by Sarah Hilary
‘Every day. Just as we agreed.’
‘Today, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., where was Alison?’
‘With me, in Slough. Then we caught a train here.’ She recited the train times without being prompted, picking up the mug of tea that Noah had provided.
He put the photograph of Clancy Brand on the table. ‘Do you recognise him?’
Her ice-chip eyes scanned the photo. ‘No. Am I supposed to?’
Noah added the photos of Carmen and Tommy, turning them so that Connie could see their faces while he watched hers for a reaction.
‘What’s this?’ she said sharply.
‘Carmen and Thomas Doyle. They’re missing. From number 14 Blackthorn Road.’
Connie leaned closer to the photographs, her mouth pursed in concentration. And something more … Alarm? She was scared of what she was seeing.
‘Mrs Pryce? Do you know these children? Carmen and Thomas Doyle. Do you know where they are? Do you know anything that can help us to find them?’
Alison’s mother put down the mug of tea. Her hand was shaking.
‘Your DI Rome needs to leave my girl alone,’ she said. ‘And I need my handbag.’
‘Mrs Pryce, if you know anything that can help us find Carmen and Tommy …’
‘I need my handbag!’ Fiercely, with tears in her eyes. ‘Fetch my bag! You want to see missing children? Fetch me my bag.’
When the handbag arrived, Connie pulled out two photos, both crumpled, and put them on the table next to the pictures of Carmen and Tommy.
‘There,’ she said, sounding out of breath. ‘There. Do you see?’
Two little blond boys, one older than the other. Solemn, mischievous faces under rough-cut hair, high cheekbones, long eyelashes.
‘That’s Fred,’ Connie said, pointing to the smaller boy. ‘And that’s Archie.’ She touched their faces in turn with the tips of her fingers. ‘Do you see?’
• • •
‘Well?’ Ron asked Noah when he broke the interview with Connie. ‘What’s she’s saying? Did she do it? Take the kids?’
Noah shook his head. ‘She’s not saying anything that helps. Just that the boss needs to leave her daughter alone … What’s the news from house-to-house?’
‘No one saw anything.’
‘Where’re the Doyles? We sent a car for them, didn’t we?’
‘Debbie says they’re waiting for Beth to wake up. The midwife’s a bit of a guard dog, she says.’ Ron rolled his eyes. ‘Ed Belloc’s over there, so I figured we’d better not get too heavy-handed … I’ll find out what’s happening.’
Noah walked to the whiteboard, where Ron had pinned photos of Carmen and Thomas Doyle. He added the crumpled photos of Fred and Archie Reid.
‘Finally.’ Ron moved close enough to study the faces. ‘Good-looking kids. Archie’s a proper tyke …’ He touched a finger to the photo of Esther’s older boy. ‘Poor little sod.’
Both boys were fair like Esther, but with determined chins and bright eyes. Fred’s hair was a shade paler than Archie’s, and his eyes were a lighter blue. Archie had a wicked smile, but his eyes were serious under very straight brows.
‘She’s going to confess, right?’ Ron dropped his hand to his side. ‘The boss is working on her. She’ll get a confession, a location for the kids. Carmen and Tommy …’
Carmen Doyle wasn’t smiling in the picture, her chin pointed up at the camera. Tommy was in his mother’s arms. He had Beth’s eyes. Both children had their father’s nose and brows, arrow-straight.
‘Noah.’ Marnie carried a cup of water to where they were standing. ‘How’s Connie?’
He shook his head. ‘Worried about her daughter. Otherwise, not much help.’
The phone rang, and Ron went to answer it.
‘Photos at last. From Connie?’ Marnie studied the whiteboard.
Up close, Noah could see how tired she was. Her eyes burned in her face, and she looked strung together with wire.
‘Nothing from house-to-house,’ he told her. ‘Not yet, anyway. The Doyles are on their way, once Beth’s been given the all-clear by the midwife.’
Marnie was studying the whiteboard, not speaking.
‘She’s sleeping. The midwife wants to wait for her to wake up …’
‘Noah …’
Marnie reached up and unpinned the photographs from the whiteboard, one after the other. Four photos of four children. Fred and Archie Reid. Thomas and Carmen Doyle.
‘Look.’
She put the photographs side by side on the desk.
Noah peered at the children’s faces.
‘Are they …? Shit. They look alike. Are they related? They have to be related.’
He straightened and stared at Marnie.
She was looking towards the interview room, where Alison Oliver was sitting.
Noah said, ‘They’re not her kids. Carmen and Tommy can’t be hers, she was inside …’
‘Terry,’ Marnie said.
She touched the photos of Fred and Archie Reid. ‘They’re his boys. Look at their noses. And their eyebrows.’
All four children had the same noses and brows, more defined in Archie because he was the oldest, but even little Tommy had the start of Terry’s straight nose.
‘Shit …’ Noah breathed.
‘We know their father was given a new identity, just like Esther.’
Marnie’s hand stayed on the photos. Her fingers were twitching.
‘Their father … It’s Terry Doyle.’
She lifted her eyes to Noah. ‘He’s Matthew Reid.’
12
Five years ago
You hide in the kitchen. You’re getting the boys’ supper ready, that’s what you tell yourself, but what you’re doing is hiding.
Esther doesn’t come into the kitchen any more. It used to be her favourite room in the house (the oven, the knives), but since you made it safe, she’s lost interest.
It’s hard to cook without knives or heat, but you manage. The boys like cold stuff anyway, bananas and ham rolls, oranges and crisps. Fred used to like grated cheese, but you got rid of the grater when you disconnected the oven. Now the cheese is pre-sliced, like the ham.
Their favourite food comes in tins. You bulk-buy, decant the contents (sweetcorn, ravioli, peaches) into plastic containers. Feeding Louisa is harder, because you’re supposed to heat her bottles, but you hide the kettle between feeds. Esther’s good at finding stuff; you have to be so careful. She could find a needle in a haystack. She’s got a sharp eye for sharp things.
The wire coat hanger was the worst.
You’ll never forget the coat hanger.
Blood on the bathroom tiles.
Her handprints, red, everywhere.
She’d straightened it out, somehow. The hanger. It must have taken her hours.
She unwound the hook so that she had a sharp end. A weapon.
You tried to replicate what she’d done, to fill another gap in your understanding, but you couldn’t do it, not without a pair of pliers. She did it with her bare hands.
The things she can do with her bare hands …
It makes you wonder if you’re kidding yourself, hiding the cheese grater, switching off the gas. You can’t switch off the electricity; the boys like TV too much.
There’s only so much you can do.
‘I can’t watch her every second of every day,’ you told them.
You have to go to work. You have to work up the courage to leave in the mornings, not knowing what you’ll come home to.
The coat hanger was bad, but she’s capable of worse.
You can see it in her eyes.
It’s your job to keep them safe. Louisa and the boys. They discharged Esther into your care. You have a job to do. You’re a husband and a dad.
The man of the house.
You’re hiding in the kitchen making soft rolls for supper because you daren’t have anything sharper than a spoon in the house.
All your suits are on plas
tic hangers now. The armpits smell of sweat. You can’t stop sweating and it stinks. Fear, a hundred per cent proof. At work they’ve started avoiding you. You’ve stopped taking the lift in case someone remarks on the smell. And anyway, you can’t risk being stuck in there. You might start punching the walls.
Who would take care of the kids if you got carted off like a crazy person?
You missed your tube stop that day, because you hadn’t slept and you dozed off. You ran all the way home, but when you got there you stood like an idiot (coward) for a full minute before you went inside.
Fred and Archie were in the living room, watching TV.
Louisa was sleeping in her cot.
Esther …
Esther was in the bathroom, lying on the floor, with the coat hanger.
You could see the wire bent double in her fist, but you couldn’t see the rest of it because she’d buried it inside herself, out of sight.
Blood, thick, all over her thighs and the floor.
Ever since that …
Every time she goes into the bathroom, you start sweating.
You count the seconds, minutes, until you can’t stand it any longer and you tap on the door with your knuckles, out of respect. She’s on the floor. Nine times out of ten, she’s lying on the floor, staring at the place where the light bulb used to be.
Bile burns in your throat. ‘Esther?’
She rolls her head at the neck and looks at you.
She’s fine. Not dead. Not bleeding.
You let the breath out of your lungs and realise, with a fresh wave of self-loathing, that you were hoping for something else.
The kids are fine. The kids are safe.
And you’d allowed yourself to hope that it might be over.
13
Now
‘Beth’s here, but Terry’s gone.’
‘Where?’ Marnie asked. At her side, Noah tensed, listening to the phone call.
‘I don’t know.’ Debbie’s voice thinned to static. ‘The squad car was waiting. I thought it was okay because he was with Ed Belloc …’
‘Let me speak to Mr Belloc.’ Marnie waited a beat. ‘DC Tanner? Put Ed on.’
‘He’s not here. Boss, I’m sorry.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I thought they were in the squad car, that’s where they were headed. I was waiting with Gill for Beth to wake up, and Terry and Ed went out to the squad car, but they didn’t get in. The driver didn’t see where they went, said he was checking his phone and didn’t see—’
Marnie cut her short. ‘They’re both missing, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Both of them, yes.’
‘Bring Beth back here.’ Marnie ended the call, speed-dialling Ed’s number.
It didn’t even get the chance to ring, because the phone was switched off.
Ed never switched his phone off. Noah was speaking, but she couldn’t hear past the scrabble of panic in her skull. Ed …
‘The children,’ she said, when she was able to speak. ‘We need to find the children.’
‘I’ll organise a second search team,’ Noah said. ‘For Terry, and Ed.’
‘We need to find Carmen and Tommy.’ She was glad her voice didn’t shake. ‘That’s our priority. Let’s stay focused. Two young children are missing. We need to get them back.’
14
Marnie put the photographs of the four children in a line on the interview table.
‘Carmen and Thomas Doyle. You recognised them, didn’t you? You knew they were Matthew’s children.’
‘I didn’t know …’ Alison twisted her hands on the table. ‘About Matt. About his new family. I didn’t know he was living in that place. I didn’t know he was the one …’
‘The one who found them? It was him. He found Fred and Archie in the bunker where you left them.’ Marnie put a fifth photo on the table. ‘He’s Terry Doyle now. He has a new family. His wife is pregnant with their third child.’
Alison put her hand over the photo of her ex-husband’s face. ‘Where is he?’
‘We don’t know. We saw him this morning, when his children were reported gone. He was with a victim care officer. Matt and the VCO went missing forty minutes ago.’
Alison didn’t speak. She kept her hand over the photo of her ex-husband’s face.
‘You said Esther did this.’ Marnie touched the photos of Matt Reid’s new children. ‘When we asked if you’d taken Carmen and Thomas, you said yes. What did you mean?’
‘I’m responsible. It’s my fault. I … broke him.’
‘Matthew, your husband.’
‘They’ll have told him I was getting out. They gave him a new identity but they’d have told him, because of what I did. To him. I destroyed his family. I broke him.’
‘You broke Matt.’
‘Into a thousand pieces,’ Alison said. ‘A thousand tiny pieces.’
She looked up at Marnie with terror in her eyes.
‘He’s not safe. You have to find him. You have to help him. If he’s the one who found Fred and Archie, and now these new children … his children … He’s not safe.’
• • •
‘You said it’s not Esther we should be worried about.’ Noah sat opposite Connie. ‘What did you mean?’
‘It broke her,’ Connie said, ‘clean in two. But their father … He’s the one I’d be watching, if I were you. Esther was in two, but him? He was in pieces. Still is, I should say.’
‘This is Matthew Reid. Matt.’
Connie nodded. ‘He doesn’t go by Matt now, I imagine. The papers were cruel. No one could believe he didn’t see it coming. You should’ve heard them … He was less than a man. Or else he drove her to it. An animal. Couldn’t keep his own kids safe …’
‘Matt has a new identity too. You knew that?’
‘I assumed it,’ she said crisply. ‘He needed a new life, almost more than she did. At least they sent her somewhere to get well, to try to get well … There was no help for him, none at all. Not that I’m saying a new name makes a difference, but he deserved a second shot. He was a good man, Matt. He did his best by her, and he loved those children. Oh, he loved them. Nothing was too much, until she was.’ Connie looked away from Noah. ‘She was too much for all of us.’
‘Did you know his new name?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t help him. I thought he’d moved away, like I did. Made a fresh start. I didn’t keep in touch because what was the point? We were no use to one another. Barely any use to ourselves.’
‘He didn’t move away. He was on Blackthorn Road. He’s Terry Doyle now.’ Noah touched the photos of Carmen and Tommy. ‘These are his children, and they’re missing. So’s Matt, and a victim care officer who was trying to help him.’
Connie closed her eyes, then opened them on his face. ‘I suppose … he couldn’t stay away. He needed to be close to them. Fred and Archie. I was the opposite, couldn’t bear to be anywhere that reminded me of them. There’s not a thing of theirs doesn’t drag me back to that hell. But maybe Matt had to be near them. He loved them almost too much.’
Too much love.
‘They’ll have told him she was coming out,’ Connie said. ‘They had to do that. He was her victim too. He’ll have known she was coming out. That’ll have scared him. It put the fear of God into me, and she’s my own flesh and blood.’
‘Do you think he’s dangerous?’
‘I have no idea. I only know he was devastated by what happened and that he got no professional help whatsoever. They don’t help the husbands of PPP sufferers, did you know that? He saw the worst of her. Heaven only knows what he lived through in that house.’
‘He knew where Fred and Archie were buried,’ Noah said. ‘He must have done. How else was he living in that house?’
‘I imagine he did the job the police failed to do.’ Matter-of-factly, no accusation in her voice but plenty in her stare, like black ice. ‘He looked for them, and he found them.’
‘Why did he look for
them? When she said they’d drowned …’
‘Neither of us believed that. We told the police we didn’t believe it, but she was convincing. She could be very convincing.’
‘How did Terry find the boys?’
‘Through Ian Merrick, I imagine.’ Connie’s eyes sparked coldly. ‘He hated her working there as much as I did.’
‘Why did the pair of you hate that so much?’
‘Because of the sort of man Merrick is. Immoral. He preys on people’s weaknesses, their need for security. Builds cheap, sells high. He’s repulsive. And he was poison for her. Toxic. Always whispering about safety, about panic rooms and hiding places. If she wasn’t mad before, he helped drive her there.’
‘I spoke with your neighbour, Denis Walton. He said you and Esther fell out over the development at Beech Rise.’
‘We fell out over Merrick. That man? He hasn’t got a heart, he’s got a swinging brick.’
‘Why did you leave so suddenly after Esther’s arrest? Denis said you went overnight, with the travellers.’
Connie shrugged. ‘I’d made friends, people who knew the sort of man Merrick was. I couldn’t stay, could I? The press were all over us. She was gone. There was nothing left of her until they got to work with the pills. You’re too young to have children, but imagine looking at someone you love and finding them gone. Right there in front of you but gone. No trace left. You’d have upped sticks too, if you had any sense.’
She drew a breath. ‘I went back once she showed signs of getting better. Of course I did. I’m not heartless, but right at that minute? When they were gone and with the press slavering everywhere? I couldn’t bear it. So yes, I ran. I saw a quick way out and I took it.’
‘Matt was living in that house for a year before he called the police.’ A year before he opened the bunker, if Fran was right about the manhole staying shut as long as it did. ‘Why?’
‘Why did he live there, or why did he wait so long to call you? Perhaps it was enough for him to be near them. Then I imagine he panicked when he heard she was coming out. I panicked, and as I say, we’re flesh and blood.’
The timing made sense. They were called to Snaresbrook just after Terry would have been told that his ex-wife was being paroled. What didn’t make sense was why he’d lived for so long next to his sons’ graves without reporting it.
