Chapter Twenty-Three

Matthew watched the video play over, and over. And over. Looping ceaselessly around, driving him halfway insane. He clamped his eyes closed, slammed his head back against the wall, tried to block it out, but still it kept rolling. One minute Sullivan was staring out at him, looking for all the world like a caring father, glowing with pride as his daughter managed her first stabiliser-free bicycle ride. The next Lily was looking out at him, all bundled up in her woolly hat and scarf, her nose and cheeks tinged pink from the cold, her eyes aglow with a child’s delight at Christmas; she looked like a little pixie.

She was laughing into the camera.

Matthew felt his heart tear apart inside him.

Laughing at Becky chasing her around the park, trying to get a good shot of her. The video was shaky. Becky had been fooling around. Matthew recalled it vividly. They’d purchased a new camera to capture the memories, their little girl growing up, who would never grow up. Please make it stop. Matthew glanced upwards, caught a sob in his throat and looked back at the screen. He didn’t want to. Desperately didn’t want to. Yet, was compelled to.

He winced as she slipped, her small legs sliding from under her as she attempted to give the football a good wallop. ‘Whoops,’ Matthew heard himself say. ‘Up we come.’ He watched on, himself swooping Lily up in his arms, checking for damage.

‘You’re okay, trooper,’ he assured her as her bottom lip wobbled tellingly. ‘Nothing damaged but the grass. Come on, let’s go and get our own back on that ball.’

‘I can’t,’ Lily said tearfully. ‘I’m crying. With my eyes.’

Matthew had laughed, as she’d pointed a mitten-covered finger at the evidence. He’d wanted to eat her. He’d loved her so much. ‘Oh, my word, so you are,’ he’d said, widening his own eyes as he looked into hers: huge innocent eyes, framed by softly curled eyelashes, the colour of the truest summer blue sky and so full of promise.

Vacant. Life extinct. The flashback hit him full on, his precious little girl dying in his arms, the joy of life stolen from her. Unable to suppress the choke that built in his throat, Matthew dropped his head to his knees, and wept silently.

Where was his baby?

Where was Mia?

Jesus Christ, please make it stop. Matthew prayed hard, repeating his plea, like a mantra in his head, but still he could hear it. There was nowhere to go. No way to get away from it. What did she want? What the hell did she want?

Again, Matthew heaved himself to his feet. His hands tied behind him, his gut clenching, his soul aching, he used the wall for support, pulling himself up from the sleeping bag he’d been shoved violently down on. He remembered that vaguely. He hadn’t recalled anything after that, until the sounds from the screen had catapulted him from his drug-induced nightmare to another living one. He’d slept. He didn’t know how long. He couldn’t see his watch. He’d fucking slept! Like a baby, when he had no idea where his baby was. No idea if she still was. Christ. Matthew sucked in a breath that turned to a rasp in his chest. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t.

Turning his back on the screen, he tried hard to shut it out. Please make it stop. He prayed over. Please … And over.

‘YeesSS!’ He heard Becky behind him, her triumphant cry when Lily had saved the goal. That’s where the video of Lily ended. Matthew braced himself, hearing the words that weren’t there on the tape, yet kept going around in his head. ‘You’re useless, Adams!’ Becky shouting. ‘Daddy’s useless.’ Lily giggling. Why did he remember those words so well?

Behind him, the video looped back to Sullivan, to Taylor, similar in age to Lily, laughing as she pedalled full pelt towards the camera. Even facing away from the screen, Matthew could still see it. ‘Go on, princess, you can do it. Go on. Go girl!’ Sullivan’s voice, relentless, always there in his head, haunting him endlessly night and day. Day after day after day. ‘Stop!’ His jaw clamped tight, Matthew whirled around. ‘For pity’s sake, please …’

‘Is that what my dad asked you to do, Adams?’ Taylor’s voice, idly curious as it emerged from the TV.

Breathing deeply, slowly, his ribs too painful to do otherwise, Matthew turned back and braced himself to ask what he had to. He didn’t really expect a sensible answer. ‘What do you want?’ he tried futilely again anyway.

‘You,’ she answered, inevitably. Over and over it went. A sick, twisted game, and this creature was winning hands down.

‘You have me!’ he shouted, his throat tight, his chest raw, his body trembling, still.

‘Full marks for observation, Detective,’ she drawled sarcastically.

Shaking his head, Matthew tried to stay calm. She was toying with him, goading him into losing it, and, God help him, she was succeeding. ‘You have me,’ he repeated more quietly, attempting to reason with her. ‘Please let Mia go. Just leave her safely somewhere. You don’t need her.’

‘And where would the fun be in that, Matthew? You have to have some incentive to do the right thing, don’t you? Little Mia is it. She stays.’

‘Jesus Christ! What thing? Please …’ Matthew’s voice cracked. ‘… just tell me what you want?’

No answer. Plainly she was getting maximum pleasure from this systematic, mind-crushing torture. ‘Two things, actually,’ she said, at length.

A mixture of relief and foreboding flooding through him, Matthew leaned to wipe his sweat-soaked face against his shoulder. ‘Which are?’ he asked guardedly.

‘A signed confession,’ she informed him matter-of-factly.

Matthew frowned, confused. She must know she didn’t have a hope in hell’s chance of a forced confession standing up, but if that’s what she wanted, ‘You’ve got it. And?’

‘All in good time, Matthew,’ she replied leisurely. ‘Everything comes to those who wait.’

Matthew emitted a short, satirical laugh. Obviously she did aim to take her time. Time Mia hadn’t got. ‘I need to know Mia’s safe,’ he said tightly.

‘She’s fine,’ came the same response as last time.

‘I need to know!’ Matthew grated. ‘Christ almighty, do you have one ounce of compassion?’

Again, no answer, and then, ‘Did you? When you aimed that gun at my father, did you show any compassion, DI Adams? When you left me to fend for myself after smashing my life into smithereens, did you show any then?’

Matthew felt the sheer hopelessness of his situation weigh down on him. ‘He kidnapped my wife,’ he said impassively. The Ketamine had had his emotions swinging all over the place. Now, he was beginning to feel nothing but empty.

‘You stole what was his,’ she countered.

What was the point? Again, Matthew glanced upwards, as if there was a God in Heaven who could help him. In her deranged mind, her skewed logic was right.

‘You haven’t answered me, Matthew. Did you show any compassion?’

Knowing denial would be useless, Matthew hesitated, then, ‘No,’ he said simply, his gaze dropping to the floor.

‘Look up,’ she said, after a second.

Matthew shoulders sank. He didn’t move.

‘You want to know whether your daughter’s all right, then look up.’

Matthew’s blood ran cold as his baby’s subdued cries reached his ears. Apprehension crawling over him, terror permeating his every pore, he faltered for a split second and then looked at the screen. Dear God. No. His breath hitching in his chest, his legs failing beneath him, Matthew sank to his knees. Please don’t do this. Please don’t. Begging, silently pleading, he stared hopelessly at the Skype window that had appeared on the screen. Lying listlessly on her side, foetus-like and frightened, seeking comfort from the thumb wedged in her mouth it couldn’t possibly offer her, Mia was caged. Matthew clenched his jaw hard. Her face caked in crap, her glorious flame-coloured hair matted, she was caged in a playpen, like an animal. Matthew felt something explode inside him. ‘You heartless fucking bitch!’

‘Uh, uh, language, Adams,’ she taunted him. ‘She can hear you.’

Confirming it, Mia immediately scrambled to sitting and blinked bewilderedly around her. Her little cheeks were red raw from crying, her eyes swollen and … unfocussed?

Matthew’s gut twisted violently as realisation swept nauseatingly through him. ‘What the hell have you given her?’ he yelled, his rage spewing over.

‘Just Melatonin,’ she replied blithely. ‘Not too much, don’t worry. Only enough to keep her quiet.’

‘Daddy?’ Mia murmured uncertainly.

‘Baby …’ Matthew felt his heart splinter into a thousand pieces as he watched her knead her sleepy eyes with her knuckles and then blink confusedly around her again. She was looking for him, wondering why he didn’t go to her, and it was killing him. ‘I’m here, sweetheart,’ he said, his throat hoarse.

‘Mia no like, Daddy,’ she said in a tiny voice, tears plopping from her eyes to spill down her frightened little face. ‘Mia want go home. Want Mumm—’

Swallowing back the physical pain in his chest, Matthew squeezed his own eyes closed as the screen went blank. ‘What do you want?’ he asked again, feeling utterly defeated.

The bitch ignored that. ‘I’m going to give you a little more time to consider my second request, Adams,’ she told him nonsensically instead.

‘I don’t know what it is! You’re completely insane!’

‘You will,’ she said meaningfully. ‘I’m going to have some dinner now. Why don’t you chill out and watch some TV while I’m gone? Later, Adams.’

Matthew remained where he was for several seconds, then raised himself to his feet. He looked at the screen still playing the video painfully over, then turned away, walking towards the impenetrable cellar door and back. Rage building slowly inside him, he paced the length and breadth of the cell-like room he was in, before coming to rest facing one of the stone brick walls, where he stayed. His forehead hit the brickwork without process of forethought. His chest heaving, he attempted to control his emotions, blinked away the blood oozing over his eyelashes and studied the ceiling, and then emitted a low, guttural moan that came from the depths of his soul.

‘Anything?’ Becky was on her feet almost before DCI Davies came through the door.

His face grave, DCI Davies shook his head quickly.

‘Crap,’ Ashley cursed, glancing towards Kristen, who sank back on her pillows. Ashley saw the anguished look on her face, and knew it was more to do with fear for Matthew than the post-surgery pain she was in.

‘Why don’t you go home?’ DCI Davies suggested kindly to Becky. ‘Get some rest. We’ll be in touch as soon as—’

‘Home?’ Becky stared at him, confounded. ‘Do you honestly think I’d want to go back there without my family? That I’d ever want to go back there again, if …’ Stopping, Becky scanned his face furiously, and then turned away.

Noting the straight set of her shoulders, Ashley knew it was only anger holding Becky upright now, fuelling her adrenalin and keeping her going. She knew also that Becky hadn’t meant to exclude her when she referred to her family, but the painful truth was she would have lost everything if she lost little Mia. If she lost Matthew. Willing the stupid tears that kept threatening back, Ashley dropped her gaze. She wished Matthew and Becky had never come that day to the care home. That they’d never set eyes on her, as no doubt Becky now did. The bad stuff had started happening the minute she’d come into their lives, and it just kept on happening. It was like she was a curse around their necks.

Not true. Emily said in her head. You stopped that evil man from hurting them.

I killed him, Ashley answered bluntly.

Good. He deserved it.

Attempting to ignore Emily, who everyone insisted wasn’t there, but who always bloody seemed to be when she felt like this, like shit, Ashley tried to imagine where Mia might be, what kind of place she might be in; tried hard not to picture her scared and lost and lonely. And Matthew. His heart would be broken. Just like Becky, he would be desperate, going slowly out of his mind. If he was still alive. That thought popping into her head, Ashley sank lower in the bedside chair she was sitting uselessly on and wished she wasn’t there at all.

She felt something brush her hair then, a whisper of fingers as Kristen reached out. ‘It’s not your fault, Ashley,’ she said, her face turned towards her. Her complexion was ashen. She must be in so much pain, and yet she was refusing any drugs that might refuel her addiction. ‘None of it,’ Kristen added forcefully as Ashley met her eyes uncertainly.

Ashley nodded, unconvinced though she was.

‘Don’t blame yourself for other people’s failings, Ashley. You’re all right. You must be for Matthew and Becky to have stuck with you. Trust me, Matthew doesn’t give up on people he thinks are worth the effort.’

Ashley scanned her face. ‘He didn’t give up on you,’ she said, watching her carefully.

‘Yeah. Did I also mention he’s a complete pain in the bum?’ Kristen joked. ‘He’ll be back. Don’t give up hope, Ashley. Meanwhile, Becky’s going to need you.’ She nodded in Becky’s direction, who DCI Davies was attempting to offer more reassurances to. Becky wasn’t listening. She was back to staring out of windows at nothing.

‘She loves you, Ashley,’ Kristen assured her. ‘They both do. They’re going to need you to hang in there and be strong, even if you do feel like curling up in a ball and crying like a baby.’

Running a hand under her nose, Ashley glanced away.

‘I know I do sometimes,’ Kristen admitted, telling Ashley she thought it was okay to feel that way, she supposed. ‘Becky’s distracted, that’s all. She’s bound to be. Don’t take it personally.’

She was right, Ashley decided, amazed at how much sense Kristen seemed to make when she was sober. Focussing on herself was pretty pathetic with all that was going on.

‘I won’t.’ Mustering up a smile she glanced back at her, and then towards the doorway where DS Collins seemed to be hovering, trying to attract the attention of DCI Davies.

‘Just popping to the loo. Won’t be a sec,’ Ashley said, deciding anything Jamie had to share was their business too.

‘Make sure to come straight back, Ashley.’ Kristen gave her a stern look, as Ashley got to her feet.

Ashley might have told her she’d given up any right to tell her what to do when she’d abandoned her. Would have done a while back. Now though, she realised that would be pretty immature too. Noting again how ill she looked, this woman who was trying hard to stay clean, who’d given birth to her, abandoned her in some misguided attempt to protect her, but who clearly did care and was trying to reach out, Ashley wondered whether it might be time to risk taking a small step towards her.

‘I will,’ she promised, hesitated and then leaned in to give Kristen a hug. It couldn’t hurt. Well, actually it might if things didn’t work out, but …

‘Thank you,’ Kristen whispered and hugged her fiercely back. ‘I won’t let you down.’

A gulp sliding down her throat, Ashley simply nodded.

‘You’re still wearing it,’ Kristen said, glancing astonished at her as Ashley eased away.

Ashley’s fingers strayed towards the locket Kristen had obviously noticed. ‘I hoped.’ She shrugged, glancing awkwardly away and then back. ‘I didn’t have much faith, but I kept hoping. Sorry, I need the loo,’ she added quickly as Kristen’s gaze fluttered guiltily down. ‘Back soon.’

‘Ashley,’ Kristen said, as she turned for the door, ‘for what it’s worth, I love you, too.’

Ashley glanced cautiously back at her.

Kristen clearly noted the look. ‘Sorry,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s a pretty useless word really, isn’t it, but …’

‘It’s the only one you have,’ Ashley finished. Kristen had said it before. She’d been right then too, when she’d admitted getting sober couldn’t undo all the hurt. You couldn’t unmake history. Ashley would if she could. She wasn’t ready to make affirmations of love yet, but … Nodding, she offered Kristen a more genuine smile instead, and then turned back to the door.

Acknowledging her with a nod, Jamie stopped mid-sentence as Ashley walked along the corridor towards them. Following her gaze, DCI Davies nodded in turn. ‘Not going too far, are we, Ashley?’ he asked, giving her one of his short smiles.

He did that a lot Ashley had noticed. Vaguely, she wondered if it was an interrogation technique designed to lull suspects into a false sense of security before going in for the kill. If it was, he seriously needed to go back to detective training school. ‘Downstairs to get some cash from the cash machine and then to the toilet,’ she assured him. ‘If you want to come and stand outside, I’ll whistle while I’m in there.’

His smile fell a bit flat as she walked past him, taking the exit to the stairs to the ground floor, where she stopped, and listened.

‘You’ve checked out the building?’ she heard DCI Davies ask Jamie, after a pause.

‘Yes, sir. Nothing,’ Jamie replied. ‘The place is derelict. No signs of recent disturbance.’

What place? Ashley strained to hear the conversation. Something about a sighting. The car Matthew was travelling in, she gleaned.

‘Dammit,’ Davies cursed agitatedly. ‘Anything else on the tape to go on?’

‘We couldn’t get a clear image, sir, but it looks like it’s definitely the daughter.’

‘Taylor Sullivan.’ Davies sighed disconsolately. ‘Meaning Patrick Sullivan’s daughter and Jasmine Francis are one and the same. How the hell did we miss this?’

Sullivan? Jasmine’s his daughter? Ashley’s heart flipped in her chest. Oh God, no. Closing her eyes, she gulped back the immediate suffocating terror the name evoked and leaned unsteadily against the wall for support.

‘According to Nicky, it could well be,’ Jamie went on warily. ‘Seems there’s no official ID on file in regard to her suicide. Just circumstantial identification.’

Davies drew in a long breath. Ashley could hear his frustration even from where she was standing. ‘And Steve also thinks it could be her?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir. He said he was as sure as he could be when he asked me to pull up the CCTV from the building where the car Matthew was in stopped.’

‘And the accomplice?’

‘We’re working on the images now,’ Jamie supplied. ‘But from Steve’s visual, plus the footage we have, it looks like it could be Connor Preston. He’s in the driving seat. The girl’s in the back passenger seat and definitely armed, a shotgun possibly. And, er …’

‘Get on with it, Collins,’ Davies snapped.

‘It doesn’t look good,’ Jamie went on hesitantly. ‘It appears they’re force-feeding Matthew drugs.’

‘Shit. Shit!’ Davies cursed again, furiously. ‘I don’t bloody believe this. Hasn’t the man suffered enough? How? What drugs?’

‘Not sure,’ Jamie said. ‘Could be any number of white substances: coke, H, K.’

‘We need to find them,’ DCI Davies said grimly. ‘We need to find them now.’

Attempting to quell her almost overwhelming queasiness, Ashley slid to her haunches. Find him how? Where? Taking slow breaths, the way Matthew had taught her to ward off panic attacks, she tried to think. Should she tell Becky? She needed to. They needed to … do something.

Waiting until Collins and Davies had finished talking, Ashley checked the coast was clear and then headed back the way she’d come.

‘But you can’t! Not on your own,’ she heard Kristen as she went in, who sounded frantic, and, judging by the way she was trying to sit up despite the leg brace, obviously was.

A new kind of panic rising in her chest, Ashley glanced towards Becky, who was hastily gathering up her bag and coat. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked her, probably sounding as shit-scared as she was feeling.

Becky turned towards her, a determined look on her face. ‘I can’t just sit here doing nothing, Ashley,’ she said, heading purposefully towards the door.

‘So what are you going to do?’ Ashley asked as she strode past her. ‘Becky?’

Her eyes flicking to Kristen’s concerned face, Ashley guessed Becky had decided on action rather than inaction and, nodded on by Kristen, twirled quickly around to go after her. ‘You’re going to look for them, aren’t you?’

Becky’s step faltered.

Ashley studied her, as she turned back, noting the haunted look in her eyes, the tangible fear, but also the fire there. The same fire she’d seen once before, when Becky had taken Sullivan by surprise and fought back. She’d fought back hard. Sprawled on the floor where he’d thrown her, she’d lashed out with her foot, kicked and bit and gouged, her fingernails clawing deep scores in his cheeks as he’d heaved her up. Right up until the sadistic freak’s appropriate demise she’d kept fighting, always watching, waiting, looking for his weaknesses. Becky hadn’t given in. She wasn’t about to now.

‘Where?’ Ashley asked, relief surging through her, trepidation hard on its heels. She needed to tell her what she’d heard, but not until Becky was on her way, with her alongside her, because there was no way she was letting Becky go anywhere on her own.

Becky drew in a breath and notched up her chin. ‘The fucking drug dealer’s club,’ she said, using language Becky rarely did as she turned back to the door to stride on.