‘Have you taken a fancy to her, John?’ Lucy said, laughing.
‘No, no,’ he said, looking at Gemma, flustered, suddenly embarrassed, standing up straight. ‘It’s not like that.’
Lucy went towards Donia and stroked her hair. ‘Why not? She’s a pretty girl.’
Donia pulled her head away, but Lucy grabbed her hair more tightly, making Donia cry out in pain.
‘He’s saving himself for you,’ Lucy said to Gemma, mocking him. ‘Isn’t that right, John?’
He didn’t answer. Instead, he just blushed and looked down.
Lucy gripped the collar of Donia’s jumper and pulled it back, making Donia’s chest jut out, Donia gasping.
‘She is very pretty though, John, don’t you think?’ Lucy said, and reached down with her other hand and pulled up the bottom of Donia’s jumper, exposing her stomach and her bra.
‘Do you like her now, John?’ Lucy said, her voice softer now, but it was pretence, because she was enjoying herself too much, a malevolent gleam in her eyes.
John didn’t respond. Lucy had a close bond with Henry, and so he didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
‘Why don’t you party with her, like Henry is with Dawn?’ Lucy continued, pouting. ‘Gemma won’t mind.’
‘No, it’s not that,’ John said quietly, and then stopped himself from going any further. Don’t form bonds, that was the rule – because couples become apart from the group and start to look after themselves.
Lucy yanked Donia’s jumper again, exposing her chest, small beads of sweat running down to the lace of her bra. ‘Final decision?’ she said, laughing. ‘If you don’t, I might.’
There was a loud bang and they all jumped. As John looked round, he saw Arni there. He had hit the doorframe with his cane.
‘Leave her for now,’ he said.
Lucy let go of Donia’s jumper, and she slumped back towards the floor, her head hanging down.
‘If that’s how you want it?’ she said.
Arni nodded. ‘That’s how I want it.’
John followed Gemma and Lucy out of the room, not acknowledging Arni as they went past, who was staring at the captive girl.
As they went back into the hall, Arni didn’t shift his gaze away from Donia, and when he finally turned away, there was a smile on his face.
He was keeping Donia for himself.
Charlie had the phone to his chest. Donia couldn’t be his daughter. It didn’t make any sense. Then he thought of her age. Eighteen. He did the sums quickly. Nineteen years since she was conceived. She was from Leeds, where he went to university, nineteen years ago.
‘Charlie, what is it?’ It was Ted, but his voice seemed faint, as if he wasn’t really in the room with him.
Charlie’s mouth went dry. His fingers tingled with nerves. His daughter? But she is mixed race. Charlie was white.
Then a memory came back to him. A party. The last night of his second year. His farewell to exams for the summer, reckless living, sleeping in until lunchtime. He had to get a summer job, and so he was going the next day, heading for Bridlington, where a friend had fixed him up with some work. There was drink. Too much drink. And a local girl, but on the same course. Pretty, dark, her hair cut in a short afro. A room upstairs. She was naked. Charlie had thought about her sometimes, but he had forgotten her name. He remembered her body under him, her gasps, but had he ever known her name? They had taken a risk, but he’d heard nothing from her afterwards. He had forgotten about her, except when he was horny and alone, and he trawled through his memories for stimulation.
Then he remembered that Wilma hadn’t returned for her final year. People had talked about it, but it was soon forgotten in the whirl of exams and having a good time. And it turned out that all the time he was trying to be the hotshot lawyer, he had a daughter growing up in Leeds.
He put the phone back to his ear. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said, his voice quiet.
‘It doesn’t matter what you know,’ Wilma snapped. ‘This is about Donia. She is all I have, but Donia wanted to know about you, Charlie, naturally, and so I told her. That’s why she’s there, with you, to get to know you, and I didn’t want her to go, because I didn’t know how you’d react when you found out. I didn’t want Donia to be hurt emotionally, and now this?’
‘We’ll find her,’ Charlie said. ‘Just call the police. I’ll do the same,’ and then hung up.
He called Julie, his ex-girlfriend.
‘Charlie, are you going to come into the station?’ she said.
‘No, not yet,’ he said. ‘I need your help though.’
‘What is it?’
‘Amelia Diaz was killed last night, as you know. There was a work experience student. Donia Graham. I’ve had a call. The people who killed Amelia say that they have Donia, and they’ll kill her if I don’t hand over what they want.’
‘How do you know it’s not a prank?’
‘Because it’s not funny,’ he said. ‘She was with me. We were at her flat,’ and he gave her the address. ‘Then she had intruders. It’s genuine.’
‘So why are you calling me?’
‘I don’t think I can come in to the police just yet.’
‘Why not?’
He thought about that, and realised that it was for one reason; he was scared. ‘I just can’t, but you can pass this on.’
‘Who are these people?’
‘Just a bunch of kids really, but there are a couple of older ones. Black hair, black clothes. They’ve been hanging around the town centre the last few days. I think they killed Billy Privett and Amelia.’
Julie gasped. ‘Are you sure?’ When Charlie didn’t answer, she said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it, don’t worry.’
‘Thank you,’ Charlie said, and he gave her Donia’s home address. ‘Her mother will be calling,’ and then he hung up.
He put hands to his face. This couldn’t be happening. His mind raced through the last nineteen years. The career, his firm, nineteen years of girlfriends and drink. Just years of being an arsehole, and all the time he’d had a daughter. He thought of Donia. Beautiful, intelligent. His life had drifted along for nineteen years, and there was something there all along, a person who would have given it meaning.
‘Charlie?’
He opened his eyes. Ted was looking at him.
‘We need to find this group,’ Charlie said, and he headed for the door.
Sheldon peered out of his windscreen as he tried to make out the house numbers, looking for John Abbott’s house. He was on a street of seventies semis, with wood panelling under large windows and bright glass porches. He came to a stop at the right number, marine blue on a white tile, like something bought on holiday, but he was confused. There was a large
To Let
sign outside and the house looked vacant. Sheldon remembered the story. His mother had died and he had been left the house. Except that John Abbott was no longer living there.
Sheldon stepped out of his car and looked at the house, and then up and down the road. It was quiet but unremarkable, just low garden walls and saloon cars on the drives. The street was forty years old. People who bought the houses from new would have seen their children grow up and leave, and so now the street looked like pensioners filled it, with heavy floral curtains in the windows and china ornaments visible on the sills.
The wooden gate creaked open and then he went towards the living room window, stepping across the small square of lawn that was unkempt and long, seeded ends blowing in the light breeze. There was a gap in the curtains where they didn’t quite meet, and so he pressed his face against the glass, his hands cupped around his face to keep out the glow from the streetlights. The house was completely empty. There was no furniture, nothing. Just bare floorboards and the red glow of the burglar alarm sensor in the corner of the room, disturbed by his face pressed against the window.
Sheldon stepped back and pursed his lips. He had disturbed the alarm sensor but there was no noise coming from the metal box on the side. Why was that?
He looked around and saw that most houses were in darkness, and he didn’t want to raise suspicions by getting people out of their beds. Then he saw a light shining along a driveway three houses further down the street.
The light came from a pebble-dashed garage at the end of a concrete drive, a man visible through the gap where the battered green wooden doors wouldn’t close properly. As Sheldon got closer, he saw the man was wearing safety goggles and sending up sparks as he messed with something on a workbench.
Sheldon got his identification ready and coughed lightly so as not to alarm him. He stepped around an old bike leaning against the house and tapped on the garage door.
The man lifted up the goggles, surprised. He was in his sixties, with grease etched as black lines along his cheeks.
‘DI Brown from Oulton police,’ Sheldon said. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you.’
The man put down a soldering iron and nodded. ‘It’s late,’ he said, confused. ‘Am I making too much noise?’
‘No, it’s not that, and I apologise for the hour, but I want to ask you some questions about the occupant of number nineteen.’
The man frowned. ‘What about him?’
‘How well did you know him?’
‘Hardly knew him at all. No reason why I should, he wasn’t here long enough, despite what it said in the paper.’
‘What do you mean?’
The man put his goggles on an old red biscuit tin filled with tiny light bulbs and screws. The whole garage was like that, filled with drawers and boxes piled haphazardly on each other, filled with rusted old nuts and bolts and different coloured electrical wiring.
‘He was in court, I read about it, and it said that he had inherited number nineteen from his mother, but he hadn’t. He was lying.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Sheldon said.
‘There
was
no old woman in that house. He had only been there a few weeks himself. Whatever he told the police and the court was a lie, because there was no inheritance. A young family lived there, but they had it repossessed when the husband lost his job. A nice man, a real shame. But that is why it is empty, because the bank took it back and sold it in auction to a property company. We’ve had all sorts living there since.’
‘Back to John Abbott,’ Sheldon said. ‘So everything that was in the paper was a lie?’
‘Yes, apart from the fact that it was his address, but not for long.’
Sheldon thought about what had been in the paper, and how it matched what was in the file. The paper hadn’t got it wrong. He remembered his thought from earlier, how Abbott seemed determined to get himself before the court, almost as if he wanted to draw attention to himself.
‘Did you see much of him?’ Sheldon asked.
‘No. He didn’t come out much, but he used to get visitors. All in black, they were, and used to arrive in a dirty old van.’
Sheldon nodded. It all fitted. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘A few weeks ago now.’
Sheldon thanked the man and turned away. Just as he walked along the pavement, a pair of headlights swung into view around the corner ahead and then drove quickly towards him. Sheldon’s eyes narrowed and then he tensed.
The car was a silver Audi, and it pulled up sharply behind his car, the tyres grinding along the kerb. The doors opened quickly and two men got out, in their forties, both in dark suits and bright white shirts, thin ties above the three jacket buttons that were fastened tightly.
Sheldon pulled out his identification again and thrust it forward, as they advanced quickly towards him.
‘DI Brown, Oulton police,’ he said quickly.
The two men exchanged glances, and then the taller one nodded. ‘We know, and we need to talk.’
Charlie drove quickly onto a large estate filled with wide new-build housing.
‘What was in the phone call?’ Ted asked, his hands gripping the door handle as tyres screeched, the noise echoing around the curves of white-fronted garages and open plan lawns.
Charlie shook his head. He wasn’t ready to talk about it. ‘We need to make progress,’ he said. ‘Let Sheldon find out about John Abbott. We’ll follow this lead.’
‘Marie Cuffy?’ Ted said.
Charlie screeched to a stop. ‘This looks like the right number,’ he said, looking at a house shrouded in darkness. He was out of the car and heading along the drive before Ted had his seat belt undone.
A light went on as he approached the house. Charlie checked his watch. Nearly eleven o’clock. What response would they get when they rang the doorbell?
As the chimes rang through the house, Charlie knew he was about to find out. Ted appeared behind him but didn’t say anything.
There was the sound of feet on the stairs and then the door flew open. It was a man in shorts and T-shirt, fresh out of bed, in his fifties, his hair grey and short, his skin too tanned.
‘Oh, I thought it might be the police,’ he said.
Charlie stepped forward. ‘Why do you say that, Mr Cuffy?’
His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed, but then he saw Ted Kenyon and he faltered. ‘Mr Kenyon. What can I do for you?’
‘Can we come in, Mr Cuffy?’ Ted said. ‘It’s about Marie.’
His eyes flickered and Charlie thought he paled under his tan. ‘Do you know something?’
‘Please, can we come in?’
‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry, and it’s Ray. No need to be formal.’
As they walked in, they were shown into a spacious and comfortable living room, too big for its purpose, the television large in the corner, the chairs around the edges. It was a picture of suburban serenity, the impression dented slightly by the remains of an evening in. Two empty wine glasses and the smell of Chinese food in the air.
A woman in a silk dressing gown came into the room. ‘I’m Janet Cuffy,’ she said. ‘It’s very late.’
Ray Cuffy stood in front of the fireplace, one arm resting on the mantelpiece. Janet glanced at him and gave a small shrug as she sat down.
Ray spoke first.
‘Mr Kenyon, I know that we’ve never met before, but I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry about, well,’ and he fell silent, dropping his arms.