The Attic Room: A psychological thriller (21 page)

Nina swallowed. How was she supposed to not get her hopes
up? The hope was almost killing her every single second, because it was all she
had left to hold on to.

‘Where do we go from here? Should we print posters and
things?’ Her voice sounded almost normal – how the shit was she managing to
sound normal?

‘We’ll hold off with that for the moment. We’re still
investigating Paul’s flat and his computer, and we’re finding all kinds of
places to check. I’m hopeful we’ll find Naomi in one of them. That’s all I can
tell you at the moment. And Nina – I don’t know if this helps, but – ’

Nina gazed at him.

‘Very few paedophiles are attracted to both girls and boys.
So Paul’s abusers probably had no interest in abusing you, back then.’

Nina nodded silently. So she’d been right about that. Did it
make Naomi any safer today? Unfortunately not. Paul was on a mission now to get
revenge not only on his own abusers, but on paedophiles in general. Many might
say it was a worthy mission. But it had put Naomi in terrible danger.

‘What do you want to do now?’ said Sam, back in the car.

Nina rummaged for a tissue. ‘This is doing my head in, Sam.
I feel numb one minute and terrified the next. Let’s go back to the estate
where Paul and I changed cars. Maybe if I walk about a bit this time I’ll find
where he parked.’

Sam drove to the top of the High Street and turned left over
the bridge. Nina pulled out the mobile he’d lent her. Several people had sent
messages of support, but of course the one name she wanted to see on the screen
wasn’t there. Oh God, if only she could press a couple of buttons and have
Naomi’s voice in her ear. She wrenched her gaze from the mobile out to the
street they were driving along. Sam stopped at a zebra crossing and a little
family of four passed in front of the car, and Nina stared bleakly. This could
be her and Sam, in another time and place. A white, blonde mother and a
dark-skinned, handsome father, swinging a cute and laughing little boy between
them, an older girl skipping along at their side. She squinted up at Sam. His
mouth was tight, and she could feel the band of tension round her own head. If
anything happened to Naomi she would go away from this place and she’d never
see Sam or Emily again and she’d never want to, either.

They came to the estate where the car-change had taken place
and Sam pulled up in front of a solitary shop, a newsagent’s, where a wire
guard criss-crossed in front of the window. Nina hunched into her jacket, cold
in spite of the warmth of the day.

‘Let’s walk about a bit,’ she said, and Sam nodded. They
headed downhill, and Nina stared round in resignation. There were so many
streets, most of them mirror images of the last one; they couldn’t possibly
walk through them all. This was hopeless. It was the only thing she could do to
help Naomi and it was hopeless.

‘I didn’t see any shops, and the street wasn’t as wide as
this one,’ she said, stopping at a crossroads and looking right and left. They
continued down to the next junction, where the intersecting street was narrower.
Nina peered to the left and shrugged. This wasn’t anything like as poor a
district as the one where she’d been held captive, but there was no great
affluence here, either. She turned a full circle, looking as hard as she could
for something, anything that could give her that one vital clue to lead them to
Naomi. There was nothing.

‘Hell, Sam, this is no use. I wasn’t looking at the scenery;
I was concentrating on Paul and how scary it all was.’

He frowned. ‘Did you notice any people about?’

Nina pictured the scene, her eyes closed. ‘I heard kids
shouting in the distance when we were walking to the other car. Smaller kids
than Naomi. But that’s all. There was no one nearby who’d have seen us.’

‘Little kids. I wonder if there’s a swing park or something
nearby,’ said Sam, and called out to a passing teenager.

‘Hey, man! Any swings around here?’

The youth shook a finger at him. ‘You’re way too old for
swings, Grandpa!’ he said, his face one big grin. ‘You try ‘em out right along
there and see!’ He pointed down the side road.

‘Thanks man!’ Sam gave him a thumbs-up.

Nina started along the road, not allowing herself to hope.
Crossing the first junction they came to she slowed down, gazing up the
narrower street.

‘Wait! It was along there,’ she said, excitement stirring
inside her. She strode along, Sam following. ‘Look, we drove down here and –
yes, I remember now, I saw that house with the green curtains, we parked - ’
She ran further up the road, ‘ – right here! Quick, quick, I have to phone
David, they should come straightaway – she might be close by!’

Nina’s teeth were chattering as she pulled out her mobile.
She could be within a few yards of Naomi right now.

David’s voice was calm, but she could hear the urgency
behind his words.

‘Nina, get right away from there. Immediately, and quietly.
If Paul is nearby with Naomi and sees you and Sam searching around, the first
thing he’s going to do is leave again. Go back to your car and wait. I’ll be in
touch.’

Sam was listening in and he pulled her back along the road. ‘He’s
right. Come on, Nina!’

She allowed herself to be propelled back along the road, but
it didn’t stop her looking round frantically as they went. Naomi, baby, are you
here? If she shouted with all that was in her, would Naomi hear?

An elderly woman was trudging along the road with a carrier
bag. ‘Looking for something, dearie?’ Her voice was rough but kindly.

‘My cousin brought my daughter to stay somewhere on this
road but I don’t know the number,’ said Nina, wondering if there was actually
any point in lying about it. ‘Have you seen her? Ten, shoulder-length blonde
hair, looks like me only – better.’

The woman gave a snort of amusement. ‘Wait till you hit my
age, dearie. I did see a young chap with a girl this morning, I noticed because
I’ve lived here all me life and I reckoned I knew everyone, but these two were
new to me. We don’t get many casual visitors hereabouts. Why don’t you ring
someone’s bell and ask, if you’re sure this is the right street?’

She waddled on up the road. Nina gave up. The police could
search more effectively than they could, and the last thing she wanted was to
frighten Paul – and Naomi – away from the area. If they were here in the first
place. She passed on what the woman said to David and followed Sam back to the
car, where they sat staring at each other. New hope was painful in Nina’s
chest, and she had to make an effort to breathe normally. The police were
coming. She could be within minutes of holding her daughter.

Or maybe not. She could be within minutes of sitting in an
ambulance as it blue-lighted towards hospital, Naomi with God knows what
injuries pale on the stretcher beside her. Or – the worst thought in the world
– she could be within minutes of watching police cars scream up and park
diagonally across the street, officers running to stretch tape across the
entrance to one of these houses – the start of a murder investigation. When her
mobile rang she could hardly control her fingers enough to answer it.

‘Naomi isn’t here,’ said David. ‘Go at once to the police
station and I’ll meet you there, Nina. There’s more news.’

Claire’s story – Edinburgh

‘Waah, Gran – did you really walk up these steps all the
time when you were little?’

Claire laughed, feeling her breath catch in her throat as
she and Naomi arrived at the top of Waverley Steps, coming up from the train
station. The escalators were off, and a tired stream of early Christmas
shoppers were pounding their way up and down the stairs, helped or hindered by
the wind that was a permanent feature there.

‘I certainly did. You get used to it, you know. Let’s go and
have some orange punch before we visit Santa.’ Claire breathed in, smelling the
roast-chestnuts-mulled-wine-too-much-traffic smell that was so peculiarly
Edinburgh at Christmas. She and Naomi were spending the weekend here, a belated
treat for the little girl’s sixth birthday.

They wandered along bustling Princes Street, Claire’s hand
gripping Naomi’s. She could hear children singing carols further along the
street.
Good King Wenceslas
was followed by
Jingle Bells
. Sweet, high-pitched, slightly out-of-tune
little voices, accompanied by a whiff of mince pies from the stand by the
roadside – how lovely it was to be back. The ghost of Christmases past. And how
odd to think that Nina was younger than Naomi was now when the two of them
returned home to Mum and Dad in Edinburgh.

Claire pulled out her purse when they reached the stand, and
bought a paper cup of mulled wine for herself and one of orange punch for
Naomi. This was perfect, a visit to her home town with her granddaughter – how
blessed she was. The tension that had ruled her life for so many years was all
but gone – she had made it. Nina was grown up and the two of them and Beth were
successfully running the B&B; whether or not Robert was alive and well she
had no idea, and while she couldn’t quite say she didn’t care, it wasn’t such a
huge obstacle to her peace of mind. Being a Grandma had helped her get things
into proportion. She had a wonderful family, a beautiful home… she even went on
the odd date now. Life was good. Who cared what Robert may or may not do? In
any case she had every intention of living to be a hundred and fifty, so Robert
would never have the chance to contact Nina. Miserable git that he was.

Most importantly, she had come to realise that the very fact
that in all these years Robert had never taken the trouble to contact his
daughter would prevent Nina forging any real relationship with her father.
Robert had rejected Nina. And maybe someday the opportunity would arise for her
to sit down with her girl and have a frank talk. Explain things. And if it didn’t
– no matter.

‘Can we visit Santa now?’ Naomi was jumping up and down,
blonde hair escaping from the Swedish woolly hat one of their foreign visitors had
sent her. Happiness surged through Claire. It was almost Christmas and Santa
was real; the magic was still intact.

Count your blessings, Claire, she thought. You’re the
luckier grandparent. You have a daughter who loves you and a granddaughter who
thinks you’re wonderful. Nothing’s worth more than that.

‘‘Course we can,’ she said.

As soon as he walked into the room she saw it, and it was
all she could do not to scream.

‘Don’t touch,’ said David Mallony. He placed the evidence
bag on the interview room table.

Nina stared through clear plastic. Naomi’s blue and white
striped sweatshirt lay there, unfolded, looking for all the world as if the
girl had pulled it off and flung it down on the table.

‘Where did you find it?’ Did this calm voice really belong
to her?

‘It was on a sofa in number ten, near to where you
remembered leaving Wright’s car,’ said David steadily. ‘This proves Naomi was
in that house at some point. There’s no sign of either of them now, though, so
it may simply have been a stopping-off place. According to the neighbours, the
people who rent it are on holiday. And we’ve found the car registered to Paul
Wright, so he must be using the other one, the one you transferred to beside
this house. It possibly belongs to the people who live in that house so we’re
investigating that too.’

Nina sat still, her eyes devouring the sweatshirt. All she
wanted to do was rip the bag open and bury her face in soft cotton, blue and
white to match the blue sweat pants Naomi wore to play badminton back on Arran.
She’d folded it and put it into Naomi’s bag on – yes, on Monday. She hadn’t
seen her daughter for four days.

‘It feels as if we’re running along three steps behind him
all the time,’ she said, the pain back in her chest. Oh God – perhaps her heart
was broken. ‘This doesn’t bring us any further forward at all.’

‘It still might. We know Wright has access to that house and
we’ll keep it under observation in case he comes back,’ said David, lifting the
bag again. ‘Nina - ’

‘I know,’ she said dully. ‘Go home and rest.’ And how
impossible was that?

Back in Sam’s car, Nina called The Elms, only to be told
that Emily was asleep and the warden didn’t want her disturbed. Nina sagged in
her seat. They had run out of things to do.

‘Let’s go home, like he said,’ said Sam. ‘Have something to
eat, and you can phone Bethany and Alan. And you know, maybe they’ll find
something quite quickly now they have his car and that flat to investigate too.’

Back home, he made them BLTs, and insisted Nina finished hers
and drank a full glass of orange juice. She didn’t have the energy to argue
with him. She felt dead inside; the pain in her chest was gone and the agony
she’d felt on looking at Naomi’s photos that morning seemed very far away.
Would there never be any positive news? And talking of news, she should watch
the appeal on television. It would be on after the bulletin at the top of the
hour. Apprehensively, she stared as TV adverts for this and that danced across
the screen. Perfect families, those soap powder people. All clean and smiling
and Mum and Dad and the kids. Shit. They said you couldn’t miss what you’d
never had, but you could, you could. How very much she missed being part of a
family like that.

The sight of Naomi’s face filling the screen jolted Nina
more than she could ever have imagined. First the smiling photo was shown,
while a male voice read the text. Towards the end the jigsaw photo was
substituted in, and Nina sobbed aloud. How sweet and serious Naomi was with her
jigsaw, and right this minute no one could tell them if she was alive or not.
No one except Paul. Impossible to imagine what she would do if she lost her
child. The thought, the dreadful hope that Naomi might soon be found was all
that was keeping her upright today.

Sam hugged her as the appeal gave way to the weather
forecast. ‘Come on,’ he said briskly. ‘Millions of people are on the look-out
for Naomi now.’

Nina swallowed. ‘I want to go back to the police station. If
anything comes in I want to be there.’

‘Well – let’s call by, anyway. You can’t sit there all day.
And don’t forget Emily – we should check on her too and that might be more
useful than hanging around at the police station.’

Nina heard his mobile ring while she was in the bathroom,
and came out to hear him say goodbye to David.

‘The police have your handbag, it was still in Paul’s car,’
he said, thrusting his phone into his pocket. ‘Nina, David says there are
reporters camped out in front of the police station, so we shouldn’t go there.
Thank God they don’t know you’re here.’

‘Hell,’ said Nina. ‘I suppose should be glad they’re
publicising it but being hassled by the press is the last thing I need. I’ll
phone The Elms again.’

She called the warden, and was told that Emily was up again
sorting photos and they were welcome to join her. Nina smiled sadly. What a
treasure Emily was, and what a great pity it was that they hadn’t known each
other all this time. A desolate by-product of Claire’s lie.

Emily’s cheeks were pink and there were two rows of snaps on
the coffee table in front of her. To Nina’s surprise most of them were from the
‘no-people’ selection; only a few had recognisable figures in them, and none
were anyone she knew. Unless Paul was one of those indistinct children…

‘You’ve found something,’ she said, sitting beside Emily on
the sofa without taking her jacket off.

‘I rather think I have,’ said Emily, gripping her magnifying
glass and staring at one of the photos. ‘I haven’t thought about it for years.
Your father and George Wright used to go fishing. It was always a ‘man-thing’,
the women-folk stayed at home but sometimes the men took Paul. They went to an
old farmhouse belonging to a friend of George’s – there was a stream with bass
nearby. There are quite a few photos of the house, and some more with different
youngsters and fishermen outside – look. You can see that’s the same building
in the background here… and here. George was a keen photographer and the
scenery was lovely, but there are… a lot of photos of the place. I’m not sure
what to think.’

Nina bent over the coffee table. A couple of images were
from the black and white selection, but the rest were colour. Five showed rural
scenes, both with and without an old stone farmhouse in the background, and
another handful showed various figures sitting around the garden in front of
the house. Young Paul was there, and another boy. Had George taken these? Maybe
the farmhouse was – what a truly horrible thought – a place where her father
and Paul’s had taken children to be abused. Nina began to feel sick.

‘Emily, where is this farmhouse?’ she said, taking her
great-aunt’s hand. And how difficult it was not to scream out loud, for this
was certainly another place David Mallony would need to check out.

Emily rubbed her eyes, a distraught expression on her face. ‘That’s
the stupid thing, I’m not very sure. I was only there once; we had a family
picnic one Sunday. It was a long time ago, you were barely toddling around. It’s
not far from Bedford, I know, less than half an hour in the car.’

‘I’ll call David. I’m sure they’ll have ways of identifying
the landscape,’ said Sam, pulling out his mobile.

Nina listened to his side of the conversation, staring at
the photos spread out on the table. How innocent it all looked, English
countryside and people from decades ago. But the innocence might have been
flawed.

Sam finished his call and gathered the photos together. ‘I’ve
to scan them through from the office here,’ he said, leaving Nina and Emily
looking at each other.

‘Scan?’ said Emily, and Nina thought how the world had
changed since Emily was her age.

‘The computer system here can make copies and send them to
the police computer,’ she explained.

Sam returned, having forwarded the images, and Nina hugged
her great-aunt.

‘I’ll phone this evening and let you know the latest,’ she
said. ‘Emily, thank you so much. I’ll probably see you tomorrow.’

For where else would she go if Naomi was still missing – and
if Naomi was found, then Emily would be their first port of call, always
provided that Nina didn’t have to keep vigil at her daughter’s hospital
bedside.

It was two hours later when the phone call came. Nina spent
the time on Sam’s sofa staring into the glass of juice he brought her, knowing
how fragile her composure was. The thought of losing control was terrifying, and
Naomi might need her soon. Please God Naomi would need her, please God Naomi
was alive.

Sam grabbed his phone and held it between them, and Nina
could see how his hands were shaking too.

‘We’ve found the farmhouse. It’s near Millburn, to the north
of Bedford,’ said David Mallony.

Nina’s heart began to race, thudding behind her ribs. She
pressed both hands against her chest.

David continued. ‘It’s called Cummings Farm. The land was
sold off years ago, and an elderly couple called Wilson have lived in the house
for years. It’s fairly outlying, a long way to the nearest neighbours. Anyway,
the people at the bottom of the lane noticed a pale green car going up and down
to the farm yesterday, but it’s not there now. The Wilsons aren’t answering
their phone, so we’re going in to check.’

‘I want to come too,’ said Nina immediately. This was
important, the best lead they’d had, was she wrong to feel convinced this was
where Naomi was? Or had been…

‘Nina, there are literally thousands of pale green cars in
the area. At the moment this is no more weighty than any of the other leads
from Wright’s computer,’ said David. ‘You can’t rush around checking everything
yourself, you’d be exhausted in no time.’

‘I want to come,’ said Nina. ‘Please.’ She heard David
Mallony sigh.

‘Okay. We’ll pick you up in five minutes. But you must do
exactly as you’re told.’

She could hear he was already in the car.

‘I will. Can Sam come too?’

‘The more the merrier,’ said David Mallony dryly, and Nina
clicked off her mobile.

The car, an unmarked police vehicle, picked them up and Nina
squeezed her hands between her knees as they sped north along the A6. David was
right, she’d make herself ill if she went on like this. But surely this must be
it – a remote farmhouse known to Paul, an elderly couple not answering their
phone – and the pale green car noticed by people in the same lane. Maybe she
was driving towards Naomi at last, and there was still no way of knowing what
her child had suffered all this time. Nausea, never far away now, welled up
again and she leaned back, taking shallow breaths through her mouth.

Millburn was a village, larger than Biddenham, and a mile
off the A6. The driver stopped in front of a red sandstone church on the High
Street, and Nina saw that two more police cars and a paramedic on a motorbike
were waiting. So maybe the police were taking this more seriously than the
other leads from Paul’s computer; they didn’t take paramedics to every single
check, did they? The churning in her gut increased. David Mallony went to
consult his colleagues, telling Nina and Sam to stay put.

Nina sat watching the policemen gesticulate as they
conferred. Anger was beginning to replace the nausea. ‘Shit, Sam, how dare Paul
do this?’

‘I know. Just – hope as hard as you can,’ he said.

Nina rubbed her face. It wasn’t hope she was feeling now, it
was dread, but he was right. She should hope. She tried to concentrate on being
positive.

David Mallony returned and bent to the back seat window.

‘The farmhouse is further along the lane beyond the church.
There’s a belt of trees between it and the village, so we can’t see anything
from here. We don’t want to warn Wright if he’s there, so Kev and Phil are
going to scout through the trees and see what’s going on. Then if necessary the
rest of us can drive on up to the house.’

He got back into the car and sat with them, and Nina
appreciated the gesture although she knew that nothing today could be of any
comfort. The other officers stood around outside.

After about ten minutes David Mallony’s radio crackled, and
he spoke with presumably either Kev or Phil, but the voice was so distorted
that Nina couldn’t understand more than the odd word. David’s contributions
were merely short affirmatives. He lowered the radio and turned to Nina and
Sam.

‘They’ve been round the outside of the building and there’s
no sign of life and no car. The others are going up there now. We’ll move up
the lane a little too,’ he said, edging the car along behind the other
vehicles, stopping after a few hundred metres.

From their new standing place it still wasn’t possible to
see the farmhouse, and Nina shivered. This waiting was horrendous. As bad as
the day they’d done the last brain function test on Claire, with Nina in the
waiting room, knowing what was coming. Today, she didn’t know what the outcome
would be, and the dread was mixed with heart-piercing hope. Another ten minutes
passed before the next report, and again David Mallony had to translate.

‘No answer at the door and no one in the outhouses. We’re
going right up there now but you stay in the car, okay, Nina?’

In a few moments the farmhouse came into view, an old,
somewhat ramshackle building with homey tubs of petunias by the front door and
cheerful blue and white checked curtains at the downstairs windows. Nina’s brittle
hopes plummeted. This place looked a lot more like an elderly couple’s home
than a paedophiles’ retreat. The car drove round the house and pulled up by the
back door, and Nina saw a policeman jiggle with a window that had been left
tilted. In seconds it was wide open and the officer was climbing in.

‘That’s why you should never go out without closing your
windows,’ said David, and Nina nodded, her eyes never leaving the window. She
jumped in fright when the back door of the house opened and the police officer
jogged towards the car, his gloved hand clutching something pink in a plastic
evidence bag.

‘It was on the kitchen floor,’ he said, holding up the bag
to show a pink and white rubber band bracelet. ‘Is it – ’