by GS Rhodes
She picked up her mug of tea and took a long sip. It seemed to relax her, something Kidd was grateful for because she was talking pretty fast.
“Sorry,” she said. “You were talking and I just blah blah blah blah blah!” She laughed nervously. She was all over the place.
“It’s alright,” Kidd said. “I just need to hear what happened from you, and if the boys happened to say anything to you that might help, I’d like to hear that too. Take your time, there’s no need to rush. We want this done right, okay?”
She nodded, taking a few deep breaths and another long sip of tea. Kidd took a sip of his too. She had made it perfectly. Builders. So strong the spoon could stand up in it. It was exactly what he needed.
Vicky started to speak. The story was one that Kidd had already heard that day. How she had gone to the riverside with Rachel, something they do all the time. How the kids had gone off to play with each other, again it was something that they did all the time, they didn’t think anything of it. The bench rule was one they’d had in place every time they’d gone there.
“I don’t know what more I could have done,” she said. “I tell them every time we go, and almost every time they do what they’re told.” She paused, her mouth hanging open. “At least, I think they do. I can’t watch them every second, it’s possible they’ve gone beyond it before but just come back before I’ve noticed. It’s hard to know really.” She took a moment. “How is Rachel doing?”
“She’s coping,” Kidd said. It was the only thing he could think to say. If he was honest with her, she appeared pretty broken. But if she was already feeling guilty about it, it didn’t do well to add to that. “We spoke to her earlier.”
“I keep meaning to call but…I don’t know what to say,” she said, her voice quiet, a definite shake there. “It was horrible. I can’t imagine going through that myself. She was frantic. I mean, of course she was, who wouldn’t be? And then Daniel…” She rolled her eyes. “Sorry, not my place.”
Kidd leaned forward in his chair. “What about him?” he asked. “You don’t have to carry on if you don’t want to. Just curious.”
Vicky considered it for a moment. “He’s just…not the best,” she said. “I don’t know what she’s told you about him.”
“I met him,” Kidd said.
“Well, he’s not all he’s cracked up to be,” she said flatly. “I love Rachel, I love her so much, she’s my best friend in the whole world and I don’t know what I would do without her, but she deserves somebody better than him.”
“Why don’t you like him?” Kidd asked.
She rolled her eyes again. “Apart from the fact that he didn’t answer the phone when she was trying to call him? I’m sorry, but that’s some bullshit if you ask me,” she said. “Even if you’re in meetings, why wouldn’t you answer your phone when your wife’s called you a thousand times? She sent him texts, she left voicemails, there was no way he didn’t look at his phone for all that time. Please.”
Kidd was glad he wasn’t the only one who’d thought that. It wasn’t something you could convict a guy on, but it certainly seemed a little suspicious that he just would be completely AWOL for all that time.
“And then there’s—” She stopped herself. “I shouldn’t, I’m sorry, this has nothing to do with your case I’m just on a rant now.” She tried to laugh it off. Kidd didn’t take his eyes off her, waiting for her to continue. He wanted to hear what it was she had to say. Maybe there was something else. “He…he tried it on with me once,” she said. Kidd felt himself deflate a little. “He was drunk and we were at a party, and even though my husband was in the room, he still made a pass at me.” She shrugged. “I was flattered but, I mean, Rachel is my best friend, what was he thinking?”
“Right,” Kidd said, nodding. “What was he thinking, indeed?”
“And I’m not the only one,” she said. “I’ve heard stories from other people in our circle. He’s a bit of a horn dog it seems. Just can’t keep himself to himself and…I don’t know…I wonder what else he gets up to when Rachel isn’t around. Like, what is he doing all those hours he’s supposed to be working?” She widened her eyes at him and took another sip of her tea.
Though she was obviously feeling the guilt about what had happened with Maggie, it was clear that Vicky enjoyed being the person to spill the gossip on other people. It wasn’t going to help them with the case, at least not as far as Kidd could see, but at least he’d ticked Vicky off their list. He just hoped that Zoe and Janya were having a little more luck.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The three flights of stairs to Flat 32 were a reminder to Zoe Sanchez that she needed to get back to the gym before her next fitness test. Their journey from Kingston Station to Twickenham had been a fairly easy one, tracking down the right apartment block, less so. They’d pulled up in a nearby car park in front of a parade of shops and spent a solid five minutes on Google Maps trying to find the right route.
The Wade family lived in one of the tall, grey apartment blocks that seemed to hide behind the stadium. If you didn’t know they were there and you only came over to Twickenham for the rugby games, chances were you’d never see them.
It wasn’t a place that DS Sanchez had ventured to all that often, as it wasn’t on their patch. But needs must. And they needed to find out all they could from Mrs Wade if they were going to make any progress on this case.
A white woman answered the door, her peroxide-blonde hair piled high into a messy bun on top of her head, her face twisting in confusion at the two women in suits standing in front of her.
“Hi,” Zoe said, fixing a smile on her face. “We’re looking for Cherise Wade.”
“Who’s looking for her?” she asked, recoiling a little.
“I’m Detective Sergeant Zoe Sanchez, this is DC Janya Ravel,” Zoe said. “We’re investigating the case of a missing child over in Kingston and we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions.”
“You think I have the child here?” she asked, almost laughing at them. “I’ve got my own problems to deal with, my own son is missing! Do you care about that? No. I’m trying to find him. I don’t have time to think about some other child!”
“That’s not why we’re here, Mrs Wade,” Sanchez said. “We were looking into any other cases of missing children that had happened nearby around the same time, and the case of your missing son was one that came up. We’ve had a child go missing without a trace on our borough, and yours was reported just a few days before. I’m not saying they’re connected, but we’re looking into any possible leads. And if we can help bring back Brody, as well as Maggie, then it would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”
Mrs Wade hesitated. The mention of Brody seemed to soften her, her guard falling away a little. Whatever had happened with DCI Shauna Reid had clearly left a sour taste in her mouth. Zoe was keen to get to the bottom of it, and if she could, she was keen to see if she could help find Brody too. If these kidnappings were related, she would do everything she could to help her.
Cherise took a deep breath, taking her gaze away from the two officers and looking past them at the cars rushing by on Twickenham Road, at the world still somehow turning while her boy was missing. How must that feel? If Rachel was falling apart after less than twenty-four hours, how was Cherise sleeping at night? Zoe imagined not well.
“Come inside,” she said. “Close the door behind you.”
Zoe and Janya did as they were told, stepping into the flat and closing the door. The door opened straight into the living room. It was a fairly small space, a couple of doors running off of it, presumably to the kitchen and bedrooms. There were a couple of cream leather sofas, at least they looked like they used to be cream, positioned facing the TV. Wires were hanging out from beneath it, attached to a PlayStation, a couple of controllers left in the middle of the floor.
Mrs Wade offered them a drink, which they politely accepted, and Janya and Zoe sat at either end of the sofa while they waited for Cherise
to return with their steaming mugs of tea.
“So you’re here to talk about my son?” Cherise said. “How much do you know?”
“I’ve read the case file,” Janya said. She had filled Zoe in on their drive over, but Zoe thought it would be better if Janya took a bit more of a lead on it. She needed to learn, after all. “But we’d like to hear it from you, if that’s alright? While I’m sure they’ve been very thorough, I think it’s better if it comes from you directly.”
Cherise rolled her eyes. “I wish they’d been as thorough as I wanted them to be,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what happened. I just want my boy back. And if this might help, then…well…it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
She took a sip of her tea before she started to recant the story that Janya had already read in the case file. They had been out shopping, there was a match on at Twickenham Stadium, barely a stone's throw from where they live, and they were on their way back from Twickenham town. They had gotten themselves caught in the crowd.
“We’d timed it terribly,” she said with a laugh as she relived the memory. “Me and Brody fighting against the crowds of people leaving the stadium, thousands of people coming towards us like a wave or something. We should have just stayed by the river in Twickenham for a little bit longer, but we wanted to get home. We thought of maybe stopping in the park and giving them a chance to pass but we were tired. He’d been running about all day. So we kept on moving, kept pushing on.”
She took a deep breath. Zoe could see how hard it was for her to tell this story again. How many times had she been forced to tell it since it happened? How many people had she needed to explain to that she couldn’t find her son?
“He disappeared,” she said. “I was holding his hand and suddenly he let go. I was calling his name and calling his name and he was nowhere to be seen. I thought he might have been waiting for me somewhere so I stood there and waited for the crowd to pass. But he was gone. I should have…I should have put him in the pushchair or something, carried him, I don’t know. If I had a chance to do it all again, I would put him in the chair. He just wanted to walk. What reason did I have to stop him?”
Mrs Wade had called the police, frantic, unable to fathom what she should do next. They responded to her call and searched the area, they had forensics looking out for prints, for anything he may have dropped, but there had been so many people walking through the area it was impossible to find anything.
“I told everybody I know,” she said. “I posted about it online, I told the local papers and they printed it, but we got nothing back. And the police…” She shook her head. “They did nothing. Well, not nothing, but they didn’t do enough. They wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell them things, when I tried to offer my help. They just wanted to continue with their lines of enquiry. I was just…I was trying to help find my son.”
“I understand,” Sanchez said. She could understand the woman’s frustration. What she couldn’t understand was why they wouldn’t listen to her, why they wouldn’t take her offers of help. If a victim came to Zoe and gave them lines of enquiry she would gladly take them if it would have helped find the child. “What was it you were offering?” Sanchez asked. “What were they not listening to you about?”
She groaned. “They refused to listen to me about my husband.”
Zoe sat up a little straighter. “What about him?”
“He’s a prick,” she spat. “I love him dearly, but he is not a good man.”
“How so?” Zoe asked.
“He’s cheating on me,” she said, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m sorry, it’s such a silly thing to get so upset over, but it’s been going on for so long without me knowing, and when I found out I…I just lost myself. Even now, I don’t know who I am, what I’m doing. I don’t recognise myself anymore. I didn’t know what to do.”
Zoe nodded. “And what was it that they wouldn’t pursue regarding that?” she asked. “Do you think it was your husband that took your son?”
Cherise shook her head violently.
“No, no, nothing like that,” she said. Suddenly she looked very small. The woman who had not wanted to let them in the house seemed to have faded away for a moment. “I know who the woman was who was sleeping with my husband and I…” She steadied herself, sitting up a little straighter. “And when I found out who it was I…I went to see her. I threatened her. I told her to stay away from my husband and to leave my family alone and she told me she would get me back for it. She warned me, and I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen and now…now my son is gone.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was a twist in the tale that Zoe hadn’t been expecting. It was a big accusation to make.
“She told me she would get me back,” Cherise said. “She warned me. I should never have gone there, should never have threatened her, but I was…I was feeling territorial. She had moved in on Eric, my husband, she had moved in on him and she was trying to take him away from me and I couldn’t stand it. I would not stand for it.”
DS Sanchez was trying to make the pieces fit together in her head. She knew why Mrs Wade would believe that, why she would think that, but it was a big conclusion to jump to. That was probably why DCI Reid didn’t pursue it. Maybe she thought it was too far-fetched.
“You think I’m crazy,” Cherise said, shaking her head. “I knew it. You see? This is why I didn’t want to speak to you. They thought I was crazy too, they wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t look into it. They warned me about threatening behaviour towards that woman.” She shook her head in disbelief.
“How did you find out?” Zoe said. “And, I’m not saying that I don’t believe you, Mrs Wade, I’m not saying that at all, but I just want to know what it is that makes you think she’s the one who took your son.”
“Because she already knew all about him,” Mrs Wade said, leaning forward in her chair. “Brody is the reason I found out about the affair in the first place. She was careless, so was Eric, stupid, stupid man. They got caught by Brody. Eric was looking after him and that woman came along and decided she would have a little chat with Eric, and Eric…like I said, he is a stupid man. He couldn’t help himself. So Brody told me all about the pretty lady who Daddy was speaking to. Eric can’t lie to me. He tried, but he couldn’t even look at me. It only took a little prodding to find out what was really going on with her.
“So I went and I spoke to her,” she said. “I wanted her out of Eric’s life, out of my life, and I didn’t want her anywhere near my son. She went on about how she hadn’t introduced herself to Brody, she had simply spoken to Eric, and Brody was just there. But I knew what she was doing. She was trying to worm her way into Brody’s life too. She was trying to push me out.”
Zoe had seen many women, far too many women, be put in situations like this by their spouses. She’d never experienced it herself, given that she’d never been married, but that kind of betrayal had to leave a mark, there was no way that it couldn’t.
“That’s not all,” Mrs Wade said. “After I went to speak to her, she made a point to get closer to my Brody.”
“How?” Janya asked.
Cherise sighed. “She started hanging around the nursery,” she said, shaking her head. “She would be there during the lunch breaks, Brody would come home and tell me that he saw the pretty lady his daddy had been with. It made me burn. She was trying to get to me.”
And it was working, Zoe thought.
“I told the nursery all about it, I warned them about her and they told her not to come back,” she said. “But she didn’t listen. She went with Eric to pick him up once. She introduced herself to him. Eric…I don’t know what he was thinking, I don’t know what hold she had over him, but whatever it was, it was coming between us and…I couldn’t take it.”
She took a moment, taking a drink from her tea cup. She drained it, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked like she was losing her grip on everything, and Zoe couldn’t blame her. Eri
c had really put her through it, and whoever this woman was, she wasn’t exactly helping matters.
“So I went and spoke to her again, that was when I threatened her, when I told her to leave my family alone or else,” Cherise said. She breathed a heavy sigh, the tension falling from her body as she settled back into the armchair. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the detectives. “I know it was the wrong thing to do. I know I shouldn’t have let her get a rise out of me like that, but I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t turn to my friends, who wants to tell their friends that their partner has been cheating on them? I couldn’t turn to my family because they probably would have torn Eric apart, and for all of his faults, I love him and the last thing I want to do is break up our family.”
“So the officers who dealt with your case,” Zoe said. “Are they still in touch with you?”
Cherise scoffed. “Hardly. They clearly think Brody is a lost cause, that my boy is…that my boy is…” Her hand flew to her face, covering her mouth. She took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to believe he’s gone, but no one is looking for him. They don’t care about him. I wish they did, but they just don’t and I…I don’t know what else to do.” A sob caught in the back of her throat. “I’m sorry, please, just give me a moment.”
Cherise got up from her chair and hurried out of the room, back in the direction of the kitchen. Zoe could hear her pulling tissues out of a tissue box. She blew her nose, composing herself, before stepping back into the room.
“I didn’t mean to unload all of that on you,” she said. “It’s just so overwhelming sometimes. I feel like I am the only one who thinks he’s still alive. It’s been five days. How can they have given up after five days?”
