No Other Darkness (16 page)

‘Connie Pryce was living in the flat next door to Denis Walton, five years ago.’ Noah handed Marnie a cup of coffee from the takeaway stand near the station. ‘She left when the travellers left. Denis says she went with them, overnight more or less.’

‘Why?’

‘Denis didn’t have any theories. But Connie’s daughter had two small boys, Fred and Archie. Connie’s little angels . . . I’ve got Debbie chasing the housing department for details of Connie’s whereabouts, and her daughter’s.’

‘Does the daughter have a name?’

‘Denis couldn’t remember. He never met her. Something Old Testament, he thought.’

Noah had tried as many Old Testament women’s names as he could remember, without hitting on the one Denis half remembered. ‘But the boys were Fred and Archie. Connie talked about them all the time.’

‘Fred and Archie,’ Marnie repeated.

She was trying the names for size, as he had done, to see if they fitted their boys.

‘Did you get anywhere,’ he asked, ‘with the peaches?’

‘Nowhere.’ A full-stop in her voice.

‘There’s something else,’ Noah said, ‘about the daughter.’

Marnie worked the lid from the coffee. ‘Go on.’

‘Denis is pretty sure that she worked for Ian Merrick.’

Marnie stopped what she was doing and looked at him.

Noah nodded. ‘Connie went with the travellers when Merrick moved in to start building Beech Rise. Good riddance, Denis says, but I know he was fond of Connie. Her daughter was different. From what Denis says, they fell out over the housing development. He was pretty bitter about Merrick Homes, said they flattened everything in their way, ruined his views. The travellers lost their home, and it wasn’t gentle. The way Denis tells it, the police more or less bulldozed them out.’

‘And Fred and Archie?’

‘Denis doesn’t know what happened to them. Just that when the travellers were moved on, Connie went with them. Overnight. Left everything in her flat, even photos and books she’d liked reading to the boys. The council had to sort it all out. It doesn’t make sense that she’d go like that, leaving her grandchildren behind. Not unless something had happened.’

Marnie held the cardboard cup in both hands, not drinking. Steam from the coffee softened the hard line of her jaw. ‘Debbie’s going after names and addresses?’

‘Yes. And Ron’s chasing an address for the travellers. In case Connie’s still with them.’

She glanced up at him. ‘You don’t think she is?’

‘Denis said it was a snap decision, one he’s sure she lived to regret. He couldn’t believe she’d move away from Fred and Archie, for one thing. He says she lived for those kids.’

‘So if she went, it could be because she knew they were dead.’

‘It seems like a leap,’ Noah admitted. ‘But the way Denis spoke about Connie, and the fact that he’s so certain her daughter worked for Ian Merrick . . .’

‘Let’s see what Debbie can turn up. We need to ask Merrick what he knows. And we need to find these travellers, and Connie. Sorry,’ she handed back the coffee, ‘I’m all caffeined out.’

Noah emptied the coffee into the gutter, walking to the nearest bin to get rid of the cup.

When he walked back, Marnie was checking her phone.

‘Fran?’ Noah asked.

‘Not yet.’ Marnie put the phone into her pocket. ‘There was something else, though. From the bunker. Soil that matches the Doyles’ garden.’

‘From Terry’s boots?’

‘Not unless he lied to me. We need to look into that possibility. This soil was right by the bed, right by the boys.’

‘What are you thinking? Not . . . Clancy?’

‘Why
not Clancy
?’

‘Because he’s a kid, not much older than they were.’

‘Not much, but enough. Julie Lowry said she saw him hanging around in the garden.’

Noah shook his head. ‘She said he was
watching
the garden, from his bedroom window.’

‘She told Adam Fletcher she saw Clancy digging, right where the bunker is.’

‘That’s not what she told me. Maybe she elaborated, for the press.’ Remembering the way Julie had flirted with him, and how good-looking Fletcher was, Noah had no difficulty imagining that scenario. ‘You think Clancy found the bunker before we did?’

‘Someone went down there. Someone left the tin of peaches, too. Who would do that, unless they knew what was inside the bunker? Only two other possibilities: the
killer came back, or someone on our team talked. I’m not keen on either of those options, are you?’

‘Debbie was chatting with Fletcher—’ Noah was speaking aloud, without thinking. He shut his mouth the second it was out. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

‘Didn’t you?’ Marnie cut her eyes away. ‘I did. At least . . . I gave the idea headspace.’

Noah processed this, in silence. ‘She wouldn’t do that,’ he said at last. ‘None of us would. The boys matter too much.’

Marnie nodded. ‘I hope so.’ She checked her phone again. ‘Let’s get moving. As soon as we’ve got a name for Connie’s daughter, we can question Ian Merrick, see if there’s something he didn’t tell us first time around. And we need to know more about Clancy, and the Doyles. Debbie can get on to that.’

She started walking, then turned back to Noah. ‘You thought you had something, first thing. Before you saw Denis Walton?’

‘Yes.’ Noah fell into step with her. ‘About the pills you found. It could be nothing, but I’ve got Sol staying at the moment. He reminded me that Mum takes pills sometimes, for anxiety, panic attacks . . . The pills usually help to start with, and then she stops taking them, or she builds up a resistance, I don’t know exactly.’

Marnie listened, but didn’t speak. Her silence made it easier to keep talking.

‘When she stopped taking a prescription, I’d sometimes find the bottles, or strips like the one Clancy had, and I’d keep them. I don’t know why. It made me feel safe. Anyway, I looked up those pills that Beth found. Haloperidol? It’s used to treat all kinds of psychosis in all kinds of people.’

‘Go on.’

‘That’s it. I didn’t dig any deeper but I thought it was
worth mentioning. In case we’re wrong about Clancy. In case they’re not his pills.’

Marnie’s silence was sceptical. If he hadn’t told her about his mother, he was certain she’d have shot his theory into tiny pieces. As it was, she said, ‘Okay. Let’s say he found them and hid them. Whose pills are they? And where did he find them?’

‘Like I said, it might be nothing. Me seeing connections where there aren’t any.’

‘Too many connections,’ Marnie said. ‘That’s my problem with this case. Soil by the bed, peaches in the street . . . Someone’s playing games.’

Noah heard the flare of anger in her voice, white hot. They’d reached the station steps.

‘Find Connie Pryce,’ Marnie said. ‘And get a name for her daughter, see if she was on Merrick’s payroll. I’d like to give him a hard time about that.’

Her phone buzzed. ‘Fran? Go ahead.’

Her face changed as she listened, her eyes moving away from Noah, away from everything other than whatever Fran was telling her. ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

She shut her phone. ‘We need to go. Fran’s got something.’

He followed her at a jog, in the direction of the car park.

‘You were right. They’re Connie’s little angels.’ Marnie unlocked the car. ‘Fred and Archie Reid.’

They climbed in. She fired the engine.

‘They weren’t in the missing persons database for a good reason.’

Noah reached for his seat belt. ‘Why?’

‘Someone had decided they were already dead.’

‘When you told me Missing Persons had nothing . . .’ Fran held a sheet of paper between her hands, delicately, as if it was a living thing. ‘I didn’t want to look for them in the only place I
could
look, but I did.’ She surrendered the sheet. ‘That’s where I found them.’

Marnie took custody of the printout, holding it where she and Noah could read it together. Death records, for two boys.

Fred and Archie Reid.

Fred was a Christmas baby, born 25 December 2005. Archie was the older, by three years, born 20 March 2002. They were five and eight when the report said they died.

Parents: Esther and Matthew Reid.

‘DNA confirms it,’ Fran said. ‘Esther’s the mother. The boys you found are hers.’

The printout was black and white, mostly white. Whoever wrote the report hadn’t known how the boys really died. It was a sterile summing-up of the horror and sadness that Marnie and Noah had uncovered in the bunker.

Fran said, ‘There’s someone else.’ She passed a second sheet across the desk.

Another death record, for Louisa Reid, just eight months old when she died.

‘A baby sister?’ Noah’s skin felt too tight for his skull.

‘Drowned,’ Marnie read from the report. She looked across at Fran. ‘It says all three of the children drowned, five years ago. We know that’s not true.’

Fran turned her laptop towards them. ‘They found Louisa’s body in the Thames, or rather a fisherman did. Fergus Gibb, poor man . . . I have an address for him, in case that helps.’

She pointed at the monitor. ‘The mother confessed. She said she drowned all three children. The evidence supported her confession. The boys’ clothing and personal effects were at the scene. She was convicted on three counts of manslaughter.’

Marnie wrote down Fergus Gibb’s name and address. ‘Manslaughter. Not murder?’

‘Diminished responsibility, which brings me to these . . .’

Fran put a foil strip of pills on the desk. ‘Haloperidol is an anti-psychotic. Used, among other things, to treat post-partum psychosis. Where did you find these?’

‘Post-partum psychosis,’ Marnie repeated. ‘That was the mother’s plea?’ She referred to the death records. ‘Esther’s plea?’

Fran nodded. ‘Esther Reid confessed to killing her three children. She was diagnosed as suffering from PPP and ordered to be detained at a psychiatric hospital for treatment.’ She touched the foil strip. ‘Where did you find these?’ she repeated.

Marnie put the pills aside with her hand. ‘Forget about the haloperidol for a minute. Tell me about Esther Reid. How much do you know about PPP?’

‘Not much, but I did some research while you were on your way over.’ Fran pulled up a page of notes on her laptop. ‘One in seven women suffers from sudden post-natal depression. One in five hundred gets post-partum psychosis,
or PPP. Hallucinations, paranoia, voices inciting them to murder, telling them their baby is evil, or else it’s the new messiah and everyone around them wants to harm it. Sometimes they believe the baby has supernatural healing powers and can survive anything.’

She paused, pulling at her fingers as if removing gloves, a gesture Noah had seen before when Fran was upset. ‘Suicide due to PPP is the biggest cause of death in new mothers. Every year at least ten die because of it. They were tracking the stats until 2008, when the government decided to cut funding.’

‘Is there really no cure?’ Noah asked.

‘It’s entirely curable if it’s treated properly. That’s one of the tragedies. But so many women are afraid of admitting to their symptoms. Many will have suffered depression as teenagers or young women, so they’ll be familiar with that stigma, the way treatment involves judgement. It shouldn’t, but it does. And they’re terrified of having their children taken away. Suicide starts to look like the only way out, and the worst part? These women never choose a peaceful method. Only in rare cases do they overdose and “go to sleep”. Most of the time the deaths are violent. They drink bleach, or hang themselves, or jump from high buildings. They set fire to themselves. These are mostly well-educated, well-off women and they die horrible, agonising deaths.’

‘And they kill their babies,’ Marnie said.

Fran nodded. ‘Sometimes, yes, they do.’

‘But there are pills,’ Marnie nodded at the foil strip, ‘that can treat the symptoms.’

‘If you take them. Lots of women are afraid to, especially if they’re breast-feeding.’

‘But in that case,’ Noah protested, ‘the symptoms would be obvious, wouldn’t they? Someone would notice that something was wrong.’

Fran shook her head. ‘Most women learn to hide them. They know that if they’re suspected of harming their babies, then the children will be taken away. So the condition becomes entrenched, harder to treat. It’s a vicious circle.’

‘Vicious,’ Marnie agreed. She frowned at the strip of pills. ‘Why would someone stop taking her medication if she was aware of the risks?’

‘Because she isn’t thinking logically or she doesn’t understand the risks, or, most likely, because she’s worried about the danger to her baby. If she’s pregnant again, say, or breast-feeding. Toxic contamination sounds frightening. Nothing like being made to choose between your sanity and your baby’s health.’

‘Supernatural powers . . .’ Noah looked at the death reports. ‘You said sometimes these women believe their children can survive anything.’

Fran pulled at her fingers again. ‘Yes . . .’

‘The way they were put away, Fred and Archie, in that bunker. Hidden. As if to make them safe. Maybe they were never meant to die. Maybe Esther put them down there thinking they could survive, because she thought they could survive anything.’

‘She confessed to their murders,’ Marnie said. ‘She lied about how they died, said that they were drowned like their sister. She drowned their baby sister.’

Noah looked at Fran. ‘There’s no doubt she did it?’

‘None that I could find, but I’ve only just started looking. You’ll be able to get better answers than me. I can’t even tell you where Esther Reid is now.’

Marnie looked at her. ‘You said she was sent to a psychiatric prison.’

‘She was paroled, a couple of weeks ago.’

Noah’s skin squirmed in protest. ‘Three counts of manslaughter and she’s out already?’

‘Based on her successful treatment,’ Fran said with only a hint of irony, ‘yes, she is.’

‘And recently,’ Marnie said. ‘So the prison database must have an address.’

‘I looked for a record of Esther Reid in the system, and there’s nothing current. Nothing I could find, anyway.’ Fran paused. ‘The women I read about who survived PPP but served time for killing their children? Ended up with new identities when they were released.’

‘So Esther Reid could be someone else by now?’

‘Very possibly, yes.’

‘Out, and with a new identity . . . She could have left the peaches. She could have been back to the crime scene. Is that what we’re saying?’

Fran put her hands up. ‘I’m just saying she might not be Esther Reid any more, and good luck getting the new identity from the system. Last time I had to do that – and we’re talking about a corpse here – it was like wrestling a greased weasel.’

‘Esther’s in the Old Testament,’ Noah said. ‘She was an exiled Jewess.’

Fran looked bemused, so Marnie explained: ‘We think we know where to find Esther’s mother. Connie Pryce. She was living near Blackthorn Road before the houses went up. A neighbour remembered her daughter having an Old Testament name. He also remembered her grandchildren, Fred and Archie.’ She glanced at Noah. ‘Denis didn’t mention Louisa?’

Noah shook his head. ‘Just Fred and Archie.’

‘And how quickly Connie left . . . Overnight, wasn’t it?’ Marnie looked at Fran. ‘Connie went with the travellers who were living over the bunkers.’

‘You don’t think Connie
knew
the boys were down there?’

‘If she hadn’t gone so suddenly . . . Why didn’t she stay
and help her daughter through the trial, the treatment? She ran away, and we need to know when, and why.’

Marnie turned to Noah. ‘What else did Walton tell you about Connie’s daughter?’

‘Just that she worked for Ian Merrick. She and Connie fought about the development.’

‘Merrick’s the man who built the houses over the bunkers,’ Fran said. ‘So Esther could have known about the bunkers. Yes, I see. It’s less clear why she lied about how Fred and Archie died, although I suspect you’re right.’ She nodded at Noah. ‘She thought she was putting them somewhere safe. Maybe she
did
imagine they could survive down there.’

‘The police stopped looking for them because she lied,’ Marnie said. ‘If she’d told the truth, it might not have been too late. Why didn’t she tell the police where to find them? After they’d arrested her, after they’d found Louisa. When it was all over for her and she knew she couldn’t get back to the bunker to feed them, or take care of them. Why didn’t she tell the police where they were?’

Fran shook her head. ‘In that state of psychosis? She wouldn’t have been lucid. If she thought the boys were superhuman, all-powerful . . . She was keeping them
safe
, inside the bunker. The
danger
was telling someone else where to find them. I doubt she was rational enough to realise they’d starve without food. She probably believed they didn’t even need oxygen. They were her little gods, her miracles.’

But she was cured now, otherwise they wouldn’t have released her.

Noah tried to imagine how that must have felt for Esther Reid, the moment in her treatment when she came upright enough to realise what she’d done, burying her boys alive.

‘What about her husband. Matthew Reid. Might he know where she is now?’

‘I couldn’t find him in the system either,’ Fran said. ‘Hopefully you’ll have more luck.’

‘What I want to know,’ Marnie said, ‘is how Esther’s pills ended up in a house that wasn’t built when she buried her sons down there.’

‘If these
are
her pills,’ Fran said. ‘We don’t have a prescription.’

‘They were hidden in a bag that Clancy Brand took from Blackthorn Road.’

‘You think he found them? Took them from the bunker? We know someone had been down there recently. But why would Esther leave pills she was no longer taking in the bunker with her boys? That makes no sense.’

‘None of this makes sense.’ Marnie looked angry, and sad. ‘There’s the tin of peaches, too. Who left those? If it was Esther, why? As a gift, or as a warning? Why risk her parole by going back there? And straight away, within a fortnight of being released . . . That smells like planning to me. What’s she up to?’

She stood. ‘We need to find Esther Reid.’