The Lost Girl (Brennan and Esposito) (8 page)

O
ne. Two. One. One. Fast. Two. Slow. Uppercut. One. One. Jab. Hard. Harder.

Anni Hepburn was in the gym, gloved up, focused, eyes steely and feet positioned. Strong. Pounding the bag for all it was worth.

She blinked sweat from her eyes, kept pounding, hitting. Felt pain in her chest, her arms. Cramp. The jarring of her fists, even against padded polymer, sent shockwaves up her arms, jangled the joints as they went. Her response was to hit harder, jab faster. Make each punch count. Let each one hurt.

She knew her opponent wasn’t real. She knew her opponent couldn’t feel. But that wouldn’t stop her from trying. Because
she
could feel. No matter how much she tried to block it out, she could still feel.

She paused, let her arms drop to her sides. Exhausted. More tired than she had felt for ages. But she wasn’t done yet. She picked up her towel, wiped away most of the sweat. Squared up against the bag once more. And raised her leg to strike.

Boxing. Kickboxing. It had become her life. Her obsession. Punching and kicking the pain away. Keeping the loss at bay. Keeping her anger contained. Directed.

Over six months since she had left the police force. Since she had realised she just couldn’t walk into the station any more, couldn’t face the rest of the team staring at her while they were pretending not to. At least that was what it had felt like.

She had tried. At first. Once she had gone through sessions with the psychologist, counselling for grief and anything else that came up. Tried to force herself to believe that she was stronger than her faults, that her emotions wouldn’t get the better of her. That she was in control. The sessions went as expected.

Screaming out the name of her dead partner, Mickey, Detective Sergeant Philips, her partner on the force and in life, asking why him, why not her, why not anyone but him. And hating the woman who had done it. The woman who had called herself Fiona Welch.

Eventually she had run out of hatred, leaving herself numb. That, she considered, was progress. Or as much progress as she thought she could accomplish.

And gradually she began to pull herself back together. She refused medication, tried a different way. Exercise to release her body’s endorphins. Then more exercise. Then more. Now, her body was a small, compact walking muscle. Like she was wearing her own-grown armour.

Eventually she returned to work. Light duties at first, which she hated, then frontline work. Which, she was shocked to learn, she hated even more. She couldn’t cope. More than that, she didn’t care. And she had always told herself that when she stopped caring then it was time to leave the force.

But the staring. The whispering. The judging, either real or imagined. That was worse. That was the deciding factor.

So she left. And, pragmatically, turned her fitness obsession into a career. She worked as a personal trainer in one of Colchester’s many health clubs. It was fine. She worked part time, still had her police pension and they allowed her to come in and train as much as she liked. And she did it a lot. Worked her body, tired herself out. It stopped her from dwelling on the past, on the future, on herself. Stopped her from thinking too much.

She needed a rest, couldn’t ignore her body this time. She walked away from the bag, reluctantly, and headed for a seat. Changed her mind at the last minute and sat at one of the machines instead. If she was going to rest she could be working on her arms and upper body while she did so.

She took a drink of water, gulping it down from her bottle, exhaled once more. Her arms were shaking from the exercise, her legs likewise.

And then her phone rang.

Her iPhone, attached to her arm in a gym strap, used only for her fitness and training programme, for music to listen to when she needed to zone out completely. She had almost forgotten it could take calls. Hardly anyone called any more.

She took it from her arm, looked at the display. And kept looking. Staring all the while, her body now shaking from more than the workout. Just staring. Seeing that one name staring back at her.

Marina.
 

Her thumb hovered between the green and red buttons. It kept ringing. She pressed red. It stopped.

Sighing, closing her eyes, she began to return it to her arm strap. Just that one name had sliced through all her carefully fortified defences. And everything came tumbling back. Work. Phil. Marina. Her old team. And especially Mickey. His smiling face there in her mind once more.

They had tried to help her and she had been grateful for that. But she couldn’t see them any more, couldn’t talk to them. It was too painful, brought back too many memories. When she spoke to Phil or Marina she kept seeing the after-image of Mickey standing next to them. An unremarked-upon ghost. She knew they meant well. And they were her friends. But there was some part of her, one she hated to acknowledge, that blamed them for Mickey’s death. She knew it wasn’t true when she looked at the facts logically, but still the thought persisted. They were all tied up together. And Anni had found it better to just cut herself off from all of them.

Her phone rang again. Her heart flipped. She knew who it would be even without looking.

She took it from the strap, checked the display once more. Marina. She had been right.

And again her thumb hovered over the red and the green. Red and green. Stop, go. So easy. Press red and that would be it. The end of it. So easy…

She pressed green.

Placed the phone to her ear. Her fingers trembling from more than just physical exertion.

‘Anni?’

‘What d’you want?’ Her voice as brusque, as emotionless as possible. Use it as a barrier. Keep everyone out.

‘Oh.’ Marina was clearly taken aback by Anni’s response. Anni felt guilty about that. Shamed at the response to her friend. But she still wouldn’t change her tone. She had to do what she had to do to get by. That’s what she always told herself. Her mantra.

‘What d’you want?’ Anni barely lifted the words, turned the question into a statement.

Marina sighed. Seemed to accept that this was the way the conversation was going to go. ‘I… I was…’ Another sigh. Anni knew Marina was trying to find a way to make pleasantries, to ask how she was. She had cut her off. There would be none of that. And even if Marina did manage to ask anything, did manage to try and break through, she would just cut her off again. Tell her she was fine.

Marina continued. ‘I need your help, Anni.’

Anni said nothing, waited.

‘It’s… it’s that woman. The one who called herself Fiona Welch.’

Anni’s stomach flipped over once more. And kept flipping. She couldn’t breathe. Her legs shook. She was thankful to be sitting down.

‘What…’ Her voice seemed to have deserted her. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s back again. She’s… she’s killed three people. Men. You… you might have heard about it. One in Wrabness, one in the Dock Transit building, one in that house at the bottom of East Hill, the one where we —’

‘I know what we found there. I’ve heard about this.’

‘Right. OK. Well, it’s worse than that. She’s… she’s got Phil.’

It felt like Anni’s heart had stopped.

‘She’s taken Phil. And I need… I need help. I don’t think that the police at my end are doing enough or will do the right thing. I need someone to help me. Someone who knew him.’

Marina stopped talking. Anni picked up on it. She had spoken about her husband in the past tense.

Marina stumbled over that, kept going. ‘She’s taken him. Abducted him. And I…’ Another sigh. ‘I need to find him. I need your help, Anni. Please.’ She seemed to struggle to keep the pleading from her voice. Failed.

Anni felt her defences being breached, her heart being touched. She couldn’t allow that to happen. If she did, if she stopped protecting herself, she might just fall apart. And she didn’t how long it would take to put herself together then.

‘The police can help you. I can’t.’

‘But Anni —’

‘Sorry.’

She hung up while Marina was still pleading with her.

She held the phone in her hands, looked at it. Sighed. Turned it off. It was only a temporary measure, she knew that, but it would stop any more calls for the time being.

She took a deep breath. Another one. Felt her body still shaking. Knew she had to do something about it, knew she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on what had just happened.

She walked towards the bag once more, strapping her gloves back on as she went.

Started punching as hard as she could.

T
he window was dirty. It had been cleaned, just not enough. But it would take a lot of scouring to rid the glass of all the grime and dirt that had accumulated and gathered over the years. Like the glass had pores and the dirt was stuck in them. And no amount of rubbing would make them clean again.
 

She knew that was stupid. Knew glass didn’t have pores. But that was what it looked like. She took a finger, stuck it in her mouth until it was good and wet, tried wiping the dirt off. She ended up with a dirty finger and smeary glass. She wiped her finger on her jeans. Didn’t try that again.
 

She spent a lot of time at that window, looking out. Not that there was much to see. A railway line. An industrial estate. Beyond that, a road. People came and went. Nobody stopped for long. Except her. And the other children. They never went anywhere.
 

The worst thing that could have happened, happened. Mr Wignall had had a stroke. Mrs Wignall said it was inevitable, the way he kept on eating the wrong things and smoking and drinking when he thought she wasn’t looking. Mrs Wignall was angry when she said it, angry at him for what he’d done, but also sad. Sad for her and him. And, when she’d stopped thinking about her and him, sad for all the children.
 

She didn’t know what Mrs Wignall meant by that: sad for all the children. The children were all right. None of them had suffered a stroke. None of them had eaten the wrong things or smoked or drank. Well, a couple of them might have smoked, but that was all. But not as much as Mr Wignall. Not yet, anyway. So the children were all right.
 

But they weren’t.
 

I can’t look after you any more, said Mrs Wignall. She had called them all into the living room after they’d come back from school that day. I would love to. But I can’t. Since Mr Wignall had his stroke I have to look after him. And it’s a lot of work to look after him and all of you. And I love you all but I’m afraid I can’t keep looking after you. She looked round the room, into all of their eyes and cried when she spoke. Some of the children cried too. Boys as well. But most of the boys just balled up their fists and made faces to stop the tears. None of them looked at each other.
 

But she didn’t cry. She didn’t know what she would be crying for.
 

She had enjoyed her time at the Wignalls’. But now she had to go somewhere else. She understood that. And inside her something small felt sad. Something small felt like crying. But she had tried to hide that. Like the castle she used to play with, put what needed to be defended in the heart of something, then build the biggest, strongest set of walls around it that she could. Let no one in there. So no one could hurt what was there. Not even herself.
 

She still saw Caroline from the centre but less and less. She had come to see her at the Wignalls’ to ask how she was doing. Fine, she had said. Good. Are you making friends? Yes. Who? She had thought. James. Good, said Caroline. This seemed to have been the right answer. And Melanie. Caroline had nodded. I’m very pleased to hear it, she had said. She had said the right thing. That was good. And are you happy? Oh yes. I’m happy here. And she had tried to look happy when she said it. She knew what happy was. She had heard the other children talking about it. And she had watched the way they looked when they said it and tried to imitate them. She thought she had got it right.
 

Nothing had made her smile since she had built her castle wall. Since she had decided no one was going to hurt her any more. But she couldn’t tell them, couldn’t let them know that that was what she had done. So she watched. Learned. Pretended to think the way the others did, feel the way they did so they wouldn’t leave her out. She was clever. It was easy.
 

Caroline had gone away happy. It had worked and that was good. She wouldn’t be calling back any more, making her go over sad and unpleasant things once again. Getting inside the walls.
 

She often wondered what the thing that she kept locked up, the sad and happy bit of her, looked like. She thought she knew. Her old doll. Belinda. She even called it that, the thing inside her. Belinda. As good a name as any.
 

And so Mrs Wignall said goodbye to them all. She had seen Mr Wignall before she left. He looked like he’d got old. Really, really old. He stared at her funny. He dribbled things and blew spit bubbles from the side of his mouth. Some of the other kids were upset, even appalled by it. She was just fascinated. How someone could change so much. Go from being one person to another. Just like that. Snap. Something to remember.
 

They moved her to a children’s home. Some of the other children went on to other foster homes. The happier ones. The easier ones. But not her. She was in this home now and the castle walls around her had grown even stronger.
 

The other kids all looked at her funny. Like they were angry with her when she hadn’t done anything to make them angry. Like they didn’t want her there even though they couldn’t understand why. But she could see that the anger hid something else behind their eyes. Fear or something. It didn’t stop them, though. Just made them worse.
 

One girl in particular was bad. Collette. Collette said she couldn’t have the bed she wanted. It was too near to Collette and Collette had the best bed in the room. Then Collette said she smelled funny and that she was a nasty little whore. Collette had friends who stood behind her and laughed at what she said when she told them to.
 

She said nothing. Just ignored them. Kept those castle walls strong.
 

She liked going to school. That was one thing. Liked the lessons, the reading, the learning things. She was clever, liked to know things. She asked for books that had facts in them. Spent time on the internet looking things up. She got homework and enjoyed doing it. But others didn’t like her doing that. Collette didn’t.
 

One night Collette came over to her. She was sitting at the table, the room still smelling of the food they had eaten, the TV on loud. And she was doing her maths homework. She had her compass out and was drawing a circle, ready to make a pie chart of it.
 

What you doin’?
 

Homework.
 

A snort from Collette. Homework. You’re a fuckin’ pussy, aren’t ya? Doin’ homework. She looked around, ready for her gang to take their cue and sneer and laugh. They did so.
 

Collette kept on. About what type of girl did homework. About what was wrong with her. And more. And more. About her parents being dead. Poor little orphan. Poor little smelly, stinking orph
—
 

She had had enough. She yanked Collette’s head back as far as it would go, pulling her hair so tight some of it came out by the roots, twisting the girl’s body round to get her face where she wanted it. Then she calmly picked up her compass and, still without saying a word, stuck it into Collette’s right eye.
 

Collette screamed, her gang screamed. They ran. Collette couldn’t go anywhere. She held her eye as the blood fountained out. She watched, fascinated. And something inside her felt warm. For the first time in years, she smiled for real.
 

She got Collette’s old bed after that. And Collette’s old gang, if she wanted them but she didn’t. She didn’t need a gang. Didn’t want a gang. There was just her. But she had a feeling she wouldn’t be there for long. She knew they would take her somewhere else. Or thought they would. Because of what she’d done.
 

She had been called in front of the home manager to explain herself. She remembered what children did in situations like that and cried. Said Collette had been bullying her and she’d had enough. Just lashed out, didn’t know what she was doing. Found the compass in her hand, didn’t realise
…
 

The manager seemed to accept that. Even though she also said that some of Collette’s gang had been scared when she did it, that she hadn’t shown any emotion. I was frightened, she said, crying again. Wailing. That seemed to be enough. She hadn’t got away with it, don’t think that. What she had done was very serious. But at least she understood why she had done it.
 

Then the manager had leaned across the desk, hands out, sighed. Come to me next time. Before something like this happens again.
 

She said she would.
 

So now she stood at the window looking out. Not knowing if they would take her somewhere else or let her stay here. Not caring, really.
 

But she had learned something. She had learned that fear wasn’t something to be kept hidden away.
 

It was a tool, to be used.
 

And she was just beginning to understand how to use it.