Cut to the Bone (2 page)

He popped a tablet through the foil, the green pill falling into his hand. He placed it on his tongue, and swallowed. He felt it kick in as he slammed his front door behind him and headed to his car.

Driving through sparse traffic, turning off from Lower Marsh, he hit a block of buses at the top end of Waterloo Bridge. Traffic bottlenecked around Aldwych on the other side. It was late, or early, depending on your point of view. Why were so many people out? Maybe the missing girl was on one of these night buses. Or folded up in the back of a taxi.

His satnav was taking him down the official route, the big roads. Up Kingsway, towards Euston, through Bloomsbury. Then on to the A501, Euston Road followed by Marylebone Road. It was like a tourist trail, heading past Madame Tussauds, the green syllabub of the Planetarium, Baker Street, Regent’s Park. He should have navigated the smaller roads, cut straight through London’s heart.

He felt humiliation needle him again. Seriously, this is what they were making him do? With his background, his skills, his experience? And why the hell was Justin Hope involved? What was so special about this girl? Was she the daughter of a friend? Was this Hope pissing over his patch, showing how much clout he had?

If it turned out to be a favour for one of Hope’s golfing buddies . . . Then again, Zain was in no position to argue. Not with his past. However he felt personally, this stint with Riley and Hope, it was a favour. Another loaded word that. It implied a debt would be called in to repay it.

Zain turned onto the A5, heading up the Edgware Road. The restaurants were mainly closed, but the shisha cafés and shawarma outlets were still open. He felt hungry, but decided he’d get something on his way back. This wouldn’t take long. He wouldn’t let it.

At least the car was running smoothly. Audi A6. Sleek, black. A gift from Hope for the newest member of his team. Being someone’s bitch had perks, then.

Eventually, beyond the flyover, he arrived at his destination. Windsor Court, a late-Victorian mansion block, red brick, white-framed windows. It sprawled across two buildings, with two entrances. There were metal posts blocking the driveways, no parking allowed. Zain drove his Audi onto the pavement at the front, got as close as he could.

He saw a sign for flat numbers 1–26 painted over one of the entrances that was lit up from the inside, so he headed for that door. There was a security panel listing flat numbers. He pushed at the button next to 1A.

A man’s voice, urgent, panicky. Was he expecting it to be his daughter?

‘This is Detective Sergeant Harris,’ said Zain. ‘I’ve a report of a missing –’

The door was buzzed open before he could finish.

Chapter Four

Kate watched the sleeping form. Still, dreamless. Vulnerable.

Ryan would be here in a few hours. Ryan – a stranger, to look after something so precious, so irreplaceable. Officially he was her housekeeper/sitter. Unofficially . . . what was the term for someone who guarded the thing you cared about most in the world?

Kate closed the door softly, padded back to her own bedroom. She slept with the door open, always. Just in case. Who needed the guilt if something went wrong? The baby monitor was top of the range, discreet, metallic. It looked like a digital radio. Kate turned it up; listening to the stillness she had just seen for herself.

She pulled back her bed sheets, crisp, smelling of pine and fresh air. One of Ryan’s jobs. Laundry, cleaning . . . minding. That was the term; it hardly seemed big enough. As for the smaller tasks, Kate used work pressure, erratic hours, as justification for shirking them.

It had been true once. But since Justin Hope, things didn’t fit into that cliché anymore.

Hope was a trial run, an idea dreamed up by the prime minister and home secretary. The police crime commissioners, PCCs, had been successful nationally. Well, that was the spin, so they wanted to give London a taste. Westminster was created as the first PCC set-up, powers taken from the Met’s commissioner and given to Justin Hope. He had been an MP in a previous existence, a somebody at the Foreign Office, followed by the Ministry of Defence, then the Home Office and finally the Ministry of Justice.

On his appointment, lines were drawn hastily across London. The existing boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth had their prime landmarks taken. Hope was allegedly keen on jurisdiction over Thames House and Vauxhall Cross. Most of the existing City of Westminster being swallowed whole, he had an area of nearly thirty square miles to govern. Drawn up in seven days, again allegedly.

Unofficially, he had jurisdiction over all 609 square miles of London.

When Kate had been offered her role, she’d thought it would be a promotion. Not just in title terms – she was already a detective inspector, now bumped up to detective chief inspector – but in terms of casework. She’d imagined the PCC would want the biggest, most complex crimes himself. She in turn would be given the opportunity to really make a difference, utilise her skills.

Skills gained in the past, before she’d had to leave.

Who was she kidding? She didn’t leave.

Run away. Hide. Search for a new beginning. That was more like it. They said they’d find her a new state to live in, on the other side of the country from Massachusetts, somewhere she could start again. And she had tried it, for a year. A year that meant obscurity, nothingness: her career, her passion, all of it deadened.

She’d watched as they made plans for her, around her. Then she’d taken the initiative, taken control over her own life, and decided she would change country. She needed to get back to what she did best. Be a cop.

So London happened. And in London, she’d found she could start again. They’d snapped her up, dazzled by her Criminal Justice Ph.D. from Brown, her time with the United States Capitol Police, the Department of Homeland Security. Her fabricated references.

And things had been fine. For a while.

Until Justin Hope and his Special Operations Executive 3, unit without portfolio.

She felt as though she was holding her breath under water, waiting to let her lungs fill – or rise to the surface. She had been in this post for three months, and she was still waiting.

It was approaching 4 a.m. Kate closed her eyes, turned off the bedside light, counted the fifty states, their capitals. Sleep evaded her. She dialled Harris’s number.

‘Update?’ she said when he answered.

‘I’m with the parents now, just looking round Ruby’s bedroom.’

‘Call me when you leave.’

In the silence, she thought she heard the baby monitor buzz. Kate raised herself on her elbow and stared at it. No light, no sounds. She let it go, closed her eyes. Even if she couldn’t sleep, she could rest them, and rest her limbs.

She tried to picture where the girl might be. Was she alive? The parameters of probability said yes. Had she been in an accident? Or just in need of some alone time? People often were.

Missing people were like a knife edge. Most came home, unharmed: blunt. Some didn’t, which cut to the bone. What was this going to be?

Ruby Day. Who are you? Where are you? Why have you gone? And why is the commissioner looking for you?

Chapter Five

Detective Sergeant Zain Harris stood in Ruby Day’s bedroom, taking in her life.

Her father – ‘Call me Mike’ – was in the doorway. The mother – ‘This is Laura’ – was sitting on the bed, brushing her daughter’s duvet cover, smoothing creases that weren’t there. Zain saw Mike’s eyes dart around, checking, looking. For what?

Laura Day was dressed in a camel cardigan, white trousers. She had white-blond hair, pale-blue eyes. Mike Day had thick brown hair, gold-rimmed glasses. He was barefoot, wearing long shorts, a striped blue shirt over a white T-shirt. Zain thought they looked like a couple of people playing at being ‘the Days’. It was as though they had plucked images from a catalogue instructing what they should wear, how they should behave.

Laura had a soft voice; she sounded tired. Her eyes were red, her skin blotchy. She kept swallowing when Zain was speaking to her, refusing a drink Mike offered her. Nerves? Fear?

They had given him a short list of friends, including a boyfriend, Dan. Ruby was an only child, so not much family to mention. They said she didn’t have any medical conditions – nothing that required medication, anyway – that might put her in danger.

‘She has a lot of computers,’ Zain said, looking at Ruby’s desk.

There was a desktop, a PC from HP, a netbook from Acer and a MacBook Air. He also saw a Kindle and an iPad.

‘Is she a developer?’ said Zain, eyeing stacked textbooks on HTML, XML and web design. The parents had said she worked from home, an online business.

The Days exchanged looks. Mike took his phone from his pocket; it was a red Nokia Lumia. Zain watched him slide his finger over the screen, tap away. Music started, followed by the voice of a girl. She was welcoming people.

Mike handed the phone to Zain. ‘That’s Ruby,’ he said.

Hi guys, so welcome to my regular update. Can’t believe it’s been a week since I did this, but it has. And this time it’s a Ruby special, as in something a bit more personal. I got a message from someone and, yes, you shall remain nameless. I won’t go into the details, oh, hang on . . .

Ruby picks up a piece of paper and waves it at the camera, before scrunching it up and throwing it over her shoulder.

Anyway, the basic gist was, why do I bang on about having a positive attitude, and all that crap. Yes, people, that’s a kinder version of the word actually used. So why do I go on about this? Because you know, it’s still important. If everyday I log on and I say you can do anything, it’s not enough. Because there are still too many people that are living half-lives, and there are still too many of you that think they’re not good enough.

And I know how that feels. I remember back in the day, when stuff was happening to me, how low someone can make you feel. Worthless. As if you are a waste of the air you breathe. And into that, if someone had said to me, everyday, that actually that’s not true. That I can do anything I want to, I would have loved it.

So that’s what I’m doing now. Any of you feeling crushed by negativity, let me tell you this. You are strong enough to get beyond that state, and in your head, you can stay positive. And I’ll be that voice for you that I never had. So look at me, look right into my eyes now.

Ruby zooms in closer, so her face fills the screen.

And let me tell you this. You are not on your own, and you can do anything you absolutely want to. All of you watching this, take this message away. From me to you.

Ruby had thick brown hair, glossy. She was attractive, but not beautiful; no model but definitely loved by the camera. Maybe it was the angle but she seemed to dominate the screen. It was her eyes, Zain thought: they were green, saucer-like, drew you in.

‘She vlogs?’ he said, handing the phone back. Mike nodded. ‘What else does she do?’

‘Vine, Snapchat, Instagram. But mainly YouTube proper,’ said Mike. ‘That’s her job. Lifestyle tips, make-up tutorials, fashion advice.’

‘That explains this,’ said Zain, pointing at Ruby’s dressing table.

It was covered with make-up. Rows of polish, eye shadow, mascara, eye pencils. Bottles, pots, boxes, all sorts of items Zain had no clue about. The array of colours put him in mind of the counters he walked past in Boots, the overall smell like wax, mixed with cheap air freshener.

Zain saw a webcam had been set up on top of the dressing-table mirror, connected to nothing, its wire hanging loosely.

He looked over the bedroom walls, studied the posters.

The closets had floor-to-ceiling mirrors for doors. In their reflection, he saw Mike subtly shake his head at Laura. In the lounge they had been fraught parents. In the bedroom they seemed on edge.

He chided himself; he was doing it again. Making assumptions. He had to remember he was a regular cop now. He could ask questions; he didn’t have to fill in gaps, work through opaque lenses.

Zain slid open the mirrored doors, revealing Ruby’s closet. It looked like backstage at a fashion shoot. It was a mess. He eyed some designer labels. Ruby must have a healthy allowance, he thought.

‘She gets given a lot. Because of her videos,’ said Laura. She sounded defensive. Was she seeing Zain’s judgement in his eyes?

Zain smiled thinly, taking in designer clothes, accessories, shoes. It would be a teenage girl’s fantasy, he imagined. He closed the doors, hiding away the chaos.

There were bookcases against another wall. Zain studied the spines. The titles gave away their content.

The flat itself was in the basement of Windsor Court. Ruby’s bedroom had two windows. Zain shifted the blinds to look out onto a square courtyard, with a door leading off it. He looked up at the flats on higher floors. They were all in darkness.

Along the windowsill were Disney figurines. There was a heart, squashed, made from rubber or Plasticine. It had sad eyes and a turned-down mouth. Next to it he saw several occult pentagrams. The same symbol appeared as pictures on the wall, patterned into a cushion cover.

He turned back for another glance around the room. The posters, the books, the figurines, especially the make-up . . . they were all lined up, neat. OCD levels of neatness. Yet the closet . . . it was like rage, an artist experimenting in free fall.

And something was missing. Paper. There was none. No bills, Post-its, notepads.

‘Is her passport here?’ he said. ‘Do you know where she keeps it?’

Laura opened one of the closet doors. She moved aside bunched-up clothes, revealing a safe.

‘Do you know the combination?’ Zain said.

‘No,’ said Laura. ‘Everything is in here, though. Passport, bank documents, cards she’s not using. I think there is some jewellery she inherited from my mother, too.’

‘No clue what the code might be?’ said Zain.

‘She went for a walk, she didn’t abscond,’ said Mike.

Zain suggested they go back to the lounge, letting the Days leave first. He bent down, on the pretence of tying his shoelaces, so he could scan the room from a lower level. Nothing.