The Crossing

by Christina James

  “So you’d still have been here when ‘Helen’ called your husband?”

  “I suppose I must have been,” she said dully.

  “But you weren’t aware of the call? Did your husband tell you he was going out?”

  There was a long silence. Veronica Start was standing stock still, her eyes cast down. Juliet had seldom seen anyone so completely drained of energy.

  “Veronica, please answer the question if you can,” she said gently.

  Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the floor, Veronica Start finally spoke, quietly but coherently, concluding with a flash of asperity.

  “DI Yates, my husband and I aren’t close. If he went out early this morning, I didn’t know about it. Do you require any more information about our personal arrangements, or may I leave it at that?”

  “Thank you, Mrs Start,” Tim said. “I assure you I didn’t mean to pry, but I do need to find your husband. Have you seen him today? And are you able to tell us where he is now?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen him today. He was here waiting for me when I got home at about half-past four. He went out shortly after that. He didn’t tell me where he was going.”

  “Does he have a mobile?”

  “Yes, of course he does. Do you want the number?”

  “That would be helpful.”

  “You’d better come in for a moment. I’ll have to look for it. It’s his office mobile,” she added quickly, as if anticipating the question. “That’s why I don’t know the number.”

  Tim and Juliet entered the hall. Veronica Start immediately turned away from them before closing the door.

  “Wait here,” she said. She was dressed in trousers and a lacy green jumper with batwing sleeves.

  Tim and Juliet stood together in awkward silence. The hall was large; a semi-circular red velvet sofa squatted in one corner, but they hadn’t been invited to sit down and neither took the liberty.

  Veronica Start returned quickly. As she advanced, Juliet noticed a smell about her that she hadn’t detected before. It was the scented odour of old-fashioned face powder, such as her grandmother used to wear. Strange that Veronica had paused at such a time to put on make-up.

  Ignoring Tim, who was standing on Juliet’s left, she walked up to Juliet with her head set rigidly forwards and held out a slip of paper. As she handed it over, the sleeve on her right arm fell back and exposed a series of ugly yellowing bruises stretching from the wrist to the elbow. There were fresh-looking angry red weals disfiguring the wrist itself.

  “There’s the number.”

  Juliet paused for a little too long before she took the paper. Following the line of her gaze, Veronica pulled down the sleeve to cover her knuckles. The action caused her to turn her head. It took all Juliet’s self-possession not to cry out. The right side of Veronica Start’s face, from the side of her cheekbone to the inside of her eye socket, was disfigured by a massive purple contusion that, pathetically and ineffectually, she’d tried to conceal under a thick layer of powder.

  As calmly as she could, Juliet said, “Thank you. That’s a very nasty bruise, Veronica. How did you manage to hurt your face like that?”

  “Oh, it was just an accident that I had at school.” She laughed awkwardly. “One of the hazards of being a teacher.”

  “What kind of an accident? It looks to me as if you might need to see a doctor.”

  Again the strained little laugh.

  “No, it’s nothing. Honestly. Just a small accident. I’ll let you out now.”

  “Here’s my card,” said Tim. “When your husband comes home, please ask him to call me. We’ll keep trying to contact him in the meantime.”

  Veronica Start nodded and took the card. She clicked the latch of the door and opened it, keeping both the detectives to her left as she did so and hugging her damaged face against the wood of the door.

  Tim paused to allow Juliet to precede him before offering his hand. Veronica Start accepted it uncertainly. He noted that her own was cold but clammy with cooled sweat.

  “Please accept my thanks, Mrs Start. We’ll need to keep in touch, but we’ll try to bother you as little as possible. By the way, did we hear dogs as we were approaching your house, or am I mistaken?”

  “No, you’re not mistaken. Matthew keeps two Alsatians. They have a kennel and a run alongside his office. They don’t come into the house.”

  “I see. Is his office in the building that stands to the back of your house?”

  “Yes. It isn’t the company office – that’s in town. But Matthew needs an office here as well, for when he’s drawing up plans.”

  “She’s a battered wife,” said Juliet, once they were seated in the BMW. “Louise thought so. She spotted a burn on her arm yesterday evening.”

  “It certainly looks like it. Prima facie.”

  “I can’t think of another way of accounting for such injuries, can you?” said Juliet, bridling a little. “And her explanation was feeble and evasive: typical of an abused woman.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. Matthew Start may have more to answer for than we at first thought. Let’s have a look at the note she gave you.”

  Juliet was still clutching the piece of paper. She smoothed it out and handed it to Tim.

  “It’s a business compliments slip,” said Tim. “It has the business address and registration number printed on it, together with a landline number and Matthew Start’s name and personal mobile number. She didn’t write on it.”

  Juliet laughed. “What were you expecting, an SOS message? At least we know the number must be correct.”

  “I’m glad you said that, because I’d like you to call that number now and then keep on calling it every ten minutes or so until you get a reply. It’ll help to relieve the tedium of co-ordinating the door-to-door enquiries. I want you to pass him on to me as soon as he answers.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “We’ll come back here early tomorrow morning, before we go to the school. We know that Start will have to return at some point, to feed his dogs.”

  “He may be at the school tomorrow himself. I’m pretty certain he belongs to The Bricklayers. We know that his father’s one of them.”

  “Good point. So one way or another we’ll catch up with him.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  I LET HIM TAKE me back to my prison. It was part of the bargain: no struggle, no fuss. He swore he’d kill Ariadne if I tried to escape or ask for help. He’d have had to do it instantly, and he’d have been convicted of murder, but he knew I couldn’t take the risk. I’ve always believed he wants to be punished and Ariadne’s life is too precious to use as a bargaining chip. Alone, I could have run, screamed, kicked, fought, thrown myself on the mercy of strangers. I could have killed him and pleaded self-defence. I turn from this thought because it gives me too much pleasure.

  Ariadne is gone from me, that I understand. If she can be saved, in return for her life I have given her up to the world she has never known. If she dies, I will have wrecked our life together, my reason for living, in vain. I had to try, God knows. I had to try. It tears me apart that I shan’t find out, perhaps for many months, if she is still alive. The Lover has taken away the television. He said it wasn’t to punish me, but to calm me down. By some malformed logic I think he believes this, because when he punishes me it means darkness and he has yet to take away the lights.

  I struck a bargain with him. I promised not to betray him when we took Ariadne to the hospital if he would let me see the others. He agreed and I am waiting, in despair about Ariadne but still with a faint glimmer of hope that he may keep the promise. I know in my heart of hearts it is almost impossible. Does he know where they are and if not how he will find them? If he can find them, what explanation can he give to persuade them to come here? Under what terms will they walk away again? If he shuts them up with me, their fri
ends will contact the police. Did my own friends get in touch with the police? I’m suddenly pierced by a terrible guilt. Surely he would not try to keep the girls here, in this dungeon?

  He has started talking again about a future life for us; this time, he says, with the girls. How can he believe this when we have never been a family? Does he think those three young women will have no minds of their own, like Ariadne? He is retreating again into a place where I can’t reach him. He’ll become vicious and cruel. I’ve managed his mood so well for so long I cannot bear it if that madness returns. Yet this time he has not struck me. He hasn’t trapped my arms in his restraints. He hasn’t laid a finger on me. I’m filled with a deep fear. It’s almost worse to suffer a continual state of anticipation that the blows will come than to have to fend them off when they do.

  The signs are all there, the insecurities, the uncertainties, the demons that make him lash out. Yet, if not calm, if not gentle, he has not been savage. I’ve not had to submit to his anger, not had to plead against his brutality nor submit to rape. Has he found someone else on whom to vent his scorn? Has he been shaken by Ariadne’s illness? Is it possible that he has repented?

  The quality of air in here is poor today, or perhaps I notice more how thin it is after my journey outside. I’m dizzy and have to lie down. I must save my energy to concentrate on Ariadne. I focus all my thoughts on her. She needs my willpower to help her to live.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  TIM AND JULIET returned to the police station. Taking over from Superintendent Thornton, who shortly afterwards announced his intention of going home for a few hours’ rest – ‘and so should you, Yates, eventually’ – Tim immersed himself in co-ordinating the door-to-door enquiries. He quickly realised that these had already been well-organised, with proper handover, feedback and back-up arrangements in place. Still, he and Juliet bore the crucial burden of maintaining and boosting morale in a double enquiry that had yet to achieve any leads or breakthroughs.

  Juliet took her share of the load, breaking off only to call Matthew Start’s mobile every ten or fifteen minutes. It went to message every time. She’d just recorded her fourth message and put down the phone when it started to ring. She grabbed it quickly without registering the caller’s number, hoping that Start had at last responded.

  “Juliet?” She recognised the voice immediately.

  “Louise! Are you all right? You sound weary.”

  “Hello, Juliet. I thought you’d still be working. That’s why I called you first.” Louise Butler sighed. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that the young woman you enquired about – the one signed in as Ariadne Helen – died just over an hour ago. We tried everything we could think of to save her. Not knowing exactly why she was in that state didn’t help, but I think the post mortem will show that the internal damage was too advanced for her to have survived. She’d been neglected for too long.”

  “Are we talking about criminal negligence?”

  “I can’t give you a definitive answer before the post mortem, but I’d say you have at least a case of manslaughter on your hands, probably murder.”

  “Thank you. I’ll tell DI Yates. We’ll send someone to talk to you tomorrow – I’ll come myself if I can. And I’m sorry, Louise. I know how hard it must hit you to lose a patient. Will you get some rest now?”

  “I’ll go home for a few hours. What about you? I hope you’re not intending to work all night.”

  “Not quite all night, because I have to be able to function tomorrow. But most of it, probably. We have to find those two girls. Time’s running out.”

  “Try to look after yourself. I hope that it will be you tomorrow. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  As Juliet put the phone down, she looked up to see Tim watching her curiously.

  “Not Matthew Start, I take it?”

  “No, it was Louise Butler, to say that the woman admitted from the Johnson Hospital has died.”

  Tim whistled.

  “Jesus. We’ll have to find Matthew Start now. And the woman’s mother. We can’t spare anyone tonight, but we’ll go to Start’s house again tomorrow, and to the hospital. We’ll need to talk to the nurse who saw Start and the mother.”

  “Staff Nurse Burrell? She works nights.”

  “We’ll get there before the night shift’s finished, then.”

  Tim’s personal mobile rang.

  “Hello? Oh, Katrin, God, I’m sorry, I meant to call you hours ago.”

  Juliet returned her attention studiously to her computer screen and continued to mark the streets that had been covered by the house-to-house enquiries. They had only a few hours left before they’d have to stop for the night. Superintendent Thornton now agreed they could continue until midnight, but after 10.30 p.m only to knock on the doors of houses where the lights were still on. After that, all they would be able to do was continue to man the roadblocks, look after the girls’ families and the Cushings and wait for the morning to arrive.

  Ricky MacFadyen and Giash Chakrabati had hurried to arrive at the police warehouse just before 6 p.m., the time at which its manager went off duty. Ricky had warned him they were coming. He’d met the manager, Ian Tucker, on several previous occasions. A taciturn and somewhat surly man, he seemed to take it as a personal affront when he was asked to allow access to the often grisly effects that he and his team had to store as neatly as possible. As if, Ricky reflected, the police got some kind of weird personal kick out of unpacking blood- and semen-stiffened garments to take away for further analysis or be baled up again.

  At least this evening’s mission didn’t involve sifting through the detritus of rape or violent death, though in its own way it would be equally unpleasant. Many of the Grummetts’ possessions would be encrusted with human waste from the tanker lorry. He hoped Ian Tucker had sorted out some protective clothing.

  The warehouse was a drab, faceless building with no windows. A former wartime aircraft hangar, it stood on the edge of reclaimed fen land at the end of a long, narrow concrete road that was cracked and uneven, the runway beyond it long overgrown and now barely visible. The huge hangar door, still in use by the lorries that delivered its grim wares, was illuminated on either side by a row of lamp-posts that also lit up the small car park. At present, the latter contained only Ian Tucker’s shiny red pick-up truck. An ordinary door which looked tiny but was in fact of standard size (dwarfed by its parent) was let into the far right hand side of the main entrance. Ricky and Giash parked the police car next to Ian Tucker’s truck and headed for it.

  Inside, the hangar was cavernous and shadowy. Huge racks of shelving extended from floor to ceiling. There were rows of dim lights set into the floor between the bays. Four fork-lift trucks were lined up with military precision opposite the manager’s office, which consisted of a kind of large wooden kiosk set just inside the door. Ian Tucker emerged, displaying a friendlier smile than usual. He held out his hand.

  “DC MacFadyen, hello.” He pronounced Ricky’s title with some archness. “Not a very pleasant job you’ve got this evening, I’m afraid. Quite a shitty one, really.” The grin widened.

  Ricky immediately understood the cause of Tucker’s good mood. He didn’t rise to the bait.

  “Hello, Ian. This is PC Chakrabati – Giash Chakrabati. He’s come to help me. Not a nice job, I agree, but it needs doing, and the sooner the better. Did you manage to find us some suits?”

  “They’re in the office, on a chair in front of the desk,” Ian Tucker said, jerking his head in the general direction. “And some masks. There’s tea and coffee and a kettle in there, too, and I’ve left out the rest of today’s milk. If you come with me, I’ll show you where the stuff you want is. We’ve put it in an area by itself because it’s probably still contaminated. There are disinfectant sprays and hoses and hand cleaner there. Do you want me to run through the health and safety protocols?”
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br />   “We probably know them, but it might be useful, just to be on the safe side.”

  Ten minutes later, Ricky and Giash were kitted out and had begun on the first of the crates. Ian Tucker had gone home, having left them with his mobile number and instructions on how to lock the building when they’d finished.

  After two hours, they’d searched through six of the eight boxes. They’d worked through fragments of smashed china, shaken out ordure-covered soft furnishings and flipped through stained copies of The Pig Breeder. Giash’s knees were numb and cold from kneeling on the concrete floor. He stood up painfully and rested his back against a corner of the adjacent shelving.

  “Do you know what’s funny about this?” he said. Ricky was also standing up, a claw hammer poised in his hand to remove the lid from the seventh packing case.

  “I assume you mean funny ‘peculiar’,” he said, “because otherwise I’m struggling to find anything hilarious about being stuck in an aircraft hangar on a winter’s evening more or less immersed in shit.”

  Giash laughed.

  “Yes, indeed. Funny peculiar, as you say. What I mean is that there aren’t any papers – insurance documents, utility bills, birth and marriage certificates. Nothing. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  “I would do, if Tim hadn’t told me that Ivan Grummett took away a separate strong-box which contained stuff like that.”

  “In that case, aren’t we wasting our time? I’d have thought if we were to find anything incriminating, it would almost certainly be in writing.”

  “Ivan Grummett took the strong-box before we could get a warrant. I’m sure Tim’ll be asking for one. Meanwhile, there may be something amongst this lot. Give us a hand, will you? I don’t know who nailed this on, but they certainly didn’t mean us to get it off in a hurry.”

  Giash moved across to Ricky and helped him to attack the nails.

  “I’ve just noticed this box is labelled,” he said. “Were there labels on the others?”