First One Missing (22 page)

‘Sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I had to go somewhere a little more private. How are you? How have you been?’

The voice that came back was so soft she had to jab at the volume button on the side of her phone to hear it.

‘Yes. Can’t complain,’ it said. ‘Work takes up most of my time. Kids are growing up far too fast. What can you do?’

Despite the superficial chattiness, the underlying tone was one of suspicion. There was a hesitation there, a betraying tightness. Sally knew she had to get her questions in quickly, before he found an excuse to ring off.

‘Thank you so much for calling back. I’m really just after a bit of information. All totally anonymous of course.’ Silence. ‘And obviously I’d be happy to reimburse you for your time, in the same way as before.’

The last time Sally had dealings with the man she knew only as ‘Serge’ there’d been a complicated arrangement of payment involving Western Union, and it had all been a great big faff. Actually, it had caused a bit of a hoo-ha with the features editor who’d commissioned the piece and who’d questioned the ethics of paying a self-confessed would-be paedophile, but then Sally had pointed out that he’d never, as far as they knew, committed an actual crime. His transgressions were all in his head. If they were all to be judged on their private fantasies, the world would come to an abrupt halt, she’d argued. So the feature had come out: INSIDE THE MIND OF A PAEDOPHILE. And as they’d all thought, it had generated a huge reaction, with thousands of people writing in to express their outrage at a national paper devoting column inches to perverts and deviants. It had been one of the high points of her career.

She’d never met Serge in real life – she’d been introduced to him via a network of contacts and their communications had remained purely via telephone – but she’d often thought about him, almost fondly. He’d seemed so genuinely ashamed of his impulses, so eloquent about the struggle of living a lie – on the surface a happy family man, but underneath tormented by urges he knew to be wrong. Afterwards people had accused her of making him up. There was that jealous git Jeremy who worked for the weekend paper, who’d told her a ‘real paedophile’ would never admit to being wrong, as they thought their feelings were perfectly natural. ‘And you became the official Paedophile Spokesperson when exactly?’ Sally had asked him.

‘What kind of information?’ Again that hesitancy, as if he suspected her of trying to catch him out. Sally had never discovered what ‘Serge’ did for a living, but she imagined him as some kind of middle manager – cautious and thorough. She knew he had a wife who suspected nothing and three children he adored.

‘I’m digging around into the Hampstead Heath murders in North London. I’ve been told by a source that there might be a paedophile group involved. I just wondered if you’d heard anything. Not that I’m suggesting for a minute you yourself might be …’

‘It’s all right. I understand.’

‘And? Is that something you’ve heard too?’

Sitting on her bench, Sally found herself stiffening with anticipation as she always did when she felt she might be on the verge of a breakthrough. Just in front of her, a little boy was running down the sloping lawn on chubby legs, the handle of a kite clutched in his hand, but without a breeze, the neon diamond just trailed disconsolately in the grass behind him. ‘I told you,’ his mother could be heard to say. ‘I said it wouldn’t work.’

‘Before we get into anything, I’d just need to check about the, um, reimbursement. Would that be at the same rate as before?’

Sally opened her mouth to argue and then closed it again. She needed this information. If the paper baulked at the four-figure tip-off fee, she’d just pay it herself.

‘I’ll probably get into trouble, but yes, fine. So what have you got?’

Sally glanced over to her left, conscious of the man she’d left sitting at the café table. Might she be about to hear something that linked Simon Hewitt to this whole grisly business? The thought both horrified and excited her. That she might yet find herself once again at the very heart of an international news story.

‘Well. I have heard rumours.’ Pause.

Sally dug her fingernails into the skin of her arm to stop herself from crying out with frustration.

‘There is this online group. It’s called Nemo.’

‘As in the cartoon fish?’

‘One would presume so.’

‘And?’

‘The rumours are that they’re involved somehow.’

‘But who are they?’

‘Come on, Sally. You know better than that. I haven’t a clue who they are. We don’t exactly sign in with all our personal information. Everything is scrambled through a series of relays so there’s no chance of tracing IPs.’

‘Yes, but you said there were rumours. Someone must know something.’

‘Not really. The only things I’ve heard about it are that there are only four members and that a couple of them are very high-profile. A radio presenter of some sort, I heard.’

Sally sat up straighter, trying not to get over-excited. The case was already massive, but a celebrity would send it into the stratosphere.

‘Who? Any idea?’

‘I need to go now, Sally, I’m afraid. I’ll see what else I can find out.’

And then he was gone, just a soft click betraying that he was ever there at all.

Sally’s heart was racing as she made her way back to the café. Of course there was nothing to say there was any truth in any of this. But she had a gut feeling about ‘Serge’. She’d felt it right from the start, and if there was one thing Sally had learned by now it was to trust her gut. At least when it came to a story. When it came to men, her gut should frankly be sent packing.

‘Oh, you’ve come back, have you? Thought you might have done a runner.’

Simon was tapping his car keys on the table.

‘Sorry!’ Sally made an exaggeratedly apologetic face. ‘The bloody office always manage to pick the worst possible moment.’

She smiled at him as she slid back into her chair. The conversation with ‘Serge’ had focused her mind. She needed to find out what Simon Hewitt was really all about without coming out and telling him about the letter. She wanted to hold that particular card back.

‘I do sometimes think about it,’ she said, casting her eyes down so that they fixed on the knotty grain of the table. ‘Those afternoons at the hotel, I mean. I’m guessing it wasn’t a one-off scenario for you. I got the impression you were a bit of an old pro.’

She knew she needed to feed his ego. Even so, she felt whatever muscle was linked to her internal moral compass contract in protest.

Predictably, he looked pleased, his fleshy cheeks, already deeply coloured, flushing claret. ‘I wouldn’t say that. But you’re right, there have been others. Not many, mind. I wouldn’t want you to think I was some kind of player.’

It occurred to Sally that that’s exactly what Simon Hewitt would want her to think. But now he was looking at her again with suspicion.

‘This is completely private, this chat, yeah? Don’t forget, I’m not the only one who’d lose out if anything about what happened between us got into the public domain. I can’t imagine your boss would look kindly at you fraternizing with your interviewees.’

Sally suspected her boss would probably sign her up for a three-part exclusive on the spot, but she kept quiet about that.

‘I’ve told you. It’s totally off the record. Go on, you were talking about your chequered past. So I wasn’t the one who tempted you away from the straight and narrow. And there was I thinking I was special.’

‘You were. Are. I just meant …’

‘I’m teasing. Tell me a bit more about the others. Bet you have a type.’

Was she really expecting him to say, yes, underage?

‘The type that would go for a fat old git like me?’

Simon was smiling and Sally suddenly remembered what it was she’d liked about him. They’d had fun. She’d forgotten that.

‘Yes, but there must be a common factor. Blonde? Solvent? Young?’

She deliberately left the last word hanging, but Simon didn’t pick up the bait.

‘To be honest, Sally’ – his shoulders slumped now and he looked defeated – ‘there were only one or two. I’m not a complete shit, you know. I love Helen, in my way. In fact before you, there hadn’t been anyone in ages.’

‘I suppose having a murdered stepdaughter can play havoc with your love life.’

She hadn’t meant to sound so arch. Simon made a face.

‘Even before that I’d stopped. The thing was that Megan … God, this is pretty embarrassing.’

Sally felt a tingling at the base of her spine.

‘Come on, Simon. As if I’m one to judge.’

‘Well, Megan saw me. Us, rather. The woman was one of the mums at her school. Divorced. Kind of came on to me, if you know what I mean. Anyway. There was a Christmas party at her house, kids and parents, and much vino was drunk, and Megan walked in on us in the summerhouse. She didn’t say anything to Helen in the end. I wrote her a letter practically begging her not to. Even offered to buy her a bloody pony. But it was a massive reality check. That was the only time it happened, really. Apart from you. Blimey, there’s no need to look so disappointed. What were you hoping for? Some kind of salacious history of serial womanizing?’

Sally didn’t answer. What had she been hoping for? That Simon’s letter to Megan would solve the case – even while at the same time exposing the huge void that lived at the heart of her where her sense of judgement should be?

‘You’ve got a crumb stuck to your face,’ she told him.

26

‘How’s Guy getting on? I mean, it can’t be easy for him either, all these feelings surfacing again. How’s he taking it?’

Leanne wished she didn’t feel like there was a great big sign above her head reading ‘insincere’ as she spoke. Even as a child she’d had difficulty dissembling, and as for straight-out lying, forget it. Whenever there was any hint of trouble, her mother used to ignore her brother and sister and focus solely on Leanne because she knew she was incapable of not telling the truth. ‘You got the honesty gene,’ she’d told her more than once. ‘It’s either a blessing or a curse.’ Sitting here at a café table in a newly gentrified paved square in an area of King’s Cross that had once been a wasteland, populated only by prostitutes, pimps and lost tourists, Leanne felt sure that Emma Reid would be able to see through her right away. ‘Question her gently about the husband,’ Desmond had instructed her at the end of the previous week, ‘but without alerting her to the fact that something’s wrong. We need to know more about him – who he is, what he’s into, what earthly reason he would have for hanging around primary schools his children don’t even go to. Maybe we missed something when we checked him out at the time of the daughter’s death.’

‘He’s much the same as ever, I suppose,’ Emma snapped, her face closing up as she thought back to their latest row.

She leaned back in her chair and turned her head away from Leanne towards where small children with bare legs were dashing excitedly in and out of the jets of water that rose up in grids from the square. Around the fountain were deckchairs, many of them containing colourfully clad students from nearby St Martin’s School of Art. Leanne had asked Emma to meet her here in a deliberate attempt to get Emma out of her house and on to neutral ground. Directly opposite them, through the columns of water, stood vans selling cocktails and street food. Everything had ‘pop-up’ in the title these days – pop-up restaurants, pop-up bars. Leanne wondered if she should call herself a pop-up police officer – here today, but who knew about tomorrow? Had she been a pop-up wife?

‘Is everything OK between the two of you? A crisis like you’ve gone through can pull a couple together, but it can also leave each of you feeling very lonely and isolated.’

The clichés were just pouring out of her – no wonder Emma Reid was keeping her face averted, pretending she couldn’t hear.

‘I know the two of you weren’t interested in counselling after Tilly died, but maybe now some time has passed …’

‘You mean now that it’s easier? More manageable? But you see, Leanne, it isn’t either of those things. In fact it gets harder, not easier. The older I get, the older Jemima and Caitlin get, the further we get from her, like we’re leaving her behind.’

‘And Guy? Does he feel the same?’

Emma shrugged. She was wearing a shapeless black silk dress that hung, sacklike, to just below her knees. Leanne could tell it was expensive but couldn’t help thinking it looked like something you’d put your rubbish out in.

‘Guy doesn’t really tell me what he thinks any more. We lead very separate lives. In fact I think …’ Emma shot her a look as if weighing up whether to go further. ‘Well, I think he might have found someone else. I wouldn’t blame him. I’m not exactly fun to be around any more.’

Leanne didn’t know what to say. It was the first time she’d felt a sense of kinship with Emma Reid.

‘Well, obviously, I’m the go-to woman for cheated-on wives,’ she joked. ‘Ask me anything you want.’

Emma looked aghast. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I mean, I knew you’d separated, but not that there was another woman.’

Leanne held up her hand. ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. But seriously, Emma. What makes you suspect that?’

‘Oh the usual. Secretary rings trying to get hold of him, says he’s been leaving the office early, claiming to be coming home to work, but he never shows up.’

So Emma had no idea about him parking outside schools, watching little girls. It didn’t seem fair to let her go on thinking that her husband was sneaking off to see another woman. And yet the reality might turn out to be so much worse.

‘We hardly speak any more,’ Emma continued, playing with the straw of her drink – a green concoction of juiced vegetables. You wouldn’t catch Leanne drinking vegetables. ‘Our relationship was pretty bad anyway, and since I tried to talk to him about the hair bobbles it’s reached rock bottom. He thinks I’m crazy just like you do.’

Now it was Leanne’s turn to look away. She’d almost forgotten all about Emma’s strange obsession with the mismatched bands.

‘It’s not that I think you’re crazy. It’s just that we need something more to go on. You must see that.’