Authors: Michael Robotham
The Summer Festival was on the last weekend of the holidays. There were funfair rides, stalls and sideshows on Bingham Green. The local pony club put on a display and Reverend Trevor judged the dressage competition.
The entire day was supposed to be a celebration. It began with morning tea in the gardens of The Old Vicarage—one of the traditions that Mum and Dad had to agree to when they bought the house. Apparently, according to local historians (by which I mean busybodies), the vicarage had hosted a morning tea for estate workers and townsfolk for the past a hundred and sixty-two years.
I don’t know what an estate worker is, but most of the visitors were old biddies from the church, sitting at long tables on the lawn. There were scones, sponge cakes, trifles and summer puddings under muslin to keep the flies and sticky fingers away. Jasmine Dodds brought her new baby, whose scalp was all scaly like it was molting, but that didn’t stop everyone ooh-ing and ah-ing every time it burped. Jasmine used to babysit me when I was a kid.
At lunchtime Mr. Swanson, the town butcher, set up a spit and roasted a pig that looked so much like a naked person it made me feel like a cannibal when my mouth watered.
Mum and Dad made me work all day, serving tea and cakes, then clearing away dishes and washing up. I stacked chairs and replaced divots in the lawn. Meanwhile, I listened to squeals from the Disco Rider and saw people climbing the giant slide and heard the PA system telling parents where to pick up their missing kids.
Finally my temper got the better of me. I said it was fucking unfair and told Mum she was being a vindictive bitch. Dad’s shoulders slumped like he was deflating. I’d disappointed him again.
I was sent to my room. Grounded. I could hear Mum and Dad arguing about sending me away again. She was saying I was out of control and he was telling her not to overreact.
Tash sent me an email from her phone with a photo attached. She and Emily were sitting in the pirate ship, their hair flying as it swung back and forth. I couldn’t even text them. My phone had been confiscated. What would they take away next?
At eight-thirty I made a show of brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. Phoebe and Ben were already asleep. As soon as I heard Mum and Dad start watching a movie in the lounge, I opened my bedroom window. From the roof I could climb onto the old stables and slide down the tree onto the woodpile. Crossing the garden, I silenced the frogs and crickets. Slipping through the side gate, I was only two minutes from the green.
Tash and Emily were near the bungee trampoline. They’d been riding the roller and were laughing how their dresses would flip up every time the cars went upside down.
It was only nine o’clock and the fair didn’t stop until midnight. We walked arm in arm between the sideshows. Tash was in her element, batting her eyelids and tossing her hair. Boys and grown men were looking at her, some like puppies, others like predators.
Soon after nine Emily got a phone call about her mum being taken to hospital. It wasn’t the first time. We were getting used to Mrs. Martinez being sick. I remember wishing my mum would get carted off to hospital, which makes me feel guilty now.
Tash slipped her hand down her pants and pulled out a small pillbox, pulling my hand until we were behind one of the tents.
“I only have one. We’ll have to share.”
She popped it in her mouth, slipped her arm through mine and kissed me, pressing her tongue hard against mine until the pill crumbled and dissolved like aspirin. She pulled away giggling. My cheeks were burning.
“I think you liked that,” she said, teasing me. Already I could feel the E filling me up with chemical joy. I could taste the music, which was fizzing in my brain like lemon sherbet.
She took my hand again.
“Let’s go swimming.”
“But the pool’s closed.”
“I know how we can get in.”
She was talking about the leisure center. Tash was pulling at my arm, dragging me with her. The idea of going swimming with her brought a flutter of happiness inside me. There were some drunken teenagers talking to the police near the park entrance. Tash steered me around them and we ran all the way to the leisure center.
It was a hot night, full of insect sounds and the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine. Every one of my senses seemed to be heightened. I could have run faster than ever before. I could have run all the night and into next week.
The only thing that seemed strange was my voice. I didn’t sound like me.
“We have to get out of this place,” said Tash, with the exhausted affectation of a bored housewife. “It’s so small and mean and…”
“Boring?”
“If we don’t escape, we’ll go mad with boredom. We’ll be trapped. We’ll get married and pregnant and buy a house and be stuck here for fifty years like our parents.”
She twirled onto the street with her arms outstretched, shouting, “We’re going to be free!” and spinning round and round before collapsing drunkenly onto the grass, dizzy and laughing uncontrollably.
The leisure center has two small outdoor pools and a larger one indoors beneath a domed roof where pool lights shone blue and painted patterns on the interior walls.
We walked around the outside, following the wire security fence. Someone had parked a builder’s skip behind the administration block, next to one of the brick pylons.
Tash climbed onto the skip.
“You’ll have to give me a leg-up.” She flipped the hem of her dress, showing me her thong. “No peeking.”
I cupped my hands together and she stepped into my palms. Then she shimmied upwards onto the brick pillar where she posed like a sea captain, staring into the distance.
“I see water.”
“What about me?”
“Follow the fence. I’ll let you through the gate.”
It was dark and I cracked my shin against a bike rack, cursing and hopping on one foot, rubbing the other. I called out to Tash. She didn’t answer.
I peered through the fence, wondering where she’d gone. Then I spied her near the gate, her short dress hanging loosely from her shoulders, her hair askew. Through the drugs and dark, she looked like a mermaid who had shed her tail and learned to walk.
She was looking over her shoulder and then she began to run, kicking up her feet like a newborn foal. At first I thought she was running away from me, but then I realized that she was running in my direction. She didn’t slow down. She smacked into the wire fence headlong and fell backwards. Up again, she tried to climb, but couldn’t get traction. Not strong enough.
“
Run, Piper,” she said. “Run!”
D
rury gazes from his office window at the gray winter day, the eve of Christmas Eve. A wind has sprung up but the clouds seem too solid to move. Concrete. Summer might never come again.
“It’s not Victor McBain,” I say.
The DCI doesn’t seem to be listening. After a long pause, he turns to me and gives himself a heave as though shifting a heavy load from one shoulder to the other.
“What changed your mind?”
“On the night of the blizzard he was with a woman at a hotel. He doesn’t want to implicate her.”
“We need a name.”
“Will it be made public?”
“Not unless it’s relevant.”
“Sarah Hadley.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“And you believe him?”
“I do.”
Drury’s eyes move around the office, focusing on his desk, the back of his chair, the windowsill, but his mind is elsewhere. Perhaps he’s contemplating his own infidelity or trying to remember a time when people didn’t disappoint him.
“I don’t know how many people I’ll have left by tomorrow,” he says. “People want to get home for Christmas. My budget is blown and I can’t pay them overtime.”
“What about the search?”
“We’re going over old ground. I’m scaling it down.”
Voices interrupt him, the sound of a commotion. He turns back to the window. A crowd has gathered on the footpath outside. TV cameras, reporters and photographers: encircling Hayden McBain. He’s wearing a blue blazer and has combed his hair.
“My sister is dead and they have the nerve to arrest me,” he yells, pointing at the station. “They locked
me
up. They threatened
me.
They told me to shut up. Well, I won’t stay quiet. I’m going to sue these bastards for wrongful arrest, personal injury and emotional suffering. I’m going to sue them for destroying my good name.”
Drury rests his forehead against the glass, leaving an oily mark.
“Look at that toe-rag,” he mutters. “He’s got himself an agent, some Max Clifford type who’s flogging his story to the highest bidder. He should have been charged.”
“It would have made things worse.”
“He’s profiteering. There should be laws.”
Another interruption. Dave Casey this time.
“You’re going to want to see this, boss. Sky News just posted new pictures of Natasha McBain on their website. They’re saying they were taken on the night before she disappeared.”
Casey types the webpage address on the desktop computer. The page loads with photographs beneath a headline: “Natasha’s Last Dance.”
The images are poor quality, taken on a mobile phone, but the subject is instantly recognizable. Natasha McBain is wearing a short summer frock and appears to be dancing. Spinning. The movement causes the dress to lift from her hips.
She has an audience of men, although I can’t see their faces. They’re sitting on benches or standing around her, watching her dance.
These are the last images ever taken of tragic teenager Natasha McBain, who disappeared three years ago with her best friend Piper Hadley. The photographs were taken only hours before Natasha went missing from a summer festival in Bingham, Oxfordshire, on August 30, 2008.
Natasha’s body was discovered last week in a frozen lake half a mile away from her home.
“I want the originals,” orders Drury. “I want to know who took them.”
Fifteen minutes later a call is patched through to the deputy director of news at the cable channel. Nathan Porter has a Brummie accent full of chummy bonhomie. He’s on speakerphone.
“How can I help, Detective Chief Inspector?”
“You have photographs of Natasha McBain. Where did they come from?”
“A member of the public provided them.”
“I need a name and contact address.”
“Our source wished to remain anonymous.”
Drury tries hard to control his temper. “This is not WikiLeaks, Mr. Porter. This is a murder investigation.”
“Sky News has an obligation to protect our journalistic sources. In a free society…”
Drury picks up the phone unit and pretends to bash it against the desk. Porter is still talking.
“… media independence is an important pillar of democracy…”
Any goodwill that existed between the two men has gone.
“Let’s be serious, Mr. Porter, you’re not protecting democracy, you’re protecting the killer of a teenage girl.”
“Steady on,” says the news editor. “I think you’re exaggerating the situation. All we’ve done is find a good story.”
“That’s all this is to you, a
good story
. A girl is dead. Another is missing. You have fifteen minutes to provide police with the identity of your source. If you fail to do so, I will call another media conference. I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Hadley would appreciate the opportunity to comment on a news organization that withholds important evidence that could help find their daughter.”
There is a long pause. Some silences have their own grammar and syntax.
The news editor speaks first. “Please hold the line. I’m seeking advice from our lawyers.”
“The clock is ticking,” says Drury.
We wait, listening to a promotion for Christmas programs on Sky Premier.
Five minutes later, Porter returns.
“There seems to have been a misunderstanding,” he says, apologizing for the delay. “Crossed wires.”
“How so?”
“We always intended to hand over the photographs. We certainly didn’t want to impede or hinder your investigations. Perhaps, in return for our help, you might consider making the Hadleys available for an exclusive interview.”
“That’s not possible,” says Drury.
“Perhaps
you
would agree to be interviewed.”
“You don’t want that, Mr. Porter.”
“Why not?”
“I might say something you’d regret.”
“I see.”
“Who gave you the photographs?”
“A man called the newsroom and offered us the images. He called himself John Smith—clearly a fake name. He wanted cash. We paid him five hundred pounds.”