Think of the Children (35 page)

Toby stared at Jessica before slumping to the floor, holding his legs to his chest. He looked across at Annabel, who had returned to the chair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

The woman didn’t reply.

‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’ Jessica asked, turning towards Annabel. The young woman nodded gently but didn’t seem completely aware of where she was. Her eyes had
drifted towards the ceiling and her skin had turned pale. ‘Are you okay?’ Jessica added.

‘Yes.’

Jessica eyed her, wondering what she should do. Before she could say anything further, Toby began to talk. ‘I just wanted something like I had with Mum and Dad.’

Jessica looked back from Annabel to Toby. He was cradling himself, rocking gently on the floor. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I wanted a child of my own. That’s why I was done with the old “Toby”. I put together this list. They were all children with brothers or sisters. They’d all been
in trouble at school and so on.’

‘Where did you get the information?’

‘I do temping at the LEA office. It’s all there.’

‘The Local Education Authority?’

‘Yeah, it’s amazing what companies give you access to when you get a temporary pass. I did some work at the council offices last year and managed to search through the full council
tax records for everyone.’

It was such a matter-of-fact statement that Jessica didn’t doubt him. His tone was completely uncaring, as if talking to a friend in the pub. She knew the exact details of what he did and
how he found that information could be sorted out at a later date. ‘What did you do when you had the names?’

‘I went and watched them. Some barely left their houses but others would go to the park or whatever. Eventually I came up with a list of lads who I thought might want a new dad … like
I did.’

‘You made a list of kids to take?’ Annabel spat out the words, then stood, pacing at the other end of the shed. Toby didn’t answer.

‘So you decided on Isaac?’ Jessica asked.

‘I watched him walk home on his own a few times. Sometimes his mum would pick him up but not always.’

‘And how did you take him?’

‘It was easy enough to know his route because he always walked the same way. Once I figured out where the cameras were, it was just a case of getting him into the car when there was no one
else around. It nearly happened a few weeks before but this other car pulled in behind me.’

The casual way he spoke terrified Jessica, as if he had no idea of the enormity of what he had done. ‘And you brought him here?’ she persisted.

‘Yes.’

‘Did Benjamin know?’

‘He didn’t know I was going to go through with it. I’d just talked about theory. I sent him a message that night to say we should meet here.’

Jessica didn’t say it out loud but, if that was true, it meant the second phone they found at Benjamin’s house belonged to Toby. With the emails Benjamin had sent to Nathan Bairstow
about maintaining privacy, it now seemed obvious the unregistered SIM card belonged to him. That meant Benjamin hadn’t sent the text message to say the snatch had happened; he had received
it.

Trying to take it all in, Jessica attempted to speak calmly. ‘Why did you kill him?’ Toby began to rock even harder on the spot, tears streaming down his face. Annabel stopped pacing
and moved across to stand next to Jessica. Together they looked down at him. Jessica couldn’t feel any sympathy for the man but she wondered if his sister did. The only sound in the room was
Toby’s ever-increasing sobs. He tried to speak but it was impossible to make out what he was saying.

For the first time since he entered the room, Jessica began to feel cold. The adrenaline had been keeping her warm but now she felt nothing but disdain for the man crying at her feet.
‘What did you do, Toby?’ she asked, harsher the second time.

The man calmed himself slightly, the howls giving way to gentler sobs. ‘He wanted to go home.’

‘So you killed him?’

Toby nodded but the movement escalated into the whole of his body shaking almost uncontrollably. ‘It wasn’t violent, I didn’t hurt him.’

Jessica could join the dots herself. Toby had snatched the boy, assuming he would want a new father in the way he himself had but when the inevitable rejection had come, he hadn’t been
able to cope. She already knew Isaac had been suffocated but didn’t want to know the specifics. When Toby was at the station, someone else could interview him.

There was an anger burning inside her, a fury for poor Kayla Hutchings, for the child taken from her and a selfish regret for the laws Toby had made her break in the last few days.

‘Did you steal Daisy Peters’s car?’

Toby didn’t reply so Jessica stepped forward and kicked him with as much force as she could manage. His head rocked backwards, bouncing off the door before cannoning forward again. He
looked up at Jessica, lip snarled in rage. He placed his palms on the floor as if to pick himself up. ‘Don’t move,’ Jessica said. ‘You’re going to sit there and answer
all my questions without crying. Did you steal Daisy Peters’s car?’

Toby seemed more shocked than hurt. The impact had achieved what it was meant to and he had stopped sobbing. Jessica had acted on impulse, not necessarily wanting to hurt him but, at the same,
not caring if she did.

‘I didn’t know that was her name but yes, I took the car,’ he admitted.

‘How did you know to hook the keys out?’

‘I live across the road. It’s quite hard not to notice a pretty girl with a nice car.’

‘You live across the road?’ The fact she had stood just metres from his house was barely believable. Toby shrugged, a broken man.

‘Why was Benjamin driving the car, not you?’

‘It’s not his fault.’

‘I didn’t ask that.’

‘I asked him. He didn’t know what I’d done but, after Isaac had … gone, after that, I couldn’t go through with it. I asked if he’d help me move him.’

‘Why bury him in the woods?’

‘I don’t know. I just knew about them because that’s where I left the clothes. I knew it was quiet. I figured he wouldn’t be found. I gave Dad a map.’

Jessica was appalled at the cowardice of the man slumped in front of her. Not only had he killed Isaac because of the boy’s rejection, he didn’t even have the guts to do anything
with the body.

She didn’t know if she felt sorry for Benjamin. Fourteen years ago, he had done something terrible. In this instance, he was trying to help out a son that wasn’t his. The call to
Nathan Bairstow must have been made in a panic because Toby had told him that Isaac was dead. There were still bits and pieces someone would have to get out of him but whoever interviewed him at
the station, it wouldn’t be her.

‘Get up,’ she commanded. Stung by her aggression, Toby climbed to his feet. He almost seemed to have shrunk in size since first walking into the room. ‘We’re going to
drive you to the station now,’ Jessica said. ‘You’re going to walk inside and you’re going to confess to everything you’ve just told me. You’re not going to
mention the text message that brought you here and you’re not going to mention this meeting. One word and I’ll be around Deborah’s house with a warrant. Is that clear?’

Toby nodded limply.

Jessica banged on the side of the shed, which was the signal for Rowlands to remove the padlock. She felt sorry for the poor guy, who had been waiting outside for the whole time, first hiding
out of sight until Toby was in the room and then waiting by the door just in case.

Jessica reached out and touched Annabel on the shoulder. ‘Do you want to say anything?’ she asked the woman.

Annabel shook her head and looked away. ‘They should bring back hanging,’ she said with a tearful snarl.

After dropping Toby off at Longsight station and watching him walk in, Jessica drove Annabel back to Piccadilly Station.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Jessica said as she pulled up. ‘I hope you understand why I needed you to be there. He never would have admitted anything without you.’

Annabel barely acknowledged her. ‘Don’t tell Mum who he really is,’ she said, opening the car’s door. ‘She’d kill herself if she knew Toby walked out on her
deliberately, then went on to murder someone else.’ She stepped out of the car. ‘I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again.’

With that, she slammed the door and stalked off. Jessica didn’t blame her.

As she was pulling away, Reynolds phoned to say someone had walked into the station and confessed to everything. Apparently he was a family friend of Benjamin Sturgess. Jessica tried to feign
surprise but told him she wasn’t interested in coming in to take the interview. If it sounded suspicious, she was past caring.

The atmosphere in the station the following day was unlike anything Jessica had ever experienced. No one could quite believe someone had confessed to a case they thought was already shut.
Officers were frantically looking into Stephen’s story but, rather than scepticism, there was an overwhelming sense of relief that everything was over. Jessica’s threat seemed to have
worked because there was no mention of Annabel, herself or the text message she had sent. The only missing piece of evidence was Deborah’s mobile phone, which was currently sitting at the
bottom of the reservoir next to the allotments.

Forty-eight hours later and everything was as close to over as it could be. Toby, or Stephen as everyone else knew him, had fully repeated everything he had told Jessica. She
still wasn’t speaking to Cole but had heard everyone from the chief superintendent downwards was delighted with the outcome.

Jessica wondered if anyone would put two and two together and realise Toby was Stephen, her biggest worry being Lucy recognising her son, but no contact came. Jessica didn’t know if it was
because the woman hadn’t seen the coverage or, more likely, because a twenty-five-year-old man looked significantly different from an eleven-year-old boy.

On their next day off together, Adam took Jessica for a drive to Prestatyn. It was cold but the day looked gorgeous. The town held special memories for Jessica as it was there, while she had
been out with Adam and his grandmother, where she had first begun to think she might be in love with him. The low sun shone across the beach onto the path they were walking along, the sky blazing
blue overhead.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Adam said, pointing out at the horizon and pulling Jessica towards a bench with his other hand. She didn’t reply but rested her head on his
shoulder as they sat together looking out across the sand. ‘Are you going to be okay?’ he asked.

‘It’s not very easy to forget everything I did.’

‘How’s Dave?’

‘He seems all right but things are different between us. Izzy thought we’d had a falling out because we didn’t take the piss out of each other for two days. I’m sure
it’ll be fine but, for now, every time I see him I know he’s the person who helped make everything happen.’

‘What about Iz?’

Jessica laughed. ‘Still talking about being fat. I think she knows something isn’t quite right with Dave and me but she’s good at keeping things to herself.’

‘And Caroline?’

‘She’s doing okay. She moved into her new flat yesterday and says the divorce is going to go through smoothly. I don’t know how she got herself into that mess.’

‘You didn’t say she had moved out already.’

‘That’s because I like staying at yours.’

Adam laughed. ‘And how are you?’

Jessica reached an arm around Adam’s waist and pulled him tightly to her. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for what I did to poor Annabel.’

Jessica gulped as Adam squeezed her a little too strongly, lifting her head from his shoulder and pulling him towards her, cradling his head. ‘Why did you forgive me for walking out on
you?’ she asked.

Adam said nothing at first before gently responding, ‘Because you asked me to.’

Jessica said nothing but gazed towards the horizon. She didn’t really like the cold weather but sometimes the crisp days where the sun offered a wonderful bright light with no heat could
be utterly enchanting.

She thought of being young, running through fields and getting muddy, wondering what it would be like if someone had separated her from her parents in the way Toby had been parted from his.

Jessica had felt close to tears every day since the night Annabel stepped out of her car and walked into the train station. A few years ago, she could have counted the number of times she had
cried as an adult on one hand. She didn’t know whether it was her age but, just recently, she was finding it harder to control her emotions.

Jessica released Adam’s head, allowing him to sit up straight. As she started to stand, he motioned to move too but she pushed him down. Ever since he held her in the cafe and let her cry
on his shoulder, she knew this moment would come. Jessica dropped to one knee, took Adam’s hand and asked if he would marry her.

Afterword

One of the things I get asked a lot is where my ideas come from. Sometimes it might be an article I have read in the news, often not a big story but a small, hidden-away item
which sparks my imagination.

I have a fairly set way of working in that I write most of the book in short form, usually a mix of bullet points and key sentences. After that, I write everything out ‘properly’. I
still go off at tangents and come up with what I think are better ideas along the way but I nearly always have that set framework to work with.

Think of the Children
was a little different because I wrote the first chapter before I had anything else.

A few years ago I was driving home from work on a Saturday evening. It was early summer and still light, even though it was around 9p.m. A couple of miles away from where I live there is a
roundabout which connects one dual carriageway to another. As you may expect, some drivers zip across at a speed that even Jessica might shy away from. Unfortunately, just after the roundabout is a
turn which is easy enough to take if you are accelerating, but not so comfortable if you haven’t slowed down in the first place.

As I drove, a vehicle three cars ahead of me sped across the roundabout and tried to take the turn. Instead, it spun 180 degrees and flew off the road, across a lay-by, and down an embankment.
The taxi which was overtaking it (yes, really) kept going, as did the two cars directly behind.