by Sibel Hodge
‘Or she could’ve moved abroad.’
‘No, I remember asking Mr Cook that almost a year after she’d gone and he said she’d never applied for a passport. And anyway, why would Tom tell me he’d buried her under the garage?’
‘He told you he’d killed Georgia, for God’s sake, and she’s perfectly fine!’
‘Like I said, he’s mixing up the stories. I could understand him getting confused about Georgia, but Katie’s different. She really did go missing and hasn’t been heard from again.’
‘We are not digging up the garage because Dad’s mixing up stories.’ He opened the fridge door, pulled out a beer without offering me one and unscrewed the cap. He took a big swig, his eyes angry narrow slits.
‘Look, I know how this sounds, but—’
‘I don’t think you do. Are you actually listening to what you’re saying?’
I stood up, poured a glass of chilled white wine from the fridge and slumped back down on the stool. Sod the headache. I needed to feel the warmth of alcohol as it broke through the cold, hard horror and softened everything around the edges, making it all fuzzy and less real, less horrific.
‘We’re not going to the police. If we do, we’ll have forensics and officers swarming around. We live in a village! Everyone will find out about this. Imagine how they’ll react! This is going to affect all the family, and the ones who will suffer the most of all will be Anna and Charlotte, so you need to think very carefully before you carry on with your crusade.’
‘I’ve thought about that. Of course I have. I’ve been plagued with thoughts about what this could mean for all of us. The damage it will do to the whole family. But how can we ignore it? Just because he’s got Alzheimer’s doesn’t mean he’s not telling the truth. We have to tell the police! How can we suspect she’s under there and not do anything?’
‘We don’t suspect anything. You do.’
‘So, you’re perfectly happy with walking over a skeleton, if she’s down there, are you?’ I challenged him with a tilt of my head. ‘You’re perfectly happy with Anna and us living in this house with the possibility there’s a fucking body out there?’ I knocked back a third of my wine.
He blew out an angry sigh, hand on hip.
‘You should’ve heard him. He was scared and upset and he kept saying it was an accident.’
Ethan clamped his jaw shut tight, the muscles working under the skin.
‘I think that she was seeing him secretly. I think she wanted him to get her away from Jack and Rose because—’
‘Why would she want that? It’s insane!’
‘Because Tom had money. She’d set her sights on Chris – don’t you remember? How she kept pressuring him to get a place together and settle down?’
‘Exactly. So she wouldn’t get involved with Dad, would she?’
‘But when Chris finished with her I think she got more desperate. She couldn’t afford to get her own place with the wages she earned in the shop so she was probably trying it on with Tom because he would be able to support her. Give her the family security she must’ve longed for. She just wanted to get away from Rose and Jack but couldn’t afford to do it on her own. And when it looked like she couldn’t get Chris to help her, maybe she turned to Tom. And maybe she was threatening to expose their affair and Tom got angry with her.’
‘Oh, God.’ The colour suddenly drained from his face.
‘What?’
He scrubbed a hand over his smooth cheeks. ‘She tried it on with me once.’
‘What? When? Why didn’t you say anything?’ My eyes widened.
‘Because I wasn’t interested and it didn’t seem important at the time. Chris had finished with her but he was obviously still in love with her, and I wasn’t about to upset him or you over it by mentioning what had happened. It was best left untold. Like I said, she was a troublemaker. She probably did it to try and split us up because she was jealous.’
‘My best friend trying it on with my boyfriend’s not important? Of course it is.’ I slammed my glass down on the island. ‘What happened?’
‘It was nothing. I was at the Kings’ Arms one night with Lucas and Chris. We were having a game of darts or snooker, or something. An old school mate came in just before last orders. Do you remember Colin Montgomery?’
I thought back. Colin always used to smell of lemons for some reason.
I nodded.
‘Anyway, I got chatting to him, and Lucas and Chris left before me. At chucking out time, I said goodbye to Colin, who was heading in the other direction, and walked home. As I was going past the bus stop, I saw Katie there, sitting down. The last thing I wanted was to get into a conversation with her, but I knew the last bus had already gone at that time, and I didn’t want to see her waiting there on her own. Didn’t even really understand why she was waiting there, anyway. I mean, where was she going at just after 11 p.m.?
‘Anyway, I stopped and we had a bit of small talk, then before I knew it she stood up and made a play for me.’
I tilted my head. ‘What do you mean, “a play”?’
‘She actually walked up to me and put her arms round my neck and tried to kiss me. I took a step back and unwound them, holding her at arm’s length. I just laughed and made a joke of it at first. She stunk of alcohol, too. But she tried again. Tried to pull me towards her, and she said something about us going in the woods for a fuck, and that you’d never find out.’
A stabbing pain squeezed at my throat like something sharp stuck inside. ‘Go on.’
‘Well.’ He shrugged casually. ‘I just laughed. I told her she was pissed and she should go home. Then she got angry, called me fucking queer or something, and I just walked off and left her there.’ He drained the dregs of beer. ‘And that was that. I turned her down and forgot about it.’ He threw his bottle in the bin underneath the sink with a loud crash and opened another. ‘Do you want a top-up?’ He glanced at my now-empty glass.
‘Yes. I think I need it.’ I forced the igniting anger back down.
He sloshed more pale golden liquid into my glass and put the bottle back in the fridge before sitting down next to me.
‘When was that?’
He shrugged. ‘I can’t remember exactly. I don’t know how long it was after Chris had dumped her.’ Before I could think any more about what a betrayal Katie’s actions were, he said, ‘Do you seriously think she then tried it on with Dad and they had an affair?’
‘It seems the most likely thing.’
‘That bitch.’
‘She wasn’t a bitch,’ I said automatically, used to defending her like I always had. But now I didn’t know what she was. In return for my loyalty and friendship she’d tried to sleep with my boyfriend. A boyfriend she knew I was in love with. Still, it was years ago. Too late to worry about it now. We had more important things to worry about. ‘She was . . . she was living a shitty life with no one to love her. That’s what she was after. All the sleeping around was about searching for someone to love and take care of her. I just didn’t get it at the time. She kept everything locked deep inside. I never saw her cry, you know. Never once in all the years I’d known her. And now I think about what it must’ve been like in that house with Rose and Jack pissed out of their heads, having to look after herself and grow up before her time.’
The words in her letter swam into my head again.
I’m leaving this place and you can’t stop me. You know what you both did. I hope you rot in hell!
Good riddance!
‘And if Jack abused her, then . . .’ I trailed off. ‘Well, wouldn’t you want to get away?’
‘Abused her?’
I told him about my suspicions.
He slumped further down on the stool. ‘I can’t bloody take this in. Wouldn’t she have said something if Jack had been . . . well, I can’t even say it. I mean, Katie wasn’t
some quiet wallflower. She had a mouth on her. Why wouldn’t she tell anyone?’
‘A lot of child abuse victims blame themselves. Maybe she was scared to tell the truth in case no one believed her. Maybe Katie did tell Rose but Rose ignored it and let it carry on. Maybe Katie didn’t want to admit it was even going on.’
‘Then isn’t it more likely that if something happened to her, it was Jack?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. If Jack was involved in her disappearance, why did Tom say he’d buried her?’
‘It doesn’t make sense. None of this does. He’s just confused.’ But his voice sounded doubtful now.
‘I don’t want to believe it, either, but too many things aren’t adding up.’ I reached out and threaded my fingers through his. ‘But we have to see if she’s under there, Ethan. You know that, don’t you?’
Chapter Fifteen
They came with their vehicles and white suits and equipment. From the kitchen window I could see the double garage at a diagonal angle. The wooden doors were open, but I couldn’t see what they were doing inside. Didn’t want to see that.
I stood, cradling a cup of cold coffee, wondering if I should go out there and offer them all one. What was the proper hospitality etiquette when police were looking for a dead body on your property?
There was only room for one van on the drive with both Ethan’s and my car already there, and it belonged to the scene of crime officers. The plainclothes police officers who’d introduced themselves as Detective Inspector Spencer and Detective Sergeant Khan parked their black Ford Mondeo on the road outside, along with another woman’s BMW. The gates to the drive were open and anyone walking past could see the van emblazoned with ‘Crime Scene Investigation Unit’ in plain view. That would get the gossip-mongers’ tongues firing on all cylinders.
‘What are we going to say when people notice that van on the drive?’ Ethan sat at the island, laptop open in front of him on the counter, eyes bloodshot and hair spiked up where he’d been running his hands through it. He was supposed to be sending some work emails that couldn’t wait, but really he’d been staring out of the window since they arrived with some kind of imaging equipment, like I had. ‘Maybe we should just say the garage was broken into.’
I glanced at him with exasperation. ‘And say what, that someone broke into the garage and deposited a body under the concrete floor, then left? Oh, wow, how did that happen?’
‘Well, they’re not going to find anything. This is all a ridiculous waste of everyone’s time. Just like it was with Georgia. Not to mention the expense of digging up the bloody floor and relaying it. And, more importantly, what are we going to tell Anna when she sees a hole in the floor?’ He shot me a filthy look.
I chewed on my lip. I’d dropped off her school uniform over to Nadia’s late last night and asked if she could stay there. Anna was pretty chuffed about it in the end since she got to spend a school night having a sleepover with her cousin. We hadn’t told Nadia what it was all about yet. Ethan insisted there was no point. He thought the police would discover that Katie really wasn’t down there and we could all forget about it. No point upsetting everyone for absolutely no reason, he’d said. He thought it was all some kind of macabre mistake. I thought he was in denial.
A loud noise from what sounded like a hammer drill reverberated through the windows.
Poppy shot out of the kitchen and ran up the stairs to get away from it. She probably thought it was thunder, which she hated. I could picture her now, cowering in the shower cubicle, shaking. Usually, I’d sit with her, stroking and reassuring her, but I couldn’t then. I had to see what was going on. Like a rubbernecker at an accident scene, I was glued in place by an invisible tape.
My stomach cramped and the orange juice I’d drunk for breakfast burned inside. I hadn’t been able to eat any real food for fear of bringing it back up again.
‘Oh, my God.’ I dropped my head into my hand, tugging at my roots. ‘If they’re digging, they must’ve found something with that imaging stuff.’
‘I can’t concentrate with all that racket going on. I’m going to take the dog out. I need some air.’ Ethan slammed the laptop shut so hard I’m surprised he didn’t crack it. He managed to coax a shaking Poppy out the door and when he left, I suddenly felt calmer, as if his anger had been permeating into me by osmosis. He was like that, you see. If things went wrong and he felt powerless or unable to protect his family in some way, he let it out by shouting or being defensive. Maybe he felt like I was criticising him, or that I thought he was a failure or something. I don’t know. Men really are from Mars sometimes.
I’m not sure how long I stood in that position while the drilling pounded inside my head and out. When it stopped some time later, my ears were hypersensitive and I could still hear ringing, like a bad case of tinnitus you get after going to a nightclub. I took the ironing board out of the utility room, plugged in the iron and got to work tackling a big pile of clothes I’d been putting off, hoping the mundane task would take my mind off things.
It didn’t. Every few moments my gaze strayed back to the garage again.
DS Khan emerged in her all-in-one white jumpsuit and stood outside the garage doors, talking on her mobile phone. She was Indian with smooth dark skin and almond-shaped eyes. Tall, slim and, before she’d donned the suit, immaculately turned out in black skinny trousers tucked into calf-high leather boots and a navy blue silk mac. She could easily have been a model. I wished the window was open so I could hear her, but I’d shut it to drown out the noise. I watched her, craning my neck, straining to hear, but the double glazing Tom had put in all those years ago was so efficient I couldn’t make out anything. She nodded a few times, frowning deeply. I wanted to tell her not to do that too often or she’d end up with a wrinkled forehead later in life. Nadia always frowned from between her eyebrows, so she had two tiny vertical lines above the bridge of her nose that were barely noticeable. I, on the other hand, had a more expressive face. My forehead was always creasing up in surprise, or with a question, or when I made a humorous remark, and the result was a very lined forehead.
I heard a sizzling sound and glanced down, noticing I’d burned a brownish stain onto one of Ethan’s favourite salmon-pink work shirts.
‘Shit!’ I yelled, as a raging anger exploded to the surface, which wasn’t like me. I was usually pretty calm in a crisis, but I was angry with Tom for putting us in this position. Angry with Ethan for walking out and leaving me to deal with it when it was his own dad who was involved in all this. Angry with myself for not doing more to help Katie when I had the chance. And angry just because I could be.
I practically threw the iron back in its holder on the ironing board as tears sprang into my eyes.
When I glanced up DS Khan was off the phone and watching me through the window. I gave her a half smile but it twitched on my face and probably made me look as if I was having a stroke. She didn’t smile back. Not a good sign. Instead, she disappeared back inside the garage.
I switched the iron off, unable to concentrate on even that, and left it sitting in the ironing board to cool, scowling at it. My stomach gurgled with a mixture of hunger and acidic reflux.
The phone rang, then, making me jump.
‘What’s going on?’ Nadia said when I picked it up. ‘I just drove past your house and there’s some crime scene van there. Don’t tell me you’ve been burgled.’ She carried on before I could say anything. ‘Is that why you wanted Anna to stay? You should’ve just said!’
I stared at the garage again. ‘Not quite.’ Although I did feel the same as if we’d been burgled − violated, angry, stressed, upset, vulnerable.
‘What’s going on? You sound weird.’ Her voice became suspicious. ‘I’m coming round when I’ve dropped off some paperwork to the office, OK?’
Before I could protest, she’d hung up.
Great. Now Ethan would blame me
for shooting my mouth off to Nadia, too. I worked my neck from side to side, trying to get rid of the painful knots of tension forming, gaze firmly back on the garage.
DI Spencer emerged first, followed by DS Khan. Spencer was older than Khan, who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. If I had to hazard a guess, based on the grey at the temples of his fair hair, the paunch around his stomach and the bags underneath his eyes, I’d say he was in his early fifties. I watched them strip off their white suits, walk up the part of the driveway I could still see at this angle and then disappear. A few seconds later there was a knock at the front door. I’d been expecting it, but it still made my stomach jump into my throat and my heart beat in an irregular pattern for a fraction of a second before settling back into rhythm again.
I wiped my clammy palms on my denim cut-off shorts and walked towards the door.
‘Can we come in?’ DI Spencer said with an expressionless face. Close up, the bags were more pronounced and his eyes were red. I wondered briefly if he suffered from hay fever. The rape seed had been terrible this year.
It sounded like a question but it really wasn’t. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, so I held the door open and waved them through into the hallway, and they followed me into the kitchen.
‘Um . . . do you want a coffee or . . . something?’ I leaned my hip on the island to keep me upright.
‘No, thanks.’ DS Khan smiled but it was practised and sympathetic. A smile I often used at work when I had to give a patient some bad news.
There was banging at the front door then.
‘Sorry, hang on.’ I walked down the corridor and felt them watching my back, their eyes assessing me.
As soon as I saw Nadia there I burst into tears. I couldn’t contain it any longer. I knew from their sombre expressions and their air of quiet seriousness exactly what they were going to tell me.
Katie Quinn really was buried under my garage.
Nadia took one look at my face and, without saying anything, she enveloped me in her arms, my head resting on her shoulder.
