The Winter Foundlings (28 page)

The familiar obsessive look was back on Burns’s face. Any second now he’d be banging on people’s doors, rousing his team from their well-earned sleep. Over his shoulder I saw Tania standing in the doorway and felt a pang of discomfort. Our body language must have looked incriminating; her boyfriend huddled beside me, sharing a nightcap. She shot me a look of pure loathing then turned away.

‘There’s Tania,’ I said. ‘You should go after her.’

‘You’re right, she needs to hear this. You’re a wonder, Alice.’ He leant towards me, face glowing with excitement, and it would have been easy to make a complete fool of myself, so I forced myself back onto my feet.

‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

I scooped up my papers and headed for the stairs. When I got to my room, my neighbours had resolved their argument. Rhythmic grunts emanated through the wall, accompanied by the squeal of bedsprings. I went into the bathroom and peeled off my clothes then turned the shower to full blast. I stood there until the water ran cold, letting the torrent drown every sound.

43

The scissors are hidden inside the base of the chair, but the man pushes the door open so fast, there’s no time to grab them. A wild grin is spreading across his face.

‘I’ve got something to show you upstairs.’ The man steps closer, but Ella doesn’t feel afraid. She’s been scared for so long, her body has stopped reacting.

‘No, I’m staying here.’

‘What’s wrong?’ He kneels down, his eyes brimming with feelings she can’t identify. ‘Don’t let me down, princess. Not now. Please.’

‘Why can’t you tell me your name?’

‘I told you, it’s against the rules.’

‘The rules don’t work any more. And I want my old clothes back, I’m sick of this dress.’

The man’s eyes darken. ‘You have to wear it, because you’re an orphan, like me.’

‘I’m not. I’ve got granddad and Suzanne.’

The punch arrives out of nowhere. His fist catches her shoulder and sends her tumbling to the floor, and this time the exhaustion’s too great. Tears flood from her eyes before she can stop them.

‘I’m sorry, princess. You scare me when you talk like that.’ The man lifts her back onto the bed, then kneels in front of her, unable to meet her eye. ‘Can you forgive me?’

‘Of course.’ Ella forces herself to reach out and touch his face.

Soon his smile reappears, his white teeth sharp as the blade of a kitchen knife. ‘Come and see my surprise.’

Ella’s eyes blink at the raw brightness of the strip-light in the kitchen. It’s dark outside and the clock says that it’s two fifteen. A piece of white fabric lies folded on the living-room table, beside a box of pins and a cotton reel.

‘I’ve finished the collar, so it matches yours.’

The man holds up a new white dress for her to inspect, and Ella’s heart rattles inside her chest.

‘When’s the next one coming?’

‘Saturday. Kinsella’s chosen a real beauty this time, Ella. You can see a photo if you like.’

Ella nods silently, unable to speak. The man passes her an envelope and a picture falls into her hands. There’s a glimmer of blonde hair, shiny and golden like Sarah’s, then she slides the girl’s face back into the envelope to keep it safe.

44

Forty sets of eyes blinked at me the next morning. I’d been dreading the briefing, because too much caffeine, booze and adrenaline had kept me awake for hours, but Burns looked considerably fresher. Only the creases in his shirt made me wonder if he’d gone to bed at all. Alan Nash shot me a disdainful glare from the back of the room, so I smiled sweetly in reply. Extreme courtesy has always been my preferred antidote to bullying.

‘Some of you are going back to London today with DI Goddard,’ Burns told the packed room. ‘I want you to trace every pupil who attended Kinsella’s school during his time there, the kids from the home on Orchard Row, and the ones in his choir. We need to rule out any child who was in close contact with him. Do you want to give us some guidance, Alice?’

A sea of faces gawped at me. ‘It’s likely that Kinsella brainwashed one of the children he cared for. Up to the age of eight or nine, kids are like litmus paper. They struggle to sift right from wrong. They absorb everything we say. If the child is vulnerable, and the guidance comes from an authority figure, it can be hard to forget.’

One of Nash’s followers threw a question from the back of the room. ‘You reckon some bloke’s waited twenty years to start killing just because Kinsella chatted to him at primary school?’

‘It’s possible. Children lay down their deepest memories between the ages of five and ten. If you show a child violent images, violence becomes normalised. History gives us plenty of examples: the Hitler Youth, African child soldiers, Chinese kids during the Cultural Revolution. We know Kinsella tried to brainwash adults like Roy Layton by showing them violent child porn. Maybe the kids in his care got the same treatment.’

Some of the faces winced. A few clearly thought I was a crackpot, leading their DCI astray, and it was a relief when Burns started talking again.

‘The rest of you are staying here, following local leads. Kinsella’s wife is visiting him this morning, and she’ll be wearing a wire.’ He came to a halt and frowned at his audience. ‘If I hear about anyone giving this less than a hundred per cent, you’ll be back in uniform quicker than I can say snow.’

Burns dismissed the room with a nod, his expression slowly reverting from thug to gentleman, and I set off to collect Lauren French from reception. It surprised me that she had agreed to risk her peace of mind after so many years, and the shrink in me was excited about witnessing her meeting with Kinsella.

From a distance Lauren looked perfectly in control, wearing muted but expensive clothes, chestnut hair neatly styled. But at close range her fear was visible. She must have spent hours applying lipstick, foundation and mascara, as though war paint was her only psychological protection. I reached out and touched her arm.

‘Thanks for doing this, Lauren.’

Her face trembled when she smiled. ‘The detective said it might be my last chance to say goodbye.’ Her pace slowed as we crossed the quadrangle, the infirmary roof glittering in the distance.

‘I know how tough this must be, but did Louis ever mention any special pupils at St Augustine’s? Any favourites that kept cropping up?’

‘I don’t remember.’ Her gaze stayed fixed on the icy pathway. ‘It’s so long ago, I’m sorry.’

‘Just ask him who’s carrying out the attacks. You don’t have to spend long in there.’

She nodded but didn’t reply. By the time we reached the infirmary, she was shaking like a leaf. When I led her to a bench she hunched forwards, eyes staring, like she was memorising the pattern on the lino.

‘Take your time, Lauren. Wait here till you feel ready.’

‘I’ll never be ready.’ Her eyes flashed like a warning light. ‘I just want this over and done.’

A WPC fitted the listening device in the observation room next to Kinsella’s, helping Lauren to clip the wire inside her blouse, but she still looked terrified. I heard her murmuring quietly, giving herself a final pep talk. She crossed herself before setting off, as though she was leading a crusade.

The monitor showed her entering Kinsella’s room. The camera above Kinsella’s bed showed his prone body, and the crown of his head. But it was Lauren’s face as she saw her husband after so many years apart that interested me most. Her eyes stretched wide as she stared at him, like it was a sin to blink. She stood a few metres from the bed – clearly she had no intention of going within touching distance. Kinsella’s whisper was too quiet for the microphones to catch, but Lauren’s voice was perfectly audible. Tension had raised its pitch by half an octave.

‘I thought I’d feel something, but I can’t even remember why I married you,’ she said. ‘You only wanted me because I was still a child. A nice little trainee nurse to cover for you. I blamed myself for missing the signs, but you were so convincing, Louis. You should have been an actor.’

The wire picked up an odd, strangulated sound from Kinsella, somewhere between outrage and an appeal for help. His wife’s voice grew even louder.

‘Promise me you’ll tell them what you know, Louis. You pretended to be a Catholic once. If you confess, I might even pray for you.’

‘Piety doesn’t impress me, Sonia. You knew exactly what I was doing. You guessed months before the trial. I could see it in your eyes. All that violence excited you, didn’t it?’

‘You know that’s a lie. Why don’t you tell me his name?’

‘What makes you think it’s a man?’ Kinsella hissed. ‘Your sex is capable of evils that men can only imagine.’

When she stood up to leave, her final gesture shocked me. She twisted her wedding ring from her finger and threw it onto the bed.

‘My priest has agreed to annul our marriage. I just came to say goodbye, Louis.’

Lauren walked away without looking back. But her strength expired when she reached the corridor. She was trembling so badly she could hardly stand, so I got her a coffee from the vending machine and loaded it with sugar.

‘I made a mess of that, didn’t I?’ she whispered.

‘Not at all. You did exactly what I asked.’

Tears seeped from her eyes. ‘His voice used to be the best thing about him. Is he really dying?’

‘I don’t know. He’s stable at the moment, but he’s refusing treatment.’

Lauren blotted her face, leaving a blur of mascara under each eye. ‘I thought of something after your visit. Louis used to send me letters at the start. They were censored, but a few lines slipped through.’

‘And they stuck in your mind?’

‘He said the foundlings would come back, one by one. None of them would forget.’

‘What do you think he meant?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘No one uses the word “foundling” any more, do they? We call them orphans nowadays.’

‘Did you keep the letters?’

Her face hardened. ‘I tore most of them up without reading them.’

We walked back to reception together. I didn’t envy her the return trip to Windsor, with only her cat waiting to comfort her. Even her make-up had let her down, foundation smeared across her collar. Hopefully her bravery would carry its own reward; facing her worst fears might lighten her burden.

Kinsella’s letters were still waiting for me when I got back to my office. The room smelled of panic and stale coffee, and even though it was freezing outside, I flung the window open, and a blast of cold air hit the back of my neck as I studied them. It was easy to see why Lauren had thrown hers away. Anyone with a depressive tendency could be persuaded that evil existed everywhere you looked – even in the souls of children. I carried on reading for the rest of the day, Kinsella’s mindset growing clearer with each letter. Female children harmed everyone in their orbit. The youngest and sweetest looking were the most evil. I tried to suppress my anger at the excuses he’d fabricated. The worst thing about his narrative was the rapture he felt when he committed the murders.

At five o’clock I shoved the letters back into the box, bile rising in my throat. My mind flooded with pictures of his victims’ ruined faces, and I just managed to reach the toilets at the end of the corridor before spewing my last cup of coffee down the drain. Afterwards I splashed my face with cold water and avoided looking at myself. I caught a glimpse of a blonde-haired ghost in the mirror, eyes hollow from lack of sleep.

I went out to the car park to wait for Reg, hoping the cold would revive me. There was still no sign of a thaw. Security lights poured across half a kilometre of whiteness, picking out the razor wire fences in the distance, designed to contain the bravest escapees. I was so distracted that I didn’t recognise the man’s voice calling my name, until I saw Chris Steadman. His bleached hair was falling into his eyes, crash helmet cradled in the crook of his arm.

‘You look thoughtful.’

‘It’s an act, Chris. My head’s a vacuum.’

‘I have days like that. The best cure is to jump on a motorbike and go like the clappers.’

‘Sadly I don’t have one.’

‘Take mine.’ He dangled his keys in front of me. ‘You’ve passed your test, haven’t you? And the roads have just been cleared.’

I don’t know why I accepted the keys. Maybe it was because his grin was a direct challenge. He seemed certain I’d be too scared, so I walked over to the huge Triumph.

‘Go to Charndale and back,’ he said. ‘And don’t get done for speeding.’

I turned the starter key and the bike roared into life. When I rode towards the exit gates, I felt as if I was turning into someone else. Someone braver and more adventurous. Steadman’s crash helmet smelled of hair gel and cigarettes as I raced through Charndale. The engine throbbed from a purr to a roar, and I didn’t care about the chill slicing through my coat, or that my thin trousers would offer no protection if I crashed. It was tempting to chase down the motorway and never come back.

45

Ella stands by the bed, listening for sounds. The walls muffle every noise, but occasionally she hears a lorry grinding down the road, or the stop-start of a postman’s van. She’s waiting for the door to slam, letting her know the man’s come back, but there’s something else, so faint it could be imaginary. A woman’s voice singing. At first Ella’s too shocked to react, then she realises it’s coming from close by. She fills her lungs with air and starts to scream. The sound bounces from the walls; when silence returns, the singing has stopped. Maybe the woman is phoning the police. Ella screams again, even louder this time, her whole body pulsing with energy. But the singing starts again. The woman has no idea that she’s locked underground.

Desperation pushes her to take a risk. She lifts the chair cushion, fumbling for the scissors, then forces the blade into the keyhole and twists the handle. It refuses to budge, but she keeps trying. Just when she’s ready to give up, the lock clicks open and she runs upstairs. There’s no view through the kitchen window except the high wooden fence. The woman must be behind it, singing to herself. Ella screams until her throat is raw, but still no one comes. Her heart ticks too fast in her chest, like a clock that’s overwound.