by Tania Carver
‘Harwich? Our patch.’
‘Exactly.’
Mickey glanced at Anni. She was sitting upright too, the sheets having fallen away from her body. She was beautiful, but he didn’t have time to register that. She was also looking concerned.
‘Do you … need us as, I don’t know, liaison or something?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
Mickey said he didn’t, ended the call.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Anni.
Mickey told her. They were dressed and out of Mickey’s flat in record time.
99
‘You’re Stuart, yes?’ asked Marina, bending forward, trying to keep the urgency from her voice. ‘That’s who you are.’
Stuart nodded. Looked relieved to have been recognised.
‘Then who is Amy, Stuart? Who is she?’
Stuart leaned back, seemed to study the ceiling.
‘Who is she, Stuart? Who’s Amy? Who is she?’
Franks gently placed his hand on Marina’s arm. She relented, sat back. Stuart looked at them, a hurt expression on his face.
‘There’s no need to get nasty. I’m going to tell you.’
Marina nodded, tried to slow her hammering heart. ‘Good. That’s good to hear, Stuart. So who is she?’
‘She’s … Amy wanted to be my sister. Or she said she did. But she was only pretending. She didn’t really want to do that. She didn’t really like me.’ His voice dripped sadness. ‘She only pretended when other people were around. So she could get to be near me. And when she was near me, she would hurt me … ’ He clasped his arms round his body. Began to rock slowly back and forward.
Marina knew she didn’t have much time. If Stuart’s mood changed, if he slipped into a fugue state or became uncommunicative, she knew the interview would be over. And if that ended, then perhaps her daughter’s life would too.
It was clear that he was damaged and she had to tread carefully. She tried another approach. One that might not excite him as much. ‘She wanted you to talk to me, Stuart, didn’t she?’
He frowned. ‘Are you the doctor?’
‘I’m a psychologist, yes.’
‘Are you Josephina’s mother?’
Marina looked at Franks, who nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes I am.’
‘I looked after her for you.’
Marina put her hands on the table to stop them trembling. ‘Thank you for that, Stuart. I’m very grateful.’
He accepted the thanks by nodding, then frowned. ‘You’re here to tell me whether I’m mad or not, aren’t you?’
‘Well, I’m … Yes. That’s … Yes.’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded again. Stopped rocking. ‘Yeah. I’ve seen a lot of doctors like you. Lots and lots. They always asked me questions. Always wanted to know things. Things in my head.’
‘And did you tell them?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Things in my head are private.’
‘They certainly are, Stuart,’ Marina said, and noticed a glimmer in his eyes. Please let that be some kind of connection, she thought. Please. For Josephina’s sake. ‘I won’t ask you about the private things in your head.’
‘Good.’ He looked relieved once more.
‘But I do want to know why Amy wanted you to talk to me. Can you tell me that?’
Another nod. ‘So I could have a new life. So I could have a future.’
‘Right. And how was this future going to happen?’
‘You were going to talk to me and then you were going to tell them that I wasn’t mad and then I was going to be given a lot of money.’ He shrugged. ‘And we were all going to be happy.’
Marina nodded. ‘Right. So … was there a will, Stuart? Was that it? Did I have to declare you sane so you could inherit the Sloanes’ money along with the brother and sister?’
Stuart shuddered at the mention of the brother and sister, but nodded.
‘And how much money were you going to get, Stuart?’ Franks’s Welsh baritone cutting in.
Stuart smiled, put on a bad cockney accent. ‘“You stick with me, this time next year we’ll be millionaires.” That’s what Jiminy said.’
‘Right.’ Franks nodded. ‘And this was the Sloanes’ money?’
Stuart said nothing.
Franks leaned forward. ‘So they killed their father? Is that what you’re saying? You didn’t do it, they did?’
He frowned. ‘I hate guns.’
‘Good,’ said Marina. ‘That’s good. And you wouldn’t use one?’
He shook his head.
‘Good. And then what? You were going to sue for wrongful imprisonment, something like that?’
Stuart looked at the ceiling once more. ‘We were all going to be happy.’
Marina could tell his concentration was slipping, that she was losing him. She kept going. ‘And Amy? What would she get out of this?’
‘She would be rich as well. She wanted to spend the money with Jiminy, but he got killed. So she would spend it on her own.’
‘And,’ said Franks, clearing his throat, ‘did she want to be your sister again?’
‘Pretend,’ said Stuart.
‘Pretend to be your sister again?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t want her to.’ He yawned. ‘I’m Stuart.’ He nodded once more. ‘Stuart Milton.’
‘Right,’ said Marina. ‘You are.’
‘Stuart Milton.’
‘Yes.’
‘Not Sloane.’
‘No. Not Sloane.’ Marina leaned forward once more. ‘Where is Amy now, Stuart? Where is she?’
‘She went home.’
‘Where’s home, Stuart? Where would her home be?’
Stuart stretched, arms up in the air, then yanked down suddenly. ‘I’m tired now. Want to sleep.’
He closed his eyes.
Marina wanted to scream.
100
Amy put the phone down, looked at it. One call made. One more to go.
The house was creaking and groaning; a noise made in one place would be answered by something in another. It was carrying on a conversation with itself that she couldn’t be part of. And she wanted to be, like she used to be. When she was part of it. And it was part of her. She wanted her old life back. But she couldn’t. She knew that.
But she could try.
She pulled the wig off, threw it on the floor. No point in hiding any more. Not here. Not in this house. She could never hide anything from this house. It was the place where she had always been most truthful. She rubbed at her face, wiping away what make-up was left. She wanted to be herself once more. For her own sake. For the house.
But it wasn’t enough.
So, ignoring the cold, the shivering from her body, she began to remove her clothes. She would hide away no longer. She would face herself. Now. Truthfully. Not as she used to be, or as she wanted to be. But as she was. Now.
No more lies, no more hiding. It was the end of that. And the beginning of something else.
She kicked the pile of clothes away. Stood naked in what used to be the living room. Where the bodies had been blown apart by the shotgun blasts. Where a family had ended that day. Where a life had ended. Where it would now be born again.
She picked up the phone. One more call to make. Then everything would be ready.
A new life rising out of the old.
101
‘Stuart? Stuart.’
Stuart Milton opened his eyes. He looked irritated at the intrusion. ‘I’m tired,’ he said, a note of petulance in his voice. ‘I want to go to sleep.’
‘Stuart, we know you’re tired,’ said Franks, ‘and we don’t want to keep you up past your bedtime.’
Marina raised her eyebrows at his choice of words.
Franks ignored her, continued. ‘We’ll let you go to sleep. But first you have to answer some more questions for us. Will you do that, please? We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
‘And then can I sleep?’
‘You can sleep.
’
‘Can I go back to prison?’
Franks and Marina exchanged a look. ‘If … ’ Franks shrugged. ‘If you want to. I’m sure we could arrange it. Or something like it.’
Stuart, eyes closed again, nodded. Smiled. The right answer.
‘But you have to answer our questions first.’
Stuart reluctantly opened his eyes. He didn’t look happy. He was drifting. Marina knew they didn’t have long.
‘So Amy’s gone home,’ she said.
Stuart nodded, eyelids fluttering.
‘Where’s home, Stuart? Where’s home for Amy?’
‘The house,’ he said, irritably. ‘The house where she lives.’
‘The house? Which house?’
‘Her house.’ Even more irritable. They were starting to lose him.
Marina reached across the table, took Stuart’s hands in her own. His eyes shot open and he jumped as if he’d been given an electric shock.
‘Come on, Stuart. Just a little bit more. Help us out here.’
‘Oh … OK.’
‘Amy’s house, Stuart. Where is it?’
He looked uncomfortable, wriggled in his chair.
‘Where is it, Stuart? Where can we find it?’
More wriggling.
‘Can you draw me a map?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t … don’t want to go back there.’
‘Go back there? You’ve been before?’
He nodded. Tried to pull his hands away from Marina. She wouldn’t let him go.
‘When were you there, Stuart? With Amy?’
He nodded.
‘When?’
‘When … ’ He shook his head again, closed his eyes. Not to sleep this time, more to dislodge the memories that were there. ‘No … ’
Marina held on to his hands. ‘Please help me, Stuart. Try and think. It’ll help Josephina.’
Stuart looked up at the name. Marina pressed on.
‘When were you there, Stuart? When was Amy there?’
‘When she … my mother … ’
Marina said nothing, waited.
‘When … when Amy was pretending to be my sister.’
‘And when was that? Just recently?’
He shook his head. ‘Time isn’t like that,’ he said. ‘Time bends. It doesn’t go in straight lines. It curves. Bends round back on itself.’
‘It does, yes,’ said Marina, not letting go, ‘but when were you in the house with Amy?’
‘When she … when she was pretending to be my … sister.’
Franks leaned forward. ‘When she was pretending to be your sister,’ he said, voice low and authoritative, ‘was she called Amy?’
Stuart shook his head. ‘No.’
Marina and Franks shared another look. ‘What was she called, Stuart?’ asked Marina. ‘What was she called when she was pretending to be your sister?’
He looked at them both as if the answer was obvious.
‘Dee, of course.’
102
Dee had switched the car’s headlights off as she approached the house and drove slowly down the narrow, isolated lane. She wanted her arrival to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Not that it mattered. Her passenger gave her such a clear advantage in any situation that she could have turned up in an ice cream van with the chimes blaring. She turned to the Golem.
‘You know what to do?’
He nodded. She studied him. His lips had been moving the whole journey, as if in silent dialogue with himself. And she recognised drug-addled eyes when she saw them.
‘Are you up to this?’
He nodded again. Gave a smile as if someone had told a joke only he had heard.
‘Then go. You know where to meet, what to do.’
‘I know what to do,’ he said.
‘Go and do it, then.’
He slipped out of the car and was soon just one more shadow in the night.
She looked up at the house. It was desolate, haunted-looking. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could grow up in it, or call it home. But then she thought of the place she had called home. Unhappy childhoods could happen anywhere.
She got out of the car, left it unlocked in case the beeping of the key alerted anyone to her presence. Anyone. She knew who she meant. The woman she had replaced. The real Dee Sloane.
She had met Michael Sloane in a hotel while she was working as an escort, back when she had another name. Not the one she had been given at birth, but the one she had chosen for herself when she had created her first new identity. She had left her family home in Oldham at the first opportunity, determined to make something of her life. She had got as far as Manchester city centre and an escort agency.
Sloane was away on business, staying in a hotel, and wanted a little excitement. His own kind of excitement. He had called the agency, been specific. What the girl should look like, how much damage he would do to her. How much extra he would pay for doing it. They turned him down. He offered them more. Much more. They set about finding a girl who would do what he wanted.
She volunteered. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before. Or had had done to her. Except this time she would be paid for it. Highly paid. The money would help cushion the blows.
So she turned up at his hotel room, dressed as he wanted, following the script. And something clicked. She knew it from the way he looked at her as soon as she entered the room. As soon as he touched her. She felt that thrill of electricity shoot through her. He did too. She knew it. She could tell.
She stayed the night. He did exactly what he had said he would do with her. And she loved it. She would have done it for nothing. She told him that.
‘Never say that,’ he said. ‘Never sell yourself short.’
And that was the start of it. He always asked for her when he was in Manchester on business. And he seemed to be on business an awful lot. Sometimes he just came up to see her. They talked. Got to know each other. He was rich but unhappy. Lonely. His partner — that was how he always referred to her, his partner — was ill. Mentally and physically. And it was an enormous strain on him. He felt responsible for it, and in a way he was. He had everything he had always wanted. But it didn’t seem to be enough.
She had heard similar things before. Rich businessmen who claimed to be unhappy with their wives and families. Who wanted the excitement of someone like her. She thought he was just another one of those.
She was wrong.
Because one day he made her a proposition.
‘Are you happy as you are?’
‘I’m fine,’ she had said. This wasn’t the first such request she had fielded away. She had the answers prepared. ‘I make a good living. I have freedom. I’m independent.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not what I meant. Are you happy being the person you are? Or would you like to be someone else?’
And then he told her what he wanted. Live with him. Let him remake her in the image he desired. Answer to a different name. Get a different face. A new body. Become a different person.
‘Why not get someone else? Someone who looks like that already?’
‘Because it’s you I want. You’re perfect. On the inside. I just want the outside to match.’
That had made sense to her.
‘And you’ll still have your freedom,’ he said. ‘But it’ll be the freedom to do what I tell you.’
She had smiled. And agreed.
And she had become Dee Sloane.
Slowly at first. Painstakingly so at times. But worth it in the long run. She had asked questions, naturally. Who was the real Dee? What had happened to her? And he had told her.
‘She … was involved in an accident. A shooting accident. I did what I could for her, tried to rescue her, rebuild her … I did what I could.’
‘And she’s dead?’
‘She’s … no longer with us.’
She knew what he meant.
And the more she became what he wanted her to be, the more h
e told her. Dee had been his sister. Did she have anything to say about that? She didn’t. In fact it just gave her an added frisson. The shooting wasn’t accidental. It had been planned. She had guessed as much. And did she mind? Why would she mind?
‘Perfect,’ he said.
And they were.
Now she wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of their relationship. No matter what it took.
She stepped into the house. It stank of decay, neglect. Corruption. The air felt cold and damp. Things darted away out of the corners of her eyes. She moved forward to where Michael had told her to go. Into the main living room.
She would be there, he had said. After what had happened, she wouldn’t be anywhere else.
She stepped into the living room. Something moved at the far end, over by the wall. Something bigger than a rat. Dee fought the urge to turn, to run away. Stood her ground.
‘So.’ A cracked voice came out of the darkness. ‘The second wife meets the first wife. At last.’
A light went on. Sharp, blinding after such darkness. Dee screwed her eyes tight shut. Opened them again slowly. The figure before her was holding a gun on her. She looked at that, felt fear. Then looked at the figure itself.
And her stomach churned.
103
‘DI May.’ The handshake was firm, strong. Balding, grey-haired and bearded, DI May seemed like an old-school copper. His accent was rough, working-class Essex tempered by learning and experience.
Mickey gave his own name. Anni did likewise. ‘Right,’ Mickey said. ‘What have we got?’
‘We believe DS James and DC Shah were working the same street as you two,’ May said.
‘Yeah,’ confirmed Mickey. ‘Couple of murders, missing person, kidnapped child and the Sloane family involved somehow.’
‘Ah,’ said May, smiling, ‘Suffolk’s Howard Hughes. Local royalty. The untouchables.’
‘So we believe,’ said Anni.
They were standing at the gates to the freight port at Harwich. The mist had returned, and with it the cold. Mickey and Anni were shivering. The parking bays were virtually empty, the lorries and trucks all loaded and left. Ahead of them stood berthed cargo ships and tankers. The floodlights ringing the walls shone down hard, making the scene look bleak and desolate.
