The Winter Foundlings (8 page)

‘Was that better than staying home with your ghosts?’ he asked.

‘Definitely.’

He smiled then turned away to sleep, and I lay there watching the ceiling. My body hummed with contentment, but my mind was refusing to shut down. Something about Tom refused to make sense. Why was a man who was so great in bed in full-scale retreat from intimacy? I thought about the foundlings, then Suzanne Williams, burdened by too much grief, and Burns, in bed with his new girlfriend. Tom was already asleep, so I pulled my phone from the pocket of my jeans and took a photo of him for memory’s sake, then set the alarm for five o’clock. I couldn’t face the ice-cold cottage yet, but I wanted to be gone by sunrise. Tom had made it abundantly clear that he was the kind of man who preferred to wake up alone.

10

Gorski was the first person I saw at the Laurels the next day. He was clutching an outsized mug of coffee and I felt like advising him to detox – caffeine would make his temper even harder to control.

‘My office now, please, Dr Quentin.’ He strode down the corridor at his usual racing trot, and when he closed the door his expression was even more outraged than normal. ‘I’m not comfortable with you interviewing Kinsella. You must have heard what happened to the last researcher who worked with him.’

‘But you gave the police your consent.’

‘If you get out of your depth, the press will be all over us.’

‘I don’t have a choice. The Met think Sarah Robinson’s killer knows him; they’re insisting on another interview.’

‘And you think you’ve got special powers, do you? After years of saying nothing, he’ll just open his mouth and confess.’ Gorski’s accent grew broader with every sentence, as if he might revert to his native Polish.

‘What are you trying to say, Dr Gorski?’

He slammed his hand on the desk. ‘You don’t realise how dangerous Kinsella is. Even his silence could leave you traumatised.’

‘Are you suggesting I sit back and do nothing?’

Luckily someone opened the door. When Judith’s calm face appeared, I could have kissed her.

‘Is everything okay?’ she asked.

Gorski shut his eyes, clearly sick of looking at me. ‘I’ve warned Dr Quentin that she’s putting herself at risk. If anything goes wrong, she should remember that. You are my witness.’

‘I’m supervising her, Aleks. That’s what we agreed, isn’t it?’

‘Someone has to keep these people safe,’ he muttered.

‘I’ll make sure nothing happens. Come on, Alice. We can talk outside.’

Gorski turned away abruptly, as if we’d ceased to exist, but the exchange had shaken me. The man seemed barely in control of his rage, as if anyone who countered him was in danger, but the source of his anger mystified me. He seemed to resent the idea of anyone trying to access Kinsella’s secrets. Judith stood there, wearing a concerned smile.

‘Don’t take it to heart, Aleks is under a lot of pressure,’ she said. ‘By the way, Kinsella gave this to Garfield. I have to meet my trainee now, but if you want company when you read it, come and see me later.’

She passed me an envelope then set off for her meeting before I could thank her. My name was scrawled on the paper in jagged black copperplate, and a knot of tension twisted in my stomach, as though a set of poor exam results was hidden inside. When I got back to my office I took a deep breath and opened it.

Dear Alice,

I saw you from my window the day you arrived, picking your way across the ice like a ballerina. I noticed how small your waist is, the black buttons on your red coat, and the way your hair falls precisely to your shoulder. People assume that because I’m often silent, I no longer see or hear, but the opposite is true. I know everything about this place. I could tell you the history of each brick.

I have a strong suspicion about who may be carrying out these attacks. If I’m correct, the killer is more astute than either of us, with good reasons to continue. The killer understands that taking a child’s life is sacred. Killing a child is not like killing an adult. No matter how much pain rains down on them, they never expect to die. The last expression on a child’s face is always disbelief.

If we meet again, I promise to talk instead of scribble. And I hope you’ll permit an old man like me to offer a compliment. You have the most extraordinary eyes – such a wonderful transparent green.

Yours,

Louis Kinsella

Pins and needles pricked the palms of my hands. I’d never been more horrified by a compliment in my life. On a rational level, there was nothing to fear – Kinsella couldn’t lay a finger on me. But I knew too much about his crimes. I’d read Alan Nash’s book and remembered what he’d done to those girls in the flat he’d customised, the bridesmaids’ costumes he dressed them in before he strangled them. And now it was me, featuring in his fantasies. At five foot nothing, weighing a fraction over seven stone, I was probably the closest thing to a child that he’d seen in two decades. I stared at his signature again. A graphologist would have had a field day, studying the horizontal line of his name. It looked like a heartbeat flatlining. I dropped the letter on my desk, reluctant to touch it again. Perhaps Gorski was right. I was already out of my depth, sailing into something too complex to understand.

The phone on my desk jangled and Burns started babbling immediately, as though we’d been interrupted mid-conversation. ‘You won’t believe this, Alice. Our man took a black cab to the Foundling Museum. A cabbie dropped a bloke with a big cardboard box on Hunter Street around three a.m. His face was hidden by his hat and scarf, so the driver didn’t get much of an ID.’

I tried to picture the killer calmly sitting on the back seat of a taxi with a child’s body balanced on his knees. ‘He’s fearless, isn’t he? That’s what worries me.’

‘Has Kinsella started talking?’

‘Not exactly. He sent me a letter instead.’

Burns gave a low whistle when I read out the message. ‘You’re already his favourite girl.’

‘He could be lying about knowing the killer. Manipulation’s the only power he’s got left.’ I stared out of the window at the roof of the infirmary, slates glittering like wet steel. ‘I’d like to see Kinsella’s ex-wife.’

Burns sounded surprised. ‘She’s changed her identity. You won’t get much of a welcome.’

‘I’m not expecting one. But she might have something I can use to prise him open.’

‘Leave it with me.’

I said goodbye and wondered how Burns would react if he knew about my reckless night with Tom Jensen. He’d probably stand there, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was lost for words.

At five o’clock I locked my cubbyhole, then headed for the car park. I couldn’t resist peering through the window as I walked past the gym. Jensen had his back to me, watching an inmate perform sit-ups. It looked like he’d been working out too, blond hair slick with sweat. I still had no idea why he worked at Northwood when he could have made a fortune as a personal trainer. There had to be a reason why he was making life hard for himself. Sleeping with him had restored my confidence, but although I felt curious about him, there was no flicker of emotion. It had been an act of mutual convenience, not the start of an affair.

Snowflakes whirled in a vortex in front of my headlights as I drove down the exit road. I’ve always loved snow. I could stand by the window for hours, watching it thicken, but driving through it is another proposition. My hands tensed around the wheel when I arrived in Charndale. The car slalomed across the road, executing a perfect 360-degree turn, coming to rest bumper to bumper with a stationary BMW. The near miss made my heart thump a quickstep rhythm at the base of my throat. Luckily no one else was crazy enough to venture out in the middle of a snowstorm.

Lola phoned as soon as I’d finished dinner. Her voice sounded even more upbeat than usual. She comes from a long line of theatricals, and Christmas with the Tremaines always involves high excitement and endless games of charades.

‘What are you up to?’ she asked.

‘Not much. I just lit the fire. How’s the Greek God?’

‘Preening himself. He’s got a part as a nurse in
Holby.
’

‘That’s brilliant!’ Neal was thirteen years younger than Lola. Normally he played schoolboy roles or wayward undergraduates. ‘Have you heard from Will lately?’

‘Last week. He’s still at that hostel in Brighton; he sounds happy enough.’

I gritted my teeth. It was a relief to know my brother was okay, but I wished he’d call me occasionally, instead of my best friend.

‘You’re still coming for Christmas, aren’t you?’ she asked.

‘I can’t, Lo. I’ve got to work.’

It wasn’t strictly true. But drifting from party to party, then fighting Neal’s cat for space on their sofa didn’t appeal. I wanted to test my nerve and see if I could handle a Christmas alone. There was a dramatic pause at the end of the line while the idea sank in.

‘What about your presents?’ Lola sounded like a disappointed five-year-old.

‘I’ll come the day after Boxing Day, I promise.’

‘That’ll have to do, I suppose.’

When I put the phone down I felt a pang of guilt, remembering the first gift she ever gave me when we were twelve years old: a huge box of make-up from Woolworths. It kept us entertained for days. We spent most of the Christmas holiday attempting to make ourselves look like movie stars.

I was in bed when a text arrived from Burns. Kinsella’s ex-wife had changed her name to Lauren French, and she’d agreed to see me, after some strong persuasion. I dropped my phone back onto the bedside table. Burns might have a new girlfriend, but his habit of working past midnight was still firmly in place. The wind picked up as I tried to sleep. It made an odd, howling sound in the chimney, the windowpanes rattling in their frames like teeth chattering. No wonder the locals believed the cottage was haunted. The place was full of inexplicable sounds.

11

The man’s footfall crunches across the gravel, and the fear gnawing in her stomach grows even sharper. She never knows what to expect. He can be angry or laughing, or he leaves her alone, until the light fades from the crack in the door. Her smile makes him treat her better. Yesterday he brought gifts: two bananas, a bottle of water, and a dry blanket. The fruit made her stomach hurt, each gulp sticking in her throat. Already she’s hungry again, but at least she has the blanket. It makes the chill less raw, the thick wool locking warmth close to her skin. She forces herself to beam at him when the metal door swings open.

‘Still awake, Ella?’ His eyes are invisible, his knitted hat pulled low over his forehead.

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

‘You little flirt.’ The man’s laughing now, lips peeled back to reveal his straight white teeth. His laughter is more scary than his frown. ‘I’ve got a treat lined up for you. I don’t want you getting bored. Do you fancy coming out for a drive?’

‘Yes, please.’ Ella doesn’t care where he takes her. Anything’s better than being locked up alone in the metal box.

‘Come on then, let’s be having you.’

She tries to make her body relax as he reaches for her. If she screams or tries to run, he’ll lash out, so she takes a deep breath then steps into his arms. It’s the opposite of the way her granddad holds her, a quick hug before she goes to bed. The man throws her across his shoulder, blood rushing to her head. His torch trails a thin yellow line across the snow. The blanket falls to the ground but she doesn’t let herself cry out.

The back door of the van is already open, the darkness inside waiting to swallow her.

‘Can’t I go in front with you?’ Ella’s shoulder hits the door as he pushes her in.

‘What did we agree?’ The man’s eyes are round and black, like holes drilled into the ground. A scream rises again in Ella’s throat, but she manages to silence it.

‘You make the rules.’

‘And never ask me for things. Remember that. People have ordered me around all my life. I don’t have to take it from you.’

She kneels by the window as the van pulls away, rubbing her bruises. Streetlamps, trees, and unfamiliar buildings slip past as she stares through the dirty glass. After a long time the van pulls up behind a row of houses and the man shuts the driver’s door softly behind him. At first Ella wonders why he’s standing in the shadows, staring at the lighted windows. Soon the lights go out, one by one, but the man carries on standing there, gazing into the darkness.

12

The Laurels was like a ghost town when I arrived on Saturday. Most of the prisoners were confined to their rooms, because so many guards were on Christmas leave. The only sounds I could hear were the hum of a generator and cars churning up grit on the approach road. I logged onto my computer and opened Louis Kinsella’s file again, looking for proof that Nash’s theory about the killer was correct. Nash was convinced that he had to be an intimate contact from Kinsella’s past, but the impact might have been momentary – a chance meeting that triggered an obsession.

Kinsella’s crime file was longer than
War and Peace,
a catalogue of some of the worst acts of sexual sadism ever committed, yet his childhood and adolescence gave no hint of what was to come. His early years were a roll call of academic success. He’d won prizes at his public school, then studied history at Oxford. His tutors assumed that his rejection of a college fellowship to become a primary school teacher in London’s inner city was due to youthful idealism, but his profession had given him the perfect cover for his paedophilia. After his murder trial, dozens of former pupils testified that they had been molested. The extreme violence only began in the Nineties, after he became a headmaster – Kinsella had been biding his time. He rented a flat in Camden, less than a mile from his house in Islington, then soundproofed every room and rigged a network of cameras.

A row of pictures confronted me. The girls he’d abducted were between the ages of eight and eleven, but there was no common denominator; they had different builds and came from a mix of races. Some beamed confidently at the camera, while others were too shy to smile. Their post-mortem pictures showed a different species. The faces were unrecognisable, deep wounds ruining their eyes. Kinsella had been questioned repeatedly about whether the girls were alive when they were blinded, but he refused to speak about the pain he inflicted on his victims. The coroner’s report stated that most of them were subjected to days of torture before they died.