The Quiet Girls: An absolutely addictive mystery thriller

by J. M. Hewitt

Paul shot her a look, Carrie leaned her elbows on the table, her nose inches from the screen.

  ‘Come on,’ she murmured. ‘Let me see who you are.’ She spoke again, without taking her eyes off the screen. ‘This footage is good quality, if we get a clear view we could put it through the AFR.’

  ‘The Automatic Facial Recognition system?’ Paul said. ‘The trial’s over, you know it’s going to be quashed, for the foreseeable future at least.’

  She nodded grimly. The six-month-long trial had enjoyed some good results, the stations being set up in local football grounds and in the Trafford Centre, but Civil Liberty groups had pounced on it, complaining and protesting about innocent civilians being under surveillance.

  ‘Would they be so up in arms if it found one of their loved ones who was missing?’ she snapped, glaring at him now. ‘Or identified a criminal on the run?’

  Paul held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Hey, no need to convince me, I’m all for it.’

  Carrie turned her attention back to the screen.

  ‘Come on,’ she implored.

  She held her breath as the woman backed away from the phone. She envisaged the train station, knowing the woman could exit to the left or right without ever showing her face to the camera. She swore softly, deflated as the figure on the screen moved to the left. Carrie raised her hand, ready to slam it down on the desk in frustration, when suddenly, the woman switched direction, spinning on her heel and walking sharply towards the CCTV camera.

  Carrie stilled, hand still in the air, her eyes widening as the woman’s face came ever closer.

  Only when she moved underneath the CCTV did Carrie release the breath she’d been holding.

  Silence in the room, until Paul spoke up.

  ‘Well, I guess we don’t need the AFR then,’ he said, and his voice was startled, shocked.

  Carrie sank into a chair, nausea sweeping over her in waves. ‘She was warning me about a man, a man she had reported before, and we did nothing to help her.’

  Paul lowered his eyes. ‘And now she’s missing.’ He glanced up, briefly at the frozen screen. ‘Are we sure it’s her?’ he asked.

  Carrie reached for the mouse, rewound, zoomed in on the figure, hit the pause button just before the young woman walked out of view.

  ‘It’s her,’ she said. ‘It’s Willow Hadley.’

  The feeling of sickness passed. Carrie lifted her eyes to meet Paul’s.

  ‘We need to look into the parents, both sets. I want their pictures. Look into their past, any arrests, court appearances, anything on file. I want to know if any of the adults have had so much as a speeding fine.’ She rattled off instructions, speaking quickly as thoughts piled on top of each other in her head. ‘Pull them up on social media; Facebook, Instagram, all of it, see if the Hadleys and the Wilsons are friendly.’ She paused, flipped back through her notebook. ‘Give it to someone on the desk, you and I are visiting Ben Keller. And tell them to ring Mrs Prout too,’ she called after him.

  She let Paul drive for once as she scribbled down a timeline of everything they had so far.

  ‘So we’ve got a missing eleven-year-old girl, who was last seen dockside a few weeks ago and hasn’t been heard of since. Her mother also appears to be missing, and who, along with her husband and daughter seem to have left their house. We’ve got fifteen-year-old twins also missing, their parents are also no longer residing at their known address. We’ve got a flow of calls from a previously unknown woman or girl, accusing a man of doing something… and speaking as though she is now taking action against him. We know now this caller is Willow Hadley. These families seem unconnected to each other, but nobody seems to know where either of them went.’ She tapped her pen against her chin, glanced over at Paul. ‘What else?’

  ‘We’ve got a man who appeared to have picked up the car that the Wilsons abandoned at the quayside, though he has denied knowledge of knowing these people.’

  ‘He’s the only one who can give us information,’ Carrie said. ‘We need him to talk this time.’ She pursed her lips, deep in thought before shooting a glance at Paul. ‘We need to treat Ben Keller as a potential suspect, a person of interest.’

  There was nobody at Ben Keller’s home, despite them hammering on his door for a full five minutes.

  ‘He’s not there,’ said a neighbour, brought out by the constant knocking. ‘Went off early this morning.’ The neighbour, a middle-aged man, looked them up and down. ‘Can I take a message for him?’

  ‘Do you know where we might find him?’ Carrie asked.

  The man, bored suddenly, shrugged. ‘Work, probably. Out on the boat.’ He backed into his apartment, the heavy door closing behind him.

  Dejected, Carrie pushed her card through Ben’s letter box before she and Paul returned to the car.

  ‘Back to base,’ said Carrie as Paul pulled out onto the carriageway. ‘At least we can see if they found out anything further on the Hadleys.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Paul, as he accelerated into the fast lane.

  ‘What?’ asked Carrie impatiently.

  ‘The CCTV from the quayside; he always docks the Barnard Castle in that same spot, what is that, do you need a permit, is it like a registered space where he always docks, rented, like?’

  Carrie sat up. ‘Yes, go there, we’ll ask to see the camera footage from the last couple of days, see if Ben’s been sniffing around the area again. It could be that he’s meeting Harry there, or Gabe or one of the others.’ She sniffed, sighed deeply. ‘Something’s off on this one, Paul.’

  He nodded grimly and the rest of the journey passed in silence, each lost in their own thoughts about the anomalies of this strange case.

  ‘Here we go.’

  Paul’s voice pulled her out of her reverie and she looked up as he swung the car onto the quay. Through habit Carrie looked up at her own apartment. Her safe place. Why had these families left their apparently comfortable homes?

  ‘Look!’ Paul’s exclamation startled her out of her musings.

  She looked where he pointed, out to where the water opened up. A boat came smoothly towards them.

  ‘Is that…?’

  ‘The Barnard Castle,’ said Paul, unclipping his seatbelt. ‘That’s our man.’

  Carrie waited off to one side, loitering behind a boulder with Paul, not wanting to give Ben the upper hand in knowing they were waiting for him. When he docked and jumped off the boat she stepped forward.

  ‘Mr Keller,’ she smiled, taking delight in his brief expression of surprise. ‘Where have you been?’

  Ben glanced at Paul and in a single moment he appeared to gather himself. ‘Just a sail for pleasure,’ he responded. ‘How can I help you?’

  Carrie walked to meet him, Paul one step behind him. ‘You said you didn’t recognise any of the people that we spoke to you about the last time we chatted, Harry and Alice Wilson?’ She raised her eyebrow, waited for him to nod before continuing. ‘But we’ve got you on camera moving the Wilsons’ car on the day the family vanished.’

  Underneath his tanned skin, Ben’s face visibly paled. His gaze went from Carrie to the building behind her. She almost smiled as she watched the moment he clocked the CCTV mounted above the parking garage.

  ‘Did you steal the car, Ben?’ she asked, frowning, mock-concern on her face.

  He sighed audibly. ‘No.’

  She nodded. ‘Want to tell us what’s going on?’

  Ben glanced at Paul, back to Carrie, his stance dejected now, caught in the act. ‘They paid me to take the car,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Take it where?’ she asked sharply.

  For a moment he looked surprised. ‘Anywhere,’ he replied. ‘Harry said I could do what I liked with it, sell it, keep it.’ He stopped abruptly, as if suddenly realising how unlikely his explanation sounded. ‘Alice asked me to keep hold of the car for a while, in case she changed her mind.’

  ‘Changed her mind about what?’ Carrie was lost.

  ‘About living on the i
sland. It wasn’t her idea, it was Harry’s, and she went along with it because she wanted to make him happy. That’s why she’s been paying me.’

  Paul stepped forward. ‘Ben, can you come along to the station? I think we’ve got a lot of questions that only you can answer.’

  ‘Voluntarily, right?’ Ben shot back. ‘Because I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m just a boatman, paid to take passengers from A to B.’

  ‘Voluntarily, yes, for now,’ confirmed Paul.

  Carrie narrowed her eyes as she watched Paul lead him to the car. As she followed them, she had a feeling Ben Keller was going to tell them a lot more than just taking passengers from one place to another.

  Carrie grew more incredulous with each sentence that came out of Ben’s mouth. She scribbled frantically on her pad, blinking as she read it back. She looked over at Paul.

  ‘Have you heard of Pomona?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yeah, didn’t think it was somewhere people actually went.’ He scratched his head, shot a disbelieving look at Ben. ‘The Hadley family and the Wilsons are all living on Pomona?’

  Ben nodded.

  Carrie rubbed her hands over her face. Why, was the resounding question? What would make two seemingly different families up sticks and move to a place where nobody else lived? She voiced her thoughts to Ben.

  ‘Why? Did any of them give a reason? This is a major lifestyle change, after all.’

  ‘Alice… uh, Mrs Wilson, mentioned something about Harry becoming increasingly paranoid, something to do with his health, up here, I mean,’ he added, tapping his finger to his temple.

  Carrie turned to Paul. ‘Is it legal to live there? Who does the place actually belong to?’

  Paul shook his head. ‘No idea, but even if you can live there, it’s illegal to withdraw your kids from school without showing some sort of home-schooling plan.’ He laid his heavy gaze on Ben, as though he were responsible for both families’ actions.

  Ben snorted. ‘Man, I’m just the taxi.’

  Carrie stood up, laid her hands flat on the table between them. ‘That you are, and I imagine you’ll have no issue with taking us to this island, then?’ She walked to the door, shrugging her jacket on her shoulders. When neither man made a move to follow her, she fixed them both with a steely stare.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  26

  Carrie and Hattie – 1998

  The police wanted to take Carrie and her mother home. Mary howled and screamed at the officers that she wasn’t leaving while one of her children was still missing. Carrie watched as they surrounded her mum, forcibly leading her away from the forest area where she’d last seen Hattie.

  Carrie remained where she was, pressing her back into a tree trunk, until one of the officers realised they were one short and came back to claim her.

  She walked along with them, resisting a little; surely they should wait for Hattie to be found? The piece of material flashed into Carrie’s mind, pink and white and red. Blood, turning a rusty brown as it dried. Her knees buckled and the woman police officer leading her by the elbow chivvied her along.

  No words were spoken. Carrie was used to stern, tough women. Her mother rarely comforted her, it wasn’t Mary’s way. But Carrie had thought that was just her mother, not all women. She glanced up at the policewoman who led her towards the gates of the park. Her face was steel, frozen, a grimacing mask. Carrie’s heart, already beating in double time, jumped at the thought of the woman’s disapproval of her losing her little sister. It would be years later that she would realise it had been shock, horror. After all, the policewoman would have seen the pink and white and red clothing too.

  ‘Will my…’ Carrie trailed off, unsure of the question she was about to ask.

  She was put into the backseat of the police car with her mother. Mary still shouting, barking, twisting in her seat, her hands scraping the inside of the door, seeking for a handle that wasn’t there to open the door and run and resume the search for her missing girl.

  At home, Carrie watched as they surrounded Mary and led her into the house. Five of them, forming a fence around Carrie’s mother, moving like sheep herding. Carrie stood by the police car, forgotten for the moment.

  She looked left and right down the road, gripped with an overwhelming desire to see Hattie hurrying towards her, coming home.

  The white and pink and ghastly red material came into her mind, followed by the realisation that Hattie would never return home again.

  And it was all Carrie’s fault.

  Carrie sagged against the next-door-neighbour’s car, the heat of it scorching through her clothes. The bodywork burned her side but still she remained as hot tears simmered in her throat.

  ‘Miss Carrie, what are you doing out here?’

  She looked up at the voice, into the kindly, crinkled eyes of Doctor Joyce. Carrie blinked. What was their family doctor doing here? A thought caught at her, made her gasp. Had they found Hattie and instead of being dead and cold she was just frightened and injured?

  ‘Have they found my sister?’ she demanded of the doctor, pushing herself off the neighbour’s car. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  And even though he remained smiling gently, his eyes began to water. ‘No, Carrie, I’m here to see your mother.’

  Carrie frowned. Her mother wasn’t ill or hurt. She forced a smile. The doctor had been called by the police, maybe they had mentioned that her mother had been shouting and screaming and Doctor Joyce had misunderstood, thought there was something wrong with Mary. But it was Hattie who needed him, although she wasn’t here, was she? Carrie glanced around, wondered if there was any way Hattie could have been brought back home without her seeing. Maybe she’d got here first! Perhaps she was inside right now, with grazed knees (which would explain the bloodied clothing, thought Carrie sagely) and whimpering and whining in that annoying way of hers.

  There was only one way to clear it up. Carrie plucked at the doctor’s sleeve and pulled him towards the house.

  ‘It’s not my mother, it’s my sister, Hattie,’ explained Carrie as she led him through the back gate. ‘She was hurt while we were out in the park, she was bleeding, I think.’

  Doctor Joyce resisted against her grasp. ‘How do you know that, Carrie?’ he asked. ‘Were you there?’

  Carrie yanked at his sleeve impatiently. ‘The police found her shorts, they had blood on them.’ She resisted the urge to stamp her foot. ‘That’s how I know she was bleeding, she’s probably fallen over or something.’ Carrie recalled the amount of red on the material and she bit her lip. ‘Do you think she’ll need stitches? Hattie won’t like that.’

  Doctor Joyce turned his back, through the glare of sunlight now low in the sky Carrie saw his sleeve scrub at his face. He stayed with his back to her for a long while. Carrie, suddenly afraid of his silence, looked down at the ground.

  He shuffled, came back to face her again. ‘Come on, let’s get inside and see your mother.’

  Mary was in her chair, the armchair she never usually sat in during the daylight hours. Daylight hours were for working, cleaning, cooking, ironing. Mary didn’t get a chance to sit down until it was dark and she spent an hour or two with her children until they went to bed.

  The vision of her mother slumped in a chair in the early evening was more disconcerting to Carrie than the tears that streamed down Mary’s face.

  ‘Mary, I’ve come to help you.’ The doctor’s voice wavered a little as he made his way through the five police officers that surrounded Mary’s chair.

  Mary looked at him through blazing eyes, nostrils flaring, a strange sound in the back of her throat, like a scream waiting to emerge. Carrie braced herself, but nothing came out of her mother’s mouth.

  ‘Just a little something to help you relax,’ the doctor said, as he opened his case and lifted out a small glass bottle. ‘A little sedative,’ he said, though who he was speaking to Carrie didn’t know.

  ‘A little pinpr
ick,’ he murmured, pushing up Mary’s sleeve.

  Anger flared in Carrie. Fury at the doctor, at his patronising tone, as if he said the word ‘little’ enough it would minimise the situation.

  For this wasn’t a little problem, Carrie realised. It was very real, very big, and their lives would never be the same again.

  Carrie expected her mother to go to sleep when Doctor Joyce withdrew the needle, but Mary stayed awake. She stared around the room, landing accusing glances on the officers. Her eyes narrowed when her gaze landed on Carrie. Mary said nothing, but her look spoke a thousand words to her daughter.

  ‘Carrie, can we have a word with you for a moment?’ One of the female officers moved to stand in front of Carrie, blocking Mary’s view of her. Carrie was grateful for that and she nodded.

  In the next room, the officer closed the door, gestured for Carrie to sit at the dining room table. Obediently Carrie took her usual dinner time chair.

  ‘My name is Lisa Michaels, I’m a police officer, and I’d like to ask you some questions about what happened today, if that’s okay?’

  Carrie nodded, watched as Lisa took a notepad and pen out of her deep trouser pocket. Lisa Michaels seemed young, Carrie thought as she took in the woman’s long, swishing blonde hair, pulled back in a ponytail. She had cheeks like apples, a healthy glow to her make-up-free face. An English rose, thought Carrie. A phrase she’d heard and often wished her mother would use to describe her. But Mary didn’t make observations about Carrie. She saved all her compliments for Hattie, detailing often how she, Mary, had learned how to tame Hattie’s afro hair, how it was nothing like her own, how special it was to have a bloodline like she did.

  To Carrie it seemed like an awful lot of work. It was a lot of work, but unlike the other chores Mary had to do, she seemed to take delight in Hattie’s hard-work hair.

  ‘Carrie? Carrie?’ Suddenly the policewoman’s voice was very far away.

  Carrie put her hands on the table, pressed her fingers into the Formica. Still the world turned, spinning around her, and Carrie swayed against the sudden pressure in her head. Her mother’s gaze in her mind, those narrowed eyes.