Silent Playgrounds

by Danuta Reah

  Barraclough followed Corvin as he ran to the Shepherd Wheel workshops. She could hear the noise from inside, the sound of the grinding wheels. The men were already swinging a ram against the padlock hasps which separated from the wood on the second blow. Barraclough stopped in the entrance to the second workshop, overcome by the chaos of the spinning crown wheel, the spindles driving the belts and pulleys of the grindstones. And the smell of petrol choked and almost overwhelmed her. She heard Corvin shout, ‘Back!’ as she saw that the light, the intermittent light they had seen from beyond the trees, was sparks jumping from the spinning stones.

  She seemed to be aware of everything at once. She could hear voices from behind the workshop, urgent shouts over the sound of the turning wheels. She dithered for a second. The children! In the water or in the workshop? She had her torch in her hand before she knew what she was doing, shining it round the room, gagging on the fumes of the petrol, hearing the lurch and creak of metal on wood. Corvin was talking urgently into his radio, but he gripped her arm as her torch passed across one of the bulky shapes of the grindstones. She swung the torch back.

  There was something huddled on the far side, something that was moving or trying to move, flopping like a rag doll tangled up in the web of belts and pulleys that operated the equipment. Its movements seemed random and uncoordinated, and, as Barraclough watched, the child’s head – it was one of the children! – flopped sideways, close, very close to the spinning stone. Then Corvin was past her, inside the fume-filled workshop with the sparks, and Barraclough ran after him, dragging the child away from the wheels as Corvin hacked at the flying belt. He was going to lose his hand if he wasn’t careful. Then she pulled the child free and she was running towards the door when something hit her hard in the back and she went sprawling on the gravel of the path as the air above her ignited in a wash of flame.

  McCarthy was glad of the warm summer night. One of the paramedics had given him a blanket, and tried to persuade him to come along to the hospital. A heavy smell of smoke and petrol hung in the air. They’d been lucky, the fire officer said. Whoever had set the fire in Shepherd Wheel had been in too much of a hurry. He must have expected the sparks from the grinding wheels to ignite the petrol, and gone, thinking the workshop would become an inferno in seconds: an inferno in which little Michael Harrison was struggling his way out of a drugged stupor. Fire for Michael and water for Lucy.

  Or was it, McCarthy wondered, that the desire to kill was not as strong as they had thought? Lucy had been thrown into the mill race to drown, but the killer had not held her under the water as he had apparently held Sophie under the mud. Nor had he killed her before throwing her under the wheel, as he had with Emma. Michael had been dumped like a piece of garbage and left to take his chances with the fire, poor though they would have been, unlike Ashley, who had had the life choked out of him before the fire was set. Maybe the final action of throwing a lighted match onto the petrol had been too much.

  McCarthy hadn’t wanted, or felt he needed, to go to the hospital. He was cold, frozen in fact, but he was starting to warm up. He’d radioed back to the station for the spare set of clothes he kept in his locker. He was trying to keep his mind on the practicalities. They didn’t know yet whether either of the children had survived. They didn’t know how long Lucy had been under the water, what drugs had been given to Michael, or what damage the tangling belts of the grinding wheel had done to him. The Punto had been found under the trees close to Shepherd Wheel. The killer must have left the park on foot, through the woods or through the allotments.

  McCarthy went back to his car and stripped off his wet clothes. He was buttoning up his shirt when he heard Corvin calling as he came along the path. ‘There’s been a call from Brooke. We’ve got to get back to the incident room. Something’s happened.’

  McCarthy felt the chill of the water round him again. He pulled his shoes on and got into his car. He dialled Brooke’s number. He needed to know if the call back meant that Lucy was dead. He needed to know if they had a name for the man they were hunting. He listened to Brooke’s terse message, then pulled the car round in a tight turn and floored the accelerator as he headed towards town.

  The door closed behind her with a heavy chunk. Suzanne stayed where she was. She didn’t want to look at him. Her ears were listening for other sounds, the sound of children, frightened, maybe crying, maybe just asleep, just breathing quietly, but there. The flat was cold and dead. It was pitch black, and the silence pressed round her. She heard his voice again, still a whisper. ‘They’ll be pulling this down soon.’ She heard the sound of footsteps, pad, pad like the footsteps on the stairs. A dim light came on. She kept her eyes down and the feet came into view, wearing muddy trainers that looked worn and battered. ‘Look at me.’

  Suzanne kept her gaze lowered for a moment and heard the impatient catch in his breath. She looked at him. The light was faint; it came from a lantern hanging from a hook in the ceiling.

  She knew before she looked at him. She knew his voice. His face was shadowed in the lamplight. But she knew it so well. Heavy black hair, dark eyes, pale skin. Only now he made no attempt to disguise the intelligence in those eyes, or the anger. ‘Ashley,’ she said. And it was unreal, it was a dream. She knew she was going to wake up soon, and she would be in bed, and Michael and Lucy would be in bed upstairs. She looked at him again. He was standing by the doorway, watching her, the way he had that night when … Ashley!

  He seemed to pick up her thoughts. ‘I didn’t plan it,’ he said. ‘I got lucky.’ He frowned. ‘I should have thought of it. Simon looks … used to look … enough like me.’ He lit a candle on the table in front of him and his eyes met hers. ‘He followed me. I thought I could keep Simon out of it, but he was starting to get worried. He thought I was going to hurt Luce.’ He made a gesture of helplessness. ‘I had to …’ His face was sad. ‘He was looking for me and he found me. “It’s just a dream, Si,” I told him. But he wouldn’t listen. He always listened before. They’ll find out. They’re not as stupid as you’d think.’ He was standing close to her, and he touched her hair. ‘You came looking for me,’ he said.

  There was something so familiar about him now, that stance, that gentle, knowing smile. She had felt that flicker of recognition often, felt that she knew him. Jane talking that day in the garden … ‘He had a child from his marriage.’ She looked up at Ashley’s face, so close to hers she could feel his breath on her hair. ‘Joel,’ she said. Joel! And that smile … But where Joel’s smile was empty, Ashley’s had been warm and gentle. Not any more. The children!

  ‘Phillip Reid,’ he said. His voice was calm, but there was something in his eyes that made her stand very still, very quiet. ‘He isn’t Joel. He isn’t Severini. He thought he could just forget us if he changed his name. There was only me knew that. I didn’t tell the others. Only Simon. Simon doesn’t talk.’ He smiled at her, holding the knife close against her neck. ‘I found him, you see. Our dad. He was stupid. He didn’t really change his name. It was on all his business stuff. I told Simon what to look for. Simon found it on the computer. Simon’s good at things like that.’ Now he was breathing faster, and his eyes were glittering in the candlelight. ‘I went to see him. He didn’t know me. I’ll show him who I am!’ His eyes were looking through her, but the knife was level and firm against her.

  ‘Sophie found me. She had a letter. Our mother had written her a letter. No letter for me! I couldn’t even read it!’ His voice was ragged. His foot lashed out and the table crashed over, sending the candle rolling across the floor. Then, as quickly as it had come, his anger went and his voice was quiet and reflective again. ‘I knew about Emma. Uncle Bryan was always talking about Emma. And Sandra. “That poor lass! If you turn out like your dad I’ll …” Uncle Bryan. I took him a bottle of whisky. He told me where they lived. “You’re a good lad, Ashley,” he said. “It’s all water under the bridge.” Under the bridge …’ He laughed. He looked at the candle on the floor and picked it
up. It was still burning.

  ‘Sophie wants us to be a family. It’s good, that …’ He smiled, but his smile was blank and joyless. ‘We’re going to get a house, all of us. Me, Simon, Sophie, Emma – and Luce. Emma and Sophie, they don’t know about Luce. They don’t know they’ve got another sister. It’s a surprise. They’ll like it. When I tell them. Somewhere by the sea. I’ve never seen the sea.’ His eyes glistened in the light.

  ‘Only Sophie wanted to stop it in the end. She wanted to leave me and go back to her nice, safe family on the farm. I couldn’t let her do that.’ He held the knife between them, the point just touching her. She stood motionless, her breath tight in her throat. ‘I had it all planned. Simon got a room in the house next door, and he got one for So. They always give Simon what he asks for. He didn’t want it, but he’d do it for me. He did what I said …’

  He looked at her to make sure she understood. ‘Sophie likes children,’ he said. ‘I knew she’d make friends with Lucy. But I had to make sure. I said, “Ask if she wants a babysitter.” I knew she would. She didn’t look after Luce properly. She let him near her.’

  ‘She let him … ?’

  ‘Her father. My father.’ He was breathing fast again, and his eyes that had been unfocused were sharpening again.

  She had to keep him calm. ‘It’s all right, Ashley,’ she said. ‘Just tell me.’ He smiled, and now it was the smile she remembered from the Alpha Centre, from that night at her house.

  ‘You see, Sophie would watch her, keep her safe, while I got rid of him. Emma sold him the pills. She sold her dad the pills, and he didn’t even recognize her.’ He laughed quietly, then his face changed, grew cold and angry. ‘He started hitting on her, his own daughter! Buying her things, telling her she could dance in his club. He wanted the pills, see. He wanted to know where she was getting it from. But I’ve fixed him. “He knows how to make us all rich,” Emma said. “Stop pushing me around. I’m going to do what he says and you can’t stop me,” she said …’ His eyes were unfocused again. He shook his head. ‘I get angry,’ he said.

  Suzanne asked the question she had dreaded asking, could hardly bring herself to ask, because she knew what the answer would be. ‘The children? Michael, and Lucy?’ She tried to keep her voice calm, but it shook with the strain. She wanted to scream, beg, anything, if he would say that they were safe, they were well.

  He frowned in irritation at being interrupted. ‘Luce knows. About Em and So. And Simon. Simon told her.’ He shook his head. He looked bewildered now, more the Ashley she remembered. ‘It was good,’ he said. ‘When we were all together.’

  Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light. All around the walls, from floor to ceiling, there were sheets of paper covered with drawings – people, faces; and paintings – wild patterns, sometimes sprayed over the top of the drawings, all flickering and moving in the light of the candles. Sophie and Emma, alive again in the candlelight. Lucy, over and over again, big-eyed, solemn. ‘Please, Ashley,’ she said. She could feel the strength draining out of her. She had to know. ‘Please, Ashley, tell me what you’ve done with Lucy. With Michael.’ He looked at her, his silence almost an answer. ‘Please,’ she said.

  He looked down, confused. Then he looked back at her again. ‘I liked you,’ he said. ‘I told you what was happening, before Sophie … when I didn’t know what to do about Sophie, but you didn’t listen. You could have stopped it, if you’d listened.’ Listen to me! He was breathing hard again.

  ‘Please, Ashley. Please tell me. I’m sorry. I know. I did listen, but I thought it was too late.’ She tried to keep her voice gentle, tried to keep him calm. Tell me!

  He seemed to be thinking. ‘I don’t know,’ he said after a moment. ‘I left them.’ He wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘Where? Where did you leave them? Were they hurt? Ashley …’

  His hand lashed out, hitting her across the mouth. She staggered. ‘Shut up!’ he said. ‘I never wanted to hurt anyone. They just … So found out. I had to … And Em was going to … Stop asking me questions. You always ask me questions.’ The dislocated voice of the tape was talking to her now. He grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her head back, holding the knife hard against her neck. ‘I get angry,’ he said.

  There were tears in his eyes, glistening on his lashes in the candlelight. He let go of her hair and put his hand up to her face, running his fingers gently over the swelling that was starting on her lip. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ Strangely, incongruously, he still made her think of Adam, Adam caught in a trap of his own making, that he could no longer escape. He’d said that he’d left them, Lucy and Michael. Where? He had no reason to hurt them. Maybe it would be all right. Maybe Lucy and Michael would be found, safe and well, come home and … and … She couldn’t think beyond that point.

  He was still holding the knife, but away from her now, as though he’d forgotten it was a weapon. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t go anywhere until she found out about the children. He ran his finger absently across the edge. ‘She didn’t want us, my mum. She kept Sophie, but she didn’t want us. We went to live with my uncle and aunt. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I cried for my mum. She said she was coming back, but she never did. I didn’t know where she’d gone. I didn’t know where Simon had gone.’ His eyes looked blank. ‘I didn’t want to hurt him. I hit him and he fell on the bed. Then I …’ He shook his head as if he was trying to dislodge the images. His eyes came back into focus and he looked at her. ‘He was a cunt, my uncle.’

  They were operating on McCarthy’s hunch, because they didn’t have anything else to go on. All they had were the cryptic contents of Ashley’s tape, the few bits of information from the case files, and their local knowledge.

  The street lighting around the flats was largely gone, vandalized and not repaired by a cash-strapped council. This wasn’t an area that was worth canvassing for votes, and now most of the blocks were empty. Barraclough turned her headlights off as she followed McCarthy’s car into the central courtyard. Two vans came in behind her.

  Simon had made the drugs, Ecstasy and speed. The Alpha Centre had reported a problem with pills about three months ago. Ashley Reid had started at the Alpha Centre then, and his main contact there was Lee Bradley. Lee used to live in these flats, up until six months ago, and in the last months of his being here, most of the flats had been boarded up and abandoned. Ashley Reid, too, had had a flat here, one of the places where flats could be had for the asking. No one wanted to live here through choice. Barraclough knew that the minimal policing of the estate would be wound right down once the flats were empty. What better venue for dealing, and what reason would there be to change? Lee Bradley’s old flat was near the top of the block facing Barraclough, and the abandoned Astra in front of the garages, a car that had been reported stolen ten minutes after the fire at Shepherd Wheel, seemed to confirm that McCarthy had been right.

  There was the smell of beer and the sound of men laughing. The child tip-toed down the stairs and peered through the kitchen door. The smell of beer was stronger now, and there were people, lots of people, men, sitting round the table. They had glasses in front of them, and they were laughing. One of them looked round and saw him at the door. Uncle Bryan. ‘Hey up,’ he said, in that loud voice the men sometimes used. ‘Who’ve we got here then?’ Uncle Bryan was liking him. He sidled into the room, smiling round his thumb.

  ‘Give over, Bryan.’ Aunt Kath’s voice, irritable. ‘Ashley! Thumb!’ Ashley took his thumb out of his mouth and stood by his uncle’s solid bulk.

  ‘You fuss too much.’ Uncle Bryan was drinking beer. He winked at Ashley. Ashley tried to wink back, but both his eyes closed together. ‘Come on, love,’ Uncle Bryan said. ‘Give us a kiss.’ The men laughed. He was confused. ‘Come on,’ Uncle Bryan said, holding out his arms. Aunt Kath always said, ‘Boys don’t kiss.’ He looked at her. Her back was towards him, stiff and angry. ‘Come on,’ Uncle Bryan said again, and,
shyly, he reached up his arms and kissed his uncle’s face.

  The blow was so unexpected he couldn’t feel it hurting. He was on the floor by the other side of the room, and all the men were laughing, and Uncle Bryan was laughing. ‘That’s for kissing men,’ he said. ‘Hey!’ He turned to the other men who were laughing and laughing. ‘Get it? That’s for kissing men!’

  He’d cut his finger on the edge of the knife. It was bleeding. He looked at it for a moment, then wiped the blood off on his T-shirt. ‘I thought it would be all right after Sophie came.’ His eyes were sad. ‘But everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Sometimes there’s only one safe place to be.’

  He reached out and took her hand. He did it gently, but his grip was firm. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said. He took her across the room to where the window was covered with a heavy blanket. He pulled the blanket away, and they were looking out together across the night sky. The window opened onto a balcony. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  The city lay at their feet. Away in the distance, the lights of houses and roads sparkled on the far hills. Nearer, the lights merged and blazed out in the colour and confusion of the city centre. The glow-worms of the trams wound around their tracks – not glow-worms, Suzanne thought, but dragons, monsters gliding in silent brilliance through the night. The cars made rivers of light; the traffic lights winked red, yellow, green; the street signs and the bars and the clubs flashed out their messages to the watchers in the sky above them. But to Suzanne it was all dead, silent chaos. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it. The words from nowhere formed themselves in her mind.

  Ashley let go of her hand, and now he put his arm round her, pulling her close against him, like a lover, and they stood together, watching. Then he directed her attention downwards. There, in front of the block, down at the end of the dizzying drop, a car was drawing up, dark and silent. Ashley pushed her behind him, still holding the knife, and stood in clear view, close to the edge with just a broken railing between him and the drop. One safe place. She tried to pull away, but his grip on her wrist was unbreakable. He was so close to the drop, so close … She could see figures moving around far below, some apparently milling aimlessly, others moving with intent towards the shadows, round the back of the building.