No Other Darkness (18 page)

Beth was in the kitchen at the safe house, pacing back and forth, touching cupboard doors and chairs. It reminded Noah of his mum’s rituals, when she was in the grip of one of her cleaning compulsions.

Debbie whispered, ‘I think we should call a doctor. She’s been like this since I got here.’

‘Where’s Terry?’ Marnie asked.

‘She says she called him, but he’s working on a garden somewhere. She can’t remember where. From what she said, there’s no signal on his phone, or he’s switched it off.’

Marnie nodded. She didn’t take her eyes off Beth. ‘Check that, would you? You have Terry’s number.’

Debbie looked surprised. ‘Yes, but you don’t think . . . she’s lying?’

‘I think she’s understandably agitated and distressed. We need to do everything we can to help her. Terry needs to know what’s happening, and he’ll want to be here with her.’ She watched the woman’s pacing. ‘You’re right about
the doctor, but try and get her GP, or her midwife. Someone she knows and trusts.’

Debbie nodded, leaving the kitchen to make the phone calls.

Beth had stopped to pick up pieces of the children’s washing from a laundry basket, pulling creases from the little clothes.

Marnie went to her. ‘We’re here to find the children. Can you tell me what happened?’

‘I don’t
know
!’ Her voice was high enough to climb walls. She pulled at a tiny vest, twisting it with her hands as if she was wringing water from it. ‘They were in their room, playing. Clancy was here. I thought he took them to the park. But they’re not there. They’ve
gone
. I don’t know where . . .’

‘How long since you realised they weren’t in the house?’ Marnie asked.

‘An hour ago, more than an hour,’ her eyes ran to the clock, ‘at eleven. Clancy sometimes takes them to run around in the park so they’ll be hungry before lunch. But he has to bring them back by twelve. He
knows
that.’

It was 12.37.

‘This is the park just up the road?’ Marnie said.

The police had searched the park as soon as Debbie called in the location. No sign of Carmen or Tommy, or Clancy.

‘Yes.’ Beth wrenched at the child’s vest. ‘I won’t let him take them any further than that. He’s always . . . he always brings them back on time.’

‘Did you see them leave the house together, Clancy and the children?’

Beth shook her head. ‘He told me he was going out, but I assumed he meant on his own. I thought Carmen and Tommy were upstairs.’

‘Clancy told you he was going out,’ Marnie repeated. ‘What time was that?’

‘At eleven. I told you. That’s the last time I saw them. I went upstairs just afterwards, and their room was empty. I looked all over the house, in case they were hiding, then I thought he must’ve taken them with him, to the park, that I must’ve misunderstood what he said . . .’

‘So that I’m clear, Clancy didn’t say he was taking the children?’

‘Just that he was going out.’ Beth’s hands twisted, putting creases back into the vest she’d straightened. ‘Maybe he didn’t shut the door properly. Maybe they went after him . . .’

‘Was the door shut properly when you were looking for them?’

‘Yes . . . but Carmen knows how to close it. She could’ve done that, when they left.’

‘You didn’t hear the door close? When Clancy left, or later?’

Beth shook her head.

‘The last time we spoke,’ Marnie said, ‘you told me you were worried about Clancy’s temper. You said he was angry, missing the house . . .’

‘You think I shouldn’t have left him alone with them.’ Beth’s stare was blind, moving about the kitchen, avoiding Marnie. ‘You think if I
knew
he was angry . . . what was I thinking, letting him look after them?’

‘No, I’m not saying that. I just wondered if there’d been a fight of some kind. If Clancy left the house in a bad mood . . .’

‘You don’t have kids.’ Beth flung the vest into the laundry basket. ‘You don’t know what it’s like trying to keep an eye on all of them, every minute. Clancy wanted to help. It made him happy, it made
them
happy, and it meant I could get on with all . . . this!’ She gestured around her at the washing, the dishes in the sink, breakfast mess on the table, an overflowing pedal-bin. ‘Half an hour, that’s all I needed,
half an hour . . .’ She reached for a chair and sat, abruptly, as if someone had kicked her feet from under her.

Marnie nodded at the kettle, and Noah moved to make tea.

‘Why wasn’t Clancy at school?’ Marnie pulled out a second chair and sat facing Beth. Noah saw Beth surrender her hand to Marnie’s steady grip.

‘He’s been suspended, for fighting with another boy, but that doesn’t mean . . .’ Beth’s eyes were huge. ‘He’s
good
with Tommy and Carmen. He really is.’

‘Have you tried calling him?’

‘His phone’s broken. That’s what the fight was about.’

‘So he doesn’t have a phone right now?’

‘We were going to get him a new one at the weekend. Clancy
knows
 . . . He knows to bring them back from the park in time. Tommy gets too tired otherwise and then he won’t eat his food. It can’t be Clancy who’s taken them. He
knows
the rules
.
’

Beth’s face hollowed. She pulled her hand free of Marnie’s to wipe at her eyes.

‘What mood was Clancy in when he set off?’

‘The same as always.’ Her voice broke. ‘He was angry with me!’ She started to weep, quietly, not proper grief, not yet.

Debbie came back into the kitchen, shaking her head in response to the question Marnie asked with her eyes. ‘Gillian’s on her way,’ she told Beth. ‘She’ll be here very soon.’

‘Gill . . .?’ Beth looked lost. ‘Why?’

‘To make sure you’re okay.’ Debbie nodded at Marnie and Noah. ‘Gill is Beth’s midwife. I’m afraid Terry’s got his phone switched off. If we knew where he was working . . .’

‘Landscaping, that’s where he is. Putting in trees today. Willows and birch . . .’ Beth’s eyes closed, as if she was able to relax now that Marnie and the others were in charge.

‘The kiddies will be hungry.’ Debbie sat in the spare chair at Beth’s side. ‘Do they have anything with them, like snacks? Does Clancy have anything?’ She used a chatty tone, as if she was making small talk at the school gates.

‘Don’t know.’ Beth rocked in the chair. She looked nearly comatose.

Noah set a cup of sugary tea at her elbow.

‘Did he take his duffle bag?’ Marnie asked.

Beth shook her head. ‘I don’t know . . . Probably. He takes it everywhere.’ She bit her lip. ‘They love him, especially Carmen. He’s the only one she’ll listen to sometimes. He’s got a way with them . . .’

‘If they wanted to be naughty,’ Debbie said, ‘give you a fright, where would they go?’

Marnie kept quiet, watching for Beth’s responses. Not just verbal; she was watching the woman’s body language, trusting Debbie to keep Beth talking.

‘Is there somewhere they might go? Just as a game, without thinking . . . You know what kids are like.’

Beth’s head nodded. ‘The estate,’ she murmured. ‘Clancy knows we hate it there. We tell all the kids to stay away from the estate . . .’

Marnie met Noah’s eyes and he took out his phone to text the station, telling the team to check the housing estate for any sightings of Clancy and the children.

‘They can be terrible places, can’t they?’ Debbie matched Beth’s sing-song intonation; it was hard to believe they were discussing missing children. ‘Like mazes, one wrong turn and you’re muddled. What’s the one like near you? It’s up behind Beech Rise, isn’t it?’

‘Arlington . . . It’s horrible. Dirty. Drug dealers, smashed windows, we tell the kids to stay away, but Clancy . . .’ Beth’s voice died. She rocked in the chair, not reacting to any further questions, even when the midwife knocked on the door.
Noah wondered if it was a defence mechanism, her body shutting down in order to safeguard her unborn child.

Debbie stayed sitting with Beth as the midwife started to check her over.

Noah went with Marnie, up the stairs to the bedrooms.

 • • • 

It wasn’t hard to tell which bedroom belonged to Carmen and Tommy. Soft toys padded the room like a cell. Against one wall: a travel cot for Tommy and a camp bed with pink bedding for Carmen. A navy nylon sleeping bag was unzipped, kicked to one corner of the room.

‘She lets Clancy sleep in here,’ Marnie said, as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

The room smelt of sugar and mushrooms, the aroma of teenage boy slogging it out with the sweeter scent of the children.

‘No duffle bag. That means he took it with him.’

‘That’s significant?’ Noah asked. ‘What’s in the bag?’

‘A change of clothes, money, an Oyster card. It’s a go-bag.’

‘And now he’s gone . . . Do you think he’s dangerous?’

‘To them?’ Marnie looked at the sleeping bag, the cot, the camp bed. ‘I don’t know. But he’s damaged, and he’s hurting. Put that together with the anger . . . He’s not safe. That’s assuming the kids went with him.’

No cupboards in the room, no hiding places.

Everything was in plain sight.

‘Beth trusts him with her kids.’ Noah followed Marnie’s gaze as it swept the room, seeing piles of unwashed clothes, the smear of fingerprints on the walls. Neglect.

It wasn’t like the house in Blackthorn Road, nor was Beth the same woman she’d been there. Something had broken between then and now, running like a crack across the heart of this family. What they’d witnessed in the garden, in the bunker . . . No wonder they were coming apart.

‘If you were Clancy,’ Marnie said, ‘would you trust a stranger? A woman.’

‘Esther Reid? You think she took them
and
Clancy?’

‘Beth saw Clancy with two women on the estate. Dressed as if they hadn’t bought new clothes in a long time. What if one of them was Esther Reid?’

‘With Clancy? Why?’

‘Because she knew where he lived. Maybe she wanted a way back into the house, or into the garden. She needed him to trust her . . .’

‘Why would he do that?’ Noah asked. ‘If she was a stranger?’

‘Teenage boys have their own criteria for trust. Beth says all three of them were smoking. Perhaps they gave him cigarettes. That might have been enough to swing it.’

Marnie looked at the sleeping bag kicked into the corner of the room. ‘He’s only fourteen. We have to treat this as three missing children, at risk of harm.’

‘If it’s Esther,’ Noah said, ‘and she’s taken them . . . what’s she going to do?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to guess, either. We need to look at the evidence. Let’s get that photo of Esther, in case Beth recognises her as one of the women from the estate.’

A sound from downstairs made them move in that direction.

Terry was standing on the mat in his gardening clothes, a red jumper unravelling at one wrist, ancient jeans, blue socks. Seeing Noah and Marnie, he came to a standstill.

‘What’s happened?’ Fear wiped his face blank. ‘Where’s Beth?’

‘She’s in the kitchen.’ Marnie went down the stairs towards him. ‘Gill’s with her, and DC Tanner. If we could have a moment to talk, before you go through . . .’

Terry wiped at his face with the crook of his elbow. He
smelt of earth and leaves, his hands caked and ruddy. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

‘Carmen and Tommy are missing. So’s Clancy, but—’

She wasn’t halfway through the sentence before he started moving.

Not in the direction of the kitchen; back out of the house.

Marnie and Noah followed, staying close.

In the porch, Terry was pulling on his wellingtons. His face was fierce, mouth thinned to nothing, shoulders shaking as he struggled with the boots.

Marnie wanted to hold him still. ‘We have a team looking for the children.’

‘Where?’ He stood with one boot on and the other in his hands, eyes haggard with hope as he searched their faces. ‘He’ll be on that housing estate . . . Christ!’

His feet were swollen from the day’s work. He couldn’t get the remaining boot on, nearly falling sideways until Noah’s hand stopped him, holding him upright until he’d got his balance back. ‘I know where he is. He’ll be on that estate. Arlington . . .’

‘We have a team on the way there. You should stay with your wife. She needs you.’

‘My kids need me. Tommy and Carmen,’ his eyes blazed with distress, ‘they need me. They’re just little kids. Little, little kids . . .’

‘We’ll find them.’ Marnie touched his arm, feeling the fizz of his shock through the sleeve of his jumper. ‘Come back into the house. Please.’

Terry wiped at his nose. ‘Clancy’s playing games. He wouldn’t hurt them.’ The words jerked out of him, defensively. ‘He wouldn’t.’

‘That’s good. I’m sure you’re right. We’re doing everything we can to find them. Come back into the house and tell us where you think they might have gone.’

They took Terry to his wife. When his arms were tight around Beth, Marnie nodded at Debbie to stay with the couple.

Noah followed her out of the house, pausing to move the wellington boot that Terry had abandoned in the porch. ‘Will he be okay? He’s in a worse state than she is . . .’

‘I’m on it.’ Marnie had her phone to her ear.

Ed picked up on the third ring. ‘Hey.’

‘I need a victim care officer.’ She gave Ed the address. ‘Terry and Beth Doyle. Can you come?’

Ed didn’t waste time on questions. ‘I’m twenty minutes away.’ He rang off.

Marnie’s phone buzzed almost immediately. ‘Ron, what’ve you got?’

‘A crap picture of Esther Reid. You’re right, she’s got a new name. I’ll text what I’ve found. You’re going to want to talk with her psychiatrist, because it’s worse than we thought.’

‘DC Tanner’s here with the family,’ Marnie told him. ‘Victim Support’s on its way. You’re on house-to-house. I want all eyes on the Arlington estate. Someone must have seen those children, and Clancy. We can’t assume they’re together. Where can we find Esther’s psychiatrist?’

‘Lyn Birch. She’s in London for a conference at the Barbican. She treated Esther in Durham, out of Lawton Down Prison, but right now she’s in the Holiday Inn on Old Street.’