Her Last Tomorrow (8 page)

Except this time there’s no uncle, grandparent or family friend behind the desk. There’s just me and Tash. And I know who I’ve got my money on as their prime suspect.

McKenna knows this too. She knows that I know. She’s not stupid. When she told us about the media appeal she watched me with the anticipation of a boxer watching his opponent as the opening bell rings, ready for the first sign of a twitch. Of course, I told her I thought it’d be a great idea. Anything that’d help find Ellie. And I meant it, too, even though I know the chances of the appeal leading directly to her being found were extraordinarily slim. Right now, though, I’ll take even the slimmest of chances.

Before I’d received the note, I’d have no concerns. Now, though, I know exactly what’s going to be on my mind throughout the appeal. It’ll show on my face, too. It can’t not. If that’s interpreted by the psychologists as some sign of guilt, it could be curtains. All of the police’s resources will go into investigating me, trying to pin something on me in connection with Ellie’s disappearance. That doesn’t bother me one bit from a selfish point of view, as I had nothing to do with it. But it does mean that they won’t be looking in the right places, and that makes it even less likely that Ellie will be found.

Just being innocent isn’t enough. Knowing you’re a suspect is what kills you. Any of us who’ve ever been in a room when someone has discovered their phone or wallet has gone missing will know exactly what that feels like. Even though you know nothing about it, everyone knows there’s a chance it could be you. It’s a weird kind of awkwardness; a guilt with no reason to exist. But surely the psychologists would know that, wouldn’t they? The rational part of my brain that tells me so is being gradually worn away.

It’s all been arranged in a bit of a hurry, from what I can tell. I mentioned something of the sort to McKenna, but she told me it was important to do it as quickly as we could to maximise the chances of Ellie being found safe. ‘The first few days are the most important,’ she told me, as if I didn’t already know. She also tried to assure me that they’d done this a number of times before, and for me not to worry. The paranoid half of my brain tells me they do it that way to put their suspect under pressure. No time to prepare. Just sit him down and put him in front of a microphone and a camera and the nation’s prying eyes.

I don’t even know if it’s going out live or just being recorded for the evening news programmes. They’ve told me very little, considering I’m her father. That makes me immediately even more suspicious. I know I’ve got to put that out of my mind, though. Right now, I’m the father of a little girl who’s been snatched away from her parents. The focus is on finding Ellie alive and well.

McKenna opens the appeal by introducing herself and DC Brennan. The metallic insignia of the county police force sits proud on the temporary fold-out wall behind her as she leans forward purposefully on the desk, her hands clasped together.

What sickens me the most is that they’ve given me a pre-prepared statement. And not one pre-prepared by me, either. It’s one they’ve ‘had to word carefully to maximise our chances of success’, McKenna told me. It sounds more like a marketing plan than an appeal for a missing child’s safety, but I roll with it. It’s all part of their game.

Tasha looks at me and I take her hand in mine. I look out over the desk and make eye contact with a journalist. He holds it, just for a moment, and then looks down at his notepad as he scratches his ear. He knows, too. He must’ve seen this a hundred times before. He knows the drill.

I’m not even listening to what McKenna says, but I notice she’s stopped talking and is looking at me. Tasha nudges me slightly. I blink a few times, unfold the sheet of paper on the desk in front of me and start to read from it.

‘Since Ellie disappeared our lives have been torn apart,’ I say, not sure how much emotion I should be putting into this. ‘Our little girl has been a constant in our lives for the past five years and all we want is to have her back home, safe and well. If you know where she is, we wish you no harm. We just want our little girl back.’
Wish you no harm? I want to rip your fucking head off.
‘Ellie, if you see or hear this, please let somebody know you’re safe. You’re not in any trouble, sweetheart.’

My voice cracks as I speak those last words. It sets Tasha off, which sets the flashbulbs of the press’s cameras off. That’s the money shot for their front page, they’ll be thinking. A great shot of two grieving parents. That’s what they want, isn’t it? Build the drama, sell the papers. It doesn’t matter how much of it is real.

And, right now, I don’t know how much of it is real.

I comfort Tash, my brain only really processing the noise of the cameras firing and flashing. Somewhere amongst the maelstrom, McKenna’s words rattle, distant and faded.

‘...if anyone has any further information, to call our incident room on...’

I close my eyes and try to push it all away.

I feel strangely cautious about conducting any sort of research on my own computer now. For all I know, the police could have installed some sort of tracking software on it and be watching all of my online activities. That wouldn’t usually worry me too much, but I don’t intend on just conducting any old sort of research.

The police have returned the car already, but didn’t bother to do me the courtesy of letting me know they’d found nothing. Even though it’s back, I still can’t shake the thought of the car being tracked or followed. So, I slip on my shoes and leave the house, deciding to walk into town.
 

My first port of call is the library. I go inside and speak to the young girl at the desk about using their public computers. She tells me I’ll need to sign up for a library membership. Yeah, I know. A writer who doesn’t have a library membership.

Apparently it only takes five minutes to sign up. All I’ll need to do, she says, is type in my identification number and password and I can then use the computer. I don’t like the sound of this. The last thing I want is my research activities being logged against my name by a public body.

I know there’s an internet café in the next town. At least there was six months ago when I last drove past. I decide I could do with the walk anyway.

When I get to the internet café, I push the door open and walk inside. There’s no-one in here other than the man, who I presume to be the owner, sitting at a desk at the back of the shop. I’m not particularly surprised — who uses internet cafés when everyone has computers and smartphones these days?

I walk up to the man and ask if I can book some time on the computers. I hand over my money and he points me in the direction of a terminal. I’d always presumed there’d be some fancy system in which I’d have to insert my coins and have some sort of countdown clock in the corner of my screen, but instead the man just looks at his watch and jots down the time on a notepad. I guess that works too.

I wait an age for Internet Explorer to actually open — this is why I use a Mac — and I eventually get around to being ready to type in my search terms. Fortunately for me, my screen faces the wall so I don’t have to worry about the prying eyes of the shop owner or anyone passing by on the street.

I sit for a few moments, not actually entirely sure what it is I want to search for. My brain feels like it’s full of fuzz, unable to formulate any clear thoughts. I try to think back to the mindfulness exercises I’ve done in the past and remember some of the techniques, but no matter how hard I try I just can’t shift the fog.

I pull a notepad out of my bag and start to doodle. A few minutes later I’ve still typed nothing into the computer but have created a brainstorm, with the word MURDER in the middle and all manner of ways of killing someone stemming from it. So far I’ve covered strangulation, electrocution, blunt force trauma, stabbing and ‘accident’, complete with inverted commas.

Although I’ve spent years writing about people dying in all sorts of horrible and gruesome ways, when it comes down to it I realise that I’m not going to be able to do it myself. The ideas I seem to be favouring are what one might call the indirect methods: ‘accident’ seeming particularly enticing.

I turn a page on my notebook and continue scribbling. It’s mostly just a stream of semi-connected words and thoughts.

Car problem? Staged disappearance. Note or letter — would need to be foolproof or could tell forgery. Long-term plan?

The words seem to make sense as I write them, but they very quickly become nonsensical. One thing I do know from my writing career is that the perfect murder requires one thing above all others: meticulous planning. No aspect can be left unthought of. The way my mind is right now, I very quickly realise that I’m in no state to commit the perfect murder. As I see it, I have only one option.

The long walk back home gives me plenty of thinking time. My new way out might seem like the easiest option but it’s fraught with its own difficulties. If I’m going to get someone else to do my dirty work, the obvious first question is
who?
The
how
, I can leave up to them.

It’s not exactly something you can just look up in the Yellow Pages. Hit men don’t tend to pop a classified ad in the local paper, either. You either know someone or you don’t.

A thought has been rattling around at the back of my mind for a little while now, but I’ve been reluctant to address it. An old school friend of mine did time once. I say an old school friend because we’ve barely seen each other since then, but we used to be thick as thieves at school. Best mates. Neither of us was a model pupil, but Mark Crawford was something else. He was never violent or aggressive, but he had a real rebellious streak.

Mark always used to have a way round anything. He wouldn’t do anything on the straight and narrow and had a real eye for a competitive advantage. If we were playing cricket in PE he’d have a key tucked into the waistband of his shorts, perfect for carving ruts and divots in the ball to make it spin more unpredictably. And he was the only kid I knew who didn’t pay any attention in class and still managed to sail through exams. There had to be something dodgy about that, too. There was always something dodgy where Mark Crawford was involved. By the time he was twenty-two he was banged up for organising an elaborate VAT money laundering scheme involving a closed circle of limited companies he’d set up purely for that purpose.

We’d not really met face-to-face much since school, but the joys of Facebook, which admittedly I only use very rarely, and still living in the same area we grew up in meant we had bumped into each other occasionally. I’d never really told Tasha much about him. If she knew his history, she’d only judge him before she’d even met him, so I’d never bothered going into detail. Anyway, Mark and I barely saw each other, so it wasn’t relevant. We still had each other’s numbers and would send the occasional
Merry Christmas
text, but that was about it. All this was irrelevant right now, though. The only thing at the forefront of my mind was that Mark Crawford knew people. Bad people. People who might be able to help me out of this mess.

I’d love nothing more than to have faith in the police right now. But the problem is I can also see things from their point of view. A young girl disappears, and no-one sees her go. Add to that the fact that the prime witness completely contradicts what you’ve said, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. I grind my teeth as I think about Derek.

Anyway, where do you start looking when you don’t even know which way she went at the end of the driveway? And then, on top of it all, you have a witness — a ‘reliable’ witness with no chequered past — who says the dad never put her in the car to start with. The logical next step is to try to work out who might have taken her, and then to work out from that where they might be. Who’s suspect number one going to be? Yours truly.

 
I had to explain to them — without letting slip about Jen Hood — that deep down I know she’s been taken; Ellie’s not the sort of girl to just wander off, and there’s no way she could’ve gone far in the time I was in the house. I had to make them see that Derek is lying. That they’re wasting so much precious time looking at me when they could be finding her. Trouble is, there’s no-one either Tash or I, or anyone else for that matter, can think of who’d want to take Ellie. Why would they?

The sum of it all, is that the best the police can do is to wander around cursorily looking in bushes and putting up posters. There’s been talk of putting on more pressure through the media, but they’re worried this might scare whoever has Ellie into panicking and harming her. When they put this point to me, I strongly agreed. After all, I know someone has her and that that person might well panic, as they suggested. I couldn’t tell them that, though.

I’m not going to lie — I’ve often wondered what life would be like without Tasha. I’ve always said that if I hadn’t settled down and got married I’d probably be out travelling the Far East or Australia right now. I certainly wouldn’t be mortgaged up to the eyeballs in the same bloody town I grew up in with no hope of ever getting out. In so many ways, things would be a lot easier if Tasha wasn’t around.

We couldn’t go off travelling now. Not now we’re married with a kid and a mortgage, not to mention the rest of the baggage that goes with it. Tasha’s not exactly likely to want to give up her precious career, either. But me and Ellie, just the two of us? Yes, that’d work. Especially if we had nothing left to stay for.

Another thought crosses my mind. Tasha’s insured. That was something she’d insisted on when we first got married and bought the house. We even made sure to include provision for any children we had, with extra money being provided for their care if one of us were to die. Do insurance companies pay out in cases of murder? After all, I’ve got to assume that might be the verdict if I can’t make it look like an accident. No. I push this thought from my head. I
have
to make it look like an accident. Either that or a murder I couldn’t possibly have committed. I could sell the house, add the insurance money in and we’d be able to live fairly easily roaming the world. I could even hire a tutor for Ellie to come with us.