Authors: Michael Robotham
He holds my gaze defiantly. “I didn’t take those girls. You people can plant whatever evidence you like, but it won’t make me guilty.”
T
he key turns in the lock.
The door opens. George is wearing a dressing gown and carrying a tray with a sandwich and a mug of tea. He puts the tray on a table beside my head. I stare at the steam, watching it twist and curl into nothingness.
My left wrist is handcuffed to the metal bedhead. I use the other to pull the bedclothes around me, but I can’t reach the sheet. I must have kicked it off when I was sleeping.
“You should drink something.”
There is a long silence. My chest tightens and I can’t breathe. George sits next to me and puts his hand near my leg, telling me to stay calm. His hand slides closer until his fingers brush against my thigh.
“You shouldn’t have run away. I want you to say you’re sorry.”
I don’t answer him.
His hand touches my skin where my pajama top and the trousers meet.
“Did you hear me, Piper?”
“Yes.”
“Say you’re sorry.”
I shake my head.
He strikes on my blind side, the punch sinking deep into my stomach, where he twists his fist under my ribs until I imagine that every organ has been ruptured and the blood and bile are spilling into my chest. I cannot breathe. He waits.
“Say you’re sorry.”
I blink again. The next blow lifts my body off the bed, holding me against the wall, convulsing.
“Say you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I sob, trying to breathe.
I’m sorry you’re a sad sadistic prick. I’m sorry I didn’t stab you through the eye. I’m sorry I didn’t crush your skull with the brick. I’m sorry I can’t scratch your eyes out. I want to scream these things, but none of the words come out. Instead, I crumple to the bed and curl into a ball.
“That’s better,” he says. “Now we can be friends again.” He cradles me, rocking me back and forth, stroking my hair. “Would you like to meet Emily?”
I try to pull away, but he grips me harder.
“You didn’t… you promised me.”
“Why should I keep my promises to you?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Where is she?”
He smiles. “We’ll save that surprise for another day.”
Pushing himself away from the bed, he goes to the window. “Shall I tell you what it looks like outside?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Christmas—do you want to know what sort of day it is?”
“OK.”
“It’s overcast, but we might get some sun later.”
“Describe something else.”
“What?”
“Anything.”
“I can see a church steeple and a park. Some kid is riding a new bicycle.”
“It must have been a present.”
“Yes.”
“What’s your favorite movie?”
“I don’t watch many movies.”
“What about TV?”
“I like
Strictly Come Dancing,
but it’s not on over Christmas.”
“Do you watch
EastEnders?”
“No.”
He looks genuinely sorry. Reaching into his pocket, he produces two white pills.
“I have to go out for a while. I’ll be back later. These will help you sleep. You shouldn’t have them on an empty stomach.”
“I don’t think I can eat anything.”
“When you’re stronger we’ll start all over again. It will be just like old times.”
D
S Blake sprints down the corridor, taking the corner so quickly he almost loses control and has to leap an office plant. One of the uppermost leaves rocks to the floor like a dropped sheet of paper.
“We found it, boss,” he says, hammering on Drury’s door. The DCI has been sleeping. Blake continues. “Martinez has another house. It’s in Oxford. He rented it when he moved back from the States. He lived there until he won custody of Emily, but he never relinquished the lease.”
Drury appears, sleep-stung.
Blake is still talking. “The owner of the house died in 2009, but Martinez did a deal with the son to keep the lease going.”
“Why does a man need two houses?” asks Drury.
“Exactly my thoughts, boss.” Blake looks pleased with himself. “The son said something else. His old man had an early-model Land Rover. It was kept in the garage of the rented house.”
“Where is it now?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“So Martinez could have had access? That explains why his Lexus is so bloody clean.”
The DCI is fully awake and moving. “Briefing in fifteen. I want a dozen officers with me. Get me aerial maps of the street and the house. See if the council has a floor plan.”
“It’s Christmas, boss.”
Drury curses. “OK, but get me a child protection officer. I want one with us.”
The mood in the incident room has been completely transformed. Exhausted bodies are energized. Tiredness has been forgotten.
Watching and listening, I realize how much I stand apart from these officers. I am an outsider, a civilian. On top of this I’m a psychologist, a profession they mistrust. They imagine that I’m constantly reading their body language, probing for weaknesses or hidden meanings, like a man with x-ray eyes who can peer into the depths of their souls. Such fears are irrational and baseless, but it doesn’t change the reality. Some people cannot relax around a police officer or a priest or an abortionist; the same is true of a psychologist.
Drury’s mobile rings again. He answers it. Hurried. Irritated. It’s the chief constable.
“Yes, sir, I’m on top of this. We have a good lead on where Piper Hadley might be… North Oxford… That’s right, sir… We can link him to the abandoned factory and to both girls… I understand your concerns, sir, but things are under control… In the next hour… As soon as I know.”
Casey emerges from the lift. His tweed jacket has beads of rain on the shoulders and his wet hair looks even more like a helmet than usual. He has spent all morning in the search area, marshaling volunteers. Most of them now want to go home for Christmas dinner.
“What do you want to do, boss?” he asks, flexing the cold from his fingers.
“See how many you can keep in the field,” says Drury. “Call it off when it gets dark.”
The briefing is over. The team assembles downstairs. Vehicles standing ready, engines running. Drury takes the lead car, dressed in a bulletproof vest, a man completely in charge. He hasn’t asked for my help. Hasn’t spoken to me. This is his show.
My mobile is ringing. It’s Ruiz.
“What’s the difference between a snowman and a snow woman?”
“Snowballs,” I say.
“You’ve heard it.”
“Noah had heard it.”
Ruiz sighs and tries to think of another joke.
“Any news?” I ask.
“I should set up my own detective agency.”
“You hated being a detective.”
“Yes, but I was pretty good at it. I found Emily Martinez. She’s with her mother.”
“You talked to her.”
“Yep. She arrived at the hostel yesterday around lunchtime. It took a while to convince Amanda Martinez to trust me. She thought I was working for her husband.”
“What did Emily say about the fight?”
“It was just as Martinez described it.”
“So he was telling the truth.”
“About that much anyway,” says Ruiz.
He continues talking as I watch a bus pull into the parking area carrying volunteers returning from the search. They disembark wearing mud-stained boots and creased white overalls. As they walk towards their cars, they remind me of emaciated snowmen.
As the image occurs to me, I get a tingling sensation in my fingertips.
“I got to go,” I tell Ruiz.
“What’s up?”
“Maybe nothing.”
Climbing the stairs, two at a time, I reach the incident room. DS Casey is on the radio organizing refreshments for the search teams that are still at the scene. I wait for him to finish.
“The CCTV footage from the Bingham festival—where will I find it?”
“It should be on the database,” he says.
“Can you call it up?”
He logs me into the nearest terminal, linking me into the Police National Computer, a vast database containing the details of every known offender and “person of interest” in the UK: their names, nicknames, aliases, scars, tattoos, accents, shoe size, height, age, hair color, eye color, offence history, associates and modus operandi. It also hosts the case files of active investigations, allowing detectives to cross-reference details and search for links.
The Bingham festival footage is catalogued in a dozen different ways. It was shot from a CCTV camera opposite the bus stop at the entrance to the village green. Twenty-eight seconds of recording show Piper and Natasha leaving the funfair, walking along a sideshow alley and turning out of the gate.
I open another file, this one containing a series of images taken by a photographer for the
Oxford Mail
. He shot mostly kids eating candyfloss and riding on the carousel, but one sequence near the dodgem cars shows Piper and Natasha standing in the background.
I zoom in on the girls, moving through the images frame by frame. Behind them, parked on the road, I can see a patrol car with a police officer standing alongside, leaning on the open door. The image is too blurred and distant to recognize a face, but the stance is familiar.
Another photograph comes to mind—the one of Natasha McBain outside Oxford Crown Court, being escorted through a hate-filled crowd by a court security officer. His face is hidden behind a raised forearm as he pushes people aside.
Thoughts are now splattering into my consciousness like fat drops of rain on a dry road. First one then another… snowmen, stationmasters, missing girls… The truth isn’t a blinding light or a cold bucket of water in the face. It leaks into my consciousness one drop at a time.
Pushing back from the desk, I cross the incident room and take a corridor as far as the changing rooms. Each officer has a steel storage locker for his or her uniform and kit. I walk down the rows of lockers, looking at the numbers and initials.
The locker is secured with a combination padlock. I look for something heavy. The fire extinguisher is buckled against the wall. I pull it free, raise it above my shoulders and smash it against the padlock. The door buckles, the lock breaks. I’m looking at body armor, police boots and a reflective vest. Hanging at the back of the locker is a pair of white overalls with OxSAR sewn into the breast pocket. The trouser cuffs are stained with soot and I smell bleach on the fabric.
DS Casey is at the radio, listening to the police operation in North Oxford. The cars are getting closer, sealing off the street.
“I need to ask you something. When the chief constable cancelled all holiday leave and officers were recalled, did that include everyone?”
“Yeah.”
“Where was Grievous yesterday?”
“I saw him at one of the roadblocks.”
“Where?”
“On the Silo Road.”
“What about today?”
“I haven’t seen him. What’s this about?”
I don’t answer for a moment. And then: “What’s his full name?”
“Pardon?”
“His name… his proper one.”
“Brindle Hughes.”
“What about his first name?”
“Gerald.”
“Does anybody ever call him George?”
“Everybody calls him Grievous.”
Sitting at the computer terminal, I type a new search looking for a witness statement. The screen refreshes. I scan the list. The statement is signed and dated by Probationary Constable Gerald Brindle Hughes. He describes being on patrol on the Saturday night that the Bingham Girls disappeared. He saw two girls matching the descriptions of Piper Hadley and Natasha McBain leaving the funfair at approximately ten o’clock.
“Where does Grievous live?”
Casey looks up from the radio. “Why?”
“We have to find him.”
Casey looks at me apprehensively. His hairline creeps closer to his eyes.
“What’s he done?”
“I’m not sure, but I need you to trust me. If I’m right, it could make your career. If I’m wrong…”
I don’t finish the sentence. Casey has grown nervous. “Maybe I should call the boss.”
“Don’t use the radio. He’ll be listening.”