by Simon Booker
Not a clue.
Without a surname, Morgan has no idea how to begin looking for Karl’s crony. Lissa never met the man, or any of her ex’s friends. Is Spike even his real name? Are he and Karl on the lam together? Or does he have a roof over his head? Is he giving Karl shelter? Is the drug-dealing duo still in business? Have they expanded their operation to include a baby farm operating behind bars?
As Morgan’s research continues, Lissa busies herself by babysitting Ryan while Stacey works long hours. An unlikely bond seems to be growing between the two young women. On more than one occasion Morgan sees them locked in earnest conversation, once half-hearing what sounds like a heated argument. When asked what the row was about, Lissa shrugs.
‘Arsenal, probably.’
An obvious lie – Lissa hates football – but Morgan decides not to press the point.
‘What do you find to talk about?’
‘Pregnancy stuff: morning sickness, episiotomies, breastfeeding.’
On the one hand, Morgan feels jealous that this charmless, stroppy stranger seems to have usurped her role as Lissa’s confidante; on the other, she knows that any advice a mother offers is likely to be ignored or, worse, backfire. She would happily listen to her daughter’s ruminations over the pregnancy and play devil’s advocate for as long as it takes, but this must be Lissa’s decision.
Returning to her room, fresh from a Friday morning swim, Morgan finds Stacey tidying the notes and press clippings littering her bed. The cleaner points to a handwritten heading in a Moleskine notebook. How did Kiki die?
‘Says here you think someone pushed her off the cliff.’
No apology for snooping. Morgan lets it pass.
‘It’s one possibility.’
Stacey starts making the bed.
‘I reckon she jumped.’
‘Maybe. It’s important to consider all angles.’
‘Why would anyone push her?’
‘Good question.’
The woman strips the sheets from the bed, still focused on the notebook.
‘You put Trevor Jukes’s name top of the list.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are these all suspects? People with motives to murder Kiki?’
‘Possibly.’
‘So why’ve you written Karl Savage? He’s dead.’
Morgan picks up the notebook and closes the cover.
‘I find it helps to think on paper,’ she says. ‘I’m determined to find out what happened to your friend and her baby. Isn’t that what you want?’
‘’Course I do. But you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
‘You sound very sure.’
The woman stares at her. She seems on the verge of saying something but the conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Lissa, holding a bawling Ryan in her arms.
‘He’s been sick twice and he won’t stop crying.’
Stacey frowns.
‘Can’t you see I’m working?’
‘Er, yes,’ says Lissa. ‘But he’s your baby.’
Rolling her eyes, the woman takes her son in her arms and stomps out of the room like a sulky teenager. The baby’s cries slowly recede into the distance.
‘What were you talking about?’ says Lissa.
‘Kiki.’
‘Any news?’
‘No,’ says Morgan. ‘But I can’t help wondering if Stacey knows more than she’s letting on. Has she said anything to you?’
‘No,’ says Lissa, picking up the Moleskine notebook. ‘Can I look at your notes?’
‘Of course.’
Lissa sits on the bed and begins to flick through the pages. Morgan hears the baby’s cries dying away. She closes the door then goes into the bathroom to take a shower, trying to suppress a feeling of gathering gloom.
*
Eight days into Stacey Brown’s new life ‘on the out’, a van delivers a package by registered post. Morgan happens to be walking through reception when the pink-haired woman opens the Jiffy bag. She catches a glimpse of what looks like two passports.
That evening, she treats Lissa to supper at the local chippy, There’s a Plaice for Us. She makes it clear that she’s expecting a heart-to-heart – just her and her daughter – but it’s not long before the conversation turns to Stacey.
‘Can we lend her some cash?’ says Lissa.
‘Who’s “we”?’
A sigh.
‘Can you lend her some?’
‘What for?’
‘She needs to get to Cornwall so she can leave Ryan with her mum while she gets her life back on track.’
Morgan considers the request while sprinkling vinegar on her haddock.
‘Can’t you lend her some money? Out of your allowance from your dad?’
‘I already have. She’s cleaned me out.’
Morgan frowns.
‘How much have you lent her?’
‘Over three hundred. She’s got lots of debts.’
Picking up a chip, Morgan studies her daughter’s face.
‘How long would the loan be for?’
‘Not long. She just needs to look for another job, find somewhere to live.’
‘Isn’t Eric paying her?’
‘Only minimum wage. And her mum’s on benefits so Stacey needs to give her some dosh and pay the train fare.’
Morgan is struck by a thought.
‘If she’s going to Cornwall, why does she need a passport?’
Lissa rolls her eyes. ‘I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.’
*
That night, unable to sleep, Morgan braves torrential rain, driving to the petrol station and withdrawing £250 from the ATM.
‘Thanks,’ says Stacey on being presented with the cash the following morning, while polishing the reception’s refectory table.
‘What part of Cornwall?’ says Morgan.
‘Sorry?’
‘Where does your mother live?’
The woman looks away, tucking the cash into the pocket of her dungarees.
‘Ilfracombe.’
‘Lovely,’ says Morgan. ‘Have a good time.’
‘Cheers.’
*
The rain shows no sign of letting up. After an early supper, Morgan overhears Stacey asking Eric for directions to Ashford station.
‘I can give you a lift,’ she says.
‘No need,’ says Stacey. ‘I’ll get a taxi.’
‘Save your money. What time’s your train?’
‘Nine in the morning.’
‘We’ll leave at eight,’ says Morgan. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’
She watches as Stacey goes into her room, then she knocks softly on the door of ‘Dragonfly’.
‘Lissa?’
Her daughter emerges, pale and drawn.
‘I’m watching EastEnders.’
Morgan enters the room and closes the door. ‘We need to have a conversation.’
‘About?’
‘Ilfracombe isn’t in Cornwall,’ says Morgan. ‘It’s in Devon.’
Her daughter frowns.
‘So?’
‘So why is Stacey lying about where she’s going?’
For half an hour Morgan grills her daughter on Stacey’s true intentions. Lissa insists she knows nothing beyond what she has already told her mother. Morgan decides to give her the benefit of the doubt.
‘Come to the station in the morning. Let’s see what happens.’
Overnight, the rain eases, leaving a misty start to the day. As the Radio 4 pips signal eight o’clock, Morgan loads Stacey’s holdall into the boot while her daughter cradles Ryan in her arms.
‘No baby seat. Can I hold him till Ashford?’
Stacey shrugs, tying her Arsenal scarf around her neck.
‘Whatever.’
The drive takes forty-five minutes and passes almost entirely in strained silence.
‘When are you coming back?’ says Morgan.
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
; ‘How things go.’
‘In Ilfracombe?’
‘Yep.’
Pulling up outside the station, Morgan watches the woman strap the baby into the papoose. She’s expecting Stacey to hug Lissa goodbye but there is no display of affection, merely a curt goodbye. No eye contact. Like lovers after a row.
‘Now what?’ sighs Lissa as they watch Stacey head for the ticket office. Morgan steers the Mini in the direction of the car park.
‘We follow her. Thank God for the pink hair.’
Minutes later, Morgan and Lissa peer out from the crowded platform café, watching Stacey jostle with commuters boarding the train to St Pancras. They watch as she takes a table seat, facing the direction of travel. Sneaking onto the adjoining carriage, careful to stay out of sight of their quarry, Morgan steers her daughter to a seat facing the rear of the train. Peering through the connecting doors, she sees Stacey in the next carriage, snapping open a can of Red Bull.
‘What if she sees us?’ says Lissa.
‘We’ll make sure she doesn’t.’
The journey takes just over half an hour. Morgan gazes out of the window as dormitory towns flash by. Lissa closes her eyes, leaning against the headrest, but Morgan can tell she’s not asleep.
‘Are you OK, Lissa?’
No reply.
As the train pulls into London, they wait for the woman in the red and white scarf to disembark. Keeping their distance, they follow her along the platform, through the ticket barrier and down an escalator. They hang back as she stops to scan a cluster of signs. The Underground is straight ahead but Stacey heads in the opposite direction. Morgan and Lissa continue their pursuit, trailing their quarry past Marks & Spencer and Boots.
Ignoring signs for the toilets, Stacey heads for the left luggage office. Morgan takes cover behind a pillar, watching her quarry reach the counter. Stacey looks around, eyes roving the busy concourse. She checks her watch then blows out her cheeks and lets the holdall fall to the ground. Casting another glance at her watch, she checks it against the station clock, her gaze almost landing in Lissa’s direction.
Morgan darts behind the pillar, pulling her daughter close. When she looks again, Stacey is talking to a man. Bald, stocky. He has his back to Morgan. She can’t see his face. She watches as he fishes something from his pocket – a slip of paper. He’s saying something, wagging a finger at Stacey. She snatches the piece of paper from his hand. The man pats Ryan on the head then turns towards the exit. As he walks away, Morgan catches a glimpse of his profile and gasps.
‘What?’ says Lissa.
‘Trevor Jukes. From the prison.’
They watch Stacey hand the slip of paper to the attendant at the left luggage counter then fumble in her dungarees for her passport. The man scans her ID then walks into the back of the office, reappearing moments later with two Tesco bags. Pulling Lissa back behind the pillar, Morgan watches Stacey delve into the bags and produce two large cans. The labels look familiar. Baby formula.
Morgan frowns, thinking aloud.
‘But she’s breastfeeding.’
They watch the woman transfer the tins from the Tesco bag to her holdall then walk in the direction of the Underground. Following at a steady pace, they join the swarm of commuters streaming towards King’s Cross. Emerging from St Pancras, they follow her into the adjoining station and towards the Tube.
‘Piccadilly line,’ says Morgan. ‘My guess? We’re heading for Heathrow.’
Stacey passes through the barrier, swiping her Oyster card then heading down the escalator. Morgan and Lissa follow suit. Hanging back at the far end of the platform, jostling with the crowds, they watch as the woman with the papoose squeezes her way onto the first train that pulls in.
They board the adjoining carriage, Morgan keeping tabs on Stacey through the linking door. The carriage is hot and crowded. Standing room only. Lissa stares into the middle distance, face flushed.
‘Are you feeling OK?’
‘Fuck’s sake, Mum, stop asking if I’m OK.’
At each stop commuters get off, heading for offices and shops. It’s not long before the train is half empty, then almost deserted, apart from Morgan, Lissa and their quarry in the next carriage. Morgan flicks through a tattered copy of Metro. Lissa dozes.
An hour later the train pulls in at Heathrow. Morgan and Lissa trail Stacey as she follows signs for ‘Departures’. They join the throng gliding upwards on a series of escalators, maintaining a safe distance as Stacey scans a monitor then joins a check-in queue.
Morgan squints at the illuminated logo above the desk.
Turkish Airlines.
A flight number.
Destination: Istanbul.
Nineteen
KARL
He lets the beam from his torch range over the dank cellar. His books, his supply of chocolate, the picture of Guy Fawkes on the lid of the tin. He can hear the distant sound of the fireworks party in the garden next door.
Whoosh . . . Bang . . .
Ooooh . . . Aaaah . . ..
Same as last birthday. And the birthday before. The cellar is still cold, still damp, but better than it used to be. He’s made sure of that, little by little over the years: a cushion for his head, a duvet instead of a blanket and a plentiful supply of batteries for his torch, so he can read.
Sci-fi, mainly. Any world is better than this one.
At least it’s only weekends – after school on Friday until bath time on Sunday evening. The rest of the week she lets him have the run of the house. He’s not clear why, because she still won’t talk to him.
Not a single word in the five years since Dad died.
Not.
One.
Word.
That’s the hardest part. Not the cellar, not the cold – the silence.
He hears her talking to other people. Men she brings back from the pub on a Friday night – one man in particular, the man Karl calls The Whistler. But she never talks to him. Never to her son.
Maybe she finds having him around on weekdays easier because he’s at school most of the day. Yes, that must be it, because during the holidays he has to spend more time down here. Or maybe she just doesn’t want him getting in her way on weekends, when she brings men home.
He has protested, on more than one occasion, but not for long. She has ways of making her displeasure known. Ways he doesn’t want to think about. Better to just go along with it.
Besides, he’s used to it now. You can get used to anything. This is normal – for him, at least. He knows it’s not the case for other people. He’s been to friends’ houses. Birthday parties, things like that.
The mother of a school friend asked if everything was OK at home. Karl said yes. Simpler that way.
She comes to school when she has no choice. Parents’ meetings, that sort of thing. She takes him to the dentist or doctor when necessary. Pretends to be interested, puts on a good show. No one would know.
But now she’s pregnant. Presumably by The Whistler or one of the other blokes from the pub. She’s grown so bloody fat it’s impossible for anyone to tell she’s going to have a baby. Karl wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t chanced upon the pregnancy test in the bin.
He hasn’t mentioned it. What would be the point? She won’t tell him anything. A baby is almost certainly not what she had in mind, but he can’t be sure if it counts as good news or bad news.
He closes his eyes, wishing it could be good news.
So she’ll be in a better mood. Maybe talk to him.
But he hears Dad’s voice in his head.
If wishes were horses then beggars would ride . . .
Twenty
Thirty-six hours after Stacey flies to Istanbul, dusk falls over Dungeness beach as Morgan parks around the corner from the prison. In the distance, the black and white lighthouse, built in 1904, is a quaint reminder of another era, a time long gone, a time of lost innocence. The old-style café that sits alongside the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway still offers i
ced buns and tea from an urn. Today more than ever, the wind singing eerily in the telegraph wires sounds like music from a horror movie, and the bleak, windswept landscape feels like the land that time forgot. Inside the prison languishes a woman forgotten by the world. Meanwhile a baby is missing, a woman has lost her life, and a psychopath is back from the dead, impregnating women without their knowledge or consent. If Morgan feels overwhelmed, it’s hardly surprising.
Waiting for Jukes to finish his shift, she kills time by goo-gling surveillance techniques. Tailing Stacey and her baby was one thing; keeping tabs on the prison officer may not be so straightforward. But the websites offer little she doesn’t already know or can’t figure out for herself.
Study your target’s habits and routines.
If following a car at night, put a small strip of reflective tape on the rear bumper.
Two-vehicle surveillance increases the chances of success.
Lissa is confined to her room at the inn, pole-axed by a bout of morning sickness that shows no sign of letting up. If she doesn’t recover by tonight, Morgan will take her to a doctor. She searches the web for articles on nausea in pregnancy but wishes she hadn’t. Severe morning sickness can be a predictor of twins; hormone levels are higher than when expecting a single baby.
Twins?
Fathered by Karl Savage?
Like Nancy Sixmith’s?
She pushes the thought from her mind, forcing herself to focus on Trevor Jukes and his thinly veiled threat.
Take care of yourself. And your lovely daughter.
She silently chastises Neville Rook for not being more rigorous in his questioning of the prison officer, but without new evidence, without something concrete, there’s little point in contacting the DI again.
As Morgan begins to make another roll-up, the sight of Jukes rounding the corner causes her to spill the tobacco onto her lap. Sinking low in her seat, she watches as he walks towards the staff car park, oblivious to her presence, whistling the tune from The Archers. Under his arm is a helmet. Donning it, he stops beside an old Yamaha motorcycle, clambers aboard and fires up the engine. Morgan waits until he reaches the exit and then she begins her pursuit.
With no other vehicles in sight, following the motorbike is almost too easy. Jukes drives at a steady 40 mph, navigating the tarmac road that snakes past the quarry pits and cuts through the huge expanse of shingle. Crossing the railway track, the landscape gives way to another road that leads towards rows of pebbledash bungalows facing out to sea.
