No Other Darkness (22 page)

‘Beth’s here, but Terry’s gone.’

‘Where?’ Marnie asked. At her side, Noah tensed, listening to the phone call.

‘I don’t know.’ Debbie’s voice thinned to static. ‘The squad car was waiting. I thought it was okay because he was with Ed Belloc . . .’

‘Let me speak to Mr Belloc.’ Marnie waited a beat. ‘DC Tanner? Put Ed on.’

‘He’s not here. Boss, I’m sorry.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I thought they were in the squad car, that’s where they were headed. I was waiting with Gill for Beth to wake up, and Terry and Ed went out to the squad car, but they didn’t get in. The driver didn’t see where they went, said he was checking his phone and didn’t see—’

Marnie cut her short. ‘They’re both missing, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Both of them, yes.’

‘Bring Beth back here.’ Marnie ended the call, speed-dialling Ed’s number.

It didn’t even get the chance to ring, because the phone was switched off.

Ed never switched his phone off. Noah was speaking, but she couldn’t hear past the scrabble of panic in her skull.
Ed . . .

‘The children,’ she said, when she was able to speak. ‘We need to find the children.’

‘I’ll organise a second search team,’ Noah said. ‘For Terry, and Ed.’

‘We need to find Carmen and Tommy.’ She was glad her voice didn’t shake. ‘That’s our priority. Let’s stay focused. Two young children are missing. We need to get them back.’

Marnie put the photographs of the four children in a line on the interview table.

‘Carmen and Thomas Doyle. You recognised them, didn’t you? You knew they were Matthew’s children.’

‘I
didn’t
know . . .’ Alison twisted her hands on the table. ‘About Matt. About his new family. I didn’t know he was living in that place. I didn’t know he was the one . . .’

‘The one who found them? It was him. He found Fred and Archie in the bunker where you left them.’ Marnie put a fifth photo on the table. ‘He’s Terry Doyle now. He has a new family. His wife is pregnant with their third child.’

Alison put her hand over the photo of her ex-husband’s face. ‘Where is he?’

‘We don’t know. We saw him this morning, when his children were reported gone. He was with a victim care officer. Matt and the VCO went missing forty minutes ago.’

Alison didn’t speak. She kept her hand over the photo of her ex-husband’s face.

‘You said Esther did this.’ Marnie touched the photos of Matt Reid’s new children. ‘When we asked if you’d taken Carmen and Thomas, you said yes. What did you mean?’

‘I’m responsible. It’s my fault. I . . . broke him.’

‘Matthew, your husband.’

‘They’ll have told him I was getting out. They gave him a new identity but they’d have told him, because of what I did. To him. I destroyed his family. I broke him.’

‘You broke Matt.’

‘Into a thousand pieces,’ Alison said. ‘A thousand tiny pieces.’

She looked up at Marnie with terror in her eyes.

‘He’s not safe. You have to find him. You have to
help
him. If he’s the one who found Fred and Archie, and now these new children . . .
his
children . . . He’s not safe.’

 • • • 

‘You said it’s not Esther we should be worried about.’ Noah sat opposite Connie. ‘What did you mean?’

‘It broke her,’ Connie said, ‘clean in two. But their father . . . He’s the one I’d be watching, if I were you. Esther was in two, but him? He was in pieces. Still is, I should say.’

‘This is Matthew Reid. Matt.’

Connie nodded. ‘He doesn’t go by Matt now, I imagine. The papers were cruel. No one could believe he didn’t see it coming. You should’ve heard them . . . He was
less than a man
. Or else he drove her to it. An animal. Couldn’t keep his own kids safe . . .’

‘Matt has a new identity too. You knew that?’

‘I assumed it,’ she said crisply. ‘He needed a new life, almost more than she did. At least they sent her somewhere to get well, to
try
to get well . . . There was no help for him, none at all. Not that I’m saying a new name makes a difference, but he deserved a second shot. He was a good man, Matt. He did his best by her, and he
loved
those children. Oh, he loved them. Nothing was too much, until she was.’ Connie looked away from Noah. ‘She was too much for all of us.’

‘Did you know his new name?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t help him. I thought he’d moved away, like I did. Made a fresh start. I didn’t keep in touch because what was the point? We were no use to one another. Barely any use to ourselves.’

‘He didn’t move away. He was on Blackthorn Road. He’s Terry Doyle now.’ Noah touched the photos of Carmen and Tommy. ‘These are his children, and they’re missing. So’s Matt, and a victim care officer who was trying to help him.’

Connie closed her eyes, then opened them on his face. ‘I suppose . . . he couldn’t stay away. He needed to be close to them. Fred and Archie. I was the opposite, couldn’t bear to be anywhere that reminded me of them. There’s not a thing of theirs doesn’t drag me back to that hell. But maybe Matt had to be near them. He loved them almost too much.’

Too much love.

‘They’ll have told him she was coming out,’ Connie said. ‘They had to do that. He was her victim too. He’ll have known she was coming out. That’ll have scared him. It put the fear of God into me, and she’s my own flesh and blood.’

‘Do you think he’s dangerous?’

‘I have no idea. I only know he was devastated by what happened and that he got no professional help whatsoever. They don’t help the husbands of PPP sufferers, did you know that? He saw the worst of her. Heaven only knows what he lived through in that house.’

‘He knew where Fred and Archie were buried,’ Noah said. ‘He must have done. How else was he living in that house?’

‘I imagine he did the job the police failed to do.’ Matter-of-factly, no accusation in her voice but plenty in her stare, like black ice. ‘He looked for them, and he found them.’

‘Why did he look for them? When she said they’d drowned . . .’

‘Neither of us believed that. We told the police we didn’t believe it, but she was convincing. She could be very convincing.’

‘How did Terry find the boys?’

‘Through Ian Merrick, I imagine.’ Connie’s eyes sparked coldly. ‘He hated her working there as much as I did.’

‘Why did the pair of you hate that so much?’

‘Because of the sort of man Merrick is. Immoral. He preys on people’s weaknesses, their need for security. Builds cheap, sells high. He’s repulsive. And he was poison for
her
. Toxic. Always whispering about safety, about panic rooms and hiding places. If she wasn’t mad before, he helped drive her there.’

‘I spoke with your neighbour, Denis Walton. He said you and Esther fell out over the development at Beech Rise.’

‘We fell out over
Merrick.
That man? He hasn’t got a heart, he’s got a swinging brick.’

‘Why did you leave so suddenly after Esther’s arrest? Denis said you went overnight, with the travellers.’

Connie shrugged. ‘I’d made friends, people who knew the sort of man Merrick was. I couldn’t stay, could I? The press were all over us.
She
was gone. There was nothing left of her until they got to work with the pills. You’re too young to have children, but imagine looking at someone you love and finding them gone. Right there in front of you but
gone
. No trace left. You’d have upped sticks too, if you had any sense.’

She drew a breath. ‘I went back once she showed signs of getting better. Of course I did. I’m not heartless, but right at that minute? When they were gone and with the press slavering everywhere? I couldn’t bear it. So yes, I ran. I saw a quick way out and I took it.’

‘Matt was living in that house for a year before he called the police.’ A year before he opened the bunker, if Fran
was right about the manhole staying shut as long as it did. ‘Why?’

‘Why did he live there, or why did he wait so long to call you? Perhaps it was enough for him to be near them. Then I imagine he panicked when he heard she was coming out.
I
panicked, and as I say, we’re flesh and blood.’

The timing made sense. They were called to Snaresbrook just after Terry would have been told that his ex-wife was being paroled. What didn’t make sense was why he’d lived for so long next to his sons’ graves without reporting it.

‘These children . . .’ Connie moved her hands to the photos of Carmen and Tommy, stopping short of touching them. ‘He loves them. Whatever else you might think of him, you can be sure of that.’

She looked up at Noah. ‘Matt was the best father I ever knew. I never met a man with a bigger heart. Until she broke it.’

Carmen and Tommy were safe. You’d seen to that.

You knew you couldn’t take any risks, not with the children. Especially not now, with Esther out of prison. You had to move them, just like you had to move Fred and Archie.

No one’s safe from Esther, not ever.

You knew she’d come straight back, if they ever let her go.

She never left, not really. Like you. You never left them. They were safe with you for a while, but you’re a coward, the same as always. You tried so hard not to be.

You tried to be something new, something
more
.

For Beth and the babies. Carmen and Tommy, and the new one on the way. A second chance to prove you could be more than the coward who let them down, let them die.

Be a man
.

You wanted to be that.

You were a good dad, everyone said so.

Just not when it mattered most.

You were good with Carmen and Tommy. Patient, careful. You kept them safe.

Clancy too, except he didn’t want it. Looked at you as if
you were a threat. As if
safety
was a threat. You had to show him. You had to explain.

If he’d known the things you knew . . .

‘You could have someone’s eye out with this!’

A wire coat hanger. He’d brought a wire coat hanger into the house.

After everything you’d told him, all the warnings.

‘Look at it!’

You straightened the thing the way she did, the sharp end of the hook refashioned as a point, something that could stab holes in anything, anyone.

You wrapped the rest of the metal around your fist and showed him –
‘Look at it!’
– what a weapon looked like.

‘We need someone who knows Terry Doyle,’ Marnie said. ‘Where he might have gone, and what he’s capable of.’

‘He was at the house
after
the little ones went missing.’ Debbie shook her head. ‘He stayed with Beth for over an hour, then he was cleaning, making supper . . . Ed Belloc was with him. I honestly thought everything was all right. I mean, it crossed my mind that he might go
looking
for the kids, but I never thought he’d
taken
them. I never thought for a second there was any chance of that.’

‘None of us did,’ Marnie told her. She was very calm.

Too calm
, Noah thought. He tried to imagine how he’d cope if it was Dan who was missing, but his imagination short-circuited.

‘Why did he come back to the house,’ Debbie said, ‘if he’d taken them? Where
were
they while he came back to the house? With Clancy?’

‘He was terrified,’ Noah said. ‘When we told him the children were missing. He was absolutely terrified. I don’t think he was faking that. Do you?’

Marnie said, ‘I don’t know. It didn’t look like it, but this is a man who was living with the bodies of his dead boys
for twelve months before he called the police. A man who received no treatment for what he went through five years ago. Esther had Lyn Birch, and medication. Matt didn’t have anything, as far as I can gather.’

They all looked at the whiteboard, the new photographs pinned there.

Connie had given Noah a family portrait: Matt and Esther Reid with Fred and Archie and baby Louisa. Esther had been a striking young woman. Alison was an inch shorter and eight pounds heavier, her hair thin and brittle. Matt, too, had changed. Terry Doyle was still handsome, but Matt’s eyes were brighter, his face softer, unlined. There was nothing left of Esther and Matt Reid. There was only Alison Oliver and Terry Doyle, two half-people who didn’t really exist, their new identities purchased for the price of a passport.

Ed Belloc’s photograph was on the whiteboard too.

Commander Welland was organising a hostage negotiation team. They were trying to trace Ed’s phone, and the phone registered to Terry Doyle. Nothing was in Matt Reid’s name. Not the car that Terry drove, or his credit cards. Welland’s team was trying to locate the car.

‘One thing we can clear up,’ Marnie said. ‘The haloperidol that Beth found in Clancy’s bag was part of a prescription for Esther. She stopped taking the pills when she was pregnant with Louisa. We have to assume Terry kept the pills and Clancy found them.’

‘Terry kept his wife’s pills?’ Debbie said. ‘Isn’t that a bit weird?’

‘Perhaps he hoped she’d start taking them again. Or he wanted something to hold on to, a memory of when she was well, or the hope that she might be made better.’

‘Clancy’s a sharp kid,’ Debbie said. ‘Won’t he have found out what the pills were for? He could’ve googled the name . . .’

‘Maybe he did. Maybe he asked Terry awkward questions, which Terry couldn’t answer without giving away the secrets he was keeping.’

‘How did he know where his boys were buried?’ Ron asked. ‘That’s what I want to know. If he went looking, that means he knew they weren’t drowned. How? When the police didn’t have a clue? How sure are we that he’s a good guy?’

Marnie said, ‘Esther’s medical records, the police reports . . . There’s no evidence at any point that Matt was anything other than a victim. He tried to keep his family together. Social workers said the children were safe with him. Doctors discharged Esther into his care. We might think that was a wicked thing to do, but they clearly had faith in his ability to look after her, and the children.’

‘Until he didn’t . . .’ Ron shook his head at the whiteboard.

‘Connie doesn’t miss a trick,’ Noah said. ‘She said Matt was the best father she’d known. She wouldn’t have said that if there was any chance he had a hand in their deaths.’

Ron conceded, rubbing at his face. ‘Poor bastard . . .’

‘He wouldn’t hurt them,’ Debbie said, ‘would he? Carmen and Tommy. He wouldn’t hurt them. I saw them together, when I took that bag to the safe house . . . The kiddies love him to bits, and he loves them. I’d swear to it.’

‘Connie says the same thing. She thinks he panicked,’ Noah said, ‘when the parole office got in touch. Maybe he was scared of Esther going back to where she left the boys. He might’ve taken the children to a safe place . . . Beth said the house we put them in didn’t feel safe. If I was Terry? I’d be paranoid about safety.’

‘We should check inside number 14,’ Marnie said. ‘The PCSO says the house is secure, no one’s been inside since we sealed the garden, but there might be clues of some kind to Terry’s state of mind.’

‘You think Belloc went with him voluntarily?’ Ron asked. It was the first time anyone on the team had referred directly to Ed’s disappearance.

Marnie threw Ron a look. ‘His phone’s switched off. But that doesn’t mean he’s a hostage. It’s possible he’s trying to help. He was worried about Terry, I know that much.’

‘What’s Beth got to say? Did she really not know?’

‘That Terry was Matt Reid? No. She’s admitted they lied about Clancy being fostered. She says he’s the son of one of Terry’s friends, but she’s insisting Terry put their names down to be foster parents, that they
would
have been fostering Clancy officially, once the paperwork went through. Terry was handling all of that. Even after we told her about Matt and Esther Reid, she believes what he told her.’

‘Dozy cow,’ Ron muttered.

‘Terry said Clancy’s parents were wrapped up in some strange business. Those were his words. They had too much money and were obsessed with security; Clancy had a personal alarm he had to carry everywhere. The alarm went through to a private security outfit.’

Marnie nodded at Colin Pitcher, the team’s data analyst. ‘I’ve got the name of the security firm. There might be a lead there.’ She looked at the others. ‘Beth said Terry wanted to live on Blackthorn Road because of the views and the space. He said the garden at number 14 got more sun, despite the beech trees. He loved the trees.’

‘He knew,’ Ron said, ‘about the bunker. He must’ve known. If he made a fuss about
which
house . . . He knew where the kids were buried. Maybe the trees were a clue. My two love climbing. If Fred and Archie were the same . . .’ He shook his head.

‘Terry did the gardens in the whole road,’ Noah said, ‘isn’t that what Beth told us? He was looking for the right bunker, but how did he know
any
of the bunkers were there?’

‘Ian Merrick,’ Marnie said. ‘Esther worked for Merrick, and Merrick was a builder, which meant land, secure hiding places . . . As Terry Doyle, he got a job with Merrick doing landscape gardening. Odd jobs, so his name isn’t on the paperwork, but it’s possible he was part of the team that put down the show gardens on Blackthorn Road. If that’s the case, he had plenty of opportunity for digging.’ She paused. ‘There’s another connection we need to look into. Merrick built a panic room for Clancy Brand’s parents. Terry worked on the Brands’ garden. That’s how he met Clancy.’

‘Which means that shonky bloody builder knew exactly what was going on.’ Ron scowled at Merrick’s name on the whiteboard.

‘Where
is
Merrick?’ Noah asked. ‘Did we track him down?’

‘We left messages,’ Ron said. ‘And we sent someone to his house. No one’s there.’

‘Let’s find him.’ Marnie nodded at the paperwork. ‘And let’s find out about his sites. If Terry persuaded him to give up the location of the bunkers, perhaps he persuaded him to share his other hiding places. That could be where Terry’s gone with the children. Find out which of Merrick’s sites have CCTV we can access.’

She straightened up. ‘We need someone who knows Terry, and Matt. Someone who knows what’s going through his head right now, and what he’s capable of.’

‘Esther,’ Noah said. ‘Esther knows.’