Her Last Tomorrow (6 page)

‘Something funny?’

‘Only the fact that we’re wasting time here,’ I say. ‘Anyway, have you looked more carefully at Derek Francis? Everyone around here knows he’s not quite right. You’d do better to be questioning him than me.’

‘Questioning him about what?’ Brennan asks.

‘I don’t know,’ I say, eventually.

McKenna paces towards the front window. ‘About Ellie’s disappearance, you mean?’

‘Why not? He had a full view of the driveway. He’s the only one who did. And he says he was stood at the window at the time Ellie went missing. Yet he still didn’t see anything. That’s a bit weird, don’t you think?’

‘Not particularly. It comes down to your word against his, doesn’t it? You say you put Ellie in the car and went back inside. Derek Francis says he didn’t see you do anything of the sort. He also says he knocked on your door earlier that morning to give you the letter he’d had delivered to his house by mistake and got no answer.’

‘I’ve already told you all this,’ I say, frustrated. ‘I didn’t answer because I was getting Ellie dressed. And I doubt very much it was him knocking at the door seeing as he doesn’t communicate with anyone.’

‘Was the letter on your mat when you came downstairs?’ McKenna asks.

‘Well, yes.’

She just looks at me. ‘So it would seem that that part of his story is true. Why not the rest?’

‘Because he’s lying. I know exactly what happened that morning. I was there. I’m not some senile old pensioner who doesn’t know what he sees and doesn’t see.’

‘So he’s an unreliable witness but you still want us to question him and find out what he really saw? That doesn’t make much sense to me, Nick.’

I can feel the weight of McKenna’s comments pressing down on me. Tasha’s face is a composition of confusion, frustration and hurt.

‘Why would you believe him over me? I’m the one whose daughter has gone missing. Look into his record, alright? Just look into him and then tell me you believe his word over mine.’

‘We have,’ McKenna says, adding another layer of atmosphere to the room. ‘We’ve looked into his record and we’ve looked into yours. His is clean.’ She leaves it hanging in the air for a few seconds before speaking again. ‘Now do you want to tell me everything?’

‘It was years ago,’ I say, closing my eyes and wishing this whole situation would go away. ‘It’s not even relevant. I was a different person back then.’

‘It’s very relevant, Nick,’ McKenna says. ‘And I want to hear it from your point of view.’

Why?
I want to say.
So you can tell me which aspects of
that
don’t match what you’ve been told by other people?

This is something I’ve never told Tasha. I’ve never kept it from her, exactly, but it’s just not something that’s ever come up in conversation. It was a dark period in my life and it’s not something I’ve been keen to talk about at any point.

‘What is she talking about, Nick?’ Tasha asks. This is what I really don’t need. I wonder whether this is a deliberate ploy from McKenna, asking me in front of Tasha, trying to find out if I’m the sort of guy who’d keep something like this from his wife. She’s just found out that I am.

‘I had a girlfriend. Angela. It was a years ago. I’d totally forgotten about it,’ I lie. ‘It was a stupid, immature relationship that should have ended long before it did. We both drank too much and smoked too much shit and one night things got too heavy. I did something stupid and that’s the end of it.’

‘What did you do?’ Tasha says, quietly.

I swallow and shake my head. ‘I waited until she’d drunk so much she passed out, drove her out to the woods and tied her to a tree and left her there.’

Tasha’s mouth hangs open as she blinks at me.

‘I know. It was fucking stupid. I got pulled over on the way back home. Obviously I blew over the limit so I was taken in. When they asked me where I’d been, I told them. Apparently that’s the only reason I got a suspended sentence instead of time inside. I was banned and fined for the drink driving.’

Tasha makes a small choking noise. ‘Oh my god. That’s why you didn’t want to go to America, isn’t it? You wouldn’t have got in.’

I nod without looking at her. ‘I was young and stupid. And I was bloody lucky, too. Another judge might have sent me down. But believe me,’ I say, holding eye contact with Tasha for as long as I can, seeing the tears misting her eyes, ‘I have never done anything like that before or since. That was the last time I got drunk.’ I look at McKenna. ‘Other than the occasional glass of wine every now and again, I barely drink.’

‘That’s why?’ Tasha says, quietly and delicately.

‘Yeah. That’s why. Because I never wanted to become that person again. When I drink I get stupid. That was the line in the sand, Tash. That was when I became the new Nick.’ I look at McKenna. ‘And that’s why it’s got absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening here and now.’

‘I’m afraid the law doesn’t quite see it that way,’ McKenna says. ‘As things stand, what happened yesterday morning is your word against your neighbour’s. And he doesn’t have a history of violent crime.’

‘I don’t have
a
history,’ I say, stressing the word. ‘It was a one-off incident. Years ago. It
is
history.’

‘You have a criminal record, Nick. For a violent crime. I’m not saying your word’s any less valid than his, but you’ve got to look at it on paper. We don’t know either of you personally so all we’ve got to go on is what we see.’

I take a deep breath and pace towards the window. ‘Well can you not just take my word for it then? I’m telling you the truth here. You might not know me but Tasha does and Tasha knows I wouldn’t lie.’

I turn to look at Tasha but deep down I already know what I’m going to see. She’s looking at me, the tears still misting her eyes, and she’s saying nothing.

It’s McKenna who speaks. ‘Nick, I’d like you to come with me.’

They tell me I’m not under arrest, but that it’s a formal interview. I don’t know what the difference is, and right now it doesn’t really matter. The journey to the police station took place in stony silence. Out of the corner of my eye I occasionally caught McKenna glancing at me in the rear-view mirror, perhaps looking for some giveaway or tell-tale sign.

The interview room is much as I’d expected, but perhaps a little more comfortable. The chairs are padded and there’s a carpet, which is a start. There are cameras in all four corners of the room, leaving nothing uncovered. I don’t feel nervous, but I really don’t want to have to go into any greater detail about what happened with Angela. It was stupid. I know that. But I do have something to hide: the email’s I’ve been receiving from Jen Hood.

‘You’ve got to see things from our point of view, Nick,’ McKenna says. I want to tell her I do. ‘Your five-year-old daughter goes missing. You tell us you put her in the car and went back inside. Your sole witness tells us you didn’t. You react by ransacking the man’s house. We dig a little deeper and find out you’ve got previous for abduction.’ She leaves that hanging in the air for a few seconds before speaking again. ‘Do you have any idea how many missing children turn out to have come to harm at the hands of a family member?’

I shake my head. I don’t, but I bet it’s a lot.

‘Most of them,’ she says, pausing again before she leans forward towards me and clasps her hands. Brennan is sitting beside her, watching me with great interest.

‘Nick, if you want to tell us something, you can. We always find out what happened eventually. Modern policing isn’t about
if
we catch the perpetrator; it’s about
when
. The longer things drag on, the more difficult it’s going to be for you and the rest of the family to deal with what’s happened.’

I raise my head and look her in the eye. ‘Nothing has happened. Everything I’ve told you is true. I don’t know where my daughter is, I don’t know why Derek’s lying and I don’t know any more about anything than you do.’

Okay, so that last bit wasn’t quite true.

‘What are you hiding, Nick?’ McKenna asks, throwing me off balance. I must have given away some slight involuntary twitch, as Brennan cocks his head to the side and raises an eyebrow.

‘I’m not hiding anything,’ I say, sounding a little like the lady who doth protest too much. ‘Like you said, you’ll find out what happened eventually. You’ve already been through my phone, laptop and car. What more do you want?’

‘We want the truth, Nick.’

I laugh. ‘I can’t help you with that. I’m afraid that’s your job. What did you find in the car, exactly? Hmm?’ McKenna says nothing. ‘What about on my phone? My laptop? Anything at all? No. Nothing. So what the hell am I here for?’

‘We’ve been through this, Nick. We have every reason to treat you as a person of interest.’

‘No. No you haven’t,’ I say, feeling increasingly agitated. ‘My daughter is out there somewhere. She’s five years old. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead, and we’re here, wasting time investigating the one person who cares most about Ellie in this world, rather than actually finding her and catching the bastard who took her! Or would that give you lot too much paperwork to actually get off your fucking arses and find her? I mean, why the hell would I report her missing if I had something to do with it? Have you asked yourselves that?’

‘Calm down, Nick. We’ve allocated all the resources we possibly can to—‘

‘No you haven’t!’ I interrupt, now shouting. ‘You two are meant to be leading this investigation and you’re doing the square root of fuck all. If you think I’m hiding something, arrest me. Arrest me and hand me over to some pen pusher to take a statement from me, then lock me up for twenty-four hours. That’s what you’re allowed, isn’t it? At least in the meantime you can get on with actually trying to find Ellie.’ McKenna and Brennan say nothing. They just look at me. ‘Well go on. Are you going to arrest me or what?’

There are a few moments of silence before McKenna speaks. ‘You’re free to go, Nick.’

Brennan dropped me back home and decided it would be a good idea to leave me and Tash alone for a while. Another little police tactic I recognised from books and TV — light the blue touch paper and retire; hope that everything comes out without them having to do a full day’s work. I don’t know if it’s just the stress of the situation, but I’m getting more and more cynical with every passing hour.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Tasha says, eventually.

‘I didn’t hide it from you,’ I reply.

‘Don’t dodge the question,’ she says. I’m surprised by how calm and level-headed she seems. In a way, that makes it all so much more disturbing. I can only think of two other occasions in the whole time I’ve known Tasha that she’s gone beyond the fury and despair of a situation and settled in this weird trance-like state.

‘I didn’t
not
tell you. I mean, when would be the right time? Over dinner one night? During the adverts in Coronation Street? At the altar just before we got married, perhaps?’

‘I had a right to know, Nick. I gave my life to you,’ she says through gritted teeth.

‘And you wouldn’t have done if you’d known about that? About one stupid, idiotic incident. Not even one whole day but one evening, one small, stupid incident that I’ve regretted ever since? You never knew that Nick. You know the Nick who’s stood in front of you now. The family man who’s only a family man
because
of that incident. Because it changed me. It made me who I am today. Personally, I’m grateful for that and you should be too.’

Bad move, Nick.

‘Grateful? You want me to be grateful?’ Tasha shrieks, a full two octaves higher than she’s been speaking so far. ‘Nick, I have given my life to you. And now I discover that you’re, what, a violent criminal?’

I bury my face in my hands and make a noise that sounds like an Olympic weightlifter going for the world record. ’You know exactly who I am, Tasha. I haven’t hidden anything. Don’t you understand that? When I look back on my life before that incident it’s like an out of body experience. It’s like I’m looking down on someone else’s life. Like I’m watching a film. I didn’t hide what happened; I just completely blotted it out. I wanted to forget it. I needed to forget it.’

She looks up at me and sneers. ‘Are you honestly trying to tell me that in all the time you’ve been with me you’ve never thought about that night? Not once?’

I sigh. ‘Of course I have. It’s passed through my mind. Of course it has. But it’s not like I think of it every day and go out of my way to make sure you don’t find out about it, is it?’

‘What about America?’ she says, a lightbulb going on in her head. ‘That would have been the perfect opportunity to tell me. You could’ve said “We can’t go to America because I’ve got a criminal record. I did something stupid a long time ago and now I’m going to tell you all about it.” But you didn’t, did you? No. You made up some stupid excuse about work, deadlines and money. Try telling me you didn’t hide it from me then, Nick.’

‘I didn’t,’ I say. ‘I mean, yeah, of course that had a bearing on things but work was a factor in—‘

‘
Stop, Nick!
’ she shouts. ‘Face it. You lied to me. You lied because you didn’t want me to know the truth and because you couldn’t handle the truth yourself. Just like you can’t handle the truth that you fucked up yesterday. Majorly.’