No Other Darkness (19 page)

‘How is it worse than we thought?’ Marnie asked.

At her side, Noah tensed, watching her face.

‘Put it this way,’ Ron replied, ‘if I said they were off their rockers letting her out? I’d be making the understatement of the fucking century.’

Lyn Birch was wound like a spring, one heel tapping on the floor, her face tight enough to bounce pennies off. ‘Patient confidentiality . . .’

‘Doesn’t apply,’ Marnie said, ‘where there’s a breach of parole. Or a risk to the public. So please don’t waste our time, or yours. I’m sure you’re very busy. Tell us about Esther Reid.’

‘Alison Oliver,’ Lyn corrected.

As if they’d made a fundamental error. Got their facts back to front. Named the wrong suspect.

‘What?’

Lyn Birch repeated, ‘She’s Alison Oliver now.’

A beat, before Marnie said, ‘You mean she has a new identity.’

The woman’s lips pursed. ‘It’s rather more complicated than that.’

‘In what way is it more complicated?’

‘Alison stopped being Esther when she . . . faced up to what Esther had done.’

‘Stopped being Esther . . . How is that possible?’

‘You need to understand the psychology.’ Lyn smoothed
her clothes with her hands. ‘But trust me, she’s Alison Oliver now. Esther is . . . someone else. Someone she’s not.’

Marnie looked at her, waiting. She was willing to bet that Esther Reid didn’t think she was Alison Oliver. Not if this woman had done even a fraction of her job properly. It wasn’t a job Marnie envied, waking women to the chaos wrought by their illness.

‘Esther was a very sick woman,’ Lyn said. ‘How much do you know about PPP?’

‘Enough to know that each case is unique. We’re not after a broad understanding of Esther’s condition. We need to know
specifically
how ill she was when she came to you. And how she was when she left.’

‘I hope you’re not suggesting I discharged a sick woman.’ A sharp voice, stark syllables, like listening to the pinging of a black box. Dressed in a dark suit that showcased her bones. Against the impersonal white of the hotel room, she was like an expensive X-ray.

Marnie said, ’You’ve seen the papers. You know what we’ve found in Snaresbrook.’

The woman moved a hand in protest. ‘You’re not saying . . . Those children . . .’

‘Were Fred and Archie Reid. DNA tests proved it. The timing’s odd, wouldn’t you say?’

The woman blinked, showing the taut lids of her eyes. ‘You think it’s significant? A risk to the public, you said. Surely you can’t mean . . .’

‘We think it’s a strange coincidence. You discharge Esther at the same time we discover she committed perjury. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?’

‘She was ready to be discharged. I wouldn’t have signed the paperwork otherwise.’

‘Esther was ready to go back into society. She was well enough for that.’

‘She’d made huge progress, yes?’

‘Are you telling me,’ Marnie said, ‘or asking me?’

‘What?’ The flush ran like water across the woman’s face.

‘You said “yes”, but it sounded like a question.
Did
she make huge progress?’

‘Yes, she did.’ Lyn opened both hands. ‘Huge progress. What you have to understand is that these women don’t know what they’re doing when they’re in the grip of PPP. They don’t realise how very ill they are, or how dangerous.’

‘We understand that,’ Noah said. ‘But when she
did
realise it, when you’d helped her to realise it . . . what happened then?’

‘She retreated, to begin with. That’s natural, yes? But as you say, we helped her to understand her illness and to see that in order to get well, she had to stop hiding.’

‘Hiding how? What were her symptoms?’

‘She hid behind Esther.’

Silence, underscored by the whine of the air-conditioning unit.

Noah said, ‘I don’t understand. She
is
Esther . . .’

‘She’s Alison,’ Lyn corrected. ‘That was an essential part of her rehabilitation. She was horrified, revolted really, by what she’d done as Esther. That’s normal. We worked to help her regroup,’ forming a circle with her hands, ‘as Alison. To see that she could move beyond what she did. Start over.’

Start over with what? She’d destroyed it all. Her family, her life, all of it. The Doyles’ family was different. Unless Esther didn’t see it that way.

‘She hid behind Esther,’ Marnie repeated. ‘You’re describing what, exactly? A split personality? Schizophrenia?’

Lyn’s face rippled with professional distaste. ‘Nothing as . . . clinical as that. It was a question of who she was, and who she
could be
. Surely you believe in second chances?’

‘Right now? I believe in plain speaking.’ Enunciating every
word very clearly: ‘What do you mean when you say that she hid behind Esther?’

‘Alison would sometimes talk about Esther in the third person, as if she was someone else, apart from her. But she got past that stage, yes?’

Or she got better at hiding.

Marnie didn’t imagine it took a genius to trick Lyn Birch, with her rhetorical questions and her nervous energy that looked very much like professional insecurity.

A briefcase sat on the hotel desk under the window. Paperwork for the conference she was attending. Next to the briefcase, a lanyard was laid out like an expensive necklace.

‘Did she talk about where she would go,’ Marnie said, ‘when she was paroled?’

‘To her mother, Connie Pryce. That was agreed. The parole officer will have the address. It might not be conventional, but . . .’

‘In what way is it not conventional?’

‘Connie Pryce lives on a travellers’ ground in Slough.’

‘And that’s a stable environment for a woman like Esther?’

‘Alison,’ Lyn insisted, but with less conviction now. ‘It wasn’t ideal, but her mother wanted it. She wanted her daughter to have a second chance, a safe place to go.’

‘Connie had forgiven her?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘In all the time you spent with her,’ Marnie said, ‘all the sessions, Esther never once admitted what she really did to the boys? She never mentioned the bunkers?’

‘Never.’

‘But she demonstrated remorse. Enough for you to recommend her release.’

Lyn’s face thinned into a smile. ‘She was
consumed
by remorse. I don’t think I’ve ever treated anyone more completely filled with it. To the brim.’

‘And that’s . . . healthy. To be so consumed by remorse.’

Lyn bristled. ‘I do know my job. Without remorse, there can be no recovery.’

‘But remorse in itself isn’t a guarantee of recovery, is it?’

‘Of course not. There are no guarantees. But in Alison’s case, it was a first step. An extremely indicative first step.’

‘She stopped hiding behind Esther?’ Noah asked.

‘Yes she did.’ Lyn tided her face to a smooth sheet. ‘She put that part of her life behind her, and moved on.’

‘To Slough,’ Noah said.

Lyn nodded. ‘To her new life.’

‘Back to her mother. The grandmother of Archie and Fred, and Louisa.’

‘Forgiveness is a process, like everything else. Alison is extremely fortunate to have Connie in her life. If, as you believe, she’s breached the terms of her parole, then it’s a great shame. A very great shame. I had high hopes for her complete rehabilitation.’

‘She lied about the way in which her sons died. She lied to the police, and to the courts. She lied to you. That doesn’t give me much confidence in her rehabilitation.’

Or your skills as her psychiatrist
, Marnie thought but didn’t add.

‘Do you consider her a danger,’ she said instead, ‘to young children?’

‘What? No. Absolutely not.’

Angry at the suggestion; her name on the paperwork.

‘Two young children are missing, in Snaresbrook. Children who were living in the house where Esther buried her sons.’

Lyn recoiled. ’That’s . . . It’s horrible. But why would you assume Alison is involved? Do you have any evidence that she is?’

‘Not yet. But we have reason to suspect that she’s been back to Blackthorn Road since her release. She gave no indication she was planning to do that?’

‘None whatsoever.’ Her heel tapping the hotel carpet. Nervous, or just impatient?

Marnie said, ‘I’m going to ask you again if you believe she’s a danger to small children.’

‘Of course not. I would hardly have supported her parole were that the case. Every sign pointed to her recovery.
Every
sign.’

The air conditioning in the hotel room was grey, like breathing through a hole in a tin can. Lyn Birch spent a lot of time in air-conditioned rooms. It showed in the lined skin of her face, nowhere for her age to hide. Did she prefer guest-speaking at conferences to spending time with patients? Marnie would put money on it.

‘Hypothetically speaking,’ she said, ‘if Alison wasn’t fully recovered, or if she was only pretending to be recovered . . . what then?’

‘Then,’ Lyn said tartly, ‘I don’t deserve to hold on to my job.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, but I had such high hopes of Alison. When you talk about her like this . . . it’s distressing.’

‘Hypothetically speaking. If her prognosis was different, if there was any room for doubt . . . would you consider her a risk to children?’

Lyn looked across the room, at the empty view from the window. Muddy sky, stuffed with clouds. Her face contorted, painfully. ‘Of course. If she wasn’t recovered, I would be seriously concerned for her welfare and that of others. As I said at the outset, PPP is a serious illness with severe consequences for everyone affected by it. I would take every possible precaution to keep her away from young children.’

‘If she has taken these two missing children, what are we looking at? What sort of danger are they in?’

‘I can’t say. She was so full of remorse. I can’t picture the scenario you’re describing.’

‘Try. Two small children. Living in the same place where she buried the boys. Are we talking about a re-enactment? Penance of some kind? Sacrifice . . .’

Lyn shook her head. ‘She was
better
. None of what you’re imagining makes any sense. It’s all hypothetical, in any case.’

‘The missing children are real. We need to know how much danger they’re in.’

‘PPP is a serious illness,’ Lyn repeated. ‘I’d have taken every possible precaution to keep her away from young children. But that was implicit in the terms of her parole, wasn’t it?’

She made a movement with her hands as if she was wiping her patient away. File under Failure. This was Marnie’s problem now. Hers and Noah’s.

‘One last question. If we were talking about Esther Reid and not Alison Oliver. The Esther Reid who revolted Alison, horrified her, you said . . . If it was
Esther
and not Alison at large, with two small children missing, what would you be thinking?’

Lyn shook her head, flatlining her mouth.

‘I’d be praying that you find those children, and fast.’

Tommy was sleeping. He was always sleeping. Babies were boring.

Carmen kicked her feet on the floor, because it made a funny noise, thick. She wanted her pink carpet, in her own room. This floor was horrid and hard.

She picked up Baggy and hugged him, then turned him over in her lap and smacked him until the beans inside him rattled. ‘Naughty, Baggy, naughty. Go to your room.’

She threw him and he landed face down against the wall, his ears stretched out in front of him, his tail in the air. Tommy was sleeping like that, face-down, the way he did on the blow-up bed when they went on holiday. Mummy blew it up with a hairdryer. Carmen liked to bounce on the bed, but she got told off because it wasn’t safe.

Tommy had his red blanket and his thumb in his mouth. If she listened hard, Carmen could hear him snoring. She was in charge, his big sister, but she was bored. There was nothing to do here. They weren’t allowed to touch anything and she didn’t like it. It smelt funny. ‘What if I need a wee?’ she’d said. ‘What if Tommy wakes up?’

‘Play with him. You’re the big one. You’re in charge.’

Carmen crawled across to where Baggy had landed, stroking his ears. ‘There, there, Baggy, honey-bee, s’all fine now.’

She pulled one of her plaits to her mouth and sucked on it, even though she wasn’t supposed to because you could choke on hair. It wasn’t safe.

Maybe when Tommy woke they would bounce on the bed.

There was no one here to tell them to stop.

‘Holy rolling Christ.’ Tim Welland washed at his face with his hands. ‘Run that past me again. We’ve got a schizophrenic child killer with a new identity, and three missing kids, one of them an angry teenage boy. Which red-top’s wet dream are we trapped inside, exactly?’

‘Not schizophrenic,’ Marnie said. ‘Lyn Birch was insistent on that score.’

‘You’re not telling me you believe in Esther’s reincarnation as Alison Oliver?’ Welland eyed her and Noah. ‘I’ve heard more convincing miracles coming out of Mormons.’

‘Her psychiatric assessments say she distanced herself from what she did as Esther. She talks about her as a separate person, someone
other
. Calling her a child killer isn’t helpful.’

‘I wasn’t trying to be helpful,’ Welland said. ‘I was pointing out – and correct me if I’m wrong here – that they let
Esther
out of prison when they released Alison Oliver.’

‘Yes, they did.’

‘So it could be Esther who left the peaches outside our crime scene. And Esther who’s taken these children.’

‘Yes,’ Marnie agreed, ‘it could.’

‘We have to operate on that principle. You can bet your
life the press will. Bad enough when they thought she’d put her kids into the Thames. When they find out she buried two of them alive, and lied through her teeth about it? Tricked them into dreaming up headlines about drowning when they should’ve been writing about underground torture chambers? If you think they were tough on her five years ago, wait until they get started on this new story.’

Marnie and Noah accepted this in silence. Wherever she was – whoever she was now – Esther Reid was going to wish she’d stayed hidden, lost in the system.

‘She’s not with her mum, I take it.’ Welland studied the photograph that Ron had unearthed. ‘At this travellers’ ground in Slough?’

‘We sent a team to look. No sign of Esther or Connie. Her neighbours didn’t know she had a daughter, that’s what they’re saying. No one was prepared to tell us when they last saw Connie. Local police are keeping an eye on the place.’

‘So the mum could be in on this?’ Welland pulled at his lip. ‘Two kidnappers? Plenty of places they could hide kids on a travellers’ ground . . .’

‘We’ll need a warrant,’ Marnie said, ‘and the press will be all over it. We’d better have a good reason for thinking Carmen and Tommy are there, before we move in. We’re looking at CCTV in Slough. Nothing so far. It’s a long way to take two small children without help, or a car. Neither Connie nor Esther can drive.’

‘How about the place she was living when she killed them?’

‘Alperton, the other side of London. If she’s gone there, that’s another breach of parole. But I can’t imagine she’d go back. The house was sold, her husband hasn’t lived there in five years. We sent a team, on the off-chance, and we’re checking CCTV. No sightings so far.’

‘What about this boy Clancy? Where does he fit in?’

‘It’s unclear. We’re asking Foster Services for anything that might shed light on why he’d abscond with the children. Beth says he’s angry, but she trusted him with Carmen and Tommy. I don’t think she’d do that without good reason, and from what I saw of Carmen, she wouldn’t have gone quietly with someone she didn’t trust.’ Marnie stopped.

‘Spit it out,’ Welland said.

‘Beth saw Clancy with two women on the housing estate. Old-fashioned clothes, odd-looking, one of them about Esther’s age. The three of them were smoking together.’

‘When was this?’

‘Two weeks ago. Around the time Esther was paroled. And more recently, a day or so before Terry found the bunker.’

‘In other words, Esther could have made contact with Clancy?’

‘In theory. It’s possible, yes.’

‘No other sightings of her since she was paroled?’

‘None so far.’

‘So all we’ve got right now is this bad photofit.’ Welland tossed the picture on to his desk. ‘Which could be any- one . . .’

It was a photograph of Esther Reid, but Welland had a point. Grief or pills had stripped the colour and features from her face, dulling her eyes and drawing her mouth as a crooked line, faltering, above her chin. It wasn’t a face you’d remember, even if you concentrated. Out of focus, as if someone had used a soiled cloth to rub her out.

‘Why did she leave the peaches?’ Welland said. ‘I don’t like that, makes her look like all sorts of a loony from where I’m sitting.’

‘
If
she left them,’ Marnie said. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she meant well, maybe she was trying to be kind, or it was penance of some description. I can’t imagine what’s going
on inside the head of someone who’s been through what she has.’

Nor could Noah. A child killer and a bereaved mother, perpetrator and victim rolled into one. How would you begin to unravel the pain and punishment, loss and loathing?

‘She’s broken the terms of her parole,’ Welland said, ‘by going back to the crime scene. Not to mention the perjury from five years ago. So we find her and arrest her. Hopefully before the press launch in. We’ve got all the crap-quagmire we can wade through right now.’

Noah checked his watch. ‘It’s not been four hours since the children went missing. If they’re with Clancy, he might bring them back.’

He shook his head as he said it, because they had to prepare for the worst. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst: that Esther had gone back to the place where she’d buried her boys and taken two other children as replacements of some kind. What was the word Marnie had used?

Sacrifices
.

Welland tapped the photo with his thumb. ‘You’ll need a better picture than this to show to the public. I don’t like using prison mugshots for that, but . . .’

‘Ron sent the photo to Debbie’s phone,’ Marnie said. ‘You’re right, it’s not a great picture, but the Doyles didn’t recognise her. Beth’s adamant she wasn’t either of the women she saw smoking with Clancy on the estate, so that could be a false lead. House-to-house is ongoing. We’re checking all the places Terry told us Clancy liked to go. We could use extra hands . . .’

‘You’ve got them.’ Welland nodded. ‘I’ll sort out the warrant for Slough. I want these children found, and soon.’

 • • • 

‘What’ve we got?’ Marnie asked the team.

‘Paperwork coming out of our arses.’ Ron gestured at a
pile of printouts. ‘No sightings of Clancy or the kids. Debbie says the Doyles are going spare.’

He was at the whiteboard, marking the names of the missing children, pinning pictures of Carmen and Tommy, and Clancy Brand.

‘What’s the paperwork?’ Marnie asked.

‘Merrick Homes. Places they developed, land they bought, planning permissions, you name it.’ Ron smoothed his thumb over the photos of the missing children, making sure they were secure on the board. ‘Not sure it’s relevant any longer.’

Marnie’s phone rang and she took the call. ‘Ed. How’s it going?’

‘Have you got a minute to talk?’

She knew he wouldn’t ask unless it was important. ‘Yes.’ She carried the call away from the whiteboard where the team was gathered. ‘You’re with Terry and Beth?’

‘Out of earshot, but yes. Beth’s sleeping, or trying to. DC Tanner’s keeping an eye on her.’ Ed paused. ‘I’m more worried about Terry.’

‘It’s why I wanted you there,’ Marnie agreed. ‘I’m not sure he’s recovered from seeing the dead boys, and now this.’

‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone this stressed. Given what I do for a living, that’s . . . not good.’

‘Does he need a doctor?’

‘He says not. I backed off from suggesting it, because it wasn’t helping. He’s making the kids’ supper, cleaning the kitchen, washing windows . . . I can’t get him to stop. It doesn’t sound like the end of the world, I know, but I’m usually pretty good at getting them to stop.’

She hadn’t heard this level of worry in Ed’s voice since they were driving back from Sommerville. ‘Do you need backup?’

‘No. I think that might make it worse. I’m going to stay
with him for a bit, see what I can do. I’m guessing there’s no news about the kids?’

‘Nothing yet. We’re looking for Esther Reid.’

‘Debbie showed me the photo,’ Ed said. ‘Poor woman.’

Where Welland had seen a bad photofit, Ed had seen a woman in pain.

‘Debbie says Beth and Terry are sure they haven’t seen her on Blackthorn Road,’ Marnie told him. ‘We didn’t tell them who she was, or what she’d done. I don’t want them thinking the worst. We need a better photograph, I do know that.’

She looked across at the whiteboard, to the faces of Terry’s children. ‘Ed . . . have we got this wrong? Something doesn’t feel right. What if the kids were with
Clancy
 . . .’

A beat of silence in her ear, before Ed said, ‘I can’t get Terry to talk about Clancy. He keeps saying Clancy wouldn’t hurt them, but the
way
he says it . . .’

It took a lot to unnerve Ed, she knew that from personal experience. But his voice was worn with worry for Terry Doyle.

‘I’ll come over,’ she decided. ‘Maybe he’ll tell me what’s going on with Clancy. If we’ve got this thing wrong, I want to know what we’re up against. Can you stay with them? I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Of course.’ Ed rang off as Ron and Noah came across to where Marnie was standing.

She read their faces. ‘You’ve got something. On Esther?’

‘On Clancy,’ Noah said. ‘But you’re not going to like it.’