The Outcast Dead (26 page)

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘He’s close by. An old place. Full of ghosts.’

‘No address? Nothing useful like that?’

‘The spirits don’t deal in addresses, love,’ Madame Rita explains kindly.

‘Can you tell us anything else? Anything that might actually help?’

‘He’s with a woman from the spirit world. She’s looking after him. She loves little children.’

‘Any clues from our world? The one we’re living in?’

Madame Rita strokes the giraffe. ‘He’s in a room with low ceilings. I can see a tower. Look for a red heart and a white lady.’

‘A red heart and a white lady?’

‘That’s as specific as I can be.’

Nutcase, thinks Clough. ‘Well, thank you very much Mrs … Madame Rita.’

Madame Rita picks up her bag. ‘He’s alive, Sergeant Clough, but be quick. She can’t protect him forever.’

Smiling gently, she places the toy giraffe in his arms.

*

‘A tower? Where could that be?’

Clough is amazed that the boss is taking the psychic’s remarks this seriously. Perhaps it’s a sign of how few leads
they have. Anything, even the ravings of a madwoman, is better than nothing.

‘There’s Cow Tower by the river,’ he says. ‘It’s a bit out of the way though.’

‘There are lots of church towers in the old town,’ says Tanya.

‘Yes,’ says Clough. ‘There’s that famous one in Tomb-lands. St George’s. I went to a wedding there once.’

Nelson sighs. ‘It might be worth checking out. Just have a look at any houses that overlook the towers. But not a word to the press, mind. We don’t want to look desperate.’

No-one makes the obvious comment. ‘Maybe we’re taking it too literally,’ says Tim. ‘She could mean a tower block, or a pub called the Tower.’

‘You know all the pubs, Cloughie,’ says Nelson. ‘Is there one called the Tower?’

‘Not that I know of. You need Irish Ted. He knows every pub that ever sold a pint.’

‘Give him a ring. He knows the area too. Don’t mention the psychic. Just ask for his help.’

‘OK, Boss.’

‘Right.’ Nelson pulls his notes towards him. ‘We’re still looking for the white Skoda. We’ve followed up all possible sightings but they all check out. Tanya, did you have any luck with the childminders?’

Tanya hands him her list. Nelson grunts with approval. ‘Nicely arranged, Fuller. Sally Fisher’s the one that fits the profile best. Is she still inside though?’

Tanya shakes her head. ‘She got out earlier this year. Released on license.’

‘Might be worth checking to see if she has any links with the Grangers or with Judy. I can’t see it though. There’s a difference between abducting a child you know and love and snatching random children.’

‘There are lots of childminding forums,’ says Tanya. ‘I could keep a watch. See if anything weird crops up.’

‘Good idea,’ says Nelson. ‘Might even be worth posting something yourself about this case. Be careful though, we don’t want to be done for entrapment.’ He turns to Tim. ‘What did you get from Bob Donaldson?’

‘Well, he hasn’t got an alibi for yesterday afternoon. He seemed very hostile but perhaps that’s only to be expected. I can’t see a link to Judy but there is a connection with Justine Thomas.’ He explains.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Clough. ‘What the hell do all these women see in him?’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ says Tim.

‘People say that about Michelle and me,’ says Nelson. ‘Sometimes beautiful women like ugly men.’

He thinks that Tim is looking at him rather oddly. Probably thinks that his tone is too light-hearted. If only he knew how heavy his heart was.

‘And there’s something else,’ says Nelson. ‘Maddie Henderson had an affair with Bob when she was only sixteen’

‘That’s not relevant to this case, though, is it?’ says Tim.

‘Shows you the kind of guy he is,’ says Clough. ‘I
wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him. Which might be a long way, the bloody wimp.’

‘I agree with Cloughie,’ says Nelson. ‘He took advantage of Maddie when she was most vulnerable, just after her sister died. He took advantage of Justine but never planned a future with her. Both these women were connected to young children. I think we should search his house.’

‘Nirupa Khan will be on our case,’ warns Clough.

‘Let her make a complaint to me,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ll tell her where to get off. This is a child abduction case, we can’t discount anything or anyone. And time’s running out.’

Unconsciously he looks at the clock over the door. The other officers follow his gaze. Five o’clock. Michael has been missing for more than twenty-four hours.

Ruth is sitting in the garden with her brother sharing a bottle of wine. This situation is rare enough to seem almost surreal. Ruth can’t remember the last time that she sat down with Simon, just the two of them – not since he married Cathy anyway. And despite the ever-present gnawing anxiety over Michael, she has to admit that it’s rather pleasant. Kate has pitched her tepee next to the giant blue tent which now takes up most of the garden and the cousins are playing a very complicated game called ‘Squeak piggy squeak’. There’s no doubt that Kate is doing most of the squeaking. Her squeals of delight would be deafening the neighbours, if Ruth had any. As it is, Flint has retreated in high dudgeon to the top of the apple tree, where he sits like a disgruntled owl, gazing at Ruth reproachfully.

‘Kate’s having a brilliant time,’ says Ruth. ‘Jack and George are really kind to spend so much time playing with her.’ It’s true that the boys have been kind, going into the sea with Kate – holding her hands, one either
side – playing football on the beach with her and swinging her along on the walk home. The trek back from the beach, which often ends in tears, today was pure joy.

Simon watches his sons, eyes screwed up against the setting sun. ‘They’re good boys,’ he says. There’s a pause, during which Kate’s shrieks rise to new levels, and then he says, ‘I’ve left Cathy.’

Ruth, who has by now guessed as much, says, ‘Why?’

Simon spreads out his hands. The gesture would look melodramatic were it not for the expression of acute misery on his face. ‘I don’t know, Ruth. It’s just … I’m forty-five and I’ve started thinking is this all there is to life? A boring job, a three-bedroom house on Shooter’s Hill, golf on Saturday, roast meal on Sunday. I mean, what’s it all for?’

Ruth can’t answer this one. She has never lived the kind of life described by Simon, though she has sometimes wanted to. Also, she’s not the biggest fan of her sister-in-law, but it seems a bit harsh that she should bear the brunt of Simon’s existential mid-life angst.

‘But that’s not Cathy’s fault, is it?’ she says. ‘Have you talked to her about how you feel?’

Simon takes a slug of wine. ‘Oh yes, I’ve tried to talk to her but you know Cathy. As long as she’s got a nice house and a nice car and the latest cupcake-maker, she’s happy. She told me that I was just being stupid.’

Ruth can’t understand the latest craze for dressing up like a Fifties housewife and making cupcakes (though she can understand eating them), but she still feels that this
is a rather patronising statement. She decides that Simon needs shaking up a bit.

‘Have you told Mum and Dad?’ she asks.

Simon groans. ‘No. They just think that I’ve taken the boys on holiday. Cathy won’t tell them because she thinks I’ll come to my senses. It’ll kill them.’

Ruth says nothing. The news won’t kill her parents but there’s no doubt that it will come as a body blow. Their favourite child; perfect Simon with his perfect marriage and perfect children. A tiny ignoble part of her can’t help feeling slightly pleased that she’ll no longer be the family black sheep. In fact her life (no husband but no divorce either) might seem almost virtuous by comparison. Another, even smaller, part of her thinks: what if Nelson woke up one morning and realised his marriage was over? He too seems to live a suburban half-life, especially now that his daughters have left home. What if he, too, thought, ‘Is this all there is?’

‘What are you going to do?’ she asks at last.

‘Find somewhere on my own,’ says Simon. ‘Think about things. Maybe travel a bit. Do you know, I’ve never been anywhere. Just Spain and Greece on holiday. I’ve never been to America or China or Russia. I’ve never climbed a mountain or swum with dolphins.’

Again, Ruth feels slightly impatient. A sudden urge for world travel is fine for an eighteen-year-old. Ruth had it herself and remembers her mother’s horror at her backpacker trips with her university friends, contrasting them with Simon’s carefully organised package holidays.
But Simon isn’t eighteen. He’s a forty-five-year-old man with two children.

‘What about the boys?’ she says. ‘What are they going to do when you disappear to a kibbutz for a year?’

‘Who said anything about a kibbutz?’ says Simon. She’d forgotten how maddeningly literal he was. ‘I just want to have some fun.’

Fun. There’s that word again. Why does everyone suddenly think that they’re entitled to have fun all the time? Ruth thinks of Judy, sitting in her little house waiting for the phone to ring. She doesn’t want to have fun, she just wants her child to be alive. The thought makes her voice harsh.

‘Can’t you wait until the boys are grown up?’ she asks. ‘Then you and Cathy can go and climb Mount Kilimanjaro together, or whatever it is you want to do.’

Simon laughs hollowly, draining the last of his wine. ‘Can you imagine it? When we went to Centre Parcs, Cathy wouldn’t come on a bike ride in case it messed her hair up. I can’t exactly see her on a Polar expedition.’

Mount Kilimanjaro’s in Africa, thinks Ruth. She seems to remember that Simon didn’t take geography O-Level. In fact it wasn’t long after O-Levels that Simon met Cathy, even then not a girl known for her adventurous instincts. Ruth remembers how shocked she was when she heard Ruth, aged sixteen, talking about going to a music festival. ‘They haven’t got proper toilets in those places,’ Cathy had warned. ‘And there’s nowhere to plug in your hair dryer.’

‘But you’ve always known what she’s like,’ she says now. ‘It’s not fair to blame her for being the way she is. She hasn’t changed.’

‘She hasn’t changed,’ says Simon. ‘But I have.’ Ruth has no answer to this and is relieved when the boys come over and nag their father to start the barbecue.

*

Cathbad holds Judy in his arms while Darren watches. It’s like the realisation of all his darkest fantasies. Except that Judy is sobbing about wanting to be dead, both Cathbad and Darren are crying and Thing is whining to be let out.

‘Nelson says there’s still a good chance they’ll find him,’ says Darren, for the hundredth time.

Judy turns her head. Her face is a mask of anger. ‘For Christ’s sake, Darren. Nelson is full of
shit
. He doesn’t know anything.’

Cathbad has noticed before that Judy’s anger seems particularly directed towards Nelson. He’s not sure why this is unless, on some level, Judy expected Nelson to be able to protect her and, by extension, Michael. But he does know that Judy is feeling guilty. He can feel the negative emotion everywhere. It’s poisoning them all, he thinks.

‘She kept Poppy alive, she’ll keep Michael alive,’ Darren says desperately.

‘Shut up!’ screams Judy. She collapses onto Cathbad’s chest.

Cathbad looks at Darren over Judy’s head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Norfolk police are still searching for one-year-old Michael Foster who was abducted from his childminder’s house on Monday afternoon. Police search teams and local volunteers worked through the night in the village of Castle Rising, near King’s Lynn, but no traces of the missing child have been found. The detective in charge of the case, DCI Harry Nelson, said that he was still hopeful of a positive outcome. He wouldn’t comment on similarities to the abduction, just two days earlier, of fourteen-month-old Poppy Granger. Poppy’s disappearance led to another extensive police search but she was returned anonymously to her family.’

Ruth reaches out a hand and switches off the radio. She doesn’t want to hear any more. Although she knows that Cathbad would have called her if there had been any developments, she had still hoped to wake to good news. She thinks how alien it all sounds: ‘police search teams’, ‘detective in charge’, ‘returned anonymously’. But she knows the truth. She has seen the desperation –
and, worse, the resignation – in Judy’s face. She has sat in the house with Michael’s parents, listening for the knock at the door. And she knows the detective in charge intimately. She can see beneath the policeman’s phrase ‘still hopeful of a positive outcome’. She knows that Nelson won’t be hopeful, there is a deep vein of pessimism in him, but she also knows that he’ll never give up. He won’t rest until Michael is found, alive or dead. And, if it’s the latter, if Nelson has to return Michael’s body to Judy, she thinks it may well kill him.

She had set the alarm for six. She hadn’t wanted to waste any time not knowing. All last night, while Simon burned sausages and the boys tried to build a tree-house, her mind kept going back to the little house in Castle Rising. When she finally carried an exhausted Kate up to bed, she had looked at her phone for the hundredth time. No news. A second night with Michael out there somewhere in the dark. She gets up and goes into Kate’s room. Her daughter is still asleep, arms and legs splayed out in abandonment. She doesn’t know that Michael (her future husband, according to Cathbad) is still missing. Ruth looks out of the window at the blue tent squatting in the garden. Simon might say that his life is empty and has no meaning (two phrases that kept recurring well into the second bottle) but does he know how lucky he is, just to be sleeping with his sons at his side?

But Simon isn’t sleeping. To Ruth’s surprise, when she comes downstairs, he’s already up, drinking tea and reading through her proofs.

‘I still can’t believe that you’ve written a book,’ he says.

‘Can’t you?’ says Ruth airily. She finds it pretty hard to believe herself.

‘Mum and Dad are really proud of you, you know.’

‘Are they?’ Now this
is
a surprise.

‘Yes. Mum tells everyone about it. It’s embarrassing sometimes, the way she shoehorns it into the conversation. “Do you want your windows cleaned, madam?” “No, but did you know my daughter’s written a book?” Goodness knows what she’ll be like when the book actually comes out. She’ll probably wear it round her neck like a pendant.’