No Other Darkness (24 page)

The housing estate was a pit of shadows, high-rises blocking out the sun, litter blowing from one corner to the next, never escaping. Noah handed the photos of Terry Doyle to the officer in charge of house-to-house. He didn’t envy the team their task, imagining the accusations, the fear on people’s faces: ‘You just found two dead kids and now you’ve lost three more?’

Debbie didn’t speak as they walked to Blackthorn Road, but when they reached number 14 she said, ‘How could Beth be married to him and not
know
? He lost his whole family. How could she not know about a thing like that? And all the time he’s
searching
 . . . looking for his boys, for Fred and Archie. How did he keep it a secret?’

‘We don’t always know the truth about other people, even the ones we’re closest to.’

‘And then he finds them and he moves his new family here. It’s horrible.’ She shivered. ‘They’re living over those little graves and he
know
s and he doesn’t say anything? And she doesn’t
suspect
anything? How can he play at being Terry when he’s Matt Reid?’

‘I don’t think he’s playing,’ Noah said. ‘That’s the thing
with new identities. Ayana Mirza told me that she’s already thinking of the person she’ll be when she has her new name. She says it’s as if that person isn’t her, she’s finally shrugging off all the terrible things that happened to Ayana. Not
forgetting
, but it means she can lock the bad stuff away and start over. Maybe it was like that for Matt, when he became Terry.’

At number 14, a solitary PCSO was guarding the tape. He’d been standing a long time; rain from earlier in the day was slicking the shoulders of his jacket.

Behind him, the house was silent. Keeping its secrets, all its windows unlit.

Noah and Debbie ducked past, up the side alley to the garden where the forensic tent was still pitched over the bunker they’d opened.

The garden smelt of wet earth and vegetation. Two days ago, it had been bright and well tended, full of colour. Now it was ragged round the edges, weeds making the most of the hiatus from Terry’s care. The rainwater drums were overflowing, dripping on to a margin of mud by the kitchen wall.

Aware of being watched, Noah glanced in the direction of the house next door.

Julie Lowry was standing at the upstairs window. She gave a little wave of her hand when she saw him, then moved away.

‘Neighbourhood Watch,’ Debbie said. ‘But not one of them saw what was really happening here.’

 • • • 

The kitchen was just as he remembered: messy, lived-in, comfortable.

Nothing like the rest of the house.

Upstairs, in the bedroom belonging to Carmen and Tommy, the furniture was fastened to the walls and the windows were nailed shut.

Safety windows, the kind that could be broken with a rock hammer in the event of a fire.

They found the rock hammer in Beth and Terry’s room, together with a rope ladder and a fire extinguisher. Out of reach of the children, but readily to hand. The windows in this room were nailed shut too. The mirror above Beth’s dressing table was made of plastic.

Debbie and Noah searched for something with sharp edges, and failed to find it.

In the bathroom Debbie said sadly, ‘He was scared of everything, wasn’t he?’

Cabinets, out of reach of the smaller children, and locked.

Plastic mirrors, and plastic walls to the shower unit.

Another window that wouldn’t open.

‘Look at this.’ Debbie touched the door to the bathroom. ‘No lock.’

Just a raw hole where it’d been torn out. As if someone had taken a car wrench to it. Someone in a panic, desperate to open the door. Or desperate for it not to be locked.

‘Who takes the lock out of a bathroom door?’ Debbie said. ‘Unless one of the little ones got trapped in here, by accident . . .’

‘Wrong side of the door,’ Noah said. ‘If Carmen or Tommy got locked in, then the lock would’ve been removed from the other side . . . The police report said Esther cut herself in the bathroom. On purpose, and more than once. It was always Matt who found her.’

They looked at the bath and the shower, seeing pictures of what that might have been like for Matt Reid. Nothing Noah could conjure was bad enough.

‘It’s spooky.’ Debbie shivered. ‘Even if you didn’t know about Esther, this house is spooky. The windows, the doors. It’s weird. I mean, it’s so . . .
safe.’

The way a prison was safe.

Terry had built a prison for his new family.

No locks on the doors meant no secrets.

The whole house felt oppressive. Threatening.

Was Terry so scared that he couldn’t see the huge shadow his fear was casting? And if he was this scared
before
Esther was released, what was he like now?

What had seeing his dead boys done to that fear?

‘
I couldn’t have lived like this when I was a teenager,’ Debbie said, ‘with no privacy, nowhere that’s just mine. I’m not surprised Clancy ran off.’

‘And if Clancy took the kids?’

‘We don’t know what Terry was like, not really. Maybe Clancy was looking out for them . . . But we think it was Terry, don’t we? We think it was
Terry
who took the kids.’

‘We don’t know,’ Noah said. ‘That’s the problem.’

The house was holding its breath, silence packed solidly up the stairs. They checked the other doors in the house. The locks had been removed from every one, even the door in the attic where the pantiled roof was pitched like a tent.

Clancy’s room.

The bed, shoved back against the far wall, had collected a puddle of sun from the skylight. No posters on the walls, no iPod or speakers, nothing to say the room belonged to a teenage boy. A low chest of drawers was fastened to the wall like the cupboards in the kids’ bedroom downstairs. The round mirror above the bed was plastic, in a rubber frame.

Windows and skylight nailed shut.

Noah turned a slow circle, looking for evidence that Clancy lived here. No TV, no computer. Not even any bookshelves. Just the bed and the chest of drawers.

Debbie crouched and opened the drawers, one after another. ‘Underwear and T-shirts.’

The view from the skylight was non-existent. If you added
blue, put fluffy clouds up there, it would still be depressing. There was nothing to see. No wonder Clancy spent all his time at the window, with its clear view to Julie Lowry’s garden and, further up the road, the shingle roof of Douglas Cole’s shed.

‘Look at this.’ Debbie had found something at the back of one of the drawers.

A china doll in a silk dress with green glass eyes.

Noah said, ‘Doug Cole collects those.’

‘So what’s it doing here?’ Debbie turned the doll until it shut its eyes.

‘Let’s ask Mr Cole,’ Noah said.

They were back downstairs when Noah’s phone played the station’s tune. ‘DS Jake.’

‘We’re going through Merrick’s paperwork,’ Ron said. ‘Remember Gutless Douglas?’

‘Cole.’ Noah glanced at Debbie, who raised her eyebrows at him. ‘What about him?’

‘He’s right here, on our list.’

‘Because he bought number 8 from Merrick Homes. Everyone living on Blackthorn Road is on the list . . .’

‘Forget Blackthorn Road. Cole and Merrick are mates.’

Noah looked at the doll in Debbie’s hand, his skin creeping. ‘Define mates.’

‘They belong to the same society,’ Ron said, ‘and guess what? It’s all about underground hiding places. Holes. Old tunnels. Bunkers. They call themselves “Buried”.’

Douglas Cole answered the door to number 8 before Noah and Debbie could knock on it. He was wearing his bespoke suit and his face was pinker than ever.

‘I was about to call you. I just got home.’ He swallowed. ‘You’d better come in.’

He led them in the direction of the kitchen at the back of the house. ‘I didn’t know, really I didn’t. I only just got back. I’ve been at work all day.’

The kitchen was neat and orderly, no sign of the toy collection that sprawled around the rest of the house. A big table, scrubbed clean, against one wall. Fitted units, showroom-shiny. The door into the sitting room was shut tight, like the back door leading into the garden.

From where he was standing, Noah could see the shed Cole had built over the bunker.

Something moved under the table.

Pink and yellow, hunched over.

A shuffle of shoes, the huffing of breath through small teeth.

Noah crouched on his heels and peered under the table. ‘Carmen?’

She scowled back at him, all plaits and duffle coat, a crayon in her fist, a sheet of paper under her heels, covered in scrawls. She was dirty, but she didn’t look hurt.

Noah felt a flood of relief; he propped a hand to the tiled floor. ‘Carmen, I’m DS Jake. I’m a policeman. I was with your mum and dad the other day, remember?’

‘Go ’way.’

Debbie crouched next to him. ‘Carmen, love, where’s Tommy? Where’s your brother?’

‘Go ’way.’

‘Ooh, can we see your picture?’ Debbie held out a hand.

Carmen shoved the sheet at them. She’d been chewing at the crayon; there was red wax on her mouth. A half-eaten banana was turning brown on the floor at her feet.

‘This is a great picture,’ Debbie said. ‘Is this your dad?’

‘No,’ scornfully.

‘Is it Clancy?’

Carmen nodded. There was mud on her shoes, and on the hem of her pink duffle coat, a leaf in her yellow hair. She sucked on the crayon, looking sleepy, her eyes glazed over.

Debbie said, ‘Did Clancy bring you here?’

The little girl was unresponsive.

‘Or was it your dad?’

Nothing.

‘Did they bring Tommy too?’

‘Go ’way.’

‘Where’s Tommy now, love? Is he with your dad, or Clancy?’

Carmen kicked her foot at them. ‘Go
’way
.’

Debbie said, ‘Okay. But first we’re going to call your mum and let her know you’ve drawn this great picture. She’s going to love it.’

Carmen’s scowl darkened. She hunched away, keeping
under the table when Noah straightened, nodding at Debbie to stay with the girl.

‘I don’t know how she got in here . . .’ Cole was blushing to the tips of his ears.

‘We’re looking for her brother, Tommy. Is he here in the house too?’

‘I know Tommy.’ Cole shook his head. ‘I haven’t had the chance to look. I only just this second got home. The front door was locked. I’ve no idea how she got in.’

‘Is this yours?’ Noah held out the doll they’d taken from Clancy’s bedroom.

‘Yes.’ Cole looked bewildered. ‘Where did you find her?’

‘At number 14. You said your door was locked when you got home. Who else has a key?’

‘No one.’ Cole hesitated, shifting inside his suit. ‘Well, only Terry, but that’s for the garden. It’s a back door key.’

Noah crossed the kitchen to the back door, testing the handle.

The door was locked.

Carmen was cuddled in Debbie’s lap, her eyes filmy with sleep and the secret of what had happened in the hours since she disappeared with her brother.

‘Call the station,’ Noah told Debbie. ‘Let them know what’s happening.’

He nodded at Cole. ‘Let’s look for Tommy.’

 • • • 

No sign of Thomas Doyle in the sitting room, where the dolls and monkeys stared back at Noah empty-eyed. No sign of the boy in any of the rooms downstairs.

They climbed to the first floor, Noah keeping Cole in his sights.

‘Terry does your garden. Does he know about the bunker under the shed? You told DI Rome and me that no one knew, but did Terry?’

Cole hesitated, then nodded. ‘I didn’t want to get him into trouble. He’s the only friendly face on this road, the only one with any time for me.’

‘Have you seen him today?’

‘No, not in a few days. He’s at the safe house, isn’t he? The one you put him in.’

‘He was,’ Noah said. ‘Now he’s missing. Like his children.’

Nothing in the rooms on the first floor.

They started up the stairs to the attic.

Cole said, ‘Where did you find her?’ He meant the doll.

‘In Clancy’s bedroom.’

Cole shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You didn’t give the doll to Clancy?’

‘No, of course not. Why would I?’

‘Why would you . . .?’

They reached the attic room.

The door was open, letting out a dim slice of light.

Silence from inside.

’That’s not right,’ Cole said. ‘I keep this door shut. There are valuables in here . . .’ He started towards the room.

Noah put a hand on his arm to stop him. ‘Wait here.’

He pushed the door wide, and went into the attic.

Cole’s valuables were stacked neatly and obsessively everywhere in the room. On shelves built into the eaves and in crates on the floor. Pristine action figures in unopened boxes, dolls behind cellophane, untouched, never played with.

‘Oh dear. Oh no . . .’

Behind Noah, Cole started to sob softly.

He’d seen what Noah was seeing.

Curled on the floor among the torn packaging from printed boxes, clutching Obi-Wan Kenobi in a small fist, sleep sticking his hair to his forehead: Tommy Doyle.

Ron punched the whiteboard with a broad grin. ‘About time we had some good news!’

‘Both children? And they’re unhurt?’ Marnie held the phone to her ear, listening to Noah. ‘What about Clancy, and Terry?’
And Ed.

‘No sign of anyone else,’ Noah said. ‘Sorry . . . The kids are okay. A doctor checked them over. They’re a bit dehydrated, but that’s all.’

‘Who took them to Cole’s house, have they been able to tell you that?’

‘Not yet, but Debbie’s with Carmen. She’ll find out what happened, I’m sure of it.’

‘Good. Meanwhile we need to find Clancy, and Terry.’
And Ed.

Marnie glanced at the interview room, where Adam was still sitting, waiting for her to tell him he could go home.

‘Bring Mr Cole to the station,’ she told Noah. ‘We need to ask him some questions, starting with what it’s like to be Buried.’

 • • • 

Under the yellow light in the interview room, Douglas Cole looked jaundiced, all trace of pinkness gone from his round
face. He sipped at the cup of tea Marnie had handed to him. ‘I didn’t know. About Carmen and Tommy being in my house. I didn’t know.’

‘You knew about Ian Merrick,’ Noah said. ‘You were part of the same society.’

‘Buried.’ Cole nodded. ‘It’s an historical society. We’re interested in derelict parts of London. I told you about it the last time we talked.’

‘Where does the society meet?’

‘Different places. Usually in the library, after hours. We met in the church once, and in the community centre up on the estate. Just wherever we can get together.’

‘Who else is in the society?’

‘Oh there’s quite a few of us. Some of the older gents from the estate who’ve been there donkey’s years . . . Ladies, too. But it tends to be men. Me and Terry, and Ian Merrick. Anyone who’s interested in history, and London.’

‘The trouble is,’ Marnie said, ‘we don’t think Ian Merrick’s much of an historian.’

‘He was interested in the places we were recording. Really interested. I thought he was a kindred spirit.’ Cole shook his head in defeat. ‘But you’re right. He isn’t an historian.’

‘He was looking for sites to buy and sell. Underground sites. Places with tunnels and bunkers. Like Beech Rise.’

Cole nodded miserably. ‘Yes, he was.’

‘How many sites like that exist across London?’ Noah asked.

‘No one knows for certain. We keep finding more all the time. We know some of the numbers, for instance the bunkers built by the Royal Observer Corp, mostly during the Cold War, although some much earlier than that.’ He sat up straight. ‘There are one thousand five hundred and sixty-four ROC bunkers across London. That’s the tip of the iceberg, really. So much of this building was secret, you see. And a lot of it’s managed to stay secret.’

‘Did you know about the bunkers when you bought number 8?’

‘Not then,’ Cole said. ‘Ian told me just after the sale went through. He pretended I’d known about them all along, but I hadn’t and he
knew
I hadn’t. I suppose . . . he was blackmailing me. He wanted to find other sites, places the society knew about. He wanted to know before anyone else.’ He neatened his hair with his hand. ‘Once I realised what he was up to, I wanted it to stop. He wasn’t doing anything illegal, but I wanted him out of the society. He said if I did that, he’d tell people about the bunker in my back garden. People would draw their own conclusions, he said, as to why I wanted a house with a ruddy big cement tomb in the garden. Those were his exact words.’

Cole’s mouth turned down like a child’s. ‘He called me “the Collector”
,
said the papers would call me worse. I knew he was right, because of what happened with Lizzie Fincher. Even your boss thinks I’m strange. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had me down as a suspect for those poor little boys Terry found . . .’

‘They were his boys,’ Marnie said.

‘What?’

‘Terry’s real name is Matt Reid. He knew about the bunkers when he bought the house. His ex-wife worked for Ian Merrick.’

‘His boys?’ Cole looked dazed, distraught. ‘Terry’s boys?’

‘He changed his identity after his wife killed their children. She was suffering from post-partum psychosis. She put the boys in the bunker, meaning them to be safe. Terry spent years looking for them. We think he followed the trail from his wife’s job with Merrick; that he found out about the underground sites Merrick was selling.’

Marnie paused, watching Cole’s face. ‘You didn’t know any of this?’

‘No, no . . .’ Tears made Cole’s stare swim. ‘Poor Terry. That poor man . . .’

‘We think he panicked when he heard his ex-wife was being paroled. That’s when he opened the bunker and called the police. We think he was scared she was going to return to the place where she put the boys, not knowing that he was living there with a new family.’

‘The woman in the other interview room,’ Cole said nervously. ‘That was his wife?’

Marnie didn’t answer the question.

‘Then,’ she said, ‘Carmen and Tommy went missing. With Clancy, or at least that’s how it looked. But then Terry went missing, too. With a victim care officer. We don’t know how the children ended up in your house, Mr Cole. Can you help us make sense of that?’

‘I . . . can’t. I had no idea they were there, or how they got in. I’d
never
have left children alone in there, especially not the attic. Tommy’s made a terrible mess of it. Not that it matters as long as he’s safe, but you have to see
none
of it was my idea. It’s not a safe house for children to be alone in. Some of those toys are very old. They have sharp edges, lead paint . . . Thank goodness he didn’t find any of those.’ His hands flustered then settled around the cup of tea. ‘It’s why I took Lizzie on the tube. Because I knew it wasn’t safe inside the house. I know it sounds funny, with all the toys and whatnot, but they’re not to be played with.’

‘Did Terry know about your collection?’

‘Yes, he’d seen it. He wouldn’t have let the children play in the house, I’m sure of that. He was extremely safety-conscious. Extremely.’

‘But he had a key to the back door.’

‘Yes, so he could make himself a cup of tea when he was doing the garden.’

‘The doll,’ Marnie said, ‘that we found in Clancy’s room. Can you tell us about that?’

‘Her name’s Sophie and she’s French.’ Cole’s smile crumpled. ‘But you don’t mean that, of course. You mean can I tell you how she ended up in a teenage boy’s bedroom. No, is the answer, I can’t. I wish I could. She went missing about three months ago.’

‘From where?’ Marnie asked. ‘The house, or the bunker?’

Cole swallowed a mouthful of tea. ‘From the house.’

‘And only Terry has a key.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you must have assumed that Terry took it. Her.’

‘No.’ Cole shook his head emphatically. ‘I never thought for a second that it was Terry. He wouldn’t do a thing like that. I assumed it was the boy, Clancy. He came round sometimes, with Terry, to help in the garden. Terry tried to get him interested in doing some hard work. The boy didn’t want to know, not really. He’s at that age, I suppose.’

‘You didn’t challenge him about the doll? Or speak to Terry about it?’

‘I didn’t want to make a fuss. I could see how he was trying with the boy. Fostering’s hard enough without worrying about things like petty theft. Poor old Sophie isn’t worth anything to anyone else but me. She’s just a pocket-money toy.’

‘Why would a teenage boy take a doll?’ Noah asked.

Cole shook his head. ‘You’ve seen my house. There’s not much else to take. I expect he wanted a souvenir. It’s how I started collecting. Buying souvenirs from the strange places my parents used to take me.’

‘Buying,’ Marnie said, ‘not stealing.’

‘He’s a strange boy. But I don’t think he’s bad, not really. Just unsettled. Feeling a bit unloved, in spite of Terry’s best efforts.’ Cole put down the tea. ‘He’s ever so good with the
little ones. They worship him, Carmen and Tommy. He’s like their big brother. Of course,’ he added, ‘I didn’t see them together all that often, and never without Terry there. He’s always so careful with them. He must’ve been out of his mind with worry when they ran off.’

‘What do you think happened? You have a theory, I’m sure. Can you share it with us?’

‘I don’t know anything for certain, really I don’t. I’d help if I could. That poor family . . .’

‘But you have a theory.’ Marnie smiled encouragement at him. ‘You’ve seen the children with their father, and with Clancy. You’ve seen the family. Terry’s a part of your society.’

‘Yes . . . he joined as soon as they moved to Beech Rise.’

‘Did he and Merrick get on?’

Cole sipped at his tea, considering the question. ‘I can’t say they did, and I can’t say they didn’t. Ian was always a bit funny around Terry. A bit . . . careful, I suppose you’d say. I suppose it was because he gave Terry some gardening work from time to time. And on Blackthorn Road, of course, when the houses were first going up. Terry did all the gardens in the road, except Ian wouldn’t pay extra for decent soil or plants. That’s why most of us asked Terry to sort out the gardens properly, after we moved in.’

‘It doesn’t sound as if they got on very well,’ Noah said. ‘Ian and Terry.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. I’m not terribly good at judging social situations. I’m much happier taking the minutes, keeping accounts, that kind of thing.’

‘Did you meet Clancy’s parents?’ Marnie asked. ‘Scott and Christina Brand?’

Cole shook his head. ‘But I heard Terry talk about them a couple of times.’ His brow creased. ‘Or it might’ve been Ian, since he built a panic room for them. He was very proud of that. Personally, I’d have opposed the planning
permission. They live in a listed house, early Georgian, lots of original features by all accounts. But Ian was happy to tear up the cellars and run ventilation pipes around the place.’ He shook his head. ‘That was when I first challenged him about what he was up to, using Buried to find places he could exploit . . .’

‘You didn’t think it was odd that Terry was looking after Clancy? The Brands obviously have a lot of money. More than the Doyles.’

‘Money’s a funny thing,’ Cole said. ‘Look how I spend mine . . . What that boy needed was a proper home with people who cared for him. You can’t fault Terry on that score. He worked so hard to make Clancy feel wanted. And they got on well, the little ones and Clancy . . . It was harder for Terry, with the discipline and everything.’

‘Discipline?’

‘Rules and boundaries, you know the sort of thing. I imagine teenagers need a lot of that.’

‘Was Terry very strict with Clancy and the other children?’

‘He was . . . careful, I’d say. Always very careful with all the children. He wanted them to learn life skills. Grow their own food, fend for themselves . . . He taught Clancy to look out for the little ones, be a good big brother. It paid off, too. I never saw a teenage boy so protective of babies, never mind how typical he was in other ways.’

Fend for themselves.

The way Fred and Archie Reid were made to, in the last days of their lives.

Marnie said, ‘What do you think happened earlier today? How did the children end up in your house? We realise you don’t
know
, but what’s your theory?’

Cole sat up straight in the chair, feet together, like a schoolchild wanting to give the right answer. ‘I think Clancy brought the children to my house. I think he borrowed the
key from Terry and let himself in, and left the children there. I don’t know why. I don’t know where he is now, or where Terry is. I wish I did.’

‘If Clancy did that . . . if he was hiding the children . . . what was he hiding them from?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine. I can’t think of any family that’s closer or happier or
safer
than Terry’s. That’s why it makes no sense.’ Cole spread his hands. ‘It just makes no sense.’