by Sarah Hilary
Twelve weeks they’d been looking for May. Noah had hoped …
‘This girl’s skinny,’ Marnie said, ‘and half-dressed. No one in Missing Persons matches her description.’
‘It’s not much of a description.’ Twelve weeks was long enough for May to be skinny, and to have dyed her hair. ‘Didn’t he notice anything else about her?’
‘He was trying not to run her down.’
‘I was in a near-miss accident once. A kid ran into the road, after a ball. I hit the brakes in time, just. He got his ball, vanished like that.’ Noah snapped his fingers. ‘I only saw him for a second, but I can still see the freckles on his nose, scabs on his knees. Like a photo. It happened two years ago.’
‘Flashback memory …’ Marnie’s eyes darkened to ink-blue. ‘Perhaps Mr Eaton remembers more than he realises. Let’s find out.’
2
St Thomas’s smelt the same as always, a squeaky top layer of clean with sour base notes of bodies. Noah breathed through his mouth from force of habit. He and Marnie walked down a corridor where trolleys had left skid marks on the walls, and the floors had a frantic shine, to the room where Joe Eaton was waiting for news of his wife.
Eaton was in his mid thirties, could’ve passed for twenty-eight. Darkish hair. Grey eyes, the left spoilt by a subconjunctival haemorrhage, bleeding into the white. Natty suit ruined by a neck brace for whiplash. A shade over six feet tall. Blank fright on his face when he saw Marnie and Noah.
‘Mr Eaton, I’m Detective Inspector Rome, this is Detective Sergeant Jake. How are you?’
‘Fine.’ He brought his shoulders up. ‘I’m fine. Ruth’s in surgery. They think a ruptured spleen.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Marnie said, ‘but we need to ask some questions.’
‘How’s Logan? I spoke with his dad last night.’ Joe put a hand across his mouth. ‘It sounded bad, worse than Ruth. And he’s just a kid.’
‘We haven’t spoken with Mr Marsh yet. Shall we sit down?’ Marnie drew up a chair, settling her slim frame to face the man.
Joe nodded, following her lead. Noah could smell his stress: stale sweat under CK1; green hand gel from one of the hospital’s dispensers.
‘I was hoping you could tell us about the young woman you saw last night.’
‘She stepped right in front of me. I didn’t have any choice but to swerve. I’d have killed her otherwise.’ He pushed a hand through his hair. Winced. ‘Has she told you what she was doing?’
‘She’s missing,’ Marnie said. ‘We’re looking for her.’
‘You mean she ran off? After the crash?’ He looked stricken, scared rather than angry. ‘She did that and then she ran?’
‘We’re looking for her. You thought she was injured?’
‘She was covered in scratches. But she’s okay, she must be, otherwise how did she run off?’
‘We’d like to go over your description from last night. In case we missed anything.’
‘There’s not a scratch on me, that’s what I don’t get. Just this thing for the whiplash.’ Joe touched the neck brace then put out his hands and stared at them. ‘Even Logan’s dad … We walked away, both of us. But I’m the only one without a scratch to show for it, and I caused the bloody thing.’
Marnie and Noah waited, not speaking.
‘She walked right in front of us. If I’d hit her, she’d be dead. I was doing thirty tops, but that’s enough to kill someone. I had to swerve.’
‘Which direction was she coming from?’ Marnie asked.
‘My left. I suppose that’s … west?’
‘And she was walking east.’
‘There’s an estate on that side of York Road, maybe she lives there? They breath-tested me, I wasn’t over the limit. I’d had a glass of wine with Ruth, but we were eating spaghetti. I was stuffed full of carbs and I’d had two coffees. We’ve got kids. They’re with Ruth’s sister, too little to understand what’s going on with their mum.’
‘How old are they?’ Noah asked.
‘Sorcha’s two. Liam’s ten months. Carrie’s great with them. They love their auntie.’ Joe wiped his eyes, settled his hands on the lip of the table. ‘Okay. The girl, last night? She looked seventeen, maybe a bit younger. Hard to tell because she wasn’t dressed properly, just a man’s shirt, too big for her, white. And her skin was really pale, except for the scratches. She was moving like a wind-up toy. Not fast, but like she wouldn’t … couldn’t stop. Her face was … scary.’ He blinked. ‘She wasn’t going to stop.’
‘Was she calling for help?’
‘No, but her face … It was like she was screaming.’ He grimaced, moving his head as if he wanted to get rid of the image he’d conjured.
‘Mr Eaton.’ Marnie held out a photograph. ‘Was this the girl you saw?’
‘Isn’t this … Mary Beswick?’ He held the photo by its edges. ‘The missing schoolgirl?’
‘May Beswick. Yes, it is.’
Noah held his breath as Joe studied May’s face, but …
‘It wasn’t her.’ Joe handed back the photo. ‘Sorry.’
‘Are you sure? She could have lost weight since this was taken. Dyed her hair, changed her appearance. How tall was the girl you saw?’
‘Shorter than Ruth. Five foot? Not much more than that. Just a kid, a teenager. Maybe she’s nearer to fifteen. And really skinny. Bony knees. Red hair.’ A glance at Marnie. ‘Not like yours. Red red, like paint.’ His eyes flicked back, frowning, to the photograph. ‘It was dyed.’
‘Long hair, or short?’
‘To her shoulders. But it was crazy, like she’d back-combed it. Really wiry and wild.’
May Beswick was five foot one, not skinny but not fat. In the photo, her blonde hair was waist-length, brushed smooth. She wore a green jumper over a white blouse, and she was smiling, her top lip coming away from her front teeth, soft brown eyes crinkled at the corners. Noah didn’t need to look at the photo to be sure of those details. He’d been seeing her face in his sleep for twelve weeks.
‘What else was she wearing,’ Marnie asked, ‘apart from the shirt?’
‘Nothing. Knickers, I think.’ Joe flushed. ‘No trousers, no shoes. No bra. Maybe she was seventeen. I can’t tell. She should’ve been wearing a bra.’
Somewhere a door slammed open. Joe turned his head towards the sound. His hands were clenched on the table, his neck red inside the brace.
Marnie said, ‘Tell us about the scratches.’
‘All … all over her. Her legs, her stomach, her chest.’ He grimaced. ‘Everywhere.’
In the photograph, May’s face was smooth, like her hair. Round cheeks, a wide forehead, no acne. Not a mark on her, twelve weeks ago.
‘Was her face scratched?’
‘Not her face. But everywhere else, from what I could see.’
‘Were the scratches recent?’ Noah asked.
‘I don’t think so. Hard to tell in the headlights, and I only saw her for a second. They looked black, not red, not like fresh blood.’ He drew a breath. Held it in his chest. Let it go. ‘Ruth got a better look than I did. The girl came from the left, her side of the car. If …’ He pushed his hands at his eyes. ‘When she wakes up, she’ll be able to give you a better description. Ruth always notices stuff. She’s brilliant like that.’
He pushed harder with his hands, knuckles bleaching under the pressure. ‘I can’t forget her face. Maybe it was May Beswick, I don’t know. She didn’t look like her, but she didn’t look like anyone. Whatever happened to her … she looked … terrorised.’
He dropped his hands and looked up at Marnie and Noah. ‘She wasn’t making a sound, not a sound, but her whole face was screaming.’
3
Aimee
Three months ago, I thought I was safe. Home and dry, off the streets. And not just me. All of us thinking the same thing, that we’d landed on our feet. Like cats. He took us all in.
He called the new place home, but not the way you’d think. ‘It’s wide open,’ he said.
Open-plan, the estate agent called it, but Harm meant something different, the sort of place where you’re overlooked, where you disappear even if you don’t mean to. London’s full of places like that. Dead spaces, dazzle spots. Empty doorways, gaps between buildings. Places no one thinks of looking because they don’t see, not properly. Maybe they did once, but they’ve trained themselves to stop. Even when you’re right where they walk every morning, when your hand’s out and you’re asking for a little help, even when you’ve got a fucking dog. A thing could be right in front of your face, Harm said, and you still wouldn’t see it. Some things are just … invisible.
Grace wouldn’t be invisible. She’d started answering back. She wasn’t playing by the rules and I wanted her to shut up. Too much fizz in her, making her skip, making that crazy red hair stick out like she’d rubbed a balloon the wrong way. She wouldn’t sit still and she wouldn’t shut up, and I thought there was something wrong with her. Something was wrong with each of us, that was how he chose us. The noisy ones like Grace and the ones like me who were disappearing – burning up like fireworks until nothing was left.
Harm would keep us safe, he said. We just had to listen to him, let him help us. Grace should’ve shut up. At least she had a roof over her head.
A new roof. The house where he’d been keeping us was getting too small, too much like a squat. We were spilling over, making mess. This new place was better. ‘Great potential,’ Harm said.
The estate agent liked that. ‘Some people just see dead space, but I can tell you’re one of the smart guys.’
Harm nodded, and turned his back. He thought the man was a cocksucker, I could see it in his face. Harm hates cocksuckers; it was one of the first things I found out about him.
The new place was a flat, but on two floors. Split-level, the estate agent said, loft living. One room higher than the others, up a flight of stairs. My room. Unfinished when we saw it that first time. Raw walls with fist-sized holes for wiring, and the estate agent was full of crap about uplighting and underfloor heating, but you could see the money they’d have to pour into the place just to get it fit to live in. No wonder it ran out. It looked good, though, back then. The cocksucker left us to appreciate the view. All of London dazzling under us. ‘I’ll give you a minute,’ he said.
Harm turned his back.
So you know, that’s when he’s dangerous – when his back’s turned. It means he can’t stand looking at you any longer. You’ve made him sick, angry. So sick and angry he won’t look at you. He wants you to stop talking, stop looking, stop being. We all knew this, even Grace, but the estate agent didn’t. He was the sort of man who used to sidestep me when I was begging on the streets, so I suppose I wanted him to stop talking and stop being, just the same as Harm did.
In the end, Harm shook the man’s hand, making his eyes light up, smelling a sale. That was back before the money ran out, when they still believed the uplighting and underfloor heating would happen. Back before Grace stopped fizzing. Before he made her stop.
I remember exactly how it felt, that first day in the new place.
The others followed Harm and Christie outside, but I stayed, wanting to get my bearings, needing to know what I was up against.
Harm doubled back. I didn’t hear him on the stairs, but I saw dust smoke up from the floor when his feet moved across it, not making a sound.
Then the heat of him behind me …
The damp weight of his shadow across my shoulders, at the back of my neck.
He kept my hair cut short. I could feel his stare sharp on my skin.
Not touching. He never touched. It was worse than that.
His stare was hotter than fingers, or a tongue.
I could smell him, smiling.
He was so heavy behind me.
‘This is it,’ he whispered. ‘This is home.’
4
Like Joe Eaton, Calum Marsh had a neck brace and a sling for his right arm, taking the strain off a badly bruised collarbone. He was sitting on the end of the hospital bed, trying to push his left foot into a leather shoe. Whoever had removed his shoes hadn’t untied the laces, and he was struggling, his face fisted in concentration. Wearing chinos and a half-buttoned shirt, wanting to be dressed so he could go and check on his son. All his panic and pain was there in the struggle with the shoe.
‘Mr Marsh, I’m DI Rome and this is DS Jake.’ Marnie crouched and took the shoe, freeing the laces from the stranglehold of a knot. ‘We’re here to find out what happened.’
Calum peered at her in confusion. ‘Have you seen him? Logan?’ His feet and face jumped with stress. ‘I was asleep. Is his mum here?’ Looking away from Marnie, concentrating on Noah. ‘Is he okay? What’s happening?’
‘We’re waiting to speak with the doctor. Logan’s in surgery.’ Marnie stayed crouched, the unlaced shoe in her hands. ‘I’ve asked someone to speak with you as soon as there’s news.’
‘There’s nothing I can do. That’s what they said in the ambulance. And here. The nurses said the same.’ Calum wiped his hand on the sheet, leaving a rust stain where his sweat had brought dried blood back to life. ‘There’s nothing.’ He was in his early forties, well-built, greying temples and stubbled skin, blood in the lines under his eyes. Unless the shirt was hiding damage that Noah couldn’t see, the blood was his son’s.
‘There should be news soon.’ Marnie put the shoe down and straightened, stepping back. She nodded at Noah, who moved a chair to the side of the bed.
‘We were talking with Joe Eaton about how it happened,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to find the girl.’
‘The girl.’ Calum’s face was empty. He blinked, focused. ‘What girl?’
‘The girl who walked out into the road. That’s why Joe Eaton swerved.’
‘He came right at me.’ Calum put his hand up, palm out. ‘Right at me.’ His hand was broader than Joe’s, and scarred in places, twitching with shock like the rest of him.
‘Joe says a girl walked in front of the Audi.’ Noah took care not to crowd the man. ‘That’s why he swerved. To avoid hitting her.’
‘That’s what he said? The other driver … He said there was a girl …?’
‘You didn’t see her?’
‘No girl, just the Audi coming at us, and … the wall. Then Logan hitting the windscreen, making this noise.’ Punishing his injured arm with his left hand. ‘His head made this noise like something bursting. He broke the windscreen with his head …’ Putting his hand out, blindly. ‘Don’t let him die. Not like this. Not my fault, don’t let it be my fault, he’s just a kid. My kid.’
‘All right.’ Noah took the man’s hand, chilled and sticky with his son’s blood, aftershocks locking and unlocking the fingers. ‘Mr Marsh? Calum. It’s all right.’
Marnie left, coming back with a nurse, who helped Logan’s dad back into the bed. Noah waited until he was lying down before easing his hand free from the man’s grip.
‘Sorry,’ Calum kept saying, to the nurse, to Noah. ‘I’m sorry.’
Marnie was in the corridor, waiting.
‘He didn’t see a girl,’ Noah said. ‘Do you think Joe Eaton got it wrong?’
‘Something made Joe swerve. He wasn’t drunk and it wasn’t raining. Traffic conditions were good. Why invent a girl? Especially a half-dressed girl covered in scratches.’
She took out her phone. ‘We need to know who else was on that road. DC Tanner’s looking at CCTV. Whether or not she’s May Beswick, this girl’s in trouble.’ She dialled a number, held the phone to her ear. ‘Ed, call me when you get this. I need to pick your brains.’
Ed Belloc was a victim care officer, one of the best. He and Marnie had been together six months, maybe a little longer.
‘Whether or not she’s May Beswick,’ Noah repeated. ‘You think there’s a chance it’s her?’
‘I don’t know. I’d like to hope so. At least … This girl was running from someone. Injured by the sound of it. She didn’t stop after caus
ing the crash. I’m wondering whether she’s gone to ground, in a refuge if she was lucky enough to find one. Ed will know the ones around Battersea, how easy or otherwise it is to find a safe place in that part of town when you’re desperate.’
‘She could be desperate because she caused the crash. If Logan dies, or Ruth does … She could be scared of us.’
Behind them, through the wall, the thin sound of Calum Marsh’s distress.
‘Let’s find her,’ Marnie said.
5
Aimee
Nails scratched at the door. ‘Food’s ready. He wants you with us.’
I didn’t want to eat, so I didn’t answer. Ashleigh came into the room, fighting the door. Harm had fitted a weighted hinge; it banged shut if you weren’t careful. ‘You can eat with us, he says.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ She looked around. ‘And don’t land me in the shit. Again.’ Her eyes were greedy, going everywhere. I’d got too much stuff.
Harm was always giving me presents. The hairbrush was the latest, real silver, hallmarked. Ashleigh walked to where it sat on a joke of a dressing table with light bulbs round the mirror like I was the star in a soft porn movie. ‘Nice.’ Her voice was ironed flat. She hated me. She didn’t touch the brush, though. She didn’t dare. The light bulbs gave her a rash.
‘You need to come and eat with us.’ She walked to the door. ‘Get up.’
I lay on the bed a bit longer before I did as I was told. She hated me, but she was right. I couldn’t land her in the shit again, not so soon after the last time.
Downstairs, the others were waiting around the table. No Gracie, which meant she was in trouble again, confined to her room. Ashleigh had started calling her Disgracie. It was funny, except it wasn’t. I felt sick for her. Not that I was doing any better. I was worse off than any of them, no amount of silver hairbrushes changed that.
The kitchen smelt hot and brown and I wanted to puke at the thought of whatever was cooking on the stove. Tins, always out of tins. I’d rather starve, except of course I wouldn’t. I’d spent enough nights starving on the streets. Starving’s for rich kids who’re never more than an arm’s reach from a decent meal. I’d eat this shit, whatever it was, and be grateful for it.
