‘Some people say Dad looks a bit like Dracula,’ she said.
Cooper nodded. ‘I’ve heard that.’
‘Well, it’s true, in a way. He sucked the blood out of me.’
For a moment, Cooper paused and looked back across the graves, beyond the churchyard and the Henmore Brook.
It was so difficult to understand what went on in families. How had the Nields reconciled themselves to a situation like this? What compromises had they made with each other, what rationalizations had gone on in their minds? As time passed, did they convince themselves that nothing was wrong, that they could all just go on as normal? And all for the sake of keeping the family together.
It was a twisted kind of loyalty, a sense of allegiance that shut out the rest of the world, and rejected concepts of conventional behaviour. Whatever went on in your own home was the reality you had to live. No one else could understand it, so you didn’t tell them.
As he surveyed the view over Ashbourne, Cooper noticed the site of the old Nestle factory across the brook, now rapidly becoming a new housing development. In the other direction, towards the town centre, the car park of Sainsbury’s was busy with shoppers.
Cooper wondered if Lodge’s supermarket would stay open without Robert Nield to keep his little family together. Probably not. He’d destroyed one family, and the other would surely follow.
30
The Nields were at home that afternoon, entirely unaware of what had being going on. Cooper met up with Becky Hurst outside the house off Wyaston Road. This wasn’t a visit he could do on his own. While he waited for her, he gazed down the street at the outline of Thorpe Cloud, where it stood guard over the entrance to Dovedale. The hill was a silent watcher, hardly less valuable as a witness than any other.
‘Okay,’ he said, when Hurst had arrived. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
Robert and Dawn Nield were surprised to see him. But they sensed immediately that something was seriously wrong. It was remarkable that they could do that, in a week when so much had already gone wrong for them.
Cooper explained to them about the remains found on the banks of the River Manifold, and Lauren’s admission that the baby had been hers. He hesitated before going any further. There was always a possibility that Lauren had been lying about the rest of the story.
Cooper looked at Dawn Nield first. She was clutching a tissue in a trembling hand, and her face was flushed. A glaze was spreading in her eyes, like a slow welling of terror.
‘Do you know who the father of that child was, Mrs Nield?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘We never knew. Lauren wouldn’t say.’
‘I see.’
Cooper held her eye for a moment, then looked at Robert Nield.
‘Is that your answer too, sir?’
The briefest of pauses left an uncomfortable silence in the air.
‘Yes.’
But his response had come too slowly. Before he spoke, Nield had met Cooper’s eye briefly, then looked away. It was a fleeting glance, done reluctantly, as if he’d been forced into it. But for that one moment, Nield just had to look into Cooper’s face. He needed to see if Cooper knew the truth.
‘The child, sir. It was yours, wasn’t it?’
Nield ran a hand over his face, as if attempting to restore the colour to his skin, which had suddenly turned grey. His mouth sagged, and for a moment he seemed to have lost the power of speech.
‘You know we can do DNA tests, Mr Nield.’
‘Tests?’
‘On the remains. We can match your DNA to establish parentage.’
In fact, Cooper wasn’t entirely sure that anything usable still existed. The flesh had gone from the bones, had decomposed and fallen away, been carried away by scavenging animals, or deteriorated with exposure to the weather. There might just possibly have been something under the body that could produce a result in the lab. A fragment of skin that had been preserved from the air. And that was presuming a SOCO found it, examined the leaf litter carefully enough when the bones had been lifted. The bones themselves might yield a DNA result, of course — if anyone thought the tests were worthwhile.
Yes, it might be a long shot. But Robert Nield wasn’t to know the odds.
‘Were you the father, Mr Nield?’
Nield lowered his head. ‘You know already.’
‘How could you do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
Cooper flinched as a great sob was ripped from Dawn Nield. Her face was contorted beyond recognition. She might be repressed, might feel the need to be in control. But that control was failing her now. He could see her whole facade cracking, as the false world she’d constructed around herself began to crumble.
‘It wrecked our family,’ she said. ‘Lauren left us after…after the baby died.’
‘And it resulted in the death of Emily, too,’ said Cooper. ‘You do realize that?’
‘What? That was an accident.’
Cooper recalled what Rachel Murchison had told him. His own stress caused by the experience of the child’s death in the river, and being helpless to save her. Short-term adverse reactions to anything his brain associated with the traumatic event. In this case, water.
‘It’s perfectly common. It should pass in time.’
‘Does it always pass?’
‘Well, not always. If left unacknowledged and untreated, it can develop into full-blown PTSD, and the effects of that can last for years. Occasionally, serious psychological disturbances may result from traumatic experiences in the past. But that’s quite rare.’
‘Would it be more common in a child?’
‘Oh, yes. Certainly.’
‘The truth is,’ said Cooper, ‘that only one person saw Emily die. And he was the one person who no one ever asked for his account of the incident. There was no point in putting him through it, was there? Everyone thought there were enough witnesses, even though not a single one of them saw what actually happened. As usual, Alex wasn’t needed.’
‘Alex?’
‘And the worst thing is, I was there,’ said Cooper. ‘I was there myself. But I didn’t see it.’
‘Didn’t see what?’ asked Dawn. Her voice was distant, distorted, ghostly — the sound of a woman withdrawing from reality. Cooper knew he wouldn’t get much else from her now.
‘It was Alex who pushed his sister down in the water, hit her head on the stone and drowned her. No one saw that, did they? Except you, Mr Nield. You pulled him out of the river. That was how you got wet.’
‘Is Alex so disturbed?’
‘Yes, I think so. The memory of the river pushed him over the edge. He needs help very badly.’
Nield hung his head. His shoulders had dropped, and his whole body was bent like a man who had fallen in on himself, his internal organs collapsed, his heart torn away.
‘Why couldn’t he talk to us?’ asked Dawn.
Cooper lowered his eyes. ‘That’s not for us to answer, Mrs Nield.’
And suddenly she was out of her seat and standing in front of him, her body swaying dangerously, her arms flying so violently that Cooper ducked back out of the way. Her face had passed from flushed red to deathly white, and her chest heaved with enormous, painful breaths. An awful, indistinguishable noise came from her throat, as if an animal was trapped in the room.
Shocked, Cooper stood uncertain what to do. The whole room seemed frozen, Robert Nield gaping from his chair, Becky Hurst giving a startled intake of breath behind him.
Then Mrs Nield staggered, and Cooper stepped forward to prevent her falling. And that broke the spell. Hurst moved in and helped him steady the woman and get her back into her seat.
‘It’s all my fault, isn’t it?’ whispered Dawn as she began to recover.
‘No. Why should you feel that way?’
‘Because I failed,’ she said. ‘I failed Emily. I’ve failed all my children.’
Cooper felt guilty at his inability to call up the degree of sympathy she was asking fo
r. Somehow, Dawn Nield had made it all seem to be about her. The tragedy hadn’t happened to Emily, but to her mother.
‘Why didn’t we see that Alex wasn’t coping?’
‘I think we did,’ said Nield. ‘But he shut himself away with it, and we thought it would pass.’
Cooper turned away from Mrs Nield to face him again.
‘It doesn’t pass unless it’s dealt with,’ he said. ‘He needed someone to talk to.’
‘We couldn’t take him to a doctor. If he got referred to a councillor or therapist, it would have come out what upset him so much.’
‘There’s such a thing as patient confidentiality. A reputable therapist wouldn’t pass on information like that.’
Nield shook his head. ‘We couldn’t take the risk.’
‘So you sacrificed your son’s psychological health,’ said Cooper. ‘And, ultimately, the life of your youngest daughter.’
‘It all started with good intentions. From a moment of weakness.’
‘Weakness? How could you do that to your daughter? Lauren would have been fifteen at the time.’
‘It was a mistake,’ said Nield.
‘A mistake?’
Cooper had heard enough.
‘Robert Nield, I’m arresting you. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence…’
Cooper put Robert Nield in the car, and asked Becky Hurst to stay at the house until help arrived. Mrs Nield needed a doctor, and Social Services would have to be involved with Alex.
‘I think I understand him, though,’ said Nield, as they drove back through Ashbourne.
‘Really?’
‘He’s very like me when I was his age. When I was about twelve, I had a Swiss Army knife I was very proud of. I used to play with it all the time, opening and closing the blades. One day, while I was watching TV, I slashed the leather sofa I was sitting on. It was just because the blade was in my hand, and that was what it was made for.’ Nield smiled sadly. ‘My father didn’t accept that explanation. I got a good smacking for it.’
‘I don’t see the connection,’ said Cooper.
‘Have you never done something for no particular reason? Just found that you’d destroyed an object without even thinking about it? Let me tell you, it’s as if your hands act on their own, while your mind is somewhere else entirely. There’s no question of intention — that doesn’t come into it. It’s a sort of…physical unreasoning.’
‘You make it sound as if it was nothing more than tearing up a sweet wrapper.’
‘There are impulses we can’t control.’
‘But this isn’t an object we’re talking about. It’s a person.’
‘The principle is the same.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘It takes a bit of imagination to understand.’
Cooper shook his head. ‘We all have impulses. But we don’t always act on them. Maybe when they happen, it’s because our mind allows them to.’
‘Still, it’s a shame that Alex lied to us.’
‘He didn’t want to lie. He wanted to tell the truth. But there was no one who could be bothered to listen to him.’
‘I can’t really blame him for lying,’ said Nield, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Teenagers lie to their parents all the time. It’s a miracle if they tell us the truth now and then. The only view we get of what’s going on in their heads is the impression we have from the outside, and what they tell us. The truth can be something completely different.’
Cooper knew that was probably true. But Alex was only putting into practice some of the things he’d learned from his father.
‘But he isn’t mad, you know.’
‘I said “disturbed”.’
‘You don’t have to be mad to do something horrible. Malice is natural to the human soul — just as natural as kindness. Being bad is part of being alive.’
Cooper didn’t want this conversation. He tried not answering, hoping it would shut Nield up. It didn’t work.
‘It’s true what I said, though,’ said Nield. ‘No one thinks of the consequences of that moment.’
‘Are you speaking about the conception of Lauren’s child now?’ asked Cooper. ‘Or the killing of your daughter Emily?’
The question Cooper asked himself now was, what would happen to Alex? The boy was thirteen years old. At one time, Alex Nield would have fallen into a legal grey area, where children aged between ten and fourteen were presumed not to know the difference between right and wrong. In those days, they could only be convicted if the prosecution proved they were aware what they were doing was seriously wrong. Under the age of ten, children weren’t considered to have reached an age where they could be held responsible for their crimes at all.
Now, though, the law had changed. At thirteen, Alex Nield was considered fully responsible for his actions, in the same way as any adult. He couldn’t vote until he was eighteen, and he couldn’t legally have sex until he was sixteen. But at the age of thirteen he was well within the age of criminal responsibility. The law would say that he knew perfectly well what he was doing.
Yes, Alex might be exactly like his father was at the same age. It was ironic, then, that if Robert Nield had committed a serious crime when he was thirteen, he might have escaped prosecution. But this was the twenty-first century. Alex would have no such luck.
Cooper recalled the four psychological types identified in that study of online gamers. Achievers, Explorers, and Socializers. And what was the name of the fourth group?
Oh yes, that was it. The Killers.
A call came in from Becky Hurst, still in Ashbourne.
‘Social Services have arrived,’ she said.
‘Good. Where is Alex? Still in his room, I suppose? He’ll be on his computer, oblivious to everything.’
‘No,’ said Hurst. ‘That’s the bad news. We can’t find him. Alex has disappeared.’
31
There were more officers at the Nield house now. Uniforms in the garden, checking along the back fence, talking to the neighbours. Two social workers were with Mrs Nield in the sitting room.
‘We’ve looked everywhere,’ said Hurst. ‘He’s gone. Disappeared without a word. He must have gone out of the back door when we arrived to talk to his parents.’
‘If not before that,’ said Cooper. ‘They wouldn’t have noticed that he’d gone.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
Why did everyone keep wanting to take the blame? Cooper looked around desperately for clues.
‘Did he leave a note? A message? A text?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Nield. ‘We’ve got to find him. He’s only thirteen, you know.’
‘Okay, so where would he go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’ll have to get a full-scale search under way, Becky. He has quite a head start.’
‘I’ll see to it.’
No message, that was bad news. Cooper turned to the only person who Alex might have been in touch with. His older sister. At least he now had a phone number for her.
‘Lauren, has Alex contacted you?’
‘I got an email a little while ago.’
‘Of course you did. What did he say?’
‘It was really short. He just said “brb kk?’”
Cooper thought again of Alex’s online profile. That terse final line: brb kk?
Literally, it meant ‘Be right back, okay?’ But Luke Irvine had explained that it often signified something quite different. It was a way getting rid of someone you didn’t want to deal with. You were telling them you’d never be coming back. It was a way of saying goodbye.
A few minutes later, Cooper stopped his car and looked out over the country along the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. He saw Dovedale snaking off to the east, the dry valleys of the Manifold and The Hamps to the west. In betw
een, there lay a scatter of villages, with Wetton in the centre, and Ecton Hill just visible beyond it.
He was trying to see the landscape in the way that Alex Nield would. Alex lived in a virtual world, moving around a continent populated by enemies — Saxons, Romans, Vikings. They all had to be confronted and dealt with. His was a world where you fought constantly for survival. Kill or be killed, that was the rule of the game.
But then, each player had his own castle, didn’t he? He established a defensive stronghold, a place of safety where he could resist attacks. Walls to keep out the rest of the world.
Yes, a place of safety. It was something that Alex Nield had never possessed in real life.
Or had he?
If he was Alex, Cooper knew he would have somewhere to go. At Bridge End Farm, there had been an old field barn that wasn’t used any more. Most of the roof had fallen in, except for the far corner, where it was dry and sheltered from the wind. It was a good three fields away from the house, so no one would ever find him, unless they really knew where to go looking. Having those stone walls around him gave him a sense of reassurance, as if the cold winds of insecurity would bounce off the stones with the rain.
So where would Alex go? Given that he couldn’t physically retreat into the world of War Tribe, there must be somewhere.
Cooper tried to recall the exact details of the boy’s profile on War Tribe. Not the Lost River part, the names of his castles. All the players seemed to choose names that they thought were cool, or had some specific meaning known only to them. But Cooper’s memory was failing him now. He wished he was back in the office in Edendale, with a PC and internet connection, so he could check.
But wait. He didn’t need that. He had an iPhone.
Cooper looked around, hoping that for once there was a decent signal. At least he wasn’t in a valley. He was on the plateau between the two rivers, close to the edge of Wetton Hill.
He likes patterns. Of course he does. From his behaviour, Alex might even be mildly autistic. Unsocial, solitary, slightly obsessive. Alex was always looking for patterns — in his online world, and in real life. Patterns in the bark of a tree, or in the lichen on a rock. So one river meant another river. Water that flowed in the same direction, faces in the rock, a pattern in events as there was in the landscape.
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