No Other Darkness (11 page)

‘How’s Beth?’ Noah asked as Marnie climbed from her car on Blackthorn Road.

‘Stressed.’ Her quick eyes scanned his face. ‘What’s happened?’

‘The rubberneckers have landed.’ He nodded back towards the house.

Marnie’s stare swung in that direction, her eyes snagging on something she didn’t like.

Noah turned and saw Adam Fletcher standing apart from the other reporters, still smoking. Debbie Tanner was nearby. ‘That’s Fletcher, the one who was asking for a statement. He thinks you have me well trained . . .’

‘Does he?’ She looked unimpressed. ‘Let’s go and see Mr Cole.’ She started in the direction of number 8. ‘How did you get on with the other neighbours?’

‘Julie thinks gypsies had something to do with it. And she doesn’t like Clancy much.’

‘Julie?’

‘Number 12. Immediate neighbour, single mum, lonely.’

Marnie shielded her eyes with her hand to look at him. ‘She flirted with you?’

‘Okay, that was . . . uncanny. How’d you know?’

She smiled and shook her head. ‘What’s her problem with Clancy?’

‘He watches her from the window when she’s sunbathing. And not just her.’ Noah shrugged. ‘It sounded like she was watching just as much as he was. Maybe he
does
look at her when she’s sunbathing, but she was reading more into it, as if he was a bit too interested in the bunker, the boys.’

‘You didn’t believe her?’

‘He’s just a kid. The way she said it . . . she made him sound like a psycho.’

‘And kids can’t be psychos.’ Marnie stopped, twelve feet from Cole’s house.

‘I’m not saying that. But our boys died four, five years ago. Clancy would’ve been ten. And he wasn’t living here back then . . .’

‘Do we know that for sure? I don’t. I don’t know anything about him, only what the Doyles told us, and they don’t know much more than that.’ She moved so that he couldn’t see her face, only her profile. She was watching the press pack. ‘Beth found a stash of anti-psychotics in his room.’ She put her hand in her pocket, took out a foil strip of pills.

Noah didn’t touch it. He remembered his advice to Dan not to touch any bag that Sol might’ve brought to their flat. ‘Clancy’s on anti-psychotic meds?’

‘Beth doesn’t know. She says they’d have been told if he was on medication. That’s a basic requirement on the fostering service, to share information of that kind.’

‘What did Terry say?’

‘I haven’t asked him yet. He wasn’t at the house just now and Beth says she’s not told him about the pills, or about the women she’s seen Clancy hanging out with over on the estate. Two of them, much older than him. Odd, Beth said. Old clothes, grubby . . .’

Marnie hadn’t taken her eyes off the reporters. Debbie was chatting with Fletcher, her body language making Julie’s look demure.

‘Surely,’ Noah said, ‘they wouldn’t let anyone foster a kid who needed medication like that. For one thing, how could they be sure he’d take the pills? It makes no sense.’

‘Maybe we need to ask the foster service some awkward questions about Clancy Brand.’

He held out his hand for the foil strip. ‘Can I see?’

Marnie handed it across.

The name of the strip meant nothing. None of the pills had been popped from their plastic bubbles. ‘Eight pills. I wouldn’t call it a stash. More like a souvenir.’

‘A souvenir of what?’

‘I don’t know. But eight pills isn’t a stash. It isn’t even a prescription. Unless he’s hiding more pills, in other places.’ He felt the weight of his phone in his pocket, and wondered how long it would be before Dan tried calling back. ‘He didn’t seem psychotic to me. I know I haven’t see much of him, but . . .’

‘Beth’s scared of him. She says he’s angry. I saw him at the safe house just now. He was coming back from the park. Something’s not right with him. I’ve seen a lot of angry kids, but Clancy? Something’s not right.’

Noah hadn’t heard this note in her voice before. Cautious, as if she was feeling her way. No, more than that, as if she was afraid. Of Clancy, or what he represented? Her past had long arms, he knew that much.

‘I’ll look into it,’ he promised. ‘Ron’s tracing the travellers. Maybe one of them will remember something.’

‘Fran should be finishing the extra tests. With luck, we’ll finally have names.’ Marnie unfolded her arms, shaking the tension from her shoulders. ‘Right, let’s get this over with.’

They turned in the direction of Cole’s house, stopping
when one of the GPR team signalled from the pavement. Serious, a warning in his signal and one eye on the press.

Noah’s chest contracted.

Don’t let it be bodies. You said no more bodies.

‘You’ll want to see this.’ The man nodded towards Cole’s house.

Next door was where the Finchers lived with their little girl, Lizzie.

Protests crowded behind Noah’s teeth. He had to lock his jaw to stop them getting out. He couldn’t go back inside one of those bunkers, not right now. He couldn’t.

Marnie touched a hand to his wrist. ‘I’ve got this.’

Noah shook his head, but before he could speak, a noise travelled from the back garden at number 8, echoing through the hollow walls of the house as it came . . .

A wail, high-pitched and keening, like a child’s.

A weatherproofed shed stood at the foot of Douglas Cole’s garden, its door propped open.

Marnie and Noah crossed the lawn, accompanied by the GPR technician. As they reached the shed, Cole came out. A little man in his fifties, with a thick head of fair hair cut like a monk’s, dressed in a pinstriped suit. His round face was pink, small eyes watering, mouth wide with distress that turned to relief as he spotted Marnie. ‘DI Rome!’

‘Mr Cole. How are you?’

He wrung her hand, shaking his head. Behind him, a second GPR technician emerged from the shed. He nodded at Marnie and Noah. ‘You’ll want to see this.’

Marnie didn’t move straight away, letting Cole cling to her hand a moment longer before she said, ‘It’s all right, Mr Cole. Let me do my job.’

‘It’s not,’ he stammered, ‘what you think.’ His eyes were streaming. ‘It’s
not
.’

‘All right. Let me see.’ She drew her hand free. ‘DS Jake?’

Noah moved to help the man.

Cole turned away, covering his mouth with his hand. ‘I’ll wait here. I’ll be good.’

He stood to attention, like a child.

‘In that case,’ Marnie nodded at Noah, ‘I could use you with me.’

 • • • 

At first glance, it was like every other garden shed Noah had ever seen. It smelt the same too, of creosote and oil. Pots stood along shelves, tools hung from nails around the walls: garden shears; trowels; a pair of iron rods with right-angled ends. An old-fashioned lawnmower was propped in one corner, its blades freshly oiled. The shed was neat and orderly, but not obsessively so. The only striking thing was the open hole in its floor.

A manhole. Like the one in the Doyles’ garden. The shed had been built around it, its base a neat cement job, home-made like the shed, leaving access to the manhole cover.

The GPR team had opened the hole.

The smell coming up was squeaky and high-pitched, like the wail Cole had let out.

It’d been opened using the two right-angled rods, Noah guessed, and easily. As if it was done on a regular basis.

Unlike any of the other bunkers in Blackthorn Road.

‘Has anyone been down there?’ Marnie asked the GPR technicians.

The two men shook their heads. ‘We shone a torch to take a look, but we stayed up here. We knew you’d want to be the first ones down.’

Noah tried to read their expressions.

Disgust, but not horror, or not full-blown.

Not small-bodies-buried-alive horror.

Marnie held out a hand for the torch and crouched to peer into the bunker.

Noah did the same, squatting on his heels, sucking a breath at what he saw.

Eyes
.

Blue and green and yellow.

Dozens and dozens of eyes, staring back at him from the blackness.

Noah said, ‘What is that
smell
?’

‘Damp course.’ Marnie didn’t mind the smell so much. It could have been a lot worse.

Inside Doug Cole’s bunker, the walls were scratched by shadow, holding off the day’s heat. Her body temperature dropped a notch as she stood at the foot of the ladder.

No bodies, so no death stench. No damp, either. Under the chemical top note, the smell wasn’t black or green. It was clear and white, like standing water.

The larger dolls wore silk dresses; the smaller ones were dressed in cotton. The baby dolls had been wrapped in shawls, lying in wicker cradles. One or two looked frighteningly real.

Dozens and dozens of dolls. Teddy bears too, and wooden toys, but most of the bunker was filled with dolls.

At her side, Noah exhaled thinly.

Oh Doug . . . why did you have to play down here?

But she knew why. It felt safe. Away from prying eyes. Private.

‘Did you know,’ Noah pointed his torch around the bunker, ‘about this?’

‘The dolls, yes. Not about the bunker. He’s a toy collector. Most of his house is like this.’

The bigger dolls sat on chairs and hand-painted benches, and around a low table laid with a white cloth and set for tea with doll-sized cups and plates, wooden cakes and candles. In a nursery, it would’ve looked charming, if a little twee. Down here, it looked sad and creepy. Tim Welland would’ve called it a freak show. He’d thought Cole’s house was bad enough.

Marnie waited to hear what verdict Noah would pass. He wasn’t speaking, still shining his torch around the walls of the bunker.

Doug had papered the walls with roses. He’d laid a Turkish rug on the floor and hung pictures. Strung bunting across the ceiling, and fairy lights, which meant he’d wired the bunker for electricity. Marnie looked for the switch and flicked it.

She and Noah stood under the spattering of light that put coloured crumbs on the tablecloth and in the laps of the seated dolls.

‘Okay,’ Noah said, ‘that’s . . . worse.’

Marnie knew what he meant. Their boys hadn’t had a rug, or lights, or hand-painted furniture. Cole’s playroom was a sick satire on the bunker at number 14.

‘This took time. The wiring alone . . . He’s known about this place for a while.’ Noah looked at her. ‘Did you search the shed when you were looking for Lizzie Fincher?’

‘The shed’s new. It wasn’t here eighteen months ago.’

‘But the house is like this?’

‘It’s odd,’ she admitted. ‘
He’s
odd. But I think he’s harmless. I spent a lot of time with him eighteen months ago. And a lot of time with Lizzie Fincher and her parents. Doug was the least of my worries, back then.’

Noah processed this in silence. ‘When d’you think he found the bunker?’

‘Not recently. You’re right. He’s been busy down here for a while.’

The fairy lights painted the dolls’ faces like chickenpox.

‘He should have told someone,’ Noah said. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Hard to say. It’s his property, and if it was empty . . .’

‘Do you think he knew about the other bunkers?’

‘I don’t know.’ Marnie looked into the glassy stare of the largest doll. ‘I hope not. This is going to look bad enough without that.’

Cole’s shadow fell roundly at their feet from the open manhole overhead.

Marnie said, ‘We’re coming up, Mr Cole. Just give us a minute.’

He moved away without speaking. Marnie could sense his misery from twelve feet.

‘Does it give you the creeps,’ she asked Noah, ‘being down here?’

He thought for a moment. ‘At first, sure, but now? It doesn’t seem so bad.’ He took a last look around. ‘Either you’re right and he’s harmless, or I’m getting used to this stuff.’

Marnie switched off the fairy lights. ‘Go up.’ She nodded at the ladder. ‘Make us some tea. I’ll be right behind you.’

She wanted a moment alone in the dark and the quiet. Away from the rubberneckers and the reporters waiting on her reappearance. DC Tanner, who’d gravitated to Adam Fletcher as easily as a spider vein to a drunk’s nose. They made a handsome couple, Debbie with her curves, Adam with his arrogant height. It made Marnie want to stay down here. A bad instinct, unhelpful. She needed to get on. She’d seen what the GPR team leader had wanted her to see.

Doug Cole’s playroom was a nuclear shelter, like all the others in the road. Cold War bunkers built under a field in north-east London by people afraid the atom bomb was
coming. It must have been easy to imagine a disaster on that scale after the long years of the Second World War. Marnie’s grandmother had spent the war overseas, but she’d often talked about the anxious mood in the capital when she returned to London. Post-Blitz paranoia warring with the country’s determination to rebuild. How many people of her grandmother’s generation had resorted to measures like this, holes dug underground, the laying-in of precious food supplies? Hiding places.

She climbed the ladder to where the last of the day’s light was waiting. Over Cole’s fence she could see the perfect lawn of the Finchers’ garden, spoilt by the GPR team’s exertions.

Nigel and Carol Fincher had spent a lot of money on their garden furniture; it put most of Marnie’s indoor furniture to shame. On the other hand, polyrattan wasn’t a look she aspired to. The borders were attractive, colourful. Eighteen months ago, the garden had been greying lawn, dead. She wondered whether Terry Doyle was responsible for the new borders.

She rolled the latex gloves from her hands and pushed them into her pocket as a heavy man in a navy suit came through the French doors on to the Finchers’ decking.

‘Hello,’ he said across the fence. ‘Carol said it was you.’

Marnie smiled at him. ‘Mr Fincher, hello.’

‘Quick question,’ Fincher said. ‘Who’s paying for all this?’ He gestured at the hole dug in his garden, the open manhole cover. He didn’t look at Doug’s shed.

‘We’re investigating a crime. I’m sorry it’s spoilt your lawn.’

A blonde girl in school uniform trailed into the garden.

Marnie said, ‘Hello, Lizzie.’

The girl looked at her, blankly. She was nearly seven now. She’d grown, but she had the same spacey look she’d had eighteen months ago, returning home with her hand in Doug Cole’s, bewildered by all the fuss and questions, her eyes moving between her parents, not quite looking at either
one of them, letting them take turns hugging her, taking care to share her attention equally between the two. Defence mechanism; Marnie had recognised it at a glance. Lizzie hadn’t changed, just acquired an extra layer of that caution. Her stare went to the hole in the lawn, then retreated, void of curiosity. She’d learned not to ask questions, even when things looked weird. ‘Dad, can I go on the internet?’

‘What does Mum say?’

‘She said to ask you.’

‘Fine, but just until suppertime.’ Fincher waited until his daughter had gone back inside before he gave a sheepish smile. ‘Compromise: the secret weapon of parenting.’

‘How’s Carol?’ Marnie asked.

‘Working, she’ll be working.’ He nodded at the attic. ‘Home office. She works from home now. Lucky her.’

Marnie detected a flavour of the old animosity in his tone, but it was neutered. This was a couple who’d raced to report each other to the police when their child disappeared. She had struggled to feel sorry for the Finchers eighteen months ago, and wondered if they were still using their only child as collateral. They’d stayed together. That was surprising.

‘We patched things up,’ Fincher said, ‘for Lizzie’s sake.’

‘Good for you.’ Marnie wondered how good it was for Lizzie.

‘You’re digging up the whole street.’

‘Only this side. The side where the bunkers were built.’

Fincher came up to the fence and peered into his neighbour’s garden.

‘Doug must be hating this. He loves his privacy.’ Sarcasm, but complacent, as if it’d become an easy habit, despising his wife’s one-time friend.

‘Found anything compromising over there?’ His stare sharpened. ‘I’m not a nosy neighbour, but Doug? Would make anyone suspicious.’