Choked dipb-4

by Tania Carver

  ‘I’ll get the nurse to come and—’

  ‘No.’ Marina saw the look in Anni’s eyes, realised she had been too abrupt. She tried a smile. ‘No, it’s … it’s OK.’

  ‘You sure? You don’t look—’

  ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Well I can help—’

  ‘I said I can manage.’ She spat the words out.

  Anni’s head snapped back like she had been slapped. ‘Fine. OK.’

  ‘Thank you. Now, I’ve … I’ve got to go.’

  She swept past Anni, moving as quickly as she could, trying hard not to break into a run.

  The thought of leaving Phil behind ground into her stomach like broken glass.

  But the thought of not trying to get her daughter back was even worse.

  10

  ‘Shouldn’t we be doing this somewhere else?’

  ‘Where did you have in mind?’

  Stuart Milton shrugged. ‘I don’t know. The station? Somewhere like that?’

  Jessica James sat in the back of her car. She had wanted to go somewhere private, away from the camera crews and reporters who were starting to gather, long lenses pushing over the flapping tape cordon.

  ‘Here will do,’ she said, and looked at the man sitting next to her.

  Stuart Milton’s face and hands still had gravel rash from where he had pulled Marina down to the ground and away from the exploding cottage. His suede jacket was more distressed on one side than the other. He looked, Jessie thought, like the typical middle-aged, middle-class tourist that Aldeburgh attracted. Bet he reads the Guardian, she thought. Bet he goes to Latitude as well.

  ‘Just want to run through a few things, take a few details. That’s all.’ She had her notepad open, angled away from him so he couldn’t read what she was writing. The action made her aware of the small space in the car, the enforced intimacy. She was also aware of the discarded paracetamol and mint wrappers on the passenger seat. She was sure he had seen them.

  ‘Run me through it again. What happened.’

  He sighed in exasperation. ‘Do I need to do this? I just wanted to see how the woman was.’

  ‘She’s fine. Thanks to you. So. You were walking down the gravel path at the side of the cottage … ’

  ‘Yes. And then the explosion happened.’ He stopped talking, put his head back.

  She looked at his eyes, tried to see what he was seeing. Tried to ensure that what he was seeing was what had actually happened. Not that she didn’t trust him personally; it was just a habit she had developed. She didn’t trust any witness until their testimony had been independently corroborated.

  ‘Which direction were you walking in?’

  ‘The … seafront.’

  ‘And where had you been?’

  ‘I’d been towards the Maltings. For a walk. Stretching my legs.’

  ‘Are you local?’

  ‘I live … ’ He stopped, looked at her. Face reddening around his grazes. ‘Am I a suspect here? What’s going on?’

  ‘Just standard questions, Mr Milton. Wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t ask them. Are you local?’

  ‘Sort of. I have a weekend home here. I live in London the rest of the time.’

  ‘And are you married?’

  ‘Are you asking me out on a date, Detective Sergeant?’

  It was Jessie’s turn to redden. She felt his eyes on her. Dark, penetrating. ‘Just wondering if you were here alone.’ Her throat suddenly dry. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘No. I’m here with … friends. Work colleagues, mainly. For the music. But it can get a little too much. I needed some time on my own, so I went for a walk.’

  ‘Right.’ Her turn to nod. In those few words, she saw his life. Weekends in Suffolk, summers in France or Italy, probably. Nights out at the theatre. Not the kind of man she would usually meet. Not many of them in Tiger Tiger in Ipswich.

  ‘And as you walked past the cottage, the explosion went off.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Well … I was thrown to the ground. There was a … mighty wind, a huge noise, and the heat … ’ He trailed off. Jessie waited. ‘Then I … pulled myself up, opened my eyes. I thought I was dead. That was my first thought. I thought I was dead.’

  ‘But you weren’t.’

  ‘No. I got to my feet, checking to see if I was OK. And then this woman came running towards me.’

  ‘Towards you?’

  ‘Well, towards the cottage. There were flames coming out of the window by now. Black smoke. And it looked like she was trying to get in there.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I … stopped her.’

  ‘By pushing her to the ground?’

  ‘Pulling her, really. She fought.’ He mimed the action with his hands. ‘Wanted to get in there. Badly. But I couldn’t let her, obviously. So I … I held her. Until she … until she stopped screaming.’

  Jessie nodded. Looked at Milton again. His head was lowered, eyes hooded. Reliving the moment, she presumed.

  ‘Did you see anyone else in the area?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Anyone near the cottage at the time of the explosion? Apart from the woman you mentioned.’

  Stuart Milton frowned, thinking. Eventually he shook his head. ‘No … can’t recall … ’

  ‘A young girl? About three years old?’

  ‘No. Is there a girl missing?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ Jessica thought she’d got everything she would be able to get from him. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Milton, I—’

  ‘There was something else.’ Stuart Milton was chewing his thumb, worrying away at a tiny nub of skin. His face contorted, as if fighting against the words that wanted to come out.

  Jessie waited.

  ‘She … ’ He sighed. Pulled the skin away from his thumb. Looked at Jessie. ‘When I caught hold of her, she said something.’

  ‘What?’

  He looked down at his thumb once more. A pinprick of blood had appeared where he had bitten it. He sucked on it, hard. ‘Something like … ’ He looked up. ‘“I’ve got to get back in there. What have I done?” … ’ He nodded. ‘Yes. “What have I done?” Something like that.’

  Jessie’s mouth was open, ready to make him elaborate, when there was a sharp rap on the window. She looked up. Mickey Philips was standing there, gesturing to her. Urgently.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and got out of the car, closing the door behind her. Milton’s eyes followed her.

  She stood opposite Mickey, waited for him to speak. His face looked drawn, his features tense.

  ‘I’ve just had a call,’ he said. ‘From a colleague at Ipswich General.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ The look on his face told her it wasn’t good news. His boss had died? His boss’s mother? Both of them? What a day this was turning out to be.

  ‘It’s Marina,’ he said. ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? What d’you mean?’

  ‘Taken off. Run away.’

  Jessie let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. ‘Thank God. I thought you meant she’d died.’ She frowned. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She told my colleague she was off to the loo, nipped outside and was away. With my colleague’s car.’

  ‘Any idea where?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Jessie walked away from the car, arms folded round herself. She looked out to sea. The sun made the day feel like summer. The kind of day where you just wanted to relax and have fun. Pretend there was nothing wrong in the world.

  She turned back to Mickey.

  ‘The witness in the car says she was trying to get back into the cottage. And she said something. “What have I done?”’

  Mickey frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Sounds like she was blaming herself. D’you think she might be on her way back here? Trying to look for her daughter?’

  He shrugged. ‘Anything’s p
ossible. I’ll look into it.’

  ‘OK. I’ll get the team to keep checking for the daughter. Get the uniforms combing the area. See if anyone’s seen anything. We’ll keep an eye out for the mother, too. Get the reg of the car she’s taken sent to me.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Keep in touch.’

  Their eyes locked. For longer than she had intended. Then she broke contact, and he nodded, turned, walked away.

  Jessie watched him go. She knew a good bloke when she saw one. She turned back to her car to tell Stuart Milton he was free to leave. But the back door was open and he was already gone.

  11

  Southend-on-Sea hadn’t just seen better days. It had stood at the platform and waved them off, knowing they would never return.

  At one time it had been a respectable enough holiday destination for London’s post-war East End families enjoying the novelty of a train ride out to the end of the Thames estuary. The longest pier in the world, fishing for Dad, shopping for Mum, cafés to park the grandparents and a fairground and penny arcades for the kiddies. All knotted handkerchiefs and rolled-up trouser legs, deckchairs and donkeys, sand in the ice cream and stones on the beach.

  But nobody came to Southend for a holiday any more. People only went there when they had nowhere else to go.

  The pier was still there, stretching out towards a handful of dying souvenir shops at the far end, and beyond that a vista of Canvey Island and beyond that the oil refinery at Shellhaven. The shops were slightly shabbier versions of those found in any generic British high street. The seafront amusements were lit in a way that seemed simultaneously overly bright and depressing. The electronic bleeps and repetitive jingles bleated out like some demented, amphetamine-fuelled Stockhausen symphony. Inside, dead-eyed, white-skinned arcade zombies gave their days and nights over to target practice, racking up high scores as video killers, while in the neon-thrown shadows, feral-featured predators lurked to trap the unwary and the curious.

  The fairground had expanded with Alton Towers-like dreams of empire but had contracted under council health-and-safety legislation. Now, out-of-town families trying to enjoy themselves found the local kids scarier than the rides.

  The cosy cafés were long gone, but seafront food outlets thrived, serving anything as long as it was fast, fried and fattening.

  The tentative appearance of the Good Friday sun had drawn an influx of people to the amusement arcades and bars. Marina passed old, scarred wooden benches outside rundown pubs occupied by tattooed men in vests rolling fags and drinking lager. Laughing with bared teeth and making passes at their friends’ women with a barely restrained undercurrent of violence like their barely restrained attack dogs lying under the tables.

  Marina hurried on down the front. Walking fast, breathing heavily. On the surface, controlled.

  After leaving the hospital, she had driven straight down the A12 then the A127, not stopping for anyone or anything. Speeding at first, but she had soon stopped that. If the police picked her up, she would be delayed at the very least. Stopped and returned at the worst.

  And that would be the last she would see of Josephina.

  So she had stayed just under the legal speed limit, heart racing faster than the car’s engine as she drove.

  She didn’t know Southend well; had followed the signs for the seafront and parking spaces. She had been about to leap out of the car, but caught her reflection in the mirror. She was a mess. Dried blood and scratches on her face. Hair a dark, tangled mass of scribble. She had done what she could, quickly wiped her face, rearranged her hair; nowhere near what she ordinarily would have done to make herself presentable.

  But that was the old her. Living her old life. She was someone new now. Someone different.

  She got out of the car, walked along the front. Ignoring the people outside the bars, but feeling eyes on her all the time. Judging. Malicious. Unseen.

  And she didn’t want to mess up while those unseen eyes were watching. For her sake.

  For her daughter’s sake.

  She walked round the corner, away from the front. She had memorised the route from the map she had been given. A grid reference that led to a street. And a name. Coasters.

  She kept walking and soon found the street. Away from the front, but its sounds and smells still reached her. Snatches of arcade song and jingle, rollercoaster screaming, the smell of cheap, stale fat. All brought to her senses on the breeze, then just as quickly taken away as the wind veered off, changing direction, like the swooping, scavenging gulls in pursuit of scraps.

  She ignored it all. Kept walking.

  Coasters was in front of her.

  Even among the dive-bar fraternity, she thought, Coasters would be way down the list. A row of single-storey breezeblock buildings faced a scrappy car park full of potholes, broken glass and cars left there purely so the owners could claim on the insurance when the inevitable vandalism happened. Most of the buildings were boarded up. The remaining ones all sported heavy metal bars and mesh on the paint-peeling, filthy windows and metal rollers over the doorways. They variously advertised themselves as a second-hand shop that Marina immediately knew was a fencing operation, a couple of bars, a beauty salon and a tattoo parlour where, if the sun-faded photos in the window were anything to go by, the tattooist had all the artistic skill and flair of a six-year-old child.

  She reached the doorway of Coasters. The outside had been painted, none too expertly, a deep purple. White paint had been applied over the top of the rusting bars covering the window. The door was open. Inside, a poster took an inspired approach to spelling and grammar advertising an eighties night. A notice next to it explained that the pub was on two levels but that the seafront bar could only be accessed from the seafront. It was written in such a way that a veiled threat hung over the words for those who ignored the advice.

  ‘Abandon all hope,’ said Marina quietly to herself, trying to build up her courage to enter, and failing.

  She looked at the threadbare, dirty carpet in the doorway. The unmistakable smell of stale alcohol and uncleaned rooms wafted out of the darkness. She could hear voices. Low, conspiratorial. Underneath them the bland, susurrating buzz of a TV announcer. She saw figures moving, shadows against shadows. She felt rather than saw heads turn towards her.

  It was the last place on earth she wanted to enter. But Phil came into her mind, lying there unmoving, unreachable … The voice on the phone once more …

  And Josephina’s face.

  She took a deep breath.

  And stepped inside.

  12

  ‘Here we are, then. Home sweet home.’

  He looked straight ahead to where a rusty caravan sat on a patch of weedy, barren grass next to a run-down house. There was nothing else around for miles. It didn’t look like home to him.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Jiminy Cricket said, laughing, as if anticipating applause.

  He frowned. ‘I … I’m not supposed to be here. This isn’t where I’m supposed to come to.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jiminy Cricket looked irritated. It wasn’t the response he had expected. ‘Don’t worry about that. It’s taken care of.’

  ‘I have to report. Probation, they said. Signing. Can’t disappear. Can’t just go off like this. On my own.’ He spoke the words like a learned speech.

  ‘I told you. Don’t worry about it. Now … ’ He turned, made a fanfare gesture towards the caravan. Tried again. ‘What d’you think of your new home?’

  He had no idea where he was. The drive had been long. Or it had felt long, because he hadn’t known where he was going. He had looked out of the window but had recognised nothing. There had been a big road, lots of fast-moving, snarling cars. He hadn’t enjoyed that. It had scared him. Then the big road became a smaller one, round a town. He thought he recognised it but wasn’t sure. It had been a long time ago, and he had been a different person then. Something about Romans. An Avenue of Remembrance. He didn’t know what he was supposed to reme
mber. Or forget. It all grew confused in his head.

  They drove out of the town and the roads became smaller still. Tight, Jiminy Cricket described them. Closed in. He didn’t think so. They weren’t closed in compared to where he had just come from.

  The buildings got further and further apart until they were mostly replaced by trees and fields. There were fewer cars, which should have made it more tranquil. But it didn’t. The open spaces with the huge sky above made him panic. He wanted noise again, more of it.

  Eventually they pulled off the road and down a track that was all loose, sharp rocks and holes. The car threw him from side to side as it went down the hill. At the bottom was the stone house. A cottage, he supposed, since he was in the country. It had once been white but now it looked like it wasn’t sure what colour it was. The windows were dirty, paint peeling round them. The front door battered. There were no flowers. Nothing welcoming. An old silver car, long and boxy, was parked at the side.

  ‘Here we are, then. Out you get.’

  He got out. Looked round. The air smelled different here. Salt. Like the sea. He closed his eyes, listened. Heard water. They were near the sea. Or at least a large river. He could hear dogs. The kind that were left outside to bark at anything and everything. And he could hear something else, over the top, a jagged, grating sound carrying on the wind.

  ‘What’s that? Is that a child crying?’

  Jiminy Cricket acted as if he hadn’t heard him.

  He tried again. ‘Where are we?’

  This time, by way of an answer, his companion smiled.

  They had walked round the side of the house and stopped before the caravan. And that was when he was told it was his new home.

  He stared at the caravan. The rusting sides, the flat tyres. Filthy windows with horrible, holey curtains that looked they had been chewed. It didn’t look like freedom. It looked like another cell. Like he was still trapped, even under the huge, blue sky.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ he said, suppressed panic starting to bubble inside him. ‘I need to go.’