AS THEY DROVE out of the Lake District, the weather began to brighten. The thick layer of dark clouds washed away to reveal the vast skies that were Ashley’s favourite part of living in northern England. They stopped at a service station halfway and ate coffee and doughnuts in the car, then they drove on to Newcastle, arriving earlier than they had expected, thanks to Ashley’s sudden escape from the cottage. From there, Freddie put Elspeth Sutton’s address into the satnav, and around forty minutes later, they arrived in the car park beneath a cluster of high-rise flats.
‘This is the place.’
As Ashley stepped out into the shadow of the tower block, she felt something cold pass through her. The area was run-down, the bin area by the front door unlocked and overflowing with rubbish. There was graffiti streaked across the dark grey breeze-blocks. Off to one side of the pavement, someone had left three shopping trolleys filled with bags of something she couldn’t identify.
Freddie was fiddling with his phone. ‘I just want to record a quick piece before we go up.’
‘Here?’ Ashley looked around uncertainly. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that getting his phone out was a quick way to get mugged, but the thought caused a bubble of guilt to well up like gas deep inside her. We used to live in a place just like this, she thought. How would I have felt if people had assumed those things about us? But then, she realised grimly, They would have been right.
‘It will only take a moment.’ Freddie cleared his throat, then began speaking in his podcast voice. ‘It’s a cold, bright day in Newcastle. I’m standing at the bottom of a block of flats in the Midgley Estate with renowned psychic medium Ashley Whitelam.’
The wind picked up, blowing around some empty crisp packets and an old Subway wrapper. Ashley frowned.
‘We are here following what could be our first break in the case. Elspeth Sutton approached Ashley and myself at the end of one of Ashley’s psychic shows. She asked for our help. Elspeth’s daughter, Eleanor, has been missing since April, with no real leads and the suggestion from the police that she might have simply run away. But her mother believes that Eleanor’s story may be darker. She believes her daughter’s story could be linked to the Gingerbread House Murders.’
From across the road, Ashley watched a gathering of teenagers emerge from a corner shop. Their sharp eyes seemed to alight on them, and she heard a smattering of laughter. Hating herself slightly for it, she took hold of Freddie’s arm.
‘Come on. That’s enough. Let’s get inside.’
They called up via the intercom, and after a slightly surprised pause from Mrs Sutton – they were over half an hour early – she buzzed them in through the heavy metal door. Sutton lived on the ninth floor, and they took the lift up. It was a cramped space, the shiny mirrored wall blurred with a chaotic web of scratches, the floor dirty and slightly sticky. Freddie, standing up straight with his hands in his jacket pockets, looked very out of place.
Elspeth Sutton’s flat was on a floor with eight other flats. Ashley knocked on the door, her eye drawn to the spy hole, and Mrs Sutton opened it almost immediately. She led them down a narrow, neatly decorated hallway into a cosy living room and kitchenette area. One side of the room had big windows and a small balcony looking out at the other high-rise flats. A tabby cat, sitting with her legs tucked into the loaf position, got up, stretched, then ran out of the room.
‘Please sit down. I’ll put the kettle on.’
Ashley sat on the edge of the dark green sofa, her hands clasped in her lap. Freddie, she noticed, looked completely relaxed; he was looking around the room with open interest, as if trying to take in every detail. She wondered how many interviews he’d done in similar places. She pictured him in a mobile home in a trailer park; in one of those exciting apartments in New York, asking his questions and recording it all on his phone.
Mrs Sutton brought in the teacups already filled. There was a little pot of sugar on the table with a spoon. Ashley gave herself two spoonfuls.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Mrs Sutton said, her voice very soft. ‘I know it’s a long way to come.’
Freddie smiled. ‘Not at all, Mrs Sutton. We’re glad to do it. You know, where I’m from, it’s a two-hour drive to the mall, and we think nothing of it.’
Sutton twitched a little and nodded.
‘Would you mind telling us a little about your daughter? What sort of person is she? Oh …’ He took his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the coffee table between them. ‘And is it all right if I record this? For my podcast?’
Mrs Sutton didn’t look at all convinced by that, but she had clearly decided that it was worth the risk. She nodded again. There was a soft chime as Freddie set his phone to record audio.
‘Would you tell us a little about your daughter, Mrs Sutton? What happened to Eleanor?’
‘She’s twelve, in year eight at her school. She’s quiet, a good girl.’ Mrs Sutton’s hand trembled as she reached for her cup. ‘Never any trouble.’
‘What’s she like at school?’ asked Ashley. The guilt she had felt down by the front door had only increased, and for some reason she felt she had to justify her presence. ‘Is she popular with the other kids?’ Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Freddie glance at her appreciatively.
Mrs Sutton didn’t reply immediately. She took a sip of her tea. ‘Not popular as such, no. She’s always been quite shy, Ellie, but she had a little group of friends in the first year of secondary. But you know what kids are like as they get older. They get different interests, drift apart. I … I had a meeting with her form tutor at the beginning of the year, because they were concerned that she was isolated at school.’ She stopped then, the thin line of her lips creasing as she tried not to cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ashley said. The tight feeling of guilt in her chest blossomed into something sharper, something worse. Eleanor felt painfully familiar.
‘Is Ellie’s father around?’ asked Freddie.
Mrs Sutton winced. ‘He lives down south now. Doesn’t have much to do with us. The police, when I told them Ellie was gone, asked if she’d gone to stay with her dad, but that’s just daft. She doesn’t really know him! Why would she go there? In any case, she never turned up.’
‘What happened the day Ellie disappeared?’ asked Freddie. ‘Was it an unusual day? Anything weird or strange happen?’
She shook her head. From somewhere outside and below, a police siren began to warble.
‘It was a Saturday. She went to a little club on Saturdays, at the library. I was so glad when she started going to that, because I thought it would help her make friends.’ Once again, her voice began to break. She cleared her throat and continued. ‘She went there for midday. The library said later that she arrived, and they did their little activities.’
‘Which were?’
Mrs Sutton shrugged. ‘It’s a class about the arts, so they do something different every week, I think. Sometimes they’re learning about a particular artist, or sculpture, poetry, things like that. It’s not like school; it’s less formal. Ellie loves music and art; she’s always been like that. So she was there. We know she was there because the other children saw her, the librarian saw her, and then she left as usual to come home, and she didn’t. She just didn’t come home. Nearly six months ago.’ Mrs Sutton pressed one shaky hand to her lips for a moment before continuing. ‘The police don’t have any leads. One of them asked if I thought she might have run away from home. She’s at the age when some kids do that, that’s what they said. But Ellie was not like that!’ To Ashley’s shock, the woman turned directly to her, her eyes wild. ‘Do you see? She was quiet, she liked to be at home! She wouldn’t have just run away. She got homesick when she was at a sleepover for just one night, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Mrs Sutton, can I ask you … I know this is a difficult thing to think about’ – Freddie leaned forward, his face set and serious – ‘but why do you think Ellie’s disappearance is linked to the same person who took Robbie Metcalfe? When we met you outside of Ashley’s show, you seemed very sure that it was.’
The older woman looked down at her hands in her lap. A single tear escaped the corner of her eye, and she rubbed it away impatiently with the pad of her thumb.
‘I have a feeling, oh God, a terrible feeling. When it’s your own flesh and blood, you have this, I don’t know, this sixth sense about things.’ She looked up at Ashley again, her eyes too bright. ‘You will know what I mean. For you, I imagine, the feelings will be a lot stronger because you have a deep connection to it. I don’t know. But every time I’ve seen something in the news about the Gingerbread House Murders, I feel a little more lost, a bit more certain.’ She took a watery breath. ‘And Jack Crispin and Harry Cornell, they were both from Newcastle. Whoever he is who’s taking these kids, he’s been here. He’s been close. I said that to the police, but they don’t think Eleanor is connected.’
Freddie tipped his head to one side. ‘Did the police give you any idea why they didn’t think it was related to these other disappearances?’
Mrs Sutton sighed. ‘No. They barely told me anything. But they did ask me if I had received anything strange in the post, which I thought was odd. If anything unusual had been posted through our door.’
Freddie glanced at Ashley, and she thought she knew what he was thinking: Was this how the police connected the murders?
‘I said no,’ Mrs Sutton continued. ‘But you see, our postman doesn’t come up in the lifts – there’s a place on the ground floor where we each have a postal locker, and he posts things there, or he’s supposed to. But I told them! Those lockers are broken into all the time! Letters and parcels are always going astray.’
‘And they didn’t say what they thought you might have received?’ asked Ashley.
‘No, no. Like I said, they barely said anything to me. The last update they gave me, they said they were still looking. They were following up leads.’ She fished a wad of tissue from a pocket and pressed it to the corner of her eye fiercely. ‘Sorry. But they won’t help me. You have to help me, Ashley, if I can call you that. Please. Help me find Ellie like you found Robbie Metcalfe. I have to know, one way or another.’
The room seemed to grow several degrees warmer. Ashley felt a hot trickle of sweat move down between her shoulder blades, and all at once she felt disgusted – disgusted with herself and her cruel, despicable profession; disgusted with a world that took daughters away from their mums; disgusted that she was sitting here drinking this grieving mother’s tea and offering her false hope. How could she ever explain that what happened with Robbie Metcalfe was inexplicable? That she had no hope of repeating it?
‘Mrs Sutton, we are not the police,’ said Freddie. ‘And by that, I mean that we will not dismiss your feelings or suspicions, and that we do not have all the resources of law enforcement. But we will do everything we can.’
Ashley felt a flicker of annoyance. Delivered in his podcast voice, Freddie’s promises sounded glib, convincing for the sake of entertainment only. But she could see that Mrs Sutton hadn’t heard a word of it anyway. She was looking only at Ashley. Her eyes were a faded blue and they sparkled with unshed tears.
‘Will you do it?’ she asked in a thick voice. ‘Will you look for Ellie?’
Ashley nodded. What else could she do? Filled with disgust for herself, she was desperate to get out of the room.
‘Could I see Eleanor’s bedroom?’ Ashley stood. ‘It would really help me to get a sense of her.’
Mrs Sutton looked relieved. ‘Yes, please do that. Anything you need. Her room is the second on the right.’
Freddie rose from where he sat, and Ashley touched his shoulder, shaking her head.
‘No, I don’t need you with me, Freddie. It’ll only disrupt things. Please stay here and keep Mrs Sutton company.’
* * *
Eleanor Sutton’s bedroom was exactly what Ashley was expecting, and it was all the more painful for that. It was small and boxy, with a narrow single bed with a pink-and-white-striped duvet. There was a little dressing table that looked like it might collapse if you looked too hard at it, the paint peeling off around the frame of the mirror, which had stickers of heartthrobs she didn’t recognise cluttering the edges. There was a wardrobe and a set of drawers, both of which looked cheap but cared for, and on top of the latter, there was a range of ragged looking soft toys. Ellie was old enough to be experimenting with makeup, given a few No7 lipsticks and Rimmel eye shadows on the dressing table, but also not quite old enough to let go of the threadbare teddies and bunny rabbits she had treasured as a little girl.
‘Ah, bloody hell,’ murmured Ashley. ‘What a sad mess.’
She went to the small bookshelf under the window – there was no dust to be seen anywhere; her mother was clearly keeping the place pristine – and when she turned back towards the door, her heart leaped into her throat. A Heedful One stood in the far corner, a tall scarecrow figure made of shadows. Its head was down, thankfully hiding its unfinished face, and its arms hung loose by its sides.
‘Fuck me.’
Ashley took a slow breath, her pulse thundering rapidly at her wrists and temples. Why had the Heedful Ones come back? Why did they show her where Robbie Metcalfe was if it wasn’t to mess up her life? What caused them to act as they did? And what were their motives? This one was behaving in the way with which she was most familiar: it simply hung in its space, watchful yet unmoving. A witness to Ashley’s shame.
‘Leave me alone,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Why can’t you just go away?’
The shadowy figure did not react. It simply stayed where it was, its unnaturally long arms moving slightly, as though in some secret breeze. After a moment or so, there was a soft knock on the door, and Ashley jumped for a second time. It was Freddie, his voice oddly respectful.
‘Ashley, are you okay in there? Just checking in.’
‘Yeah.’ Ashley cleared her throat and made her voice louder. Her eyes never left the Heedful One. ‘Yeah, I’m good. I’m ready to leave this place.’