Authors: Michael Robotham
Up again, I drag myself through the brambles, which catch on my clothes. There are buildings around me. Abandoned. Derelict. A water tower. A blackened chimney. A wire fence is draped in blackberry vines.
Running along the perimeter, I scan the wire. There’s a gap beneath the lowest strand. I drop to my knees and scoop away dirt and leaves, making the hole bigger. Glancing over my shoulder, I can’t see George, but I know he’s coming. First I push through the coat and then I try to slither under the wire. My head and arms get through, but my jumper snags on something sharp, digging into my back. I claw at the earth and weeds, trying to pull myself forward. The jumper tears, flapping across my back. I’m sitting on the wet ground in the decaying leaf mold.
George comes round the corner of the building, still a vague shape with a bloodstained shirt. Closer now. Coming for me.
I scramble up and start running, fighting my way through branches that whip at my face and thorns that try to hold me back. I have forgotten what it’s like to be outside, the malevolence of bush and briar. I’m a runner. If I find open ground, I can outpace him. But in the open he can see me. In the open I can’t hide.
I can hear George cursing and swatting at the branches behind me, screaming threats. Pleading.
Stumbling into a clearing, I notice a winding path through larger trees. The ground slopes upwards and my canvas shoes are slipping and sliding on the mud and rocks.
Ahead of me the path divides. One track looks more worn, but I choose the other, which takes me deeper into the forest. I’m trying to second-guess him. The path narrows and rises, twisting along the side of a wooded gorge with steep rocky banks. I skirt the edge, dodging puddles and fallen branches.
The path turns suddenly. I change direction, but my right foot slips sideways and I can’t rebalance quickly enough. Falling, I tumble down the embankment, rolling, picking up speed, banging my shoulder hard against a tree.
When gravity lets me go, I’m lying on my back, sucking ragged gulps of air into my lungs. My shoulder is on fire. Surely I’ve broken something.
Suddenly, I need to be quiet. I stop. Wait. He’s above me on the path, less than thirty yards away. I can see him through the curtain of leaves and branches.
He pauses and listens, looking for me. Hunting me. I hold my breath. We’re both listening to the sound of running water and the breeze in the trees. I have to breathe, taking tiny quiet gasps. The cold is leaking through my clothes, into my bones.
“Piper?”
He listens.
“I know you can hear me.”
Again he waits.
“If you come back now, I won’t be angry and I’ll let you see Tash.”
I have to cough, but I muffle it with my fist.
“And if you come back, I won’t get Emily. I know where she lives. She’s at work today… Piper? This is your last chance.”
He moves away, going further along the path. Every so often, I hear him calling for me.
Lying on my back, I stare at the clouds that are moving behind the branches. I’m lying on a rock, just out of the water. My jeans are torn and my knees are bleeding.
Above me there is a crevice carved by centuries of rain. The gap is just wide enough for me to crawl inside. I slither through the leaves and pull myself between the boulders, wedging myself there, with the coat behind me. Once I’ve wriggled inside, I drag the coat over my legs and curl into a ball, trying to get warm.
Exhaustion presses on my eyelids. I just want to rest for a few minutes; close my eyes. Sleep. Then I’ll be able to run.
T
he caretaker at the Bingham Leisure Center walks with a limp and has a hanging left arm, paralyzed by a stroke. His name is Creighton and despite the customary rehab, his speech is still thick and wet with tongue and spit.
“We’re closed over the winter,” he explains. “Pools are too expensive to heat.”
He holds a set of keys in his teeth as he unhooks a chain with his good hand and slides a deadbolt from the ring. The gate moves grudgingly on stiff runners.
Collecting another set of keys from the admin office, he flicks a series of switches. It takes a few seconds for the neon tubes to heat and illuminate, casting a blue glow over water and air. The Olympic-size pool stretches out lengthwise beneath its domed roof. There are low stands on the far side and starting blocks angled towards the surface of the water.
“The police were here this morning,” he says. “Didn’t find anything. Don’t know what they expected.” He hitches up his trousers with one hand. “What do you want to see?”
“The changing rooms.”
“Figured as much.”
He puts the set of keys on the counter and thumbs through them.
“Come on then.”
I follow him along the side of the pool where the lights bounce off the water and throw rippling patterns on the walls.
“Who has access when the center is closed?”
“There are four keyholders.”
“Ever had any security issues?”
“Kids sometimes break in looking for cash in the register or raiding the shop. The coppers said something about a sexual assault. Never had something like that. They asked about CCTV cameras. Can’t have cameras in changing rooms. Imagine the problems. Privacy issues.”
The male and female changing rooms are in opposite corners. Opening a control panel, he flicks more switches and unlocks the doors. Rubber non-slip mats form a rippled path between the pool and the showers. Rows of lockers are arranged into alcoves with wooden benches in between.
I recognize the benches. This is where they sat as Natasha danced. Seven men set out to punish her. They talked of cutting her hair or scarring her face. Branding her. This is the power of people combining, when individual responsibility is diminished and the mob holds sway. It happened on the night that Augie Shaw died. It happened during the summer riots in London.
Regardless of the hows and whys, the psychology remains the same. The crowd provides anonymity, it abrogates responsibility, it diminishes any sense of “self.” People don’t lose their identity—they gain a new one. They unite against a common enemy, perceived or otherwise. They become a tribe.
Seven men imprisoned and assaulted a teenage girl. I don’t know if they raped her. Collectively they justified something that individually they would never contemplate or carry out. They whipped her, making her dance, treating her like a performing animal instead of a human being.
Yet under different circumstances, if I had met some of these men on their own, I might have seen decent, hard-working, law-abiding human beings; men who love their kids, are loyal to their wives and are kind to animals. I’m not trying to excuse their behavior; I’m trying to explain it.
The assault footage was time-coded. The camera stopped at 11:17 p.m. Piper Hadley showed up at Emily’s house just before midnight. She could have gone to the police, but she didn’t. Maybe she was scared. The last time Natasha was a witness at a trial, she was treated like the accused and Piper was sent away to a school for troubled teenagers.
The girls didn’t spend the night at Natasha’s house and Mrs. McBain didn’t wake them in the morning. So where did they go? When were they taken? Most likely the kidnapper was one of the men who imprisoned and assaulted them earlier in the night. He came back afterwards, or intercepted the girls. Chose the right moment.
Mr. Creighton is growing impatient. I follow him along the pool deck and out through a side door, where dead leaves have piled up against the fences, marshaled by the wind. The air is cold and bright, smelling of wood smoke and wet clay.
My mobile vibrates against my heart. There is a text message from Dr. Leece at the hospital: he wants to see me.
The vertical blinds are drawn in the pathologist’s office. I knock. A voice tells me to enter. John Leece is sitting in semi-darkness, reclined on a leather office chair with a wet flannel over his eyes. A lone desk lamp throws a circle of light over a series of post-mortem photographs arranged on his desk.
“A migraine,” he explains, without removing the flannel. “I’ve been plagued by them since childhood.”
He motions me to sit down.
“There are times when I’d gladly put a bullet in my head to be rid of the pain.”
“Quicker than aspirin,” I say.
“Rather more permanent.”
He folds the flannel and dips his fingers in a glass of water before wiping them across his eyelids. I’m studying the photographs on his desk. One of them shows Natasha’s body beneath the ice, her face in soft focus. A shaft of sunlight has pierced the clouds and illuminated the snow, creating a halo around her head. She looks almost peaceful, as though she’s been laid to rest in a mausoleum of ice.
“You wanted to see me.”
“Have you heard of tritium?”
“No.”
“It’s a hydrogen atom that has two neutrons in the nucleus and a single proton. Although it can be a gas, it most commonly reacts with H
2
O to form tritiated water. Colorless. Odorless. Although not particularly dangerous, it’s considered to be a low-level radioactive hazard with a half-life of 12.3 years. The molecule is so small it enters the body very easily—inhalation, ingestion, even through the skin.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Traces of tritium showed up in Natasha’s urine. At some point she ingested the molecules, probably in contaminated water. Maybe she bathed in the water or was given it to drink.”
“Radioactive water?”
“Normally it would be excreted through her urine within about thirty days of ingestion, so she must have been contaminated in the past month.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Tritium is created naturally in the upper atmosphere when cosmic rays strike air molecules, but it’s also produced during nuclear weapons explosions or as a by-product of nuclear reactors. It’s a pollutant that in large enough doses can cause cancers, congenital malformations and genetic mutations.”
“Where was she contaminated? Radley Lakes?”
“It’s a wildlife sanctuary. They test the water regularly. Contamination at these levels would have showed up.” He gets to his feet and crosses the office to his desk. “I talked to someone from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. He didn’t believe me at first. He said tritium exposure is almost unknown but that occasionally there had been accidental releases into the cooling water of nuclear power plants or into the effluent stream as waste.”
“So what you’re saying is that Natasha was exposed to some form of nuclear waste or spillage?”
“Yes.”
“From a nuclear power plant?”
“That’s the most likely source.”
“Didcot Power Station?”
“Didcot is coal and oil,” says Leece.
“Where then?”
“I was thinking about Harwell. It’s only sixteen miles south of here.”
“I thought it was decommissioned years ago,” I say.
“The last three reactors were closed in 1990 and the land was remediated, but there are still storage sites with radioactive material. It’s going to take another ten years to clean them up.”
Dr. Leece opens his laptop and calls up the results of an Internet search. Harwell was Britain’s first nuclear reactor, set up in the 1940s when the government handed over an RAF base to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment.
“Treated waste water from the old nuclear plant was piped to the Thames at a place called Sutton Courtenay, which is only a couple of miles south of Radley Lakes.”
He calls up Google Earth. A picture of the planet appears on screen, as though taken from outer space. The camera plunges towards the surface, falling onto Oxfordshire. Slowing. Stopping. Focusing.
“There’s also this place,” says Dr. Leece. “The Culham Science Center is a research laboratory experimenting with nuclear fusion as part of the Joint European Torus project.”
“Where is it?”
“About a mile south of Radley Lakes.”
“So the tritium could have come from there?”
“I’m just suggesting it’s a possibility.”
I look at the screen. The main railway line from Oxford to Didcot runs past the research center. Natasha McBain could have followed the tracks in the blizzard, trying to get home.
“Does DCI Drury know this?”
“I left him a message.”
“This is where they should be searching.”
“They won’t look now—not until after Christmas.”
I
wake shivering.
I don’t know how long I’ve slept, but I can’t feel my feet or my toes. The blood has dried on my knees, but the scabs split when I bend and the wounds begin weeping again.
George said it was Christmas Eve. I dreamt that I could see my family around the table: Dad, Mum, Phoebe, Ben, Granddad and the little sister I haven’t met.
I slide on my stomach to the edge of the overhanging rock. The ground is wet and it seems colder now, cold enough to snow.