by Jane Holland
‘Tomorrow?’
‘No, tonight. In the next hour. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
I wet my lips, ridiculously nervous. ‘Jon isn’t here.’
‘Can’t you call him?’
‘I could ring his mobile, I suppose. But I don’t want to. That would be too . . .’ I close my eyes, and blurt it out. ‘You see, he’s gone. Left.’
In my hurry, the words come out thick and tangled, probably the wrong way round. For God’s sake, what am I saying? His silence on the other end of the phone feels like an accusation.
‘Me,’ I add carefully. ‘He’s left me. Packed a bag and gone.’
‘Meghan, I’m so sorry.’
I have been holding it together so far, but his sympathetic tone makes the tears come. I can’t say anything more for a moment. Or nothing coherent. I just gasp, blinking away the tears, struggling against the desire to sob aloud.
‘Look, it’s okay,’ he continues when I say nothing, but I can hear frustration in his voice. ‘You sound really upset. You don’t need to come out tonight if it’s too much.’
I glance at myself in the mirror again. Is that terror in my eyes? Yes, maybe I do need some support. And outdoor clothes would be good too.
My hand drops to the thin belt of my dressing gown, which is hanging loose and open, one of my breasts showing in the mirror. I have a sudden flashback to Treve pressing himself against me in the nursery, kissing me, touching my breasts, the horrible incongruity of that encounter, and wonder if I have lost all sense of perspective.
It’s like I’m clutching at anything and anyone who might help me through this sense of loss, distract me from the gnawing fear of what lies ahead. But there’s no avoiding it. Not anymore.
‘Meghan? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. I’ll do it.’
‘Very well.’ He sounds relieved, not arguing. ‘Thank you, I’ll send a car to pick you up.’
‘There was someone here earlier,’ I tell him before he can hang up. ‘An intruder. I think they were looking for Harry’s medication.’
‘What? ’ He sounds astonished. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘Whoever it was hit the trip switch when they came in, knocked the lights out. I was in the shower. My next-door neighbour turned the lights back on for me. I was about to ring you, honestly.’
‘And you think whoever it was had come for Harry’s medication?’
‘Most of it has gone.’
‘Right, I’m going to send some officers round. Don’t touch anything, okay?’
‘But what about the police station? You said you needed me to come over there.’
‘They can check out the house while you’re at the station. If that’s acceptable.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have Jon’s mobile number. I’ll ring him too.’
‘But what’s this about?’
‘She wants to speak to you,’ Paul admits at last. ‘The woman we arrested at the farm. She’s not denying anything. But she won’t tell us a damn thing about Harry.’ He sounds almost embarrassed. ‘She’s insisting that she wants to see you first. That she’ll only talk to you, in fact.’
‘Me?’
I am shocked. My skin creeps with sudden cold. It feels so personal.
‘She’s been following the news. Child abductors usually do. She admitted that she caught part of your press conference. Then, of course, she saw you at the farm today. They like that kind of thing. To watch their victims squirm, see how much pain they’ve caused.’
‘Oh God.’
‘You won’t be alone with her, don’t worry. We’ll be there with you the whole time.’ DS Dryer draws a deep breath. ‘Look, I know this is a hard thing to hear. The hardest thing for any parent. But I’m afraid you may need to prepare yourself.’
‘Prepare myself?’ My heart starts to race, my palm suddenly clammy, slipping against the handset. I already know the answer before I ask the question. ‘For what?’
‘For the fact that, whatever she wants to tell you, it’s unlikely to be good news.’
Chapter Thirty-One
She’s sitting at a table in a brightly lit interview room at the police station. The Cornish Snatcher, as the newspapers continue to refer to her. I recognise her at once, though she looks less intimidating here, as though she has shrunk since her arrest. The ankle-length dress has gone. The police must have taken her clothes for forensic investigation, I guess. She’s wearing a shapeless white outfit like a jumpsuit now. Her pudgy face is pale, her black hair unkempt, cracked glasses smudged with fingermarks. She is staring straight ahead at the wall, wedged tight against the table with the wooden rim pressing into her large belly, both elbows resting on the table top.
The man in the creased grey suit next to her is presumably a lawyer. He is talking to her quietly as we walk in, but looks up and falls silent when DS Dryer announces my arrival. I glance at the lawyer briefly, and see pity and resignation in his face. It makes me wonder what she has told him. Nothing good, by the look of it.
The woman straightens, adjusting her glasses to stare at me.
I turn to Paul Dryer. ‘Where’s Jon?’ I ask in a whisper.
‘I couldn’t get hold of him,’ he replies, also in a whisper. His gaze meets mine. ‘I’m sorry. He’s not answering his mobile.’ He hesitates. ‘You okay to do this alone?’
I hesitate.
She may have Harry stowed away somewhere, perhaps with an accomplice. What if I say the wrong thing and make her angry?
We could lose Harry forever.
My heart begins to pound as the enormity of this meeting hits me.
Paul is waiting. ‘Meghan?’
‘It’s fine,’ I say, with more conviction than I feel. ‘I want to do this.’
Paul Dryer told me when I arrived at the station that he could not tell me the Snatcher’s real name. For legal reasons, apparently. But he said they had agreed to refer to her as ‘Chrissie’ during tonight’s meeting.
Chrissie.
It seems like such a nice, ordinary name. Not the kind of name you would give to a woman who abducts and murders babies.
The small interview room is crowded with police officers. DC Gerent is there, standing against the wall opposite, hands clasped behind her back, watching the proceedings with an unreadable expression. DI Pascoe is there too, following us in with some manila folders that he hands to Paul Dryer with a shrug, as though he does not think they will be much use.
‘My client needs a rest,’ the lawyer begins, a slightly aggressive tone to his voice, but the woman interrupts him.
‘Not yet.’ She is looking at me keenly. ‘I want to speak to her first.’
I do not like to meet her gaze.
DI Pascoe looks round at me. ‘Right, I think we should make a start. Would you like to sit?’
There are two blue plastic seats on our side of the table. I choose the one nearest the wall, opposite the lawyer, perhaps because I do not like the idea of looking directly into the Snatcher’s face. I feel cowardly at once, and wonder if I have made a tactical error. That she knows now that I am afraid to face her.
But it’s too late to change. Inspector Pascoe has sat down next to me, facing the woman, and put his hands flat on the table.
‘Well, this here is Meghan.’ I hear tension behind the warm Cornish accent and am oddly comforted by it. It matters to him too, that we find Harry alive, and find him soon. He is doing his best for us. They all are. ‘She’s come to talk to you, Chrissie, exactly as you requested. Much against my better judgement, I have to tell you. But she’s here. So I trust you’re going to be more cooperative now.’
‘I have been cooperative,’ she tells him sourly.
‘Not about the whereabouts of baby Harry.’
‘Baby Harry,’ she repeats, seeming to savour the words. Then she turns her head and smiles at me. The same cloying smile she gave me in the farmyard. The same vile ‘I know something you don’t’ smile.
‘Now, Chrissie,’ DI Pascoe continues, his bushy eyebrows contracting fiercely, ‘is there something you’d like to say to Meghan? She very much wants to be reunited with her baby son, and I know you can help us with that.’
‘Can I?’
‘I’m sure your lawyer has explained the benefits to you. That it could serve you well later if you can show that you helped us find Harry.’
Chrissie shrugs, still looking at me.
I force myself to hold her gaze. It’s horrible. My skin is creeping, and what I actually want to do is lean across the table and force my thumbs into her eye sockets. But DI Pascoe is right. She holds the key to Harry’s whereabouts. I have to do this, for his sake. There’s still a fleeting chance that he might not be dead. I have to hold to that, not give up hope. I owe it to Harry to believe he’s still alive.
‘Please,’ I say, beginning with a plea, keeping my voice soft, as instructed by Paul Dryer before we entered the room, ‘if you know where Harry is, tell us. Tell me. Please, I’m not angry. I just want him back.’
She stares back at me without speaking, her mouth still curved in a half-smile, the light reflecting off her dirty glasses.
‘Please,’ I say again, softening my voice even more, ‘where is Harry? He’s sick. He’s a very sick baby. He needs constant medication.’
Still she says nothing, just watches me avidly and with keen interest, like someone watching a beetle trying to crawl up the slippery walls of a trap.
‘But you already know that, don’t you?’ I say, my gaze locked on hers. It’s like staring straight into hell, into dark, smoking pits of turbulence, into madness. ‘You took enough medication to keep him alive for a few days. Then you sent someone back for more.’
I swallow, seeing a flicker in her eyes. ‘Please tell us. Talk to us.’
But she has her mouth closed; she is not going to say anything. This is pointless. She has brought me here to gloat over my pain.
‘How did you know he was sick? Was it when you came to the house and saw the syringes? Or did someone tell you?’ My voice hardens. ‘Did you follow us home from the supermarket? How long were you watching us before you decided to take him?’
Her eyes flicker again. ‘The supermarket,’ she says wonderingly.
DS Dryer bends forward and whispers something to Pascoe, who listens intently and then nods.
‘Yes, we’d like you to tell us what happened in the supermarket,’ Pascoe tells her. ‘Was that the first time you saw Harry?’
The lawyer glances up from his paperwork, surveying our faces, then speaks quietly to his client behind his hand. But Chrissie ignores him, waving the man away.
‘You were in the supermarket,’ she says, staring at me with what appears to be surprise. ‘Yes, I remember. That was . . . Harry? The baby in the buggy?’
‘Of course it was.’
I do not know what else to say. Does she not remember our encounter that morning? Or is this part of some elaborate plan to spin this out? To take so long to reveal Harry’s location that he dies before the police can rescue him?
It’s hard not to want to rip out her throat.
Pascoe has turned his head, studying her face. ‘Are you saying you didn’t choose Harry because you saw him in the supermarket?’
She ignores the detective inspector’s question. ‘What’s wrong with your baby?’ she demands, staring at me. ‘Tell me, if you want me to help you find him.’
‘It’s a very serious condition.’
‘How serious?’
‘Please, just tell us where he is. What difference can it make to you now?’
‘How serious?’ she repeats.
‘You must know how serious. You took the wall chart. And some medication.’
‘Did I?’
She is smiling again.
My hands are trembling, so I shove them out of sight, under the table. Fear? Rage? Whatever it is, I don’t want her to see my weakness and exploit it. Before they let me in here, the police took half an hour to explain how I should speak to this woman, what to say, and what not to show on my face, including anger and desperation.
I say humbly, ‘Please, Chrissie—’
‘My name isn’t Chrissie.’
‘Have pity on him. He’s only a baby, and he’s very ill. There’s a real chance he could die without his medication.’
‘So let him die.’
Fury surges through me again, and I struggle for a moment against its red mist.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch DC Gerent staring at me, her thin brows frowning. Perhaps she can read my thoughts. Perhaps they are written on my face. All I can feel is a desire to kill. Is that so very wrong, under the circumstances? If we were left alone in this room for five minutes, me and the Cornish Snatcher, I would almost certainly try to kill her. I might strangle her, perhaps, squeezing that chubby neck until all life is extinct. Or beat her head against the interview room wall until her skull fractures and her brains spill out.
But I can do nothing to hurt her, and this smug bitch knows it.
I stare at her, sitting so meekly opposite me, triumphant in her protected status as the accused, examining her fingernails with apparent fascination. I feel nothing but rage and helplessness, the one fuelling the other.
For the first time, I realise the officers in the room may be there for Chrissie’s protection as much as my own.
‘We’re not getting anywhere with this,’ DI Pascoe says suddenly. He stands up. ‘I’m going to suspend this interview until you are feeling more cooperative.’
‘No!’ the woman exclaims, and stands up too, knocking her chair backwards. Her belly looks enormous, straining against the white outfit they have given her to wear. ‘No, I want to keep going.’
Her lawyer looks up at her, startled.
DC Gerent and a male constable grab the woman from behind, and force her to sit down again, while I stare, my heart thumping violently in my chest.
DI Pascoe has not moved from his seat. ‘If you want to keep talking to Meghan here,’ he tells her calmly, ‘then you have to give us some useful information about her son. You have to tell us where you’ve hidden him. That was the deal.’
Her small mouth is pinched. It quivers as she looks from his face to mine, then shakes her head. ‘I can’t,’ she says, and her voice is bitter. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ I demand.
She turns her glare on me. ‘And if I say I won’t?’
I realise that I have got to my feet and am leaning over the table towards her in an aggressive way. I feel the police looking at me with disapproval, and clear my throat, then sit down again slowly.
The woman seems amused by my aggression rather than intimidated. She folds her arms across her large chest. ‘Well?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to speak to you like that.’
‘Oh, I rather think you did,’ she contradicts me, that sour note back in her voice. She resettles her glasses on her nose, then folds her arms across her chest again, fixing me with that same hostile look I remember from the supermarket. ‘In fact, I think you want to kill me.’
‘No,’ I say hurriedly.
‘There’s not much point denying it. You said as much in your press conference.’
‘What?’
‘Have you forgotten already what you said?’ Her mouth twists in a smirk. ‘Well, I haven’t, so let me refresh your memory. You said, on camera, that if you didn’t get your baby back alive, you were going to kill whoever had taken him.’
I instantly recognise my own words, and stare back at her, too shocked to speak for a moment. She’s right, of course. I did say that at the press conference, or words to that effect. Because I was insane with anger, and desperate to get my son back. But now, at this very delicate moment, the truth is a slap in the face. And an accusation I can hardly deny. My own stupid mistake, my own arrogance, come back to haunt me. To stab me in the back.
If I do not take care, I am
going to lose this fight.
And Harry with it.
‘I did say that, yes,’ I agree.
Her smirk broadens, becomes gloating. ‘So you admit it, do you?’
I long to wipe that smile from her face, crush her under my heel until there is nothing left of her but dust. But I have to sit here instead, frozen with impotence, and let her say what she wishes. Do whatever she wishes. Let her destroy my life, and my son’s life too, and then walk away, laughing.
Because she holds all the power, and I have nothing in my heart but fear and pain.
‘Admit what?’
‘That you’re a killer too.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Paul Dryer mutters something behind me, but I ignore him. This is my time, not theirs. The police brought me here to talk to this woman, to persuade her to give up my child, and that’s what I intend to do.
I count silently to ten before answering her question. I’m angry, but I owe it to Harry not to lash out at her.
‘I admit to saying that,’ I tell her calmly, though I hear the quiver in my voice and know she must be able to hear it too. ‘And I’m sorry if it upset you. But I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve never killed anyone, and I don’t want to kill you.’
‘Is that so?’
‘It was a stupid thing to say and I’m sorry,’ I say again. ‘But in my defence, when I said it, I was scared.’
Her eyes widen behind the thick-rimmed glasses, and her lips twist in a horrible way. She looks at me almost hungrily, as though eager to hear how much she has tortured my soul these past few days.
‘Scared?’
I hesitate. ‘Terrified.’
‘Go on,’ she says urgently, reaching out to me across the table. I look down at her hand, at the dirty fingernails and the deeply creased knuckles, but do not touch it. ‘Please, tell me more.’
So now it’s her turn to beg.
I glance at DI Pascoe, who hesitates, then nods silently.
She wants to hear about my pain and heartbreak. Not in general terms, but in gruesome, closely described detail. Like she wants to feed on it. And if I want to see Harry again, I must give this vampire what she wants.
‘I wanted my baby back so badly, you see. I still want him back. My little boy. I don’t want Harry to suffer anymore.’ Somehow I jerk my lips into a tiny, humourless smile. ‘You can understand that, surely?’
