No Other Darkness (29 page)

Esther had taken a high-vis jacket when she absconded from the hospital. That should have made her easy to spot on the site, but it didn’t. She’d gone to ground.

‘She said she knew this place,’ Connie Pryce told Noah. ‘There are tunnels here, that’s what she said.’ Her face was set in hard lines, made harder by the site’s artificial lighting. ‘She knows a way in, one of Merrick’s hiding places.’

‘We’ve found it,’ Noah told her. ‘We’re looking for DI Rome. And Matt and Clancy.’

Debbie was holding the boy’s duffle bag.

‘He wouldn’t have left that behind,’ Noah said, ‘if he was in charge of what was happening. Beth Doyle said he never let the bag out of his sight.’

‘Terry,’ Debbie said. ‘He’s down there too?’

‘Matt,’ Connie said. ‘He’s Matt. No point pretending otherwise.’

She looked at Noah. ‘That’s what you’re dealing with. I hope you’re prepared.’

Shadows shrank the exit to a pinhole behind Matt’s head.

Marnie forced herself to focus on the broken torch in the man’s hand.

It was the only weapon he had, if you discounted the death in his eyes. A broken torch. Rubber, not metal, which probably meant it would hurt more when it hit her, but at least it wouldn’t cut. A broken torch wasn’t a knife. He didn’t have a knife. But he’d managed to fracture Merrick’s skull.

Eyes, ears, throat. Those were his weak points. Not his balls – men expected that – but she could go for his ears, or his knees.

He was out of his mind, she could see that.

Out of his mind with grief and guilt and the need to know what Clancy was hiding. She didn’t want to hurt him; he was hurting enough. But she was damned if she was getting bounced around a condemned tunnel by a madman with a torch.

She hissed behind her at Clancy, ‘When I tell you, you’re going to run. You’re not going to fight. You’re going to get out of here and fetch help. Understood?’

She never got the chance to find out whether Clancy understood or not.

Matt swallowed the shadows in two strides, sweeping her out of his way, grabbing Clancy by the scruff of his neck and swinging him at the nearest wall.

Clancy yelled in pain, hitting out, some of the blows connecting but with no effect other than to drive Matt harder, pushing Clancy ahead of him into the wall, the boy’s head thumping against the bricks.

Marnie tried to sweep Matt’s ankle, a move she’d perfected in the self-defence classes with Kate Larbie. It was like trying to swat a bull with a feather. Matt just thrust an elbow back and she ended up on the floor again.

‘Matt! Matthew!’ A shout, from behind them. ‘Matthew!’

Footfall coming up the tunnel, someone running towards them, calling out. ‘Matt!’

Matt froze, his forearm jammed up against Clancy’s windpipe, his whole body jumping in response to his name, and the voice that was calling it.

Esther.

Marnie got to her knees, tears wrecking her vision so that what she saw coming through the cellar’s mouth was a blaze of white, stuffing the entrance as if something solid was being shoved into place, trapping them inside.

‘Matt!’ The shout, whip-hard, made all three of them jump.

Matt’s arm dropped from Clancy and the boy kicked out, shoving Matt off as he slid down the wall, hugging his knees, his mouth bruised blue by lack of air.

Esther was dressed in fiery yellow. Fluorescent; a high-vis jacket.

Marnie forced herself to her feet, moving to where Clancy was heaped, touching careful fingers to the boy’s neck. He was icy with shock, sucking breath between his teeth.

She lifted her head and looked at Matt Reid and his ex-wife, spotlit by the yellow of the borrowed coat, her face fiercely haggard.

Matt couldn’t look at her. He stood cowed, all the fight wiped out of him.

Marnie could smell his fear from where she was crouched at Clancy’s side.

It was sweet and rank, like death.

Connie Pryce stood watching the last of the light as it clung to the polythene sheeting of Merrick’s stalled development. ‘So much,’ she said, ‘for keeping her safe.’

Noah glanced at her. ‘She chose to run. She was told to stay in the hospital.’

‘Your boss should’ve stayed with her. She knew she was sick. Now she’s down there.’ She jerked her head. ‘Down in the dark with God only knows what . . .’

‘My boss is down there too.’ Noah’s jaw ached where he was clenching it.

He was waiting for word from the specialist unit that was making the area safe. However much he might want to drop down into the hole that had swallowed Marnie, he couldn’t. Not without backup. It could put her in more danger.

At his side, Connie shivered.

‘Esther was always on about site safety. She was obsessed with it. She wouldn’t let anyone go anywhere without hard hats, steel-toe shoes, the full rig-out. She was responsible, she said.’ Connie shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t know it now, but she was such a happy girl, once. And
funny
. She could win a laugh from anyone. That’s why he fell in love
with her, I expect. That and her common sense. Of the two of them, she was the sensible one. And so conscientious. If anyone got so much as a scratch it would be on her conscience and she couldn’t live with that. She said she couldn’t live . . .’

More floodlights came on, drowning the site in white.

Noah and Connie blinked, blind for a second.

‘Health and safety,’ Connie said. ‘What a joke.’

Esther filled the mouth of the tunnel, her face wet with the slick light jumping from the torch in her ex-husband’s hand.

Matt looked like someone had skinned his face to bone. Seeing the murderer of his children, his worst nightmare. His monster.

Behind Marnie, Clancy shuddered, nearly as scared as Matt. What had he witnessed to make him so afraid of the man he’d known as Terry Doyle?

Esther said, ‘Matt,’ gently now.

He cringed as if she’d struck him.

Their eyes locked, a fused stare that stretched from terror at one end to pity at the other. A terrible pity, almost pitiless, and
surely
he could see . . . surely Matt could see that Esther had not forgotten or forgiven the woman she was when she destroyed their family.

Clancy was holding on to Marnie. How was she going to get him past Esther and Matt? She couldn’t leave them down here like this. Too many ways it could end in disaster.

‘Esther . . .’ She wanted the woman to look at her, give some sign that she was here to help, not for punishment or retribution, or because her mind was lost again.

Esther’s stare was locked to Matt. Thirsty. Drinking him up, his fear and all.

What had she called him, back at the station?

Her mirror.

Marnie said, ‘Esther, we need to get out of here.
Now
.’

The torch hung from Matt’s hand, swinging a little as he shook, marking stripes on the floor that hurt Marnie’s eyes.

‘I wanted to be back with my boys.’ His voice was pulled inside out by grief. ‘I just wanted to
be
 . . . with them.’

Esther didn’t speak. Her shadow swallowed half the tunnel.

Matt smashed the torch at the wall, screaming the next words: ‘You buried them alive! You buried my boys!’

Clancy cringed into Marnie. She held him still, her eyes on Matt.

‘Fred and Archie. My boys!’ White spittle flew from his mouth. ‘Louisa . . . little Louisa. That wasn’t enough? You had to take them too? Down in the dark for years and years and years. Bones . . . they were just bones. I saw them like that, the way you left them!’

‘Matt . . .’ Esther’s face was a mask, rigid with remorse.

‘You warned me you’d do it.’ He moved his arm in Marnie’s direction. ‘She kept saying she’d kill herself and the children. No one but me believed her.’ A laugh cracked his voice in two. ‘The doctors said to keep sharp objects out of sight, as if that was all it took. I was always hiding stuff and
she
 . . .’ his arm swung back to Esther, ‘
you
were always finding it, hoarding it, like a sick game we were playing. You were only happy when you were hiding pills and razor blades and pencils . . . But not
them
. I didn’t think you’d hide
them
. Not like that, not in the dark. They
hated
the dark. You know they hated the dark . . .’

‘I know. I do know. Matt, I’m so sorry . . .’

‘I kept some of your pills, did you know that? After they took you away, when they started asking why I hadn’t
done
something.
Anything
. I wanted proof that I’d tried to get you help.’ Across his shoulder to Marnie: ‘She wouldn’t take the pills. She said she couldn’t, when she was expecting Louisa. I put them out of reach of the children, on a high shelf . . .’

Not too high for Clancy to reach. The boy’s fingers clutched coldly at hers.

‘Matt . . .’ Esther tried again.

‘She sharpened pencils all the time, to stab at herself . . . Holes in both ankles where she tried to find veins.’ He shivered, staring at the woman in front of him. ‘You have holes in your ankles, but nothing hurt you. Nothing stopped you.
I
didn’t.’

His voice dropped abruptly. ‘I didn’t stop you.’

He started to sob, his chest heaving. ‘I
saved
you. I saved your life. It’s
my fault
they’re dead. If I’d just let you do it . . . let you
die
. They would be alive. It’s my fault,
mine
.’

‘Oh Matt,
no 
. . .’

‘
Yes
.’ The torch smashed at the wall. ‘I should’ve let you
die
. I should’ve
killed
you!’

His anger took up too much space; it was hard to breathe down here.

‘I should’ve killed you!’ he screamed again.

‘Yes,’ Esther whispered. ‘Yes, you should.’

The torch smashing at the wall; Matt closing in on the woman.

‘Carmen and Tommy need their dad,’ Marnie snapped. ‘Carmen and Tommy and the new baby. Beth can’t raise that family on her own, Terry. She needs you.
Terry!
’

Matt’s head moved in confusion.

‘Tell me,’ Marnie said. ‘Tell me what she did. I’m listening. I want to know.’

‘She killed my family! My boys, my baby, my
wife
.’ A staggering sound in his chest. ‘Everyone. She killed everyone . . .’

He put his free hand blindly to his face, as if the light was burning him.

Marnie knew that feeling. How bereavement laid you bare, made you raw. Everything hurt – daylight, other people’s eyes on you – as if you were missing a layer of skin. She remembered the fellow feeling when she stood at this man’s side by the pavement memorial to the boys. Grief, coming off him in waves. She should’ve recognised it sooner.

‘I should have died. I
wanted
to die. When I saw Louisa, when I saw my baby girl . . .’ He gripped at his face until his fingers turned white. ‘I wanted my boys back, wanted them
safe
.’

‘You knew they hadn’t drowned,’ Marnie said. ‘How? How did you know?’

‘Archie . . . would never let that happen to Fred. They could swim. I taught them.’ He uncovered his face, flinching as he looked at his ex-wife. ‘The police said you drugged them, but I didn’t believe it. I could see in your face they were dead. I didn’t have any hope, not really, not when I started looking. I couldn’t ask easy questions, because I wasn’t
Matt
any more. It took a long time. I went to the places you used to go. Then I thought about
Merrick
,’ his voice spat again, ‘the fact that he was building everywhere, all those sites, derelict land he’d bought. I made him tell me about the places you’d been.’

Which was more dangerous, his rage at Esther or his rage at himself? Grief, or guilt?

‘Merrick gave me a list of all the places you’d been, while you were working for him. I worked my way through the list, but it took time. I had a job, bills to pay. I couldn’t spend all my time searching.
Terry
took up a lot of time, all the rules I was supposed to follow . . .’

‘And you met Beth. You started a new family.’

‘
I
was responsible. That’s what they said. Matt was
responsible. I didn’t want to be
Matt
. Matt was pathetic, useless. Responsible for you . . .’ He bared his teeth at Esther. ‘They locked you up for a month. Do you even remember that? They locked you up with violent schizophrenics, people who were out of control . . . Then they discharged you,’ his voice flooded with bitterness, ‘
into my care
.’

No follow-up care, no diagnosis or treatment for Matt Reid. Just an instruction to take care of his wife when she was judged fit enough to be sent home to her young family. And later, an instruction to move on, get over it and get on with life when how could you move on? After everything had stopped and your life had been ripped out of you?

When he spoke again, his voice was a snarl over his shoulder at Marnie. ‘I was
scared
. Of what she’d do, what I
knew
she was going to do. She didn’t even try to hide it. If I went to work, she’d phone to say she was going to kill herself, and the kids. Can you imagine getting that call? Not once, but day after day? I lived in fear of what I’d find when I got home. She
terrorised
me.’ The snarl swung back towards Esther. ‘You . . .
exulted
in it. Hoarding whatever you could get your hands on. Razors, combs, anything. The only time you were happy was when you were stockpiling weapons.’ He shook with rage, and terror. ‘I couldn’t watch you and the kids 24/7. How could I? How could anyone?’

Esther didn’t speak, didn’t move.

‘They couldn’t,’ Marnie said. ‘No one could. But now . . . you’re married to Beth.’

‘Yes.’ The word emptied out of him, a small word made huge by his distress.

‘And you have a new family.’

‘Yes . . .’

‘Tell me what that’s like.’

Keep talking, focus on what you
have
, not what you’ve lost.

‘It’s like . . . being dead. I’m Terry, and Matt’s dead, and
that’s
good
because I stopped hurting, for a bit. But I was scared of getting it wrong all over again. When Tommy was tiny, and Carmen, with her tantrums. Never anything like that with Fred and Archie. Carmen and Tommy are so . . . different.’ He spoke about the children as if they were strangers. Maybe they felt like strangers. He was mourning his lost children. That hole was impossible to fill, no matter how hard he tried, how much love he had left to give.

‘You bought the house with Beth,’ Marnie said gently, ‘knowing the boys were there?’

‘Not
knowing
. Hoping . . . I wanted to be close by. Back with my boys.’ He wiped at his eyes with his free hand, the other still full of the broken torch. ‘I thought it would be enough, to be close to them. But it wasn’t. I had to see them. I had to
know
. Then the parole office told me
she
was getting out. They gave me a date and I had to do something. I wanted them out of that hole. Safe.’

‘You must’ve known that finding them and reporting it would spark an investigation. You must have known we’d find out you were their father.’

‘I didn’t care about that!’ His voice rose. ‘I only cared about making them safe. From
her
. I had to see Fred and Archie. I saw Louisa,’ grief pulled at his face again, ‘they let me hold her. But the boys were gone. Washed out to sea, everyone said, but I
knew
it wasn’t true.’

He pointed the torch at Esther. ‘You took their things. Nothing of Louisa’s, just Fred and Archie’s favourite toys and books. Fred’s monkey, and Mister Squirrel . . . Archie was growing out of toys, but he still took Mister Squirrel everywhere. That’s when I knew. I knew you’d put them somewhere, hidden them. You were
always
hiding things.’

A fresh lick of anger in his voice. ‘I started going through Merrick’s list and I found Beech Rise, the field that was there before he started work. You used to take the boys
walking in fields, before you got really sick. They’d come home covered in mud, leaves in their hair. Beech leaves. You kept them in a bowl . . . As soon as I saw those trees, I knew. They loved to climb . . . I knew that was how you tricked them.’

He turned raw eyes towards Marnie. ‘I
tried
to give up. Get over it. But I couldn’t. Seeing Carmen and Tommy, watching them sleep, it just made me want my boys more. It
hurt,
it physically hurt. My arms
ached
for them. I pretended it was work, but it wasn’t. I wanted to hold my boys. I’d held Louisa, but not them. My arms ached all the time. If I’d just been able to say goodbye . . . If I only knew where they were . . .’

‘I wanted to tell you,’ Esther whispered. ‘I did want to tell you. Before the pills took hold. Before I was Alison who couldn’t remember anything . . . I wanted to tell you, but I was scared. They said you had a new life, and you deserved that much. I knew it was true. I hoped you were happy, that you’d started over. It was one less thing I’d destroyed . . .’

‘You destroyed
everything
! And you
lied
. You lied about what you’d done, how they died, where you’d hidden them. The other side of London, miles away! You took them miles away. I had to search for months and months . . . I dug those gardens until my hands were raw. You have no idea what that was like, not knowing, wanting them
found
.’

‘You didn’t give up,’ Esther whispered. ‘You never gave up.’

‘How could I? On them? Our boys. I had to know where they were and what you’d done. I couldn’t stand the thought of them alone out there. I
had
to know.’

Marnie said, ‘You dug the gardens at Beech Rise for Merrick. That’s when you were able to check the bunkers, eliminate the empty ones. But you didn’t open the bunker
at number 14, not until two weeks ago. How could you be sure the boys were there?’

‘I couldn’t, of course I couldn’t, but have you
any
idea how much courage it took to open those bunkers? I was terrified.’ His mouth drew into a fresh snarl. ‘Just like old times. Right, love? Me, being a
coward
. Too scared to look and see what you’d done. Hiding from the truth. Making up stories to make myself feel better. Maybe they did drown, maybe they felt nothing, maybe they were safe somewhere . . .
Lies
so that I could face whatever you’d done this time. The same as always. Stupid, careless,
cowardly
Matt.’

‘But you opened the bunker,’ Marnie said. ‘Two weeks ago.’

‘I had to make them safe when I heard she was coming out. There was no choice then. It wasn’t about me any longer, it was about
them
.’

His face burned white, feverish. ‘I stood by that . . . bed. With my boys, what was left of my boys. I couldn’t bear it. Their little hands, their feet . . . I wanted to cover them up. They looked so
cold
. I knew it would mean the police, that Beth would find out I’d lied and I’d lose everything I had left, but none of that mattered. I just wanted them not to be
alone
. And I wanted to give them a proper burial, with their baby sister, somewhere I could go and sit and talk to them . . .’

He broke off with a barking sob. ‘God forgive me, I left the peaches. I don’t know why. I wanted to leave
something
. I saw the tins down there and I recognised them. The Brands had a catalogue of provisions for their panic room . . . I knew where to buy the peaches, so I did. I shouldn’t have left them outside the house, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t . . . myself.’