The Wrong Mother Read online

  Sam turned to Paula Goddard. ‘Do you want to ditch him and take me on as your client instead? Since I’m the one who seems to be under interrogation.’

  ‘All right.’ Bretherick held up his hands. ‘Ask away.’

  ‘I want to talk to you about last year, the May half-term holiday.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The school was closed between Friday the nineteenth of May and Monday the fifth of June.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You and your family went to Florida,’ said Sam.

  ‘I’m not sure of the dates, but… yeah, we went to Tallahassee last year, spring. We rented an apartment for two weeks. And Lucy came, so it must have been school holidays. I mean…’ He blushed. ‘I don’t mean Lucy came as in we might have gone without her. Geraldine would never have done that.’

  ‘Did you often take your family on holiday?’

  ‘No. Hardly ever.’

  Goddard rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

  ‘I went away all the time for work, never made time for holidays. I don’t like being on holiday, I get fed up. I don’t think you can arrange to relax. And Geraldine didn’t work, so it wasn’t as if she needed a break from anything, and she loved our house so much, she said, she didn’t mind staying at home-’

  ‘Yet you went on holiday to Florida for two weeks.’ Sam cut short the justifications.

  ‘Yes.’ Bretherick frowned, as if worried by the discrepancy. ‘It wasn’t a holiday for me. I was working at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory; hold on a minute.’ He bowed his head. ‘That’s right. My trip had been arranged for a while when Geraldine told me she and Lucy wanted to come too.’

  ‘She didn’t normally tag along on your work trips?’

  ‘No. That was the first and only time.’ Bretherick flinched. The word ‘only’ hung in the air.

  ‘Can we get to the point, Sergeant?’ said Goddard.

  ‘So why this one in particular?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Florida ’s, you know… Disney World. She took Lucy to Disney World.’

  ‘One of Lucy’s classmates claims Lucy told her she was going to Florida because Geraldine didn’t want her to play with Amy Oliva during the holidays.’

  Mark Bretherick and Paula Goddard said ‘What?’ in unison. Both looked perplexed.

  ‘There were three of them who tended to get together during the school holidays,’ Sam told Goddard. ‘Lucy, Amy Oliva and Oonagh O’Hara. Oonagh went away to her grandparents’ last year for the May half-term fortnight.’ He turned to Bretherick. ‘If Geraldine and Lucy hadn’t accompanied you to Florida, Lucy and Amy would have played together most days, presumably? ’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Bretherick. ‘All I know is Geraldine asked if she and Lucy could come with me, and I was delighted. It was much nicer not to go alone.’

  ‘I’ve been told that Lucy said to a friend of hers, “My mummy hates it when I play with Amy. She and my granny think Amy’s a bad lot.” She’s also supposed to have said, “Amy’s not horrible all the time, but I’m glad my mummy doesn’t like her because now we can go to Disney World.” ’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Bretherick shrugged. ‘Lucy’s understanding of the way people’s minds worked was… advanced for a child of her age.’

  ‘Geraldine didn’t work,’ said Sam to Bretherick and Goddard equally. ‘We’ve established that she rarely went on holiday. Would someone have risked burying two bodies in her garden while she nipped to the shops or round to a friend’s house? They’d have had to dig for hours, and lay new lawn afterwards.’

  Bretherick’s eyes sparked with excitement. ‘The bodies in the garden: how long had they been there? Do you know?’

  ‘The pathologist couldn’t be precise, but-’

  ‘They were buried while we were in Florida, weren’t they? Whoever killed them knew we’d be away, knew he’d have time to… And that part of the garden, where they were found, isn’t overlooked.’

  There was something that hadn’t occurred to Mark Bretherick and maybe never would: among the people who had known about the trip to Florida was Geraldine herself. Had she arranged to go abroad with her husband and daughter in order to leave the coast clear for a double murder and burial? Or perhaps only a burial-the murders might already have been committed. In which case, Geraldine had either had an accomplice or was herself an accomplice.

  ‘William Markes.’ Bretherick slapped the table with the flat of his hand. ‘Find out if he’s the father of a child at St Swithun’s.’

  ‘We’ve already checked,’ Sam told him. ‘There are no children with the surname Markes.’

  ‘Is there something wrong with you mentally? What about any single mothers, or divorced ones who might have changed their names back, and their children’s? What about cohabiting parents, where the kids have got the mother’s name? Or mothers who have got new boyfriends or partners, father-substitutes? Start with Lucy’s class and don’t stop until you’ve checked the background of every child in the school. And then check the teachers, and their husbands and partners.’

  Cordy O’Hara had a new boyfriend, baby Ianthe’s father. What was his name? Sam saw Paula Goddard watching him, amused. Should he end the interview now, he wondered, or wait for Mark Bretherick to dismiss him?

  He didn’t have to wait long. ‘Come back and tell me when you’ve found Markes,’ said Bretherick. ‘And you…’ He swung round in his seat to face Goddard. ‘Make sure they check properly. I’ve said right from the start: William Markes killed Geraldine and Lucy.’

  13

  Friday, 10 August 2007

  I hear a clinking sound, like two glasses banging together. Cheers. A noise I’ve heard before. I’m not dreaming. Opening my eyes rearranges the chunks of raw pain in my head. I have to close them again.

  He held the gun to my forehead and made me swallow a pill. When was that? Last night? Two hours ago or twelve? He said it was a vitamin pill and would do me good. I thought at the time that it tasted familiar and safe. I didn’t mind taking it, not as much as I mind everything else. It must have knocked me out.

  My feet are tied. I can’t move them. I open my eyes more slowly this time and find myself face down on the leather massage table. I prop myself up on my elbows, turn to look at the rest of my body and realise what’s restricting the movement in my feet: it’s the hard loop at the end of the table. I’m lying the wrong way round, with my head at the bottom. He must have put me like this, with my feet threaded through the stiff noose. Why? Is there a reason for anything he’s doing to me?

  Zoe and Jake. I have to speak to them. I have to persuade him to give me my phone again. I see them clearly in my mind, tiny and far away, two little flares of colour and hope in the darkness: my precious son and daughter. Oh, God, please, please, get me out of here.

  The clinking noise… Thinking about the children brings my memories of home into focus: it was the sound of a milkman putting down bottles, I’m sure of it. Zoe and Jake are milk addicts, and we have three pints a day delivered. Our milkman comes later than most, between seven and seven thirty. When Nick and I hear the glassy jangle of bottles banging together-the same sound I’ve just heard outside the window of this room-we grin at one another and say, ‘Whose turn?’ On my days, all three bottles are brought in together and put straight in the fridge. On Nick’s, he goes down for one bottle at a time, as and when he needs them, because carrying one bottle upstairs is easier than carrying three. In winter, for added annoyingness, he says daily, ‘It’s as cold outside as it is in the fridge, so the bottles might as well sit out there. It’s not as if anyone’s going to nick them.’ Once he added, ‘This is Spilling, not… Hackney.’

  ‘Why Hackney of all places?’ I snapped.

  ‘Didn’t you know? It’s the milk-bottle-theft capital of the UK.’

  I swivel my body into a sitting position, trying to quell the storm of panic that’s raging inside me. I love Nick. I love our flat, with its too man
y stairs. I love everything about my life, even every bad experience I’ve ever had-apart from this, what’s happening to me now.

  Across my shoulders and the top of my back, there are three distinct centres of pain. Did I fall on to some railings, something with sharp points? It seems unlikely. Ludicrous. I can’t move or think quickly, and I know I must do both if I’m to have a hope of escaping. My chest is itchy beneath my shirt, and my clothes are as twisted and uncomfortable as they were the last time I woke up in this room.

  I pick up the towel that’s draped across the massage table, bring it to my face and inhale. That fruity smell again, but stronger. And-oh, God-now I recognise it: orange blossom. My masseur at Seddon Hall used it on me. I told Mark… I told the man who has locked me up that I loved it.

  And he remembered, and he bought some, just like he bought the massage table…

  I jump to my feet, pull off my shirt, losing a button in the process, and smell the inside of it: orange blossom. No, no, no. I reach over my shoulder and touch my back. It’s oily; my fingertips skid. He has given me a massage. That’s why there are sore patches across my shoulders. While I’ve been unconscious, he has been kneading and pressing my skin with his fingers. And… the itching on my chest. I look down. My bra is on the wrong way round: the semicircular lines of sewn-on pink roses have been rubbing against my skin.

  I stifle a scream. I don’t want to wake him up. The darkness is still lifting outside, the milkman’s just been; it must be between 4 and 5 a.m. Which means he might well be asleep. If he doesn’t wake until, say, seven, that gives me two hours.

  To do what?

  Crying hard, I take off my bra and check the skin beneath for oil. I find none. Next I take off my trousers and run my hands up and down my legs, front and back, over the scabs and bruises on my knees. No sign of any oil, but… My knickers are also on the wrong way round. I press my clenched fist into my mouth so that no sound escapes. Tears drip over my fingers and down my arm. What has he done to me?

  Eventually, I force myself to move. I put my clothes back on and start to walk up and down the room, try to clear my head. Nick is always accusing me of working myself into a state if I can’t solve the whole problem in one stroke. What would he do?

  He would bring in the milk bottles one at a time.

  I run to the window and pull back the yellow silk curtains. Nothing has changed.

  I see no milk bottles, only the plant-pots, the thick hedges, the gate with the padlock on it, the elephant fountain. How would a milkman have got into the yard? Unless… maybe there’s access from the street to another part of the garden, round the corner, and the milkman walked round the house. On the concrete of the yard there are wet patches near the wall, a cloudy liquid that might be milk. The rest of the yard is dry. Opaque patches, then smaller drops leading to a point I can’t see because it’s right under the window.

  Breathing hard, I grab one end of the massage table, drag it over to the far wall and climb up on to it. Holding the curtain pole with one hand to steady myself, I plant one knee on the massage table and the other on the narrow window sill, and press my face hard against the glass. ‘Yes,’ I hiss, seeing two semicircles of shiny red and silver. Semi-skimmed milk bottle tops. There must be some sort of hole or recess cut into the wall.

  I climb down and start pacing again. Tomorrow. The milkman will come again tomorrow. If I could hear the bottles clinking, that must mean he would hear me if I screamed for help. All I have to do is make sure I’m not unconscious. I mustn’t swallow another pill…

  I frown. If the man is using pills to knock me out, how did he do it the first time when I passed out on the street? I hadn’t taken any pill…

  The room closes in on me as another detail clicks into place: the pill he gave me was a vitamin-that’s why it tasted like one, like something I’d tasted before. The drug was in the water he gave me to wash it down. ‘Rohypnol.’ I say the word aloud, a word I’ve heard on the news but never imagined would be part of my life.

  I walk over to the door and stick my little finger into the lock. Only the tip goes in. I grab my bag, pull my Switch and credit cards out of my wallet. Neither is anywhere near thin enough to slot into the gap between the door and the wall. Idiot. It’s the wrong sort of lock anyway. Pathetic, Sally, trying things you know won’t work because you’re terrified of admitting there’s nothing you can do. Why don’t you try the handle while you’re at it? I slam my closed fist down on the metal. There’s a click, and the door opens with a protracted creak. I cover my mouth with my hands. He hasn’t locked it. I blink to check I’m not hallucinating, unable to believe something good has happened.

  As quietly as I can, I leave the room and walk down the hall. The door to the porch is slightly ajar, though the front door is closed. If he forgot to lock me in, could he also have forgotten to lock the front door?

  Is it a test? Is he waiting outside in the yard with the gun?

  I look up and see that something is balanced on top of the door, a small grey object. Metal. The gun. No, it’s my mobile phone. Anger makes me shake. The sick bastard has booby-trapped the door to the porch. He deliberately left my cell door unlocked-he knew I’d try to get out. I bet he laughed at the idea of my phone falling on my head as I ran to the front door. Which is locked; it won’t budge.

  I reach up for my phone. He’s removed the SIM card. Of course. Stupid. Ashamed of having believed I might free myself, I put my mobile back where I found it. If I can’t escape, I don’t want him to know I tried and failed.

  I walk from room to room in search of another telephone, a land line. There isn’t one, at least not downstairs. I look in the lounge, dining room and hall for bills or envelopes that might have his name and address on. I find nothing. In the lounge there are some novels, and lots of books about plants and gardening. There’s a whole shelf devoted to cacti, the only one in the room that’s full. I pull out a few books at random, in case there’s a name written on the inside cover of one of them, but I find only blank pages.

  The framed poster I saw yesterday but only half-remembered shows a map against a bright yellow background, with a country highlighted by a green line. Two cartoon-like arms are reaching out, as if trying to take the country away from its neighbours. ‘Hands off El Salvador ’ is printed in big red letters at the bottom. I assume the green-edged country is El Salvador; I was always hopeless at geography.

  The shelves in the lounge make me think about the tiny study upstairs and what I saw in it. Something wrong. A row of Joseph Conrad novels, a row of serious-looking hardbacks with complicated titles, too complicated for me to take in in my panicked state, and then… empty shelves, lots of them. And the desk was completely bare. No computer on it, no pens, no coaster or roll of sellotape, nothing. Who has a desk without a computer on it?

  The dining room… I race back down the hall. One whole wall is covered in shelves, good quality ones, probably oak. All empty. Feeling cold all over, I run to the kitchen, pull open the six narrow drawers beneath the work-surface. I find some cutlery in one, but apart from that, nothing. If someone opened my kitchen drawers at home they’d find crayons, unpaid parking tickets, string, aspirins-just about everything.

  I force my mind back to the grand tour, as he called it. In the bedrooms upstairs: no lamps, no rugs, nothing on the window sill. No photographs, clocks, pictures on the walls, combs or hairbrushes, glasses for water.

  Nobody lives here.

  The man hasn’t brought me to his home. Maybe he lived here once, with his family, but not any more. He’s brought me to an immaculate deserted house and laid out a few objects here and there to make it look as if this is where he lives: that wrought-iron letter-stand in the hall… did he imagine it would be enough to fool me?

  If he doesn’t live here, where does he live? Where are the rest of his possessions? Perhaps he’s not here now, asleep upstairs. Did he drug me and then go back to his wife and children? Maybe this is a second home, one his family don’t kn
ow about. One he bought to keep me locked up in for ever.

  The recipe book that he used to make that disgusting meal with the grey sauce is still open on the kitchen counter, still with the bookmark laid across it. I look around for other cookery books but see none. The open pages are glossy, unstained by spillages. He bought the book in order to cook for me. That was the first time he used it.

  The kitchen window sill is pristine, uninterrupted white. I get down on my hands and knees and start to open the cupboards that run along the bottom of one wall. There’s nothing in them apart from three saucepans, two Tupperware containers and a colander. Inside the colander there’s a clear plastic syringe with measurements printed on it along one side.

  My heart goes wild. I tear the lids off the saucepans, looking for a bottle of whatever he’s been using to knock me out. Rohypnol. Does it even come in a bottle? Surely he’d keep it close to the syringe. The measurements chill me more than anything: the idea that he leaves nothing to chance. He knows what he’s doing, knows exactly how long he wants me to be unconscious for, how much of the drug he needs to achieve it.

  I hate him more than I thought it was possible to hate. I scramble to my feet, sweep the recipe book and bookmark off the counter on to the floor, panting with rage. The book slams shut as it lands. I read the title on the cover: 100 Recipes for a Healthy Pregnancy.

  ‘Which one do you fancy this evening?’ says a voice from the hall.

  At gunpoint, he marches me back to the room with the stripy carpet. He is wearing dark green paisley pyjamas. ‘Lie down,’ he says, pushing me towards the massage table. ‘On your back.’ His voice is stern. He doesn’t look at me as he speaks.

  ‘What have you done to me?’ I whisper, afraid to raise my voice in case it makes him angry.

  He wheels the table over to the wall. ‘How am I supposed to have a clear head for work if you wake me up at quarter past five in the morning?’ he says.