Dark Place to Hide (31 page)

‘…must have gone to the loo,’ Tara declares loudly, for my benefit.

I shove them back inside and make for the bathroom. Straight on cue, I flush the toilet and apologise for taking the liberty, as I descend the stairs. Gillian is looking perturbed, holding on to the newel post at the bottom.

‘We’ve taken up enough of your time,’ I confess. ‘You must have lots of packing to do.’

We share gracious farewells and Tara and I walk back in silence to her red mini, parked with the back wheel on the kerb.

‘Come on then – what did you find?’ she probes, rattling her keys.

I climb into the passenger seat and I’m about to tell her my search was fruitless, when I bang my hand on the dashboard. ‘Stupid…damn…’

‘What…what’s happened?’

‘You’d better drive off – I’ll tell you as we go.’ Tara puts the car into gear and releases the handbrake. As we pass the house, Gillian gives us a polite wave from the bay window. I wave back.

‘I’ve been looking in the wrong place.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve broken the golden rule of good detective work:
don’t
jump to conclusions and always keep an open mind.’

Tara pulls away from a T-junction with a squeal. ‘Will you please tell me what’s going on?’

‘I found porn magazines in his drawer. Nothing odd about that, of course. But I’ve been stupid. I should have been looking through
her
things, as well as his.’ I glance at the wing mirror – it’s angled incorrectly and gives a great view of the passenger door. ‘Gillian was the one plying Diane with alcohol that night without her knowledge or consent. They could have been in it together.’

‘Don’t we need to check out the taxi driver first?’

‘Yes – I’m onto that.’ I’m already pressing the digits.

I reach Cosham Cars and give the details.

‘That’s going back a bit, mate…’ comes the reply.

‘I know, but it’s very important – don’t you keep a record of all your drivers and the fares they pick up?’

‘Yeah – of course we do.’ He spins me a line about not giving out ‘that sort of information’, so I tell him I work with the local police. At the mere mention of the word, he seems able to locate what I need straight away.

‘That would have been Dobson…Micky Dobson. Only, she’s in hospital right now.’

‘She?’

‘Yeah – Michaela. She’s having a hip replacement – won’t be back with us for a while, I don’t suppose.’

I thank him and turn to Tara. ‘I’ll get someone at the station to look into it, but it looks like a dead end.’ I look up ‘PET Awards’ on my phone and sure enough there’s a press release stating that Stephen and his wife were present, sitting beside the mayor, and that Morrell’s opening speech was ‘witty and inspiring’. I find that hard to believe.

‘The Morrells have both got an alibi for the evening Dee went missing,’ I tell her. ‘I’m missing something. I’m going back.’

Tara brakes in the middle of the road. ‘What – now?’

‘No. Tomorrow night. They’re all going on holiday. The house will be empty. I’ll get in with my skeleton keys – I had a look at the lock on the back door. I always check out people’s security – just a strange habit of mine.’

‘I’m coming too.’ She moves off again without checking her mirrors and at the end of the road, she nearly fails to pull up at a red light. We come to an abrupt halt.

‘No. It’s too dangerous.’

‘I’ll be your lookout person. Don’t argue. It’s settled.’ She puts her foot down and we peel away from the car beside us with ease.

All I want to do is curl up and sob my heart out, but I’d suffocate if I let myself go. Every moment is a fight not to break down. I can’t go on like this. I’m beaten. Beaten and crushed, thinking only the worst. I’m just waiting here to die, aren’t I? He’s going to return and finish what he’s started. Surely, there’s no other way for him. I was a witness and I would bring him down.

Part of me wants it all to be over. An overdose of sedatives? A point-blank bullet to my head? Please let it be quick. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. I’m sorry, Harper, I know I’m letting you down. I’m usually the optimistic one – full of determination, but I’m losing the will to keep going. I want the hoping and daydreaming to stop, because all they do is remind me of what I’ve lost.

I’ve made so many plans to get out of here. I run through them in my head, but they’re all futile. I’m strong by nature – my legs and arms are thick with muscle, but with my injuries and the medication I’m way under par. I’ve been too weak so far to fight back.

There’s a dull ache in my belly and think again of the baby we lost. I could never know, but I’m convinced it was a girl. I spend time in this endless cavity of darkness, thinking of what we would have called her. I’ve always loved the name Marianka or Florence – and I run little fantasies about what she would have been like. She would have been pretty, I’m certain, with your dreamy eyes, the colour of roast chestnuts, and your sharp mind. She would have been fearless and intrepid. Like Clara.

My thoughts tug me back to her. She was so innocent, standing there holding a toy rabbit, when I caught him with you at the Anderson shelter. She looked pretty; her hair tied back under
an Alice band, little butterflies on her dress. I shouldn’t have retreated when he came at me. I should have got past him somehow and rushed inside to grab her. But then what? He might have beaten both of us to a pulp with the huge branch he swung in his hands.

Is she with her mother? Is she well away from him? If I am ever to get out of here that’s the first thing I’ll do – find her and check she’s safe. She’s the one everyone needs to be concerned about. Then I’ll report him and make sure he pays for his despicable acts.

The first time I met Clara was in the village. I was surprised to see her on her own and asked where her mother was.

‘Mummy is lying flat, like an ironing board,’ she said.

‘Is she okay?’

‘Oh, yes. Well – sort of. She’s like that nearly every day. She’s got cancer and it’s pulled out her hair. She lies down because the cancer gets inside her body and steals the food, so she has no energy.’

‘Right.’ I walked with her towards the green. She had a wicker basket and told me she was going to the village shop to buy eggs.

‘Is there anyone else to look after you?’ As soon as I said it, I remembered about her father.

‘Oh – lots of people. Helen at the library. Lorna and Tessa who usually sit with babies, but also sit with me at bedtime. Then there’s Gaggy – my gran – she comes over a lot.’

‘No brothers or sisters?’

‘I don’t want any,’ she said disparagingly.

We came to a wooden telegraph pole and Clara looked up. ‘Down by the river, the grass is as high as the lines across the sky.’

I didn’t follow her. ‘What lines across the sky?’

‘Where the birds sit.’

‘Oh – the telegraph wires.’ I looked up too, but I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. ‘But the grass is short – it’s down here.’ I pointed to the blades, three or four inches high beside our feet. ‘It isn’t that tall,’ I said.

‘It is – when you lie on the floor and look up at the sky – the grass is the same size as the telly-path wires.’

‘Ah – I see what you mean – that’s called perspective. It’s because you’re looking up from right down close to the earth.’

‘I was being a mouse.’

‘Right.’

‘Mummy says I can be a mouse sometimes, as long as I’m a quiet one.’

I laughed and she skipped and took my hand.

For a few moments, it’s as though I feel those golden rays on my face as I blink into the sun. Our daughter would have been just like her: bold, funny, precocious. Then I’m back here and she’s out there somewhere, being preyed on by that bastard.

My mind wanders off like this all the time now. Down little alleyways into weird thoughts, slivers of memory, fantasies and half dreams. I might be going mad, but I have no way of knowing. Is today the day he doesn’t come back? Have I eaten my last pile of porridge? Had my last drop of water? Is this it? Has he left me to die?

In spite of the sweaty heat, I shiver. I want to go home. I’ve had enough.

19 August – 20
^th
day missing

It’s two o’clock in the morning and we pull out into the deserted lane away from the cottage. I open the car window and will the balmy night breeze to take the edge off my jitters. I meant to stay awake, but I fell asleep on the sofa a few hours ago. I woke with a jolt, thirsty and sweating, breaking a fretful dream.

‘You look like shit,’ Tara kindly points out as we turn left towards Cosham.

I pull my fingers through my hair. ‘Thanks. Shall we change the subject?’

She asks if I’ve spoken to Marion about Clara’s final words to me.

‘She agreed with us,’ I tell her, ‘she thinks the “Wizard of Oz” must be someone Clara’s met at the hospital, who knew she made regular visits and wasn’t always at her mother’s side…’ I stare at the pools of light on the road made by our headlamps. ‘Marion feels terrible about it – blaming herself.’

‘Poor woman – it’s not her fault, she’s been too ill.’ She glances over at me and I know what she’s going to ask. ‘In your experience with the police, how likely is it that Clara…?’

‘It’s a week since she was last seen. The odds are not good for a seven-year-old child, but we can’t give up.’

‘Of course not.’ She takes her eyes off the road again to pat my knee. ‘For a fully grown woman, things are different,’ she insists, squeezing my hand before putting hers back on the wheel.

Tara parks in the church car park and we walk the five hundred meters from there to Morrell’s house. We keep our heads down, but she slips her arm through mine, so we’ll look like a couple coming home from a party. There’s no one about; it’s the secluded and up-market part of town.

We don’t hesitate at the gate, going straight in as if we have every right to be here. People tend to notice unusual behaviour – and if you belong somewhere, it’s not normal to start looking behind you, loitering, looking up at windows or appearing indecisive. Everything seems still at the front of the house and there are no signs of a burglar alarm – I don’t remember a control box in the hall. I check the garage as we pass – the car has gone and there are no lights on in the properties across the road.

I slip on my thin gloves as we reach the side gate. It is bolted as well as locked, but there’s room to slide my hand underneath to slip the bolt across. I’d logged these details with my ‘criminology consciousness’ when we were here before, but I still can’t believe I’m doing this – actually breaking in to someone’s house.

We’re in the shadows now and I stand on an upturned plant pot to undo the top one, then use my ‘open-sesame’ keys to get into the patio area. Tara stays the other side of the gate. She’s hidden from the road, eagerly watching for any sign we’ve been spotted. I freeze as I hear a car approaching, but the sound fades into the distance.

The conservatory is equally simple to open up with my special keys and within seconds I’m inside the kitchen. I climb the stairs and, one by one, open the closed doors and search inside using my pencil torch. This time I root around carefully through Gillian’s belongings: her drawers, bedside cabinet, packages and shoeboxes. I’m also drawn back to Stephen’s appointment diary on his bedside cabinet. During my snoop last time, I noticed an entry marked
‘QE’ for 11am on August 8th. It occurred to me afterwards that ‘QE’ could mean the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I take out my phone and take photos of the earlier pages for August and all those in June and July.

I move on and find what I’m really looking for in a make-up bag on the dressing table. It’s hidden inside packaging for stomach antacids. I’d spot them anywhere – the manufacturers revised their formula so they are easier to detect, following cases of drink spiking. The capsules have a green coating with a strong blue dye – but in a blue cocktail, of course, it’s flavourless and invisible. I bet those mocktails not only had vodka in them, but a dose of Rohypnol, a classic date-rape drug, too. No wonder you were ill, Dee.

My vision blurs as rage escalates to a silent roar inside my head.
What did they do to you?

Everything in the room starts to look muddy; the bed, the carpet, the dressing table are blending into each other.
No – stay calm.
I have to keep a grip. I tell myself to be professional and finish the job. I splash water on my face in the bathroom and start again. I need evidence that they’ve used the drug recreationally, so I make another search, checking the study, the filing cabinet, a briefcase. All I find is a photo album, stuffed with shot after shot of what look like beautiful barely clad models – on beaches, by swimming pools, at parties. In half of them, Gillian has her arm around the women – in the other half, Stephen Morrell is getting up close and personal.

Gillian wasn’t just Stephen’s alibi, I conclude, she was involved in the actual crime. She lied. She said the taxi dropped her off first and then you went on home. But both of you must have got out at the Morrell’s. You were probably too drugged to know where you were, Dee. She
might even have tipped the driver a bit extra to back up her lie – but I wouldn’t be able to prove it.

My hands shake violently as I go back and snatch the make-up bag, then put it back where it was. What I’ve done is futile and against the law. The Morrell’s are smart; Rohypnol is a class C drug and while unauthorised possession is breaking the law, it’s also available legally on private prescription. There is a sticker on the back of the packet showing they were issued by a local pharmacy. It means Gillian has a legitimate private prescription, most likely for insomnia. I’m an expert in evidence and I know this won’t hold up in court. The only person likely to get arrested here is me.

I leave everything exactly as it was and close the doors. Tara is waiting by the side gate and knows not to say anything until we’re in the clear. I put the plant pot back, upright, on the soil and check again that nothing is out of place. We shut the front gate carefully as we leave and walk at an unhurried pace back towards the car, arm in arm again.