An urgent murmuring goes around the room. The two officers from Kentish Town exchange worried glances.
When officers are first called out to an address, they’ll check the database to see whether there have been any previous call-outs to the property, even historically. Something this serious at the address should at least have been noted, relevant or not.
Mortimer’s severe look at Hardit and Amber doesn’t go unnoticed.
‘Details, please, Rose,’ says Mortimer, folding his arms and leaning back against the desk by the whiteboard.
Rose reads the information sent over by Moony to her phone. It was Scarlett who discovered this by simply googling the property, which makes the Kentish Town officers look down at their shoes. Rose can’t help feeling wrong-footed too. Maybe they should have double-checked?
‘So,’ she continues, ‘the headline is that eighteen-year-old Heather Doyle poured petrol through her own letterbox, then set fire to it. She killed her grandmother, Patricia Doyle, aged seventy-five; her father, Michael Doyle, aged forty-seven; and her half-brother, Samuel Doyle, aged five. I have the notes here and will circulate them by email after the briefing.’
‘Can I just say,’ says Hardit, palms up, ‘I did run the usual check. There must have been an error on the system.’ It happens. Rose knows all about mistakes, having made some blinders of her own in her time. All it would take would be a clumsy error in the postcode or address for it not to log properly. Anyone looking may miss it, especially in a hurry, especially for a relatively minor issue like a neighbour dispute.
‘Don’t worry about that now,’ says Mortimer turning to him. ‘It may have absolutely no bearing on anything, considering how long ago this happened, and with no obvious link apart from an address. What about this Heather Doyle?’ he says to Rose. ‘Is she in or out now?’
‘That’s the interesting thing,’ says Rose. ‘She got released from Edgefield Prison six months ago.’
‘… which is exactly when the supposed neighbour harassment started,’ says Hardit quickly.
The room is buzzing as everyone starts on assigned jobs. Gwen and Anton are going to be questioned separately, as is Eric Quinn and other neighbours. The CCTV job is going to be huge, and many officers have been assigned these duties.
Heather Doyle is first on Rose and Adam’s agenda and they are going to get up to speed on the notes on the way.
They are in the car, heading towards Archway.
‘It’s not very far is it, between Wyndham Terrace and her place?’ says Adam.
‘No,’ says Rose, ‘only a short hop on the Northern Line or a bus and you’re there. You could walk it quite easily, in fact. But what I’m thinking is, why would Doyle have any reason to harass them? And more importantly, what reason could she have for taking Gregory?’ She’s thoughtful for a moment. ‘Hey,’ she says, ‘do you reckon Anton or Gwen have done something to him? Are they capable?’
Adam is silent for a moment before responding. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time seemingly distraught parents are behind it all along. What do you think?’
Rose sighs. ‘God, I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I keep picturing a scenario where Anton Fuller lashes out because he’s humiliated and weakened by the whole nocebo thing. I mean, look at the size of him. What if Gregory was accidentally killed and so they panicked and covered it up? I don’t think it’s the biggest stretch of imagination to have Gwen Fuller as the sort of woman who puts her man before her child. I mean, it’s very different, but look at the business at the hospital. I’m not saying she’s capable of murder but she does have a weird coldness about her when it comes to Gregory. I’m pretty sure she would back Anton, whatever he’d done.’
‘Hmm,’ says Adam, his expression grave. ‘I think I agree. And what about Quinn next door?’
‘Again,’ says Rose, ‘I’m not sure what the motive would be. I mean, snatch or kill someone’s kid because you’ve had a bit of a spat over the garden fence?’
‘It was more than that though,’ says Adam. ‘You saw how things were between those two men. And Hardit mentioned the pressure cooker feeling about it all. Quinn has previous and looks like a man with a temper. Who knows at this stage, though? Maybe the kid just had enough and ran away.’
‘If that’s the case, it shouldn’t be hard to find him,’ says Rose. ‘He’s about the most un-streetwise kid I’ve ever met. Even with his mystery phone. Which, I have to admit, is bothering me a lot.’
‘Me too,’ says Adam. ‘And him running away isn’t necessarily reassuring because he could end up in all sorts of places. Anyway, let me read up on the woman we’re off to see so we know what we’re dealing with.’
Reading from the notes on his phone that have now been circulated fully to the team, Adam tells her that Doyle was sentenced to fourteen years for manslaughter and up for release after seven years. ‘Then she got into something in prison,’ he says, ‘slashed the face of another inmate with a broken pen after a fight. She got another six years on top of that.’
He is quiet for a few minutes as he reads on.
Then he lets out a puff of air through his lips.
‘There’s not much to go on here. She just repeatedly claimed she couldn’t remember why she set the fire. When she was assessed by psychiatrists from both defence and prosecution teams, they said she was of sound mind and believed she was lying about the amnesia. Pretty soon after that, she stopped speaking to her legal team and prison staff entirely but pleaded guilty on the day the trial started.’
‘Well,’ says Rose, slowing and indicating right across a busy junction. ‘She’s going to need to speak to us. It’s just up here.’
They drive along a leafy street past once-grand mansion blocks and a Victorian-era primary school of red brick to Heather Doyle’s address: an ugly four-storey block of flats with panels of faded blue paint. As they climb out of the car, a hum of high-pitched chatter and laughter drifts over from the nearby playground.
Rose pictures skinny, round-shouldered Gregory with his owlish glasses and his odd outbursts. She tries to imagine him in the sort of secondary school she went to, where fights were commonplace and a lad called Daniel Barrow once broke a teacher’s nose with a chair. That sort of thing probably doesn’t happen at the famous Beamishes but where the hell was he?
Be okay. Please be okay.
They climb to the top floor up a stairwell in which the smells of urine and weed are in strong competition. Loud music pumps from several directions. It strikes Rose that the Fullers might want to see what living in bad accommodation is really like. This place certainly isn’t worth two million quid.
A few moments later, they’re face-to-face with the ordinary-looking woman who killed her entire family.
With skin the pasty grey of the long-term institutionalized, Heather Doyle could pass for closer to forty, rather than her thirty-one years. She’s dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and leggings, feet shoved into slippers. Lank brown hair hangs like curtains around a doughy face. Her round green eyes behind cheap plastic glasses would be quite attractive with a bit of make-up, Rose thinks. And without the hostility.
They introduce themselves.
‘What do you want?’ she says, pulling the door a little closer towards her.
‘Just a chat,’ says Adam pleasantly. ‘Can we come in?’
She hesitates. ‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Of course,’ says Rose. ‘We could always do this down at the station if you’d prefer.’
With a heavy sigh Doyle pushes the door open and they follow her into the bedsit.
Inside, the curtains are drawn and the room is lit by a single lightbulb with no shade, giving everything a sickly, depressing air. That’s without taking in the décor, which includes a sofa with a large tear in the fake leather cover that grins at them like a yellow-toothed smile.
Rose glances over at the tiny kitchen area. On the surfaces there is only a loaf of the cheapest white bread with slices falling out, some own-brand Nutella and multiple packets of instant hot chocolate.
‘Is it okay if we sit down?’ says Rose.
‘I suppose,’ says Heather, gesturing to two hard-backed chairs by a small table. She takes the sofa.
‘What’s this about then?’ she says.
‘We understand that you’ve recently got out on licence from Edgefield?’ says Adam.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ says Heather stiffly. She crosses then uncrosses her legs.
‘Can we ask you if you’ve been anywhere near Wyndham Terrace since you were released from prison?’ Adam goes on.
Hearing this address makes her visibly flinch. She starts to pluck at the fabric of her leggings; that is, until she realizes both sets of eyes have been drawn to her busy fingers and stops instantly.
Sitting up a bit straighter, she says, ‘Why on earth would I want to go back there?’
Adam smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘I don’t know, Heather,’ he says evenly. ‘Why don’t you tell us?’
‘I can’t tell you because I don’t know,’ she says hotly. ‘I’m not going to risk breaching the terms of my licence by doing anything like that. I’m not stupid, whatever you think of me. I’m only speaking to you now, rather than telling the pair of you to sling your hooks, because of that licence. But I can tell you right now, I have no desire to ever see that house again. I haven’t been further than about one hundred metres from this front door since I got out. I would never go there. I wish that house was—’ She bites the end of the sentence off, lips clamped shut as if she fears words might slip through.
‘Wish it was what, Heather?’ says Rose.
The fingers begin plucking at her leggings again but she doesn’t reply.
‘The thing is,’ Rose continues, ‘the family there have been reporting some …’ she hesitates ‘… strange harassment that we can’t really explain. Do you have any thoughts on that at all?’
Pluck, pluck, pluck.
Rose and Adam exchange looks and wait.
Heather is one clenched muscle, almost vibrating with unspent energy. When she sits forward, the movement is so fast for someone of her size that Rose almost jumps.
‘Tell them to burn it down,’ she says in a harsh whisper, almost baring her teeth. ‘Make a better job of it than me. No one should live there. No one.’
‘Why?’ says Rose, forcing herself to sit forward and match Heather’s pose. ‘What’s the problem with the house? Why did you try to burn it down, Heather?’
Heather’s breathing so fast now, she’s almost panting. She closes her eyes and presses her hands to the sides of her head.
‘I’m not talking about this,’ she says, then in a rapid fire: ‘It’s taken me a long time to get myself together and now I want to be left alone to live my life. That’s it. That’s all I want.’
‘We appreciate that,’ says Adam, ‘but I’d still like to know what you mean about the house. It could have some bearing on this case.’
Heather stares mutinously at her thumbnail, then gnaws on it. Rose experiences a flash of irritation.
‘We need to tell you now that a child has gone missing from that property,’ she says. ‘This is extremely serious and we need you to cooperate with us, or we’re going to have to go down to the station and talk properly.’
Heather stares at her, telegraphing hate from her eyes. ‘I don’t know anything about a child,’ she says in a quiet voice. ‘I don’t know anything about anything when it comes to the house now. I haven’t been anywhere near it since I went inside.’
‘We’re going to be checking that via your tag,’ says Rose. ‘But if there’s anything you want to tell us, now is a good time.’
Heather opens and then closes her mouth. ‘I can’t help you with whatever it is you want,’ she says, rising to her feet again. ‘Now do what you need to do to check this kid isn’t stuffed under my bed and then please leave me the fuck alone.’
It’s no good. She’s not going to talk.
‘Okay,’ says Adam wearily. ‘Do you have a phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you get it, please?’
Heather crosses the room to a cheap cabinet that houses a small television and Freeview box. She picks up a very old iPhone with a curved back and hands it to Rose.
‘Thank you,’ says Rose. ‘We’ll be needing the number of this phone, so can I get you to write it down, please? And is this the only one you own?’
Heather gives her a scornful look. ‘I can’t really afford that phone, let alone another one,’ she says, then finds a scrap of paper and writes down the number. Rose rings hers once to make sure she has it.
‘Thanks, Heather,’ she says. ‘Now if it’s okay with you, we’d like to have a look around your flat.’
All three are aware they need a warrant without permission but Doyle shrugs.
‘Knock yourselves out,’ she says. ‘There’s no missing kid here.’