No Other Darkness (23 page)

Alison Oliver folded her scarred hands on the interview table. She was still refusing a cup of tea, or even water, despite her cracked lips. ‘I won’t ever forgive myself,’ she said. ‘In case you think that’s on the cards, it’s not.’

‘What about Esther?’ Marnie said. ‘Connie’s forgiven her. Have you?’

‘You’ve been speaking with my therapist, Lyn.’ Dry humour in her voice, before she extracted it. ‘Esther’s different. It’s been a long time since she spoke to me, or anyone. It’s a shame. She was always much better at talking than I am.’ She moved her mouth. ‘I know I sound crazy. I do know that. But it’s Alison I can’t forgive.’ She touched her chest. ‘Me. I can’t hide behind Esther any longer. I did, for years, but not now.’

From the speech, it was easy to imagine that she’d made peace with her past. But Marnie could smell it on her. Grief, and pain. Bone-deep, with-you-forever pain.

‘Why did you come back?’ she asked.

‘For the same reason Matt did,’ Alison said simply. ‘To be near them.’

‘Knowing it was breaking the terms of your parole?’

‘Where else could I have gone? There’s no
starting over
, whatever they tell you. There’s only what happened, what you did. That thing, that place. You can’t ever
let it go
, any more than you can let go of your own skin. It’s always with you, because it
is
you.’

‘Didn’t it hurt, to go back?’

‘Yes,’ Alison said emphatically, as if Marnie had named the silver lining.

‘Lyn Birch told us you were ready to move on. Is that not true?’

‘Move where? Where would I go? I murdered my children.’

‘Manslaughter,’ Noah said. ‘It was manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.’

Alison looked at him with a terrible pity, the kind that came from staring too long into the pit of the past. Noah had seen his share of frightening people. Psychopaths, sociopaths and stone-cold killers. Alison Oliver – Esther Reid – was in another league. She wore her damage like armour. No wonder Terry had panicked at the idea of her parole.

‘You’ve forgiven Esther . . .’ Marnie began.

‘Because she loved them. She was their mother, and they loved her back. Her arms . . . it was
her
arms that held them. Can’t you understand? All the memories, including the good ones, the best ones, the ones that keep me going, are hers. I can’t be without Esther, or I’ll be without
them
. I can’t hate her. If I cut her out, I’ll lose what’s left of them.’

She looked at Marnie, but didn’t ask again whether Marnie understood.

Instead she said, ‘I’m in two minds . . . How many times have you heard that expression? Connie uses it all the time. I’m in two minds . . . I’m to blame.
Alison
. Let Esther keep them safe. The memories. How soft their faces went when they slept. How sweet they smelt. Esther heard their secrets.
It was
her
who put plasters on their skinned knees and kissed them better. She was a good mother.’ Her voice hardened for the first time. ‘She was a
good
mother
.’

Until she wasn’t. Until she got sick and couldn’t look after anyone, including herself.

‘We need to know where Matt might have taken the children. He’s with a victim care officer who may be a hostage. We need to know what’s going through Matt’s mind. We think you understand him better than anyone else.’

‘I wanted to see him,’ Alison said.

‘Why?’

‘He’s my mirror.’ She withdrew her stare, looking down at the old damage on her hands. ‘I don’t expect you to understand that. Connie . . . won’t look at me, not properly. She calls me Alison. But Matt knows. Matt knows Esther.’

‘You wanted to see him, but you came here instead. Is that right? You didn’t go to Blackthorn Road, or try to contact Matt in any way?’

‘No. I came here instead. Connie persuaded me. She said it was too cruel to Matt. I know she’s right. I do know that.’ She knotted her fingers, her voice faltering for the first time. ‘How were they when you found them? You saw them. Fred and Archie . . .’

Marnie said, ‘They were together. They seemed . . . quiet. As if they were sleeping.’

Alison’s face twisted to accommodate this version of the truth. It’d sounded brutal when Fran first said it, and it was brutal now. How must it sound to the woman responsible for it?

‘What was it like,’ Noah said, ‘in the bunker? When you first took them down there . . . Did they think it was a game, or were they scared?’

It was a cruel question, but they needed Alison to focus on Carmen and Tommy. Perhaps if they could get her to
remember Fred and Archie, she’d snap out of this self-punishing apathy and start to help.

‘To begin with, we were happy. Then . . . I don’t remember.’ Her voice was cracked from side to side. ‘I don’t.’ She lifted her fist of fingers and knocked at the side of her skull, raising a hollow sound. ‘Too many pills . . . Esther remembered some things, little things. How good they were about getting into their pyjamas, brushing their teeth . . . Archie taking care of Fred, being such a good boy, taking charge when she had to go away.’

‘Why did she have to go?’

‘Louisa.’ Her voice shrank to nothing. ‘For Louisa.’

‘You . . . She couldn’t tell the police, about the boys?’

‘She didn’t. I don’t know why. She was scared. She was insane,’ shaking herself, ‘she was cruel and hateful. How many excuses do you need? Lyn has a hundred. More.’ She made her hands into claws. ‘She took everything the pills didn’t get, wrote it all down. You’d think I’d be grateful for that – the pills, the
not remembering
. But I’d rather have pain, and truth. I
hate
not being able to tell you the truth. I want to know what their last days were like. I want to know whether they knew how loved they were, how
huge
they were, in my heart.’ She stopped, emptying her hands, sitting under the dull stew of light, looking lost again.

‘They were together,’ Marnie said. ‘Archie was holding Fred, taking care of him. They were together.’

Alison turned her face away, as if the image Marnie had given her couldn’t compete with the pictures in her head. Or as if it made the pictures worse.

At Marnie’s side, Noah was silent, watching the woman.

Marnie said, ‘Tell us about Matt.’

‘I can’t tell you anything, not really. I don’t remember the worst of what I did, just . . . Sometimes I remember his face, seeing me. The horror on it. Fear. He was afraid of
me. Desperately afraid. He was the only one who saw what I was capable of. Not the police, not Connie, not Lyn. Only Matt. He saw how . . . inhuman I was. Beyond help. Beyond anything.’

Desperately afraid.

This was the man who’d taken his two small children into hiding. The man Ed Belloc had been trying to help.

‘He didn’t visit you? Connie said she did, after the medication started to help.’

‘She never saw me the way Matt did. She never saw Esther. Matt stayed away because he knew there was no help. No
getting better
. He knew what I was.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ Marnie said. ‘I’ve met Matt. He believes in second chances. He rebuilt a life for himself, and I think he would want the same for you.’

‘If you were right, he wouldn’t have taken his children into hiding. You wouldn’t be afraid. I can see you’re afraid, of what he might do and where he might have taken them.’

‘Where might he have taken them?’

Alison shook her head. Then she said, ‘You had another photograph, of a boy . . .’

‘Clancy Brand.’ Marnie took the photo from the folder and handed it over.

Alison studied it. ‘He looks like Matt.’

‘What?’

‘When I first knew him, when he was seventeen, Matt looked like this. A little.’

Alison stroked the photograph with her thumb. ‘It’s the eyes . . . Trying to look tough, but he’s not. He wasn’t ever tough, just a bit careless. And happy. Perhaps if he
had
been tough, he’d have been able to stop me. No, not
stop
. No one could do that. He could’ve let me die, though. He could’ve done that. But he wouldn’t give up. Not on anything. Poor Matt.’

Was that why Terry had taken on Clancy, because the boy reminded him of Matt? Of the person he’d been before Esther got sick? Careless, pretending to be tough when he wasn’t, not really, not enough to stop this woman destroying his family. And Clancy was around the age Archie would have been had he lived. Was that in Matt’s mind too?

‘What do you think he felt,’ Noah asked, ‘when he heard you were being released?’

‘Scared,’ she said, ‘to death.’

Silence in the room, just for a second.

‘Tell us about Ian Merrick,’ Marnie said, ‘and the bunkers.’

It took a moment for Alison to answer, as if she was struggling to remember who Merrick was or why he mattered. ‘He knows all the safe places,’ she said finally.

‘Did he know about Fred and Archie? About the safe place you put them?’

‘I didn’t think anyone knew.’ Her mouth thinned. ‘Not even me, not properly. Not then.’

‘But Merrick knew about the bunkers. He knew they weren’t filled in. He built family homes on ground that wasn’t safe.’

Alison glanced at Noah in surprise. ‘It was safe. Those bunkers were solidly built, better than the houses some people might say. People wanted them.’

‘People wanted the bunkers.’

‘They were safe,’ Alison insisted. ‘Hidden. How many places are like that? Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted a place you could go, away from everyone else. Quiet.
Safe
. Everyone wants to feel secure, and Ian knew all the best places. He helped to build shelters, special rooms . . . Everyone’s scared of something nowadays. Ian understood that.’

‘Your mother didn’t like him. She thought it was unhealthy for you, working with him.’

‘She was right. Look what happened. I found a bunker and I buried my children alive.’

A phone was ringing, somewhere in the station. Noah held his breath, praying for news of the children and Ed, but no one came to interrupt the interview.

‘Did Merrick know you’d been inside the bunkers on Beech Rise?’ Marnie asked.

‘No.’

‘But he knew you were aware of the existence of bunkers on that site.’

‘Of course he knew. He told me about them. He knew all the best places, and the people who wanted them. Supply and demand. He could’ve sold that land six times over if he’d held out for the right people.’

‘Why didn’t he?’

‘Sometimes you do a straight deal to stop people looking too hard at the crooked ones.’

‘He said that to you?’

‘He didn’t need to. I was a grown-up. I knew how the world worked.’

‘You weren’t well,’ Noah said. ‘That was why Connie didn’t want you working there.’

‘I was a grown-up,’ Alison repeated. She looked wiped out with the questioning. ‘Worse things happen in other places. He was just making money. We’re supposed to make money, aren’t we? Ian was good at his job.’

‘Which people would have paid over the odds for the bunkers on Beech Rise?’ Marnie asked. ‘You said he could have sold the land six times over. To whom?’

‘They call themselves preppers. They want safe places, underground. They’ll help you make the place nice, lay in provisions, tinned food, water . . .’ Alison’s voice faded.

‘Tinned food. Sweetcorn and . . . peaches. Provisions like that?’

Alison nodded. Her eyes had gone far away.

‘We found tins of peaches, with the boys. And somewhere else. Was that you? When you came back?’ Silence. ‘Alison?’

The woman retrieved her focus with difficulty. ‘What . . .?’

‘Did you leave a tin of peaches on the pavement outside the house in Blackthorn Road?’

Bewilderment. ‘No. Why would I?’

‘I don’t know, but I don’t see who else would have known to do that. Leave a tin of peaches where Fred and Archie died. Unless it was Matt. And if it was Matt, that scares me. It makes me wonder what’s going on inside his head. And it makes me scared for the children, Carmen and little Tommy. So I need to know. Was it you who left the peaches?’

‘It wasn’t me. How could it be? That’s . . . horrible, hateful. How could anyone do a thing like that? How could
I 
. . .?’ She went away again, behind the glass wall in her eyes.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Marnie made her voice hard, unforgiving. ‘You left the peaches because they needed to eat and peaches were their favourite food. You had to leave something. Other people left soft toys and candles. You left peaches.’

Shock tactics. Marnie was trying to make her connect to what was happening.

Alison blinked slowly, as if the lids of her eyes were heavy. ‘It wasn’t me. I know you need this to make sense, but it doesn’t. It will never make sense. I killed my babies, Louisa, and my boys. I put them in a bunker and left them to die. I did that. But I
did not
leave a tin of peaches five years later.’

‘So it was Matt. You said it was a horrible, hateful thing to do. This is what we’re dealing with. A man who would do a thing like that, whose children are missing. Together with a victim care officer and a teenage boy who’s the same age Archie would’ve been had he lived.’ Marnie held the
woman rigid with her stare. ‘You need to put away your pain and your punishment, or whatever you imagine this is, and help us find him.’

Alison said, ‘Thank God for Matt. Thank
God
for him. He knows what I am. He knows what I did and he will never lie about it, never pretend it was less terrible than it was. He’ll never forgive me. I
need
that. I need to remind myself what a monster I am.’

She looked at Marnie and Noah with appalling pity in her eyes.

‘Who asks for help from a monster?’

Tim Welland was waiting in Marnie’s office. ‘I spoke with Belloc’s boss. He says it’s not the first time Ed’s been in a hostage situation.’

Marnie shut the door, coming across to her desk, where Welland was propped.

‘We don’t know for sure that this is a hostage situation, sir. There’s been no contact. If Matt Reid had demands, wouldn’t he have made them by now?’

‘So where’re his kids? Where’s Clancy Brand?’

‘We’re looking for them. Two teams. We’ll find them.’

‘I should stand you down.’ Welland studied her. ‘Personal connection to the . . . hostage.’

Victim
. He’d been about to call Ed the victim.

Marnie said, ‘I’m looking for the children. You’re in charge of the team looking for Belloc and Reid. I’d like to be allowed to do my job.’

‘No one’s questioning your professionalism, detective. They’d have to come through me if they did.’ Welland lightened the growl. ‘Belloc’s boss wants to know why he was alone with Reid, or Doyle, whatever he’s calling himself now.’

‘That was my call,’ Marnie said directly. ‘Ed phoned to say he was worried about Terry. I was on my way over there, but I got distracted, asking questions about Clancy.’

‘Was there any reason to suspect Doyle of being a danger to himself or others?’

Welland was covering their backs, Marnie’s and his. Maybe he was trying to salve her conscience, too.

‘Ed was concerned. I asked if he wanted backup, but he said no. He was worried it might make things worse. He wouldn’t have said that if he thought Terry was dangerous.’

It was the thread she was holding on to, the fact that Ed was a great judge of people and situations. His voice had been full of worry, but he’d been certain he didn’t need backup.

Welland nodded. ‘So what now?’

‘We’ve got CCTV to check from Merrick’s sites. We’re going to start with the places Terry worked as a gardener. DS Jake and DC Tanner are taking a look inside number 14, in case he left any clues there. And I’m going to interview Beth.’

‘I thought she didn’t know anything about her husband’s past, about Matt and Esther?’

‘That’s what she says. She’s pregnant, so we need to tread softly.’

‘And quickly,’ Welland said. ‘It’s been eight hours since those kids went missing.’

Ed had been gone less than three.

Marnie had two clocks in her head, counting down.

‘His boss said Belloc was a natural, last time around. Defused the situation. Kept his head.’ Welland put his paw on her shoulder. ‘Don’t lose faith, detective.’

Marnie shook her head. ‘Of course not, sir.’