jane Casey

  ‘Did you happen to notice a sturdy chair on your travels?’

  Liv went into the third bedroom and came out with an upright wooden chair. ‘This do?’

  ‘Perfect.’ I positioned it under the hatch and hopped up, stretching as high as I could to push against the hatch with my fingertips. I could just reach it. Not for the first time I was glad to be tall. I tried all four sides, hoping it was a pressure-release catch, but nothing moved.

  ‘Try the middle. It might just lift up.’

  I did as Liv suggested, pushing hard, and almost toppled off the chair when the hatch gave way. The smell of drains was instantly stronger and I coughed, but I still managed to push the hatch away from the hole and get hold of the ladder that was poking over the other edge. I drew it down and reached to get a foot on it.

  ‘Can you hold it steady for me?’

  Liv grabbed hold of the bottom. ‘Be careful.’

  I was looking up, at the grey daylight that was illuminating the room above. There had to be skylights, or dormer windows. The beams overhead looked as if the pitch of the roof allowed for a proper room, not just a loft space. I didn’t like going up the ladder, especially not when it meant that my head would be poking up through the hatch for a couple of seconds – I could feel myself tense at the thought of how vulnerable I would be to attack – but at least I wasn’t climbing into darkness. I stuck my torch in my pocket and went up the remaining steps fast, without giving myself time to think. I checked through 360 degrees as soon as I was clear of the hatch, seeing piled-up junk, boxes, old suitcases, the ordinary detritus of life. The light came from a window in each of the four walls. It was actually a nice space, I thought, with a vague memory of Brody’s flat overlaying the reality of the room in front of me. I levered myself out and straightened up, still wary of banging my head.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I began to say to Liv, who was climbing after me. ‘There’s nothing up here. There’s—’

  The words died on my lips. Upright, I could see across the attic, over the tops of a dusty bookcase and a pair of tables stacked one on top of the other. Away in the far corner, by the window that looked out over the back of the house, there was a radiator. And by the radiator, there was a mattress. And on the mattress, there was a body, this time with long dark hair, a body dressed in a grey sweatshirt and black tracksuit bottoms, a body with bare dirty feet. She was lying curled up, huddled in a tight ball, a bit of an old blanket thrown over her shoulders. I saw the empty water bottle, the plastic containers empty of food, and I noticed the red plastic bucket that was the source of the smell. I heard Liv exclaim behind me, but I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. She was thin, painfully so, but I knew she was Patricia, even though I hadn’t seen her face, even though she had changed out of all recognition physically.

  And I knew I was going to be making the phone call I had dreaded. She was not moving. She was limp. Lifeless.

  As usual, we were just too late.

  Chapter Twenty

  The spell broke at last as my brain started to function again. In the face of death, there was always professional duty to distract me, and I walked around the piled-up furniture to reach the huddled body, intent on securing the scene and getting a good look at Patricia before Liv called the dispatchers back. We would need another ambulance but otherwise we were ahead of the game. The scene-of-crime officers who were on their way to deal with Michael Bancroft could handle two scenes; Glen Hanshaw would be able to manage two dead bodies.

  ‘You’ll need to call Godley,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘He’ll want to know.’

  ‘Is she …’

  ‘Dead? I should think so.’ There wasn’t as much as a drop left in the water bottle. I wondered how long it had been empty, how long she had survived. Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. That was the rule I had always believed, though Glen Hanshaw had scoffed at it when I mentioned it to him, on the grounds that the water and food requirements didn’t take into account the variables in environmental conditions, or the underlying health of the individual. Patricia’s underlying health was unlikely to have been great, all things considered.

  I reached out to touch her neck, to check for a pulse, moving her hair to one side in order to do so. It reminded me all too much of the video I had seen, of Lee’s casual handling of Cheyenne, and I had to control the tremor in my fingers as best I could. Emotion was not helpful, I told myself sternly. The anger could wait.

  I moved my hand, aiming for the hollow to one side of her windpipe, but just as my fingertips grazed her skin, without warning, she moved. Her eyes came open and she sat bolt upright in the same moment. I over-balanced as I flinched, sprawling back inelegantly. Behind me, Liv made a noise that was nearly a scream and I had enough spare mental capacity to be glad that I had been breathless with shock, too startled to cry out.

  Patricia was looking at me with a dazed expression, as if she was drugged. I recognised her instantly, even though her skin was dull and drawn, her cheeks hollow. Her lovely eyes were shadowy and half-closed. She wasn’t quite in touch with reality, I thought. I doubted she knew Liv was even there and I stayed where I was, leaning back, almost afraid to move in case I startled her. She put a hand up to rub her eyes and I saw the medium-weight chain that snaked around her wrist. I followed it to the old-fashioned cast-iron radiator, to where the chain was wrapped around it and ended in a heavy padlock, and I felt anger twist deep within me. They had left her enough chain to reach the bucket, but no more. Her wrist was rubbed raw in places where the metal had dragged against her skin.

  She looked at me then, and her eyebrows drew together in a frown.

  ‘It’s okay, Patricia. We’re police officers. You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be all right.’ I said it over and over again in a gentle tone, hoping the meaning would sink in. Behind me Liv moved away, towards the opening in the floor. She climbed down the ladder to the hall and I heard her on her phone, updating the control room in a matter-of-fact voice. I couldn’t hear the words and I was glad of her tact, glad that Patricia didn’t have to hear herself being discussed. She was swaying like a tired owl, her eyes glazed.

  ‘Can you talk, Patricia? Are you in pain?’

  She touched her mouth. ‘Thirsty.’

  ‘I’ve got water.’ There was a litre of it in the car; I’d never been so glad to have a hangover. ‘I’ll get you a drink when my colleague comes back. I’m Maeve. Her name is Liv.’

  She nodded but her eyes were still vacant and I doubted she had understood what I said.

  ‘You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  A smile touched her cracked lips, parted them and showed me black gaps in the previously neat symmetry of her teeth.

  ‘Liv will be back soon. She’ll stay with you. I’ll get you the water.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  It was an automatic response but it still made my throat close up; she was able to be polite, even now, even after all she had been through.

  ‘Lee and Drew – they’re under arrest. They can’t hurt you any more.’ She looked baffled and I recalled belatedly that the brothers had two sets of names. ‘Alex and Andy?’

  Nothing.

  ‘The men who took you.’

  Comprehension dawned. ‘I didn’t know … names.’

  ‘They never told you?’

  ‘I thought Vincent, for one. That was the name on the profile.’ She stopped and coughed a little.

  ‘Don’t try to talk.’

  She ignored that. ‘What did you say? Lee?’

  ‘And Drew. Short for Alexander and Andrew. Bancroft is the surname.’

  ‘Which is which?’

  ‘Lee is the bigger one. Drew is the talker.’

  ‘Nasty and nice. But they were both nasty.’ Distress touched her face for a moment and then faded again. We were back to the zombie-like composure, and I was distinctly relieved to hear Liv on the ladder.

  ‘They’re on their w
ay. Five minutes. The last time estimate was an hour, so we’ve gone up the list.’ She sounded breathless, overexcited. I made my voice slow and quiet when I answered.

  ‘That’s good. Did you get hold of the boss?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll meet us at the hospital.’

  ‘Do you mind staying with Patricia for a bit? I’m just going to get something for her to drink.’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’ She looked past me to the woman on the mattress, and then looked away. She perched on the edge of a trunk, about ten feet from Patricia, and I wondered if she was scared to talk to her, too scared to get too close.

  I stood up slowly, making sure I didn’t crowd Patricia and trying not to loom over her. ‘I’ll be back very soon.’

  I wasn’t altogether sure Patricia was aware I was leaving. I left her and Liv sitting in silence, both of them staring into space. Liv wasn’t finding it easy to deal with a real-live victim. I wasn’t exactly used to it either, but it was a distinct improvement on the usual dead body. I ran down the stairs at breakneck speed and took the direct route out to the front, unlocking the main door and leaving it open on my way back so the ambulance crew could get in quickly.

  On my way across the hall it occurred to me to take the keys from the television room, just in case any of them fitted the padlock on Patricia’s chain. I leaned around the door and picked them off the bamboo whatnot in the corner. As an afterthought I returned and flipped over the glasses, catching my breath as I recognised the black and red stripes on the sides. If I had looked at them properly earlier … she would still have endured eighteen months of captivity, I reminded myself. I would just have known she had been there at some stage. And since I had been well on the way to believing her dead, it wouldn’t have made much difference at all. A glint caught my eye and I looked down at the base of the whatnot, seeing the end of a thin silver chain. I drew it out carefully and was somehow not surprised to see, when the end finally emerged, an oval medallion sparkling with diamonds. Cheyenne’s Miraculous Medal. I left it where it was, to be collected with the other evidence, but my jaw was clenched as I left the room. A trinket, to be thrown aside with the others. To be thrown away like the girl herself.

  Back at the foot of the ladder I stuck the glasses in one jacket pocket, the keys in another, put the water bottle under my arm and climbed slowly, wary of falling. It would be just like me to lose concentration, slip and end up in hospital again.

  Liv was still sitting where she had been when I left, her arms folded around her knees as if she wanted to be certain no part of her would come in contact with Patricia. It struck me that she was particularly fastidious in her grooming – her clothes and hair were always immaculate – and perhaps that was because she devoted quite a lot of time and effort to staying away from dirt. And Patricia was far from clean – not that she had had much chance to be anything else. Her hair had the soft dullness that comes from never using shampoo; half-moons of black ringed every fingernail. When I had been close to her I had been able to smell her, despite the stinking bucket and the years of dust that blanketed the attic, rising in clouds at every step. If the only water she had was in the two-litre bottle that lay empty beside her mattress, I could see how washing in it would not be a priority.

  I went slowly as I approached her, and stopped a couple of feet away. She had turned around a little, facing more towards the wall, and I wondered if the presence of strangers was upsetting her.

  ‘Here’s the water.’ I crouched and held the bottle out to her. She pawed the air blindly before she came in contact with it, but once she had it safely in her hands, she popped the top off and drank greedily.

  ‘Take your time,’ I cautioned. Too much water could be as bad as too little, or so I had been told. She paid no attention anyway, gulping at it as two thin streams snaked over her jaw and ran down her neck.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Liv had come to stand beside me, looking down at her. ‘Do you want something to eat?’

  ‘She shouldn’t have anything until she gets checked out,’ I muttered.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ She held the bottle up. ‘More water.’

  ‘Do you think the tap water is okay?’ Liv leaned forward and took the bottle gingerly. ‘I could run down to the kitchen.’

  ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t trust the stuff in the bathroom. See if there’s anything left in the kettle, maybe. And don’t fill the bottle.’ The last bit was in a low tone that Patricia wouldn’t have overheard. I hated to ration her, but I didn’t want her to make herself sick. ‘Shouldn’t the paramedics have arrived by now?’

  ‘They’ve got to find the place,’ Liv pointed out as she walked away. ‘It’s not easy even if you know what you’re looking for.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Patricia blinked up at me. ‘Is this England?’

  I didn’t laugh. ‘We’re just north of Enfield.’

  ‘Enfield – London?’

  ‘Still within the M25.’

  ‘I don’t …’ She trailed off, looking upset. ‘They told me not to run. They told me there were no neighbours, that I’d die of exposure, that no one would understand me. I thought it was somewhere far away. Iceland or Norway or something.’ She swallowed. ‘I could have gone home, if I’d run.’

  It was a long speech, and reassuringly coherent. The water seemed to have revived her. ‘They might have hurt you if you’d tried.’ I fished in my pocket for the keys. ‘Besides, they’ve got you pretty well tied up.’

  ‘This is a new chain.’ She rattled it, pulling as hard as she could, apparently oblivious to the metal links digging into her arm, though the sight made me wince. ‘They upgraded it. Said I was too precious to lose after what happened with the new one.’

  ‘The new one?’

  Her face went still, her mouth a line. She looked defensive, and frightened. ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’

  ‘About Cheyenne?’ I didn’t imagine it; the name sent a shudder through her narrow frame. She rattled the chain again, more urgently, and I started sorting through the keys I had found. ‘One of these might work.’

  The padlock was new, though, and the keys I had found were all old, the metal tarnished. I had grabbed all that I could see on the whatnot, without thinking about whether they might be appropriate or not. Now I laid them out on the mattress, discounting the two sets of house keys immediately. There were three possibles and I set to work to test them. Patricia was bent over, peering at the keys.

  ‘Where did you get these?’

  ‘Downstairs. There was a pile of them in the TV room.’

  ‘I don’t know that room. I only went in the kitchen and the bedrooms.’ She laid a finger on one of the key rings that held a Yale and a Chubb. The fob was a plastic mouse with most of the paint rubbed off; I could just about make out a jaunty smile. ‘Those are mine. My keys to my flat.’

  It wasn’t her flat any more but I hadn’t the heart to tell her that. ‘Did you give them to either of the brothers?’

  ‘They were in my handbag, I think, when I went to meet him.’ The still face again, the withdrawal. Don’t push, Maeve.

  I played around with the padlock for a while, but reluctantly had to admit defeat. ‘No joy with the keys, I’m afraid, but we can get the fire brigade to cut you free. They love a chance to get out their cutting equipment.’ I was checking my pockets as I spoke, making sure I hadn’t overlooked a key, and my fingers brushed against the glasses. ‘Oh, I think these are yours too.’

  ‘What are?’

  I held them in front of her, moving them closer when I realised she couldn’t see them clearly enough to know what they were. Between blank incomprehension and recognition there was a split second; it barely took longer for her to snatch them out of my hand and slide them on to her face. She blinked a few times, looking at me and past me and craning to see the end of the attic room, then she rose up onto her knees and stared over the windowsill at the fields that stretched away into the distance.

  ‘Where were they?’

/>   ‘Beside the keys.’

  ‘Downstairs?’

  ‘Yeah, in the television room.’ I was distractedly gathering up the keys again, and her voice had been so casual that I had no warning at all. I didn’t notice the moment her composure crumbled but it gave way like a dam wall bursting. She collapsed as completely as if her sinews had been slashed and by instinct and pure luck I managed to get my arms around her before she hit the ground. She lay against me and wept, holding on to the frames of the glasses as if she was afraid I would take them away again. I could feel her ribs through the thick cotton of her sweatshirt and the knobs of bone that tracked a stegosaurus spine. There was no flesh on her at all; she was as frail as a ninety-year-old.

  When she had recovered enough to be able to speak again, she managed, ‘I asked …’

  ‘For the glasses?’

  A nod. ‘It was the only thing … I kept asking for. At first, I asked for lots of things, but I stopped. I knew there was no point. But I kept asking for something to help me see. He said he was sorry they’d lost the glasses. He said he’d get me another pair from somewhere, that he never stopped looking for my own pair. He said all I had to do was what he wanted, and make him believe I liked it.’

  ‘Lee did? The big one, I mean?’

  ‘No.’ She screwed her face up in disgust. ‘The other.’

  As if she had recollected herself, she pushed me away. I became aware of noises downstairs, of Liv’s voice and the tramping feet of officialdom. A pleasant-faced grey-haired paramedic was the first person up the ladder and she nodded to me before focusing on Patricia.

  ‘Let’s have a little look then, lovey.’

  I moved away a little to give her some privacy. I was glad beyond words to hand her over to someone who knew what they were doing.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Patricia’s voice was high with panic.

  ‘Nowhere.’ I came back to where I had been standing. ‘I’m staying here.’

  ‘What was your name again? I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten.’