Frankie (25 page)

‘Shit,' Frankie muttered under her breath. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the man start running towards her, dodging the people who were walking the other way. All pretence of nonchalance dissolved as she started to flee, as quickly as her tired legs would allow.

Frankie was almost off the bridge when he caught up with her. She felt his hand on her shoulder as she stumbled to a stop then turned to face her pursuer. He was a young man, though his hair was thin, and he was stocky and strong-looking. Now that he had caught up with her, he didn't seem to know what to do; or perhaps he was just taken aback by the wildness in Frankie's eyes. In a matter of seconds her demeanour had changed from being thoughtful and quiet to that of a wild animal trapped in a corner. ‘What do you want?' she hissed at him. ‘Leave me alone.' Adrenaline was pumping through her body, not brought on by fear but by another emotion – raw desperation.

‘It's you, isn't it?' the man said loudly so that passers-by could hear – though without exception they hurried past, not wanting to be part of this scene. ‘The one the police want.'

Frankie shook her head without taking her steely blue eyes off his. His partner was by his side now. ‘It's her,' she said, a certain excitement in her voice.

The man took a step forward, half in order to protect the girl, half to make his approach towards Frankie, but in his bravado he was scarcely prepared for what happened next. She stepped right up to him, so that he was only a hair's breadth away. Then she raised her knee as hard as she could and hit him sharply and viciously in the groin. The man bent double, gasping and crumpled over like an inflatable toy devoid of air, as his partner rushed to his aid.

Frankie ignored her. She knew from experience that she had to get away before the few people who had turned to come to the man's aid came at her mob-handed.
She flashed a malevolent glare at the woman, then ran again, disappearing from sight among the commuters heading down towards the station.

She cursed as she ran, a stream of expletives escaping her lips in a way that had not happened for years. The police would be called, there was no doubt about it – they'd be swarming the area within minutes if they thought she was still nearby. But she couldn't get away. She had to go to Newington Park, to revisit the scene of her crime, talk to people and find out where and when she could locate Strut's henchmen. She tore down Waterloo Road, ignoring the annoyed shouts of the people she occasionally bumped into, then hurtled across the busy roundabout of St George's Circus. Cars beeped furiously at her – one even had to swerve to miss her – but she kept running, desperately trying to put as much distance between the bridge and herself as she could, and in the shortest time possible. Once she reached the little park where the vagrants, the drunks and the junkies hung out, she would be anonymous once more.

There it was up ahead. Her chest ached with breathlessness and she was forced to slow down to a brisk walk. Just in time, because, as she did so, a police car came streaming past in the opposite direction, back towards Waterloo. She turned her head to check nobody was following her: there didn't seem to be anybody – she had got away. And then the familiar iron railings of the park were next to her.

She looked through, and couldn't believe what she saw.

Frankie stared into the park for a few moments, then took a deep breath and forced herself to run once more, up to the gate. It creaked open and she walked in, her
glance darting quickly to all corners of the park, but there was no way her eyes were deceiving her. It was practically empty.

It had never occurred to her that this place would ever be cleaned up. The dustbin fires and hopeless vagrants were as much a part of the landscape as the very trees themselves. Stunned, she walked over to the corner of the park where she had fought with Strut. In her memory it had always been cold and claustrophobic; now it seemed open, spacious and, in the sympathetic half-light of dusk, even attractive. She closed her eyes and remembered the sight of Strut lying there, bleeding to death, with Mary whimpering nearby; when she opened them again, all she saw was grass, and a small patch of flowers.

In another corner of the park there was a figure, huddled over on a bench. As she walked towards him, Frankie could see that he was talking to himself – or to some imaginary companion. He had a grizzled, grey beard and wore an old woollen top with a hood that covered the top of his head, almost concealing his eyes. By the time she was a few metres away, Frankie could smell him: a pungent mixture of alcohol and neglect that she recognized so well but could no longer stomach – she resisted the impulse to gag as she stood there and watched him. The tramp looked up and noticed her; as he did, his incoherent mumbling became louder. His hands were shaking and his eyes rolling.

Frankie suppressed a feeling of fear that two years ago would not even have entered her head. She had to try and speak to him, to find out what had happened, where the vagrants who used the park had moved to, and to do that she needed to be in control. ‘Where has everyone
gone?' she asked in a clear voice. ‘When did they clean this place up?'

The tramp fell silent.

‘Where is everyone?' Frankie repeated her question.

Suddenly the tramp jumped up. As he did so, he roared – a strangely inhuman sound. Frankie was startled, but stood her ground, staring severely straight at him as he staggered towards her. His arms were flailing now, and the unidentifiable sounds he was making were peppered with curses. ‘Fuck off …' She could barely make out the words. ‘Fucking leave me alone … fuck off out of it.' As he approached, she could see his watery eyes, the whites red and bloodshot, the irises curiously uncoloured.

Still she stood her ground. Her look of contempt and distaste masked her pity, but he wasn't to know that. In an instant, perhaps realizing she wasn't to be frightened away, he stopped still, then turned and, muttering all the time, returned to the bench. He looked away and seemed to be ignoring her very presence.

Frankie knew his mind was shot, pickled by alcohol, poverty and fear. He probably didn't even know where
he
was, let alone anyone else. Just another casualty of the street. There was nothing she could do for him. More importantly, there was nothing he could do for her. Not in this state. Not now. Not ever.

She turned and left the park. Not once did she look back.

Sean Carter was deciding what to have for dinner when his mobile rang. It had been pizza last night – and the night before that, come to think of it: the staple fare of the hard-working bachelor. He was sifting through the
bewildering array of takeaway menus that fell through the door of his ground-floor flat in south London when he heard the familiar jingle struggling to be heard in the front room over the sound of the television. For a moment he considered letting it ring, but not for long – you never know, it might be an invitation out, and he could do with a drink. He hurried into the front room and picked it up. ‘Sean speaking.'

‘DI Carter. This is James Cole, Avon and Somerset. We spoke yesterday.'

Carter strode over to the television and switched it off. ‘What can I do for you, James?'

‘More what I can do for you, really,' Cole replied. ‘You wanted to know if there was any progress on the Francesca Mills case.'

‘Have you found her?' He asked the question directly, urgently.

‘No, we haven't. We've found another body. Same modus operandi.'

Carter felt a chill descend on him. ‘Who is it?' he asked.

‘Her name is Elaine Osbourne. She lives in Croydon. She's the mother of the guy Francesca Mills was living with – the one she killed.'

‘Shit,' Carter swore under his breath. ‘When did this happen?'

‘Forensics are on the scene now – we'll know in an hour or so. But there's something else that doesn't make sense.'

‘What?'

‘The house was full of baby paraphernalia. Nappies, wipes – you know the kind of thing.'

Not really, Carter thought, but he was up to speed with what Cole was getting at. ‘Francesca Mills?'

‘Exactly.'

‘Do you have any direct evidence that she had been in the house?'

‘No. Nothing yet. Like I say, forensics are still working on it. But she had a child.'

‘You think the child at Elaine Osbourne's was Mills's son?'

‘That's our working hypothesis, but I haven't got much more to go on.' Cole's soft voice sounded tired. ‘All I know is this: I've got a serial killer on my hands. If there's anything you can tell me that will help us find her, now would be the time.'

Carter remained silent. He knew Cole didn't believe Francesca Mills was innocent, and he didn't blame him. ‘If I come up with anything,' he said finally, ‘you'll be the first to know.'

‘I'd appreciate that, Sean.' Cole rang off.

All thoughts of supper had disappeared from Carter's head. He paced up and down the flat, furiously trying to think of an explanation for what had happened. Things were looking increasingly bad for the Mills girl, and he could understand why Cole was so determined she was his killer. When Cole had said the words ‘serial killer', somehow things had clicked into place. She fitted the profile: trauma at a young age, a history of abuse, a history of violence. But there were too many inconsistencies. He kept thinking of the look in her teacher's face when she had told him the terrible story of Francesca's past.

The baby was the key, he was sure of that. Everything
Francesca Mills was doing was designed to guarantee his safety. What if she had taken her son to his grandmother, believing it to be the only safe place he could be? He was sure that Francesca hadn't killed Elaine, which left two options. Either she had been there when Elaine's killers had arrived and had managed to escape with the child – unlikely, even given her remarkable capacity to disappear from these situations; or she had left the child with his grandmother. In that case, she didn't know Elaine was dead. And she didn't know her child was missing.

He dialled a number and put the phone to his ear again.

‘Andrew Meeken.' The mild-mannered voice of his boss at the SFO came on the line.

‘Andrew, it's Sean Carter. I need your help. It's urgent.'

‘Tell me what you need.'

‘A phone tap,' Carter replied. ‘And that's just for starters …'

Frankie had never spent a night without Jasper since the day he had been born. It was the longest of her life.

She had found herself a shop doorway in a deserted part of town where neither the public, the police nor other vagrants would be likely to worry her – where it was she didn't know, as she had wandered aimlessly from Newington Park into the backstreets of south London that she only half remembered. Curled up in the doorway and overcome by tiredness, she had managed to grab an hour or two of fitful sleep, but her slumber was filled with the familiar old nightmares – only now they included her son. By the small hours she could bear it no more, so she got up and continued walking.
She felt directionless. When she had left Jasper, her plan had been to come to London and find out where Strut's associates were. What she was going to do when she found them she had no idea, but it hadn't occurred to her that the familiar faces that could have given her information would be gone, scattered across London. Now she was alone, without a plan and without her son. Every ounce of her wanted to rush back to Elaine's and pick him up, but she knew how dangerous that would be. Whatever happened, though, she had to speak to her, to check that Jasper was OK, and maybe hear him gurgle down the phone. She wandered for hours, waiting for day to come.

Frankie didn't know what time it was – five o'clock, maybe five-thirty, maybe six, even – when she decided she could wait no longer. Jasper would be awake by now, which meant that Elaine would be too, so even though she didn't know what she was going to say, she was determined to call. She found that she had gravitated – as she always did – towards the river, and along the south side of the Embankment. The imposing circular shape of the Millennium Wheel loomed above her as she headed south to the nearby main road where she found a phone booth and dialled Elaine's number.

It rang three times, then suddenly went silent. There was a click, and then another ring, after which it was answered immediately. Frankie's heart turned to ice when she realized the voice that answered was not that of Jasper's grandmother.

‘Hello.' It was deep, and thickly accented. Frankie recognized it immediately – she had heard it only days ago.

‘Who are you?' she whispered in horror. ‘Where's Elaine? Where's Jasper?'

‘Your son is well, for the moment,' the voice stated flatly. ‘If you wish that to remain the case, you will do precisely what I say.'

It was a few moments before Frankie could speak. Her stomach was tied in knots, and an almost insufferable feeling of nausea threatened to overwhelm her. She gripped harder on the receiver, as if it had the power to steady her. ‘What do you want?' was all she finally managed.

‘At the end of this conversation, I will give you a telephone number. You will go to another telephone and call it. If I do not hear from you within ten minutes, you will never see your son again.'

Suddenly Frankie wanted to scream, to shout so many things at the faceless voice at the end of the phone; but her terror restrained her. ‘Give it to me,' she said as she searched the floor for something to write with.

The man recited a number – it was easy to remember but Frankie wrote it on the palm of her hand anyway with a dirty old pen. ‘I mean what I say,' he concluded. ‘Ten minutes.' He spoke as if to end the conversation.

But Frankie could not leave it like that – every one of her motherly instincts had lit a fire in her heart that was smouldering malignantly. Whether he heard her or not she couldn't say, because she hung up the minute she had finished; but there was no way she could stop herself from speaking.