Authors: Michael Robotham
They gave us each a work roster. We had to set the tables or clear away dishes, or help in the kitchens. Our beds had to be made and rooms tidied. It was like being at boarding school because even our socks had to be folded in a certain way.
“Don’t knot them together—fold them with a smile,” the matron said.
“Mine are smiling like the crack of your arse,” I told her.
That lost me games room privileges.
At least they let me write. It was encouraged. I had to write lists of things I liked about myself and the things I disliked. The way I looked, for instance; my swearing; my temper; the fact that I’m crap at math…
I was allowed to make one phone call every week to Mum and Dad. I begged them. I cried. I tried to guilt them into letting me come home. My father’s voice would start to shake, but Mum would grab the phone from him before he broke down.
I didn’t have a mobile. I couldn’t talk to Tash or find out what had happened to Callum or Aiden. Days stretched into weeks. A month. Two. There were more therapy sessions and lectures on drugs and alcohol.
My parents thought I was a drug addict—or well on the way. I was “heading down the slippery slope,” they said.
After eight weeks they let me go home. They didn’t tell me until half an hour before my parents arrived. Even then, the matron just said, “Pack your suitcase.”
Mum came to the reception room. Dad stayed outside, standing by the car. That was it. We drove home in silence and I went to my room. I looked at my computer and at my mobile. I didn’t call Tash. I didn’t email anyone. I pulled out all my old toys and played with them. My Barbie dolls. I combed their hair and changed their clothes. I hadn’t done that in years.
Miss McCrudden, my English teacher—the one who loves my stories—always told me not to have passive characters when I wrote. They have to make things happen, she said, not just have things happen to them.
That’s when I realized what she meant. I was a passive character in my own life, letting things happen instead of forging my own way, finding my own path.
Not any more, I decided, never again.
T
he caretaker is easy enough to track down. He hasn’t covered his tracks or crawled into a deep hole. Nobody is far from the surface these days—not with emails and Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. They leave an electronic trail behind like mouse droppings in cyberspace.
Nelson Stokes works as a street cleaner for Oxford City Council, pushing a barrow in the pedestrianized precincts and laneways too narrow for the machines.
Thirty-eight, with long hair and an angular face, he’s wearing a plaid wool shirt and a reflective jacket. His barrow is propped outside a shoe shop while he rolls himself a cigarette. Inside the shop, a young salesgirl is standing on tiptoes, putting boxes on a high shelf. Stokes is watching her thighs and rump flexing beneath her short skirt.
“Mr. Stokes?”
He turns his head slowly. “Do I know you?”
I hand him a business card. He reads it carefully, taking a moment to decide if I’m an inconvenience or an opportunity. I’ve seen his police file, which is depressing reading. Arrested twice in his early twenties for accepting stolen goods, he pleaded guilty and was given the benefit. Before that he was studying engineering at university but lost his place for cheating in his first year exams. Odd jobs since then; married; divorced; one failed business. He worked at St. Catherine’s as a caretaker/groundsman for two years before being fired.
According to the police file, a handful of senior students at St. Catherine’s complained about Stokes taking photographs of them. It emerged that some of the girls had opted to do a quick change at the back of the sports hall after gym instead of going to the locker room upstairs. Stokes had used a digital camera to record them. Pictures of Natasha were found among the images.
The caretaker spent two days in custody and was interviewed for eight hours, but he had an alibi for the Sunday morning that the girls disappeared.
Propping his broom in the barrow, Stokes takes a seat at a bus stop and lights his cigarette.
“I was hoping we could talk about the Bingham Girls.”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“I’ve been asked to review the case.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
“You knew the girls.”
“Found them, have they? The bodies.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Stands to reason.” He blows smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Missing all this time—they must be dead.”
He raises his eyes and glances across the street where a group of girls are chatting outside a Starbucks. I notice the heat in his eyes and his unwashed smell.
“I know about the photographs.”
“I never touched those girls. Not a hair.”
“You took pictures.”
He flicks ash. “That’s all. Why you bringing this up again? Did one of those little bitches make a complaint? Wants to sue. She can go ahead. Got no money. Can sue me for the barrow.” He laughs and nods to his brooms.
Stokes isn’t a practiced deceiver. If you’re going to lie, you show your hands, let people see you’re unarmed. And you lean forward a little to reinforce your convictions, without breaking eye contact.
“Where were you on the night of the blizzard?” I ask.
“Saturday? I would have been washing my hair.”
“Is that your alibi?”
“Why would I need one?” He smiles at me sadly, a bitter taste in his mouth. “It’s the uncle they should be looking at. I told the police. I told them what I saw.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them about that girl and her uncle, Vic McBain.”
“What about them?”
“I saw them together. He was dropping Natasha at school one day and the two of them were in the front seat of his car. She was sitting on his lap and they were kissing. Not just any kiss. Not a peck on the cheek. Open-mouthed. You know what I’m saying? At first I thought it was one of the senior girls and her boyfriend, but then Natasha got out and I saw the bloke she’d been kissing. She went skipping off to class like it was right as rain.”
“You’re sure it was Vic McBain?”
“Yeah. I talked to Natasha. She said she knew about my taking pictures and that if I told anyone she’d tell the police that I touched her. That’s a lie. I never laid a finger on any of them girls.”
“And you told the police this?”
“Yeah, I told them.”
“Who did you tell?”
“A detective; I don’t know his name.”
I’ve read the files. There were no allegations of an improper relationship between Vic McBain and his niece.
Stokes squeezes his cigarette until the paper and ash disintegrate. He sweeps them into a dustpan on a stick.
“She could be a real bitch that McBain girl, so full of herself, strutting around like she was on a catwalk. A prick-tease at fourteen, a runaway at fifteen, that girl was nothing but trouble. Maybe she got what she deserved.”
“What did she deserve?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns away and lifts a hard-bristled broom from the barrow.
“I got work to do.”
A
pint of Guinness is resting between Ruiz’s elbows and he’s studying the bubbles as they settle into a creamy head. We’re not drinking in the Morse Bar. He chose a pub around the corner, where the prices are cheaper and happy hour twice as long.
“I’ve got nothing against TV detectives,” he explains. “They’re all equally full of shit. You take Columbo.”
“Peter Falk?”
“The guy wears the same raincoat for twenty years and pretends to be bumbling and stupid so people underestimate him. I know detectives who’ve been doing that for twice that long and haven’t solved more than a crossword puzzle. You know what happens to them?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“They get promoted.”
His pint glass is empty.
“It’s your shout,” he says.
“I’m not drinking.”
“That’s not my fault. It’s called a tradition.”
I go to the bar. When I get back to the table Ruiz has taken out his notebook and is licking his thumb as he turns the pages. While I’ve been interviewing Emily Martinez and Nelson Stokes, he’s been tracking down details of the accident.
He rattles off the facts: Aiden Foster, twenty, and Callum Loach, eighteen, had an altercation at a party in Abingdon. Later in the evening Foster drove a car into Loach and fled the scene.
“Foster was arrested the next day. He copped a plea and the charge was downgraded from attempted murder to GBH. He’s been inside for the past four years.”
“What happened to Loach?”
“He had both legs amputated above the knee. Lives at home.”
“And the fight was over Natasha?”
“Apparently so.” Ruiz takes a sip of Guinness and wipes his top lip. “It didn’t make her very popular.”
“How so?”
“When she gave evidence at the trial people abused her outside the court, saying it was her fault. Foster’s barrister made her sound like Slutty McSlut from Slutsville. Witnesses said she was dealing drugs at the party.”
“So the families blamed Natasha?”
“Looks like it.”
Ruiz raises an eyebrow. He knows I’m trawling for motives, looking for anomalies or angles the police might have overlooked.
“What was Aiden Foster doing with a fifteen-year-old girlfriend?” I ask.
“What was Vic McBain doing with his niece?” he counters.
“I don’t know if I believe Stokes.”
“Why would he lie?”
“To deflect attention. What do we know about Vic McBain?”
“He and Isaac used to be business partners. They started a scaffolding business together ten years ago. It’s a niche market, very lucrative and competitive. Vic doesn’t so much win clients as lose competitors.”
“What do you mean?”
“Other companies have trucks clamped or jobs cancelled or scaffolding collapse, but Vic’s business is bulletproof. When it comes to winning contracts, Vic seems to always be the low bidder or the last man standing.”
“Why aren’t the brothers still partners?”
“They had a falling out. Vic bought Isaac’s share of the company. Now Isaac works for him.”
“What did Isaac do with the money?”
“Lost it on the wheel of fortune—the one with the red and black numbers and the bouncing white ball. That’s probably why he fell in with the Connolly brothers. He owed fifteen grand to a loan shark called Cyril Honey.”
“So he opted for the last resort—he robbed an armored van.”
“And now he’s living in a shack while Vic owns five hundred square yards of a property on the Thames and a chateau in France.”
Ruiz closes his notebook and slips a rubber band around the pages. “You think Stokes is good for this?”
“Maybe. I’d really like to know why his statement didn’t mention Vic McBain.”
“You should ask DCI Drury. Make his day.”
My mobile is ringing. I don’t recognize the number, but the voice is familiar.
Victoria Naparstek apologizes for her behavior at the hospital and asks me what I’m wearing.
“Why?”
“I want you to take me to dinner and I’m just making sure you’re not wearing that tweed jacket.”
“Is tweed a problem?”
“It makes you look like a supply teacher.”
“That’s good to know.”
“I’ve booked us a table at Branca. It’s an Italian restaurant in Walton Street. I’ll see you at eight.”
I end the call. Ruiz has an arched eyebrow. “You have a date?”
“Just a meal.”
“With that very fetching psychiatrist.”
“She wants my opinion on something.”
“Not your body then?”
Ruiz is the only one of my friends who doesn’t try to convince me that Julianne and I are going to get back together. I think he hopes it, but would never say as much. Although he talks a lot about sex, the only woman in his life is his ex-wife Miranda, who seems to have decided that Ruiz was a lousy husband but perfectly adequate as an occasional shag.
“I have to get changed,” I tell him. “She doesn’t like tweed.”
“Obviously a woman of taste.”
“Out of my league.”
“Chin up. Even the shittiest player can fluke a goal.”
Victoria Naparstek is waiting for me in the hotel foyer. She’s wearing contact lenses and sexier clothes—a mid-thigh black dress, leggings and boots that make her taller than I am. It’s one more thing to be self-conscious about.
The Italian restaurant has tea candles in red globes on every table. It’s perfect lighting to hide a myriad of flaws and blemishes—mine not hers.
“How is Augie?” I ask.