Ben knows what DCI Khan is going to say before he’s even answered the call. Rachel had phoned him in a panic as she’d left the police station, hastily filling him in on the interview, as well as the more alarming fact that they had decided to detain Ellie while they searched the cottage.
‘You gave them permission?’
‘It didn’t seem as if I had a choice. Besides, it’s not like we’ve got anything to hide.’
‘But they haven’t charged her?’ pressed Ben.
‘Not yet. They want the forensic results before they continue.’ He’d heard the distress in her voice. ‘All these lies, Ben. After bunking off school for that blasted protest… the graffiti on that bus shelter? I feel like she’s slipping away from us. As if I hardly know her.’
‘She’s our girl. We have to believe her.’
‘I couldn’t bear to leave her at the station.’
Ben had seen it in his mind’s eye: Rachel driving away with an empty passenger seat beside her, the worry etched on her face. ‘She’ll be OK,’ he’d said, unwilling to admit that he, too, was gripped with fear.
Ten minutes later, Khan’s name is flashing on his phone. Ben pulls into a layby, the car engine idling as he braces for the conversation.
‘I’m taking you off the investigation, Chase. Just while we figure this out.’ A gust of wind shakes the trees overhead. Ben watches as a single brown leaf lands on his windscreen and slides into the wiper well, before lifting again with the next flurry and disappearing on the breeze.
‘But Ellie’s explained, Chief. I know it looks bad, I know I sound like a protective father, but the way Rachel tells it, it was a teenage scrap. Sarah was alive when Ellie left her at the folly. Ellie says she wasn’t involved in the girl’s death. There’s no reason not to believe her.’
Khan waits a beat. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve discussed it with my superiors and we’re all in agreement that it would be prudent for you to step back, in the short term. We’ve been pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable – your ex-wife an employee at Folly View, your daughter a pupil there, the victim in the same school year. I’m afraid this latest… development confirms that it’s untenable for you to continue on the case.’
‘She’s my daughter, Chief. She didn’t do it.’
‘This is a delicate situation. Emotions are running high. As SIO, you know I have a responsibility to ensure everything is done by the book. One misstep and we could jeopardise the entire case. I can’t risk accusations of mishandling.’
‘You’re detaining an innocent girl while a killer roams free. You’re sending officers to search Rachel’s home when they could be chasing leads. And now you want one of your best detectives sitting at home twiddling his thumbs? How does that make sense?’ Ben tries to curb his frustration, tries to return to a more measured tone. ‘Let me help. Let me prove Ellie didn’t do it.’
There’s an edge to Khan’s reply. ‘I’m sorry, Chase, but that’s exactly why I need you to step down. Your judgement is clouded.’
‘It’s in no way—’
‘Chase, this is how it’s got to be. For now.’
Ben knows he can’t push any harder. Khan is a decent man. A fair one. But once his mind is made up, it’s near-impossible to change it. ‘Is she in a cell?’
‘Just for now. I’ve got to do things by the book. If there’s an option to release Ellie tonight, I’ll do it.’
‘Who’s the custody officer?’
‘Morrow. She’s keeping a close eye, Chase, I promise.’
That’s something, thinks Ben. Fay Morrow is a bustling, maternal type, one of the kinder officers at the station.
The call ends and Ben sits for a moment, fighting the urge to slam his fist into the steering wheel. He knows the custody cells well. Bleak, functional spaces. Hard surfaces. Noisy. Places designed to make you sit and contemplate your life choices, choices that have brought you to a room like that. He can’t bear to imagine Ellie sitting there, frightened and alone. But Khan had been clear – he was to step back. He was to ignore every paternal instinct and let his colleagues do their jobs.
Unsure what else he can do, Ben reverses in the layby and drives back into town, pulling into the petrol station to refill before heading home. Out on the forecourt watching the astronomical numbers slide ever higher on the gauge, he replays Ellie’s baffling new version of events. A fight at the folly? Had he and Rachel been so distracted by their crumbling relationship that they’d failed to notice their daughter’s struggles? Failed to understand how hard the transition to Folly View might’ve been? Was all this acting out, all the lying and destructive behaviour, a cry for help? A plea to be noticed? And if so, what did it say about their parenting?
It takes a moment for him to notice the familiar-looking car sliding up to the opposite pump. A sleek green Jaguar with personalised plates. EASTON1. Ben’s heart sinks. The engine falls silent. The driver’s door opens.
‘Thought that was you,’ says Christopher Easton, his face appearing over the roof of the car.
He doesn’t look happy. In fact, he looks bloody furious. Ben squares his shoulders, stands a little taller. ‘Can I help you, Mr Easton?’
‘I heard your daughter got hauled into the station today.’
Ben frowns. There is no way in the world Christopher Easton could know that. Not unless someone had leaked the information. Easton struck him as the type of man to have a finger in every pie; he just hadn’t realised that also included the local station. Bristling, he tries to adopt a conciliatory tone. ‘Yes, a routine interview, as per all the students who were in the woods on Saturday night.’
Easton narrows his eyes. ‘Not all the students were dragged into the police station, though. Not from what I hear.’
‘I’m not sure who your source is, Mr Easton, but they’re feeding you misleading information. This is an active enquiry. It would be best if you let us do our police work. We’ll brief you as soon as anything pertinent comes to light.’
Christopher Easton doesn’t seem to like Ben’s answer. His eyes flash, his fist clenching around his keys. Ben recognises the signs of a man with a quick temper. ‘Your use of the word “we” seems a little outdated. I heard you’re off the case.’
Goddammit. Ben waits a beat, counts to three in his head and tells himself there’s no point taking the bait. Two alpha males facing off over an emotive matter such as this could only ever end badly. ‘Everyone’s on your side, Mr Easton. We all want to find out who did this to Sarah and bring them to justice.’
Easton eyes him with obvious suspicion. ‘I certainly hope so, because you’re not the one going home each night to your devastated sister, your daughter wracked with grief, unable to sleep or eat, and your wife a literal shell of herself. You’re not the one,’ he adds, his voice rising in pitch, ‘trying to calm jittery investors on a high-stakes project slated for a town with an ugly PR situation on its hands. Have you seen the mess someone’s made of our advertising hoarding? I don’t see you lot chasing those hooligans down. These eco warriors banging their bongos, damaging private property, causing me major headaches and keeping me tied up in long meetings and phone calls. They’re intent on destroying my business. Why aren’t you doing something about them?’
Ben can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. An ugly PR situation? Is Christopher more worried about his family or his finances?
‘If there are any parties of interest you think we should be looking at, anyone you think might have a particular vendetta against the project, anyone who might have made Sarah a target, we’d like to hear about them.’
‘If I knew who they were, I’d tell you. Isn’t that your job? To find out?’ Easton is throwing daggers at him. ‘You lot are losing control. Someone needs to be caught. Someone needs to be punished. The sooner they are, the sooner my sister will find some peace and the sooner business can get back to normal.’
Ben shakes his head. Back to normal? Is he serious? ‘We all want the same thing, Mr Easton. Our focus is on bringing Sarah’s perpetrator to justice,’ he adds, with emphasis. ‘We can’t assume anyone is safe until we do.’
Christopher Easton points a finger. ‘I’m watching you. I’m watching you all.’ He ducks back into his car and leaves the forecourt with an unnecessary revving of his engine and a screech of rubber.
‘Asshole,’ mutters Ben, watching the Jaguar’s red tail-lights fade into the falling darkness.
Ten minutes later he is pulling up outside the house he shares with Chrissie. He turns off the engine and waits, trying to calm himself, unwilling to take the stress of the day inside. Something from his ugly confrontation with Easton has stuck with him. He circles back over their encounter, the man’s apoplectic face, his spitting words, his fist clenched around his keys. Someone needs to be punished. That word again. Punish. It brings the memory of the words daubed on Sarah’s body circling back. A coincidence?
Three days ago, to any outsider, the Easton family would have looked to all intents and purposes to have had it all, but Ben knows that even the most idyllic facade can hide a multitude of sins. He’s seen enough over the years on the job to know that there’s no such thing as a perfect family. Easton is a man quick to anger, his rage bubbling visibly beneath the skin. His wife was clearly troubled, doped up on painkillers and sleeping pills. Which left poor Olivia, traumatised and alone, a princess adrift in a palace. He found something in the atmosphere of their family home undeniably unsettling. Could Easton’s aggressive bluster be cover for something more sinister? It’d be worth keeping a close eye on the man. At least he would, Ben realises with a pang of frustration, if he were still attached to the case.
He studies the red-brick façade, the lit-up windows and terracotta pots of chrysanthemums scattered around Chrissie’s doorstep. It’s a shock to realise that the feeling building in the pit of his stomach feels something akin to resentment. He doesn’t want to go inside. In that moment, where he’d rather be is sitting with Rachel, trying to work through the nightmare they’re caught in, trying to understand how they can support Ellie.
Chrissie had thrown him just the other week as they’d lain stretched out together on the sofa, her feet in his lap, the two of them watching a frothy dating show she liked where couples met for the first time at an altar. ‘This is nice, isn’t it?’ she’d said. ‘It feels like you’re home.’
He’d squeezed her toes and smiled his agreement, but it was only later as he’d stood brushing his teeth, staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, that he’d truly considered what she’d said.
Home. As soon as she’d said the word, a place had risen in his mind, and it hadn’t been Chrissie’s neat new-build. It had been the Victorian terrace that he and Rach had moved into after Ellie had been born, when she was still small enough for him to carry around in the baby sling, moving from room to room at the property viewing with the pushy estate agent trailing behind.
In those earliest days, after they’d collected the keys and spent their first night surrounded by boxes, giddy with excitement and plans, they’d worked for hours side-by-side, steaming and stripping the lurid Seventies wallpaper, rewiring, repainting, retiling. Outside they’d dug flower beds and a vegetable patch at the bottom of the long, narrow garden. It was the place where he’d strung a rope swing onto the bough of an old apple tree and pushed a squealing Ellie: ‘Higher, Daddy, higher!’ It was the house he’d returned to every evening, sitting at the kitchen table to help Ellie with her spellings and times tables, or stirring Bolognese on the hob – his staple Dad dish – while Rachel had studied late into the night for her counselling qualifications. It was the place where they’d hosted friends and family, where his sister, Gemma, had come to stay – her ‘home away from home’, she’d called it, appearing whenever she needed to rest and recover from her relentless stints at the hospital, walking through the door every couple of months with a duffel bag and a huge smile plastered on her face. It was the place where he’d last seen Gemma alive.
Don’t, Ben tells himself. Don’t go there. He leans his head back against the seat rest and shuts his eyes, squeezing away the unwelcome sting of tears. He misses the ease of those days, when everything in his life had felt ordered and in the right place. It baffles him, sometimes, to wake in the morning and realise where he is. He’s stuffed up so many things… and now this, with Ellie? Was it his fault for leaving? Was that the trigger for this whole nightmare with their daughter?
He grabs his mobile and scrolls through his contacts until Gemma’s name appears on his screen. Staring at the dial button, he lets the grief expand, dull and heavy like a sandbag in his chest. There’s no point calling. The sound of Gemma’s cheerful voicemail greeting disappeared years ago, the number reassigned to someone else’s phone. What he wouldn’t give to hear his sister’s voice, to talk to her again, to ask her advice about Ellie.
She’d been there from the very first moment Ellie had entered the world. Rachel had wanted her at the home birth, but so had Ben, relieved when Rachel had suggested it. ‘A fully qualified midwife and the funniest, kindest person I know… bar you, of course,’ she’d added hastily, noting his feigned indignance. ‘Of course I want Gem there!’ It had been humbling and not a little awe-inspiring to watch his sister work with Rachel, coaching her through her labour pains, never leaving her side, a steady, reassuring presence and the safest pair of hands he could’ve possibly imagined to guide their daughter into the world. He remembers the scene with awe. These women were warriors, he’d thought. There was no way he was worthy, but seeing his love and his fear, Gemma had placed a swaddled Ellie in his arms and told him, ‘Breathe, Benny Boy. You’ve got this. You’re going to be amazing.’
Gemma had always been the one who set him straight. She’d always had an ear for his problems, always held him to account, sifting through his feelings, injecting humour into dark moments, calling him out on his bullshit. She would’ve had something to say about the current shape of his life – about his separation from Rachel, about Ellie’s withdrawal. If she were still alive, he wonders what she’d advise, what she’d take him to task over. He wonders how different life would look.
Ten years. That’s all the scum who’d run his sister off the road had been given. Death by dangerous driving. The young man had pleaded guilty, claimed addiction and mental health issues, with his solicitors producing a raft of medical documents. The sentence had been small consolation to Ben. He knew how these things went. The jails were too full. He’d be out in half the time. What sort of a punishment was that for destroying Gemma’s life, for robbing them of a beloved sister and aunt?
Most likely, the asshole would be on parole already. It’s one of the things that Ben thinks about as he falls asleep at night. It’s certainly tempting to look him up, pay him a little visit, but the fear of what Ben might do to him, should they ever come face-to-face, keeps him away. That way madness – or prison – lies.
Instead, whenever the accident or that scumbag rise in his mind, he tries to remember the times before. He thinks of Gemma at her happiest, sitting at their kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a coffee mug and her hazel eyes shining as she told them hair-raising birth stories from her maternity ward. He imagines them both as teenagers, Gemma humming along to the radio as they bombed around in his first claptrap car. The little girl he’d walked to and from primary school, her small hand clutched in his, ever the protective big brother. Whenever he feels the rage and sadness building, he tries to focus on her voice, still there in his head, patient and calm: Let it go, Benny Boy. Don’t let it eat you up.
Rachel had told him to get help. To find an outlet for his anger. To work through his grief. She told him it was like living with a zombie. She’d asked him to stop drinking, told him their marriage might not survive if he didn’t. Seems it hadn’t made a difference. He’d cut back, found a therapist and just a few years later they’d split anyway.
She’d needed some time – had essentially asked him to move out – and he hadn’t handled it well. ‘If I go, I’m not coming back,’ he’d said, a knot of fear building in his chest.
Rachel had studied him, weary and sad. ‘Just some time, Ben. That’s all I’m asking. I need you to face what’s happened. To let me in. I can’t live with a ghost.’
‘I’m not the ghost! You are. You’re the one who’s turned cold, asking me to leave.’
‘Because I’m trying to help you.’
‘I mean it, Rach. If you make me leave, that’s it. I’m gone.’
‘Well, that’s on you, I guess.’
Here he was now, a new relationship and a baby on the way. Life moving at a dizzying pace. He had a responsibility to do the right thing. He and Chrissie would make their own home now – together – with the baby. But sometimes it was still hard to accept how the guillotine could fall, cleaving away all that had gone before. Sometimes, he couldn’t help but miss his old life. The brutal truth of it, the one he hadn’t been able to admit to Chrissie the other night, was that he wasn’t entirely sure he knew where home was anymore.
Opening his eyes, he regards himself in the rear-view mirror. God, so tired. He sees the bags under his eyes and the first hint of grey at his temples. Pull it together, he tells himself, stepping from the car, slamming the door behind him. None of his self-pity or navel-gazing is going to help Ellie. That’s where his focus needs to be.
Chrissie emerges from the kitchen as he walks through the front door, a surprised smile on her face. ‘You’re early.’
She’s dressed casually, a long oatmeal sweater, black leggings, grey fluffy slippers. She opens her arms for a hug and he obliges, holding her close, breathing in the perfume of her shampoo, feeling the warmth of her in his arms. He can make this life work.
‘Come home to surprise me?’
Ben nods. ‘Long story.’
‘Come and talk to me while I make the soup.’
Chrissie bustles around the kitchen, chopping vegetables, stirring them into a saucepan, slicing a loaf of bread, placing cheese on a board. Ben gathers cutlery and bowls before sitting on a stool, watching her move around the room. The light from the low hanging pendant over the kitchen island catches in her blonde hair. She turns and smiles. ‘What?’
He nods at the slight curve beneath her top, an almost imperceptible swell pressing against the fabric of her cardigan.
Chrissie smiles and pulls the fabric taut, arching her back to emphasise the tiny bump. ‘Twelve weeks yesterday. Just starting to show now. The size of a plum, apparently.’ Chrissie frowns, seeing his face. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘They’ve taken me off the Sarah Lawson case.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Ellie lied to us. After she left our place on Saturday, she snuck out to the party in the woods. Top brass says there’s a conflict of interest, so I’ve been stood down. For now.’
‘No.’ Chrissie’s face is a picture of shock. ‘That’s awful.’
Ben thinks about the stained clothes spilling from the plastic bag. Ellie’s evasive answers to his and Rachel’s questions the night before. He doesn’t want to get into the details with Chrissie. He can’t bear to speak his worst fears out loud. ‘I guess they can’t risk the optics,’ he says vaguely.
Chrissie is still frowning, the wooden spoon hovering over the pan. ‘It’s frightening to know there’s someone out there who could do something so violent to a young girl. I’ve been thinking about it all day.’
Ben nods. ‘We’re chasing a few leads, but the case still feels wide open.’
‘And to think Ellie was in the woods that night! That was sneaky of her to lie, especially when she should’ve been here with us,’ Chrissie adds.
‘We’ve talked to her.’
‘You have?’ Chrissie turns to him. ‘You and Rachel?’
Ben nods. ‘Yeah. Last night.’
He realises his mistake too late. He hadn’t told Chrissie about his stop-off at Rachel’s the previous night. It had seemed easier not to involve her, but now, of course, it looks as though he’s kept it secret. Excluded her.
‘I thought you said you were working late,’ she says archly.
‘I was. Then I popped round to see Ellie. It was important,’ Ben stresses. ‘I needed to be there for her.’
She lifts one eyebrow. ‘For Rachel?’
‘For Ellie,’ he snaps.
Chrissie purses her lips. He’s not an idiot. He understands why it would bother her. It was only twelve months ago that he and Rachel were still living together as a married couple, albeit an estranged one.
The soup starts to boil over in the pan and Chrissie turns back to the hob, stirring carefully. Ben’s mobile phone rings, cutting through the deep silence. He sees Chrissie glance at it, then look away. It’s not a number he recognises and when he answers, he is surprised to hear Connor Carlisle’s voice at the end of the line. ‘Connor. How can I help?’ He slips out of the kitchen, shutting the door behind him.
‘Look, man, you caught me off guard yesterday. I was on the defence.’
Connor is talking like a phony American gangster and Ben can’t help an internal eye-roll. In the background, he can hear traffic noises and the low thump of bass and knows he’s probably calling from the pimped-up SUV. ‘I’m listening,’ he says.
‘You said to call if I remembered anything.’
‘Go on,’ says Ben, a glimmer of interest building.
‘While we were in the woods, one of the girls started freaking out. She said someone was watching us.’
Ben’s excitement slumps. ‘Yeah, Danny told us about that already. He said he and a friend went off to investigate, but there was no one there. They said the girl had imagined it.’
‘Yeah, but they was wrong.’
Ben frowns. ‘Who was?’
‘Danny and his mate. They didn’t find anyone, but there was someone watching us. I saw him, too.’
‘Him?’
‘Yeah. Up in the trees above the quarry.’
Ben frowns. What’s Connor playing at? Is he for real, or simply trying to muddy the investigation, to divert suspicion away from his younger brother? ‘You saw a man in the woods on Saturday night?’
‘Yep.’
‘Could you describe him?’
‘I dunno. It was dark.’
‘Try.’
‘So… I guess he was older. White face. Sunken eyes. Kind of creepy-looking, but that could’ve just been the dark. Maybe if I saw him again…’
‘If I asked you to come in and give a proper description, could—’
‘Ah, man. Police stations aren’t really my vibe… You know, it was pretty dark… maybe I didn’t get the best look at him after all…’
Ben can feel Connor backtracking, the lead sliding away. It’s not much to go on. If he were to call Khan and ask him to consider this, he’d sound like a desperate man clutching at straws, anything to distract them from their focus on Ellie. ‘Why didn’t you say anything at the party?’ he asks, frustrated. ‘Why didn’t you back up Jasmine?’
Connor sighs. ‘Look, if everyone gets scared, they scarper, right? I figured we were a big group. Some random perv in the woods wasn’t going to spook me.’
‘And if they all leave, you don’t have anyone to push your “product” onto?’
Connor falls into a stony silence, just the heavy bass of the car stereo thudding in the background. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘So why tell me now, Connor?’
Connor sighs. ‘Look, the girl may have been a spoiled brat, but she didn’t deserve what she got.’
‘So, this isn’t about covering your arse. Or protecting your little brother?’
‘No, man. My alibi’s tight. And there’s no way Danny was involved in this. He’s a pain in my arse, but he’s not a bad kid.’
The conversation breaks with the sound of a blaring horn and Connor yelling, ‘Wanker!’ at full volume. ‘Look,’ he says, returning to Ben, ‘you can believe me or not. It’s no skin off my nose. I didn’t have to call you.’
The line goes dead. It’s hardly new information, but it does corroborate Jasmine Ware’s statement. Besides, Connor had a point. While Ben wasn’t particularly keen to take the lad at face value, Connor had no real advantage to getting back in touch with him. Ben knew from past experience that Connor would do pretty much anything to avoid a brush with the law. Maybe there was a glimmer of hope for Connor Carlisle after all.
He returns to the kitchen table and sits with a still-sulky Chrissie, the air crackling between them as they eat the soup she has cooked, the tension remaining between them until Chrissie announces she’s tired and going up for an early night.
‘I’ll join you,’ he says, still hoping to soften the mood, but Chrissie won’t meet his eye and as soon as she hits the mattress, she flicks off her bedside light and rolls away.
Ben lies next to her in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, wide awake. ‘Chrissie, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you I’d seen Rachel.’
Chrissie mumbles something inaudible in reply.
‘What was that?’
‘Go to sleep,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to argue. Stress isn’t good for the baby.’
Ben turns away, chastened. It’s not fair of him to feel annoyed. None of this is Chrissie’s fault. She’s been nothing but sweet and decent since the first night he’d met her, when Rachel had asked him to leave and he’d stormed out to find the nearest pub.
Furious at the injustice of it all, he’d downed two pints of IPA and a whiskey chaser in quick succession. Only when he’d raised his head from the bottom of his glass, had he noticed Chrissie, right there, perched on a stool at the end of the bar, looking dangerously hot in a black leather mini skirt and knitted cardigan, her blonde curls spilling down her shoulders. She’d raised her gin and tonic at him and offered a wry smile. ‘Looks like you might be having a worse night than me.’
She’d been stood up by a Tinder date, it transpired. He had been drunk and morose. Terrible company really, when he thinks about it. God knows why she’d invited him back, but when he’d woken in Chrissie’s bed the following morning, hungover and sick with shame, he knew that what he’d done had put the final nail in the coffin of any possible reconciliation with Rachel.
From that night on, it had been easier to look forward than back. He’d kept his blinkers tightly fastened. Chrissie was pretty and fun and he was bruised and hurt and – yes, childish. Chrissie was right there, ready to stroke his ego and make him feel like a man again. She didn’t ask searching questions about his emotions or force him to confront painful losses from his past. When he was with her, he didn’t have to think about Rachel – or Gemma – and soon, the woman who had started out as a convenient distraction seemed to have become a permanent fixture. It wasn’t easy to manage Ellie’s emotions or face her hurt at the collapse of their family, but he told himself it was better to be happy with Chrissie than make them all suffer. Chrissie represented an easy life and he was here for it – all in for that easy, blinkered life – right up until she’d told him she was pregnant.
‘There is one good thing about you being stood down,’ Chrissie says quietly, her voice lifting off the pillow beside him, jolting him from his thoughts.
He rolls back to her. ‘What’s that?’
‘You can come with me tomorrow.’
Ben frowns in the darkness.
‘The antenatal appointment. You haven’t forgotten?’
There’s no way he can admit that in the tumult of the last couple of days, it has clean escaped him. He nuzzles into her warm shoulder. ‘Course not. I’ll be there. Promise.’
The solid wall of her back remains, but she relinquishes a hand, her fingers reaching over her shoulder for his. He squeezes tightly and kisses her palm. ‘I’m sorry, love. I’ll do better. I promise.’