The Sleeping and the Dead (37 page)

‘She’s not one of your friends from school?’

‘No.’

Then she lost control of her body. She still had the towel wrapped round her but she started to shiver.

As if from a distance she heard Joe on the other end of the phone. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know everyone she does. She phoned you last night and Frank at
lunchtime. She must be OK. I’ll call round and ring you back.’

She replaced the receiver and dressed quickly. The shivering didn’t stop. Feeling foolish for not having thought of it sooner, she dialled the number of Rosie’s mobile. She heard her
daughter’s voice, delightfully normal, saying she couldn’t come to the phone right now, but she’d return the call as soon as she could. The doorbell rang.

It was Arthur. He was clutching a huge bunch of flowers in one hand and a bottle of red in the other. Of course, she thought, he would be a red-wine drinker. She burst into tears. He
didn’t say anything then. He took her in, sat her on the sofa, poured her a glass of wine from the fridge and dumped the flowers in the sink.

‘What is it?’ he said. She saw he’d opened the red, poured a big glass for himself. ‘News from the hospital?’

‘Nothing like that.’

‘Rosie?’

She explained about Joe.

‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘Rosie must be OK if she phoned you and the pub. Perhaps she’s feeling the pressure and wants to go off on her own for a bit.’

‘No. She wouldn’t. Not without telling me.’

He sat beside her, put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Could she be at her father’s? She might feel awkward about letting you know she was there.’

‘He’s away. The Dordogne.’ With Eve, the temptress. ‘He gets back tomorrow. Rosie doesn’t have a key to their house. It’s something she complains
about.’

‘Do you think you should phone the police . . .’

She sensed he was thinking of Mel and that he was going to add ‘in the circumstances’. She didn’t want to hear it and cut him off.

‘We’ll wait ten minutes. See what Joe has to say.’

As if on cue the telephone rang. She answered it in the living-room so Arthur could hear what she was saying.

‘Mrs Morton.’ The same two words but it wasn’t Joe. ‘Mrs Morton, I’ve got a message from your daughter.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Not far away.’

‘But she’s safe?’

‘She is at the minute. You could say I’m looking after her. You should be grateful.’

‘Can I speak to her?’

He seemed to think about that. ‘I don’t think so. Not just yet.’

‘When is she coming home?’

There was another pause. ‘That depends on you.’

‘What do you mean? She knows she can come home. Anytime.’

‘I need something from you, Mrs Morton, before I can let her come back.’

‘Money?’ It was almost a relief. Something she could catch hold of. ‘A ransom. How much?’

‘I’m not greedy. Twenty thousand. You can manage that.’

‘Not immediately,’ she said. Her mind was racing. ‘There are savings, bonds. Some things need my husband’s signature.’

He lost his temper suddenly, shocking her. ‘Listen lady, she should be dead already. Tomorrow. Eleven. I’ll phone back then. And if you go to the police I’ll know. And
I’ll kill her.’

She heard herself screaming as if it was somebody else. ‘Of course I won’t go to the police. I won’t tell anyone. I want her safe.’

The line had gone dead and she wasn’t sure he’d heard her.

Arthur took the receiver from her and dialled 1471 then held it to her ear so she could hear the number repeated.

‘Rosie’s mobile,’ she said. ‘He must have her.’ She jabbed her finger on 3 and waited for the number to connect, only to hear Rosie’s answering service say
she couldn’t come to the phone right now. ‘He’s switched it off.’

They sat together on the sofa, each clasping an undrunk glass of wine, double handed, like bridesmaids each holding a posy of flowers, one white, one red.

‘I know who it is,’ Hannah said. ‘That boy.’

She hadn’t recognized the voice until he lost his temper, then the memory which was a curse, but which also served its purpose, replayed the scene in the prison library which had initially
sent her back to Cranford.

‘You know him too. Thin, cropped hair, young. He’s got a tattoo of a snake running from his shoulder to his wrist. He can’t have been out for long. You took his pre-release
course.’ She screwed up her eyes, saw the list of names on Arthur’s desk. ‘He’s called Hunter.’

‘Yes,’ Arthur said. ‘I remember. Are you sure it’s him?’ He kept his voice flat, but she could tell it wasn’t good news.

‘Certain.’ She set her glass on the table. ‘What was he in for?’

Arthur hesitated. ‘Assault, I think.’ He added quickly, ‘Not rape. Nothing like that. He was a smalltime dealer. Someone tried to muscle in on his patch.’ He paused
again. ‘You know you must tell the police. They’ll have an address.’

‘What happened to the man he assaulted?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Arthur.’ The anger was wonderfully liberating. ‘You know all about these kids. That’s what you do. You tackle their offending behaviour.’
She was sneering as she used the jargon, just as the officers did when they talked about his courses.

‘Hunter stabbed him, then slashed his face. He’s got a scar.’

‘But the victim lived?’

‘Hunter isn’t a murderer, Hannah,’ Arthur said gently. ‘He didn’t kill Melanie.’

‘He was out of prison in time.’

‘What motive would he have? And he wasn’t even born when the lad in the lake died.’ He turned to her. ‘You must tell Porteous about this.’

Again she ignored the point he was making. ‘Why is he doing it? Why me? Personal revenge, perhaps. I upset him that day in the prison. Or is it Rosie? Has she done something to disturb
him?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You must tell the police. This is their area of expertise. They’ll be able to trace him.’

‘No!’ The anger returned. ‘What do the police know about why people do things? They haven’t got very far in finding Melanie’s murderer. And I can’t risk it.
What if he was telling the truth? What if he knows someone who works with Porteous?’

‘He’s a kid, a smack-head. He’s not in league with the police. That’s paranoia.’

She seemed about to give in, to agree to his phoning Porteous. Certainly she presented as the old Hannah, diffident and unassuming. She straightened her skirt over her knees and clasped her
hands on her lap.

‘You always wanted to play at detectives.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Well, now’s your chance.’

‘Hannah, what do you want me to do?’

‘Bring Rosie back.’ As if it were the most simple thing in the world. ‘You must still have access to Hunter’s file at Stavely. They won’t have cleared it yet. You
can find an address for him. You worked with him. You know what he’s like. You’re a psychologist, for Christ’s sake. You’ll know what to say to him. He won’t be
expecting anything to happen until eleven tomorrow. We can catch him off guard.’

‘I don’t know.’

She looked at her watch and was surprised that it still wasn’t eight o’clock. ‘If you go now to look at the file you won’t even cause a stir on the gate. They’re
used to your working late.’

Still he paused.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you. It could be dangerous. Just get the address and I’ll go myself.’

‘No.’ It came out as a wounded bellow. ‘It’s not that.’ He turned to her. ‘Sod it,’ he said. ‘Sod the Prison Service and the Home Office.
I’ll do it. I bloody want to do it.’

In the flat the boy was becoming more jumpy. Rosie thought of him only as ‘the boy’. She hadn’t asked his name. She didn’t care. The television was on.
He’d switched it on as soon as it got light, but he kept the sound low and the flashing images couldn’t hold his attention. In the distance there was the scream of a police siren. He
jumped to his feet and stared out of the window. Rosie saw his knuckles clenched white around the handle of his knife. He only started to relax when the noise disappeared into the distance. She
couldn’t see her watch because her hands were tied behind her back, but it was starting to get dark, the second night. He wouldn’t put on a light. He didn’t want anyone to know he
was using the flat.

She’d stopped being scared. Now she was only hungry and uncomfortable. The water to the flat was still connected. The toilet flushed and when she’d complained of being thirsty
he’d brought her a drink in a blue plastic mug with a moulded handle. They’d had an identical set to take on picnics when she was a kid. He’d given her a biscuit too because
she’d said she was starving. It was soft and stale.

‘Is this all there is?’ she’d demanded.

At that, he’d been flustered and said she’d soon be out of there. It wouldn’t hurt her to go without for a couple of days.

Yeah, she’d thought. She could live off her bum for a week. If she came out of this thinner perhaps the adventure would be worth it. That had led to a picture of a skeletal Mel. She had
pushed the image from her head. Remembering Mel, dead in the cemetery, had made her panic. She needed to think straight.

It was clear to her that there’d been no forward planning in the boy’s decision to bring her to the flat. If he’d thought about it in advance, he’d have got food in. Even
if he didn’t mind starving her, he’d have wanted to eat and as far as she could tell he didn’t have a stash hidden away. With the arrogance of someone who usually thrived on the
challenge of exams, who found learning easy, she’d put him down as a bit dim. She’d worked out the sort of lad he was; there’d been someone like him in every class since
she’d been an infant. The name for them in her school was ‘charvie’, meaning scally, loser, someone you wouldn’t be seen dead with socially. Charvies were the kids who
started school without being able to tie their laces. They wet their pants and came last in spelling tests. Teachers hated them. In primary school they started fights in the playground and failed
their SATs, and in high school they got involved in petty crime, dealing in single cigarettes, then blow or smack. When they were at school, which wasn’t often.

When Hannah heard Rosie talking like that, out would come the lecture. ‘How on earth can you be so judgmental? You don’t know anything about those kids. You don’t know where
they come from or what their families are like. Of course people can change if you give them a chance.’ She thought she could change her prisoners by giving them books. What planet was she
on? Rosie knew this boy was a charvie, always had been, and so he was no match for her.

She sat now with her hands behind her wriggling her fingers so she wouldn’t lose the feeling in them, and she tried to work out the best thing to do. She couldn’t rely on Hannah to
go to the police. Hannah would do just as the boy said. She wouldn’t take any risks. But Rosie wasn’t going to see the boy walk away with all that money – money which could see
her through university, buy her a holiday somewhere seriously hot, a little car and driving lessons. Then she wondered if Mel had died because her parents had refused to pay up.

When they’d come into the flat the boy had opened the door with a key, but he hadn’t locked it behind him. It was a Yale lock with a snick, so if she got to it she’d be able to
get out. Although he was thin and wiry she didn’t think he was as fit as she was. He’d been smoking since they’d got there, tiny roll-ups. He crouched over a shiny tin to make
them, so no stray strands of tobacco were lost and he used both hands. So while he was making his cigarettes he couldn’t hold his knife. She wondered what he’d do when the tobacco ran
out.

He hadn’t made any sexual advance towards her. Even when he’d had his arms around her pulling her to the car, when his finger was stroking her neck, she hadn’t thought he was
interested. He had other obsessions. Her body wasn’t something she could bargain with. She could tell.

It was possible that he didn’t think she’d try to escape. He’d probably grown up with the same sorts of prejudice about her as she’d had about him. He’d see her as
a lardy wimp who couldn’t look after herself. He even left her while he went to the toilet. It was off the hall right next to the entrance to the flat, and he left the bathroom door open, but
if he’d thought she’d make a run for it, he’d have tied her legs. He just didn’t think.

All the time she kept her eyes on the blade. She knew he could move quickly over short distances. He’d done that in the street outside Joe’s. But she thought that once she got out of
the flat she’d be able to outpace him down the stairs and into the road. Usually the knife was in his hand. Otherwise it was on the floor just beside him. He was as connected to it as some of
her mates were to their mobiles. You couldn’t imagine him without it. He’d said, as he let her out of the car when they’d first got here, ‘I’ve used it before, you
know.’ Boasting. As if he were just waiting for an excuse to use it again.

As it grew dark, she let her head drop forward so her chin was on her chest, pretending to drowse. She’d slept a couple of hours the night before. Hannah always said it was a gift being
able to sleep anywhere. But she wasn’t sure the boy had. He must be exhausted. Despite his nervousness and his restless energy, he wouldn’t be able to stay awake for ever.

There were no curtains at the window. She couldn’t see from where she was sitting but on the way in she’d glimpsed the river, cranes, and the skeleton of an oil platform, half
constructed. Light came in from the glow of the city on the horizon. It reflected on the blade on the floor beside the boy. He still had his palm flat on the handle, but his breathing was regular
now. Rosie was leaning back against the wall, her knees bent. She stretched one leg, tensing and relaxing the calf muscles. The boy didn’t stir. She repeated the movement with the other leg.
Still his breathing didn’t change.

It crossed her mind that it might be a trick. Perhaps he wanted her to try to run. Then he’d have an excuse to chase her and hold her down and threaten her. Perhaps that was what excited
him. But she didn’t think so. Charvies could be devious, but he hadn’t tried on anything like that before. He saw her as a means of making money. That was all.