She crawls to the door. ‘Let me out,’ she says.
His voice is soft, almost kind. ‘There’s no way out.’
A plate is pushed through the grille. She reaches up to take it. Another two biscuits and half an apple.
‘We don’t want you putting on weight,’ comes the voice.
‘Can I have some water?’ she asks.
He doesn’t reply but, a few minutes later, a bottle of water is pushed through the slot. She drinks greedily then forces herself to stop. She doesn’t know how long it will have to last.
‘Please,’ she says. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘It’s for the best,’ he says. ‘You’re not happy. You’ve never been happy.’
‘Let me out,’ she says. Trying to make her voice sound authoritative and not pathetic.
‘There’s no way out. The only escape is to make your own exit. Take the narrow gate.’
She’s silent then and, just when she thinks he’s gone, something else comes through the grille. A pack of pills. She can’t see what type they are but, when she fingers them in their foil packet, the shape is oddly comforting, like peas in a pod.
The only escape is to make your own exit.
Ruth looks around her sitting room, so comforting, so familiar. The tatty sofa where Kate is now stretched out eating an apple. The bookshelves, two-deep now, with genres and authors jumbled together. The wooden staircase leading to the upstairs rooms. The broken lightshade. The chewed suffragette cushions. Is it possible that, some time in 1963, Ruth’s mother once visited this house with a baby in her arms? That she handed the baby over to kind foster mother, Dot, and departed, taking one last photograph to remind herself of her daughter? Dawn 1963. And is it possible that Zoe, with whom Ruth did feel an immediate bond, is actually her sister?
Ruth has always wanted a sister. It was something she used to say to Simon when they argued. ‘I wish I had a sister instead of a stupid brother!’ Had Ruth’s mother overheard? What had she thought? What had she thought when Ruth announced that she was going to have a baby without a husband in the picture? Ruth remembers when she told her parents, walking in the grounds of Severndroog Castle on Shooter’s Hill. ‘What do you mean, you’re pregnant,’ Jean had said, ‘you’re not even married.’ ‘You don’t need to be married to have a baby,’ Ruth had replied. But Jean had obviously felt that you did. Or maybe others had thought it for her. She’d once told Ruth that her father had been strict but Ruth, remembering a mild elderly man, had dismissed this. But what if her grandfather had been a domestic tyrant, ordering his daughter to give up her illegitimate child? He wouldn’t have been the first to do so.
‘Oh, Mum,’ says Ruth, aloud.
‘What?’ says Kate from the sofa.
‘Nothing.’
Not for the first time, Ruth wishes that her mother was still alive. She wishes that she could ask her if this was where it all started: her disapproval of Ruth’s life, her rigid Christianity, her hatred of Norfolk and this cottage in particular. Ruth remembers visiting her mother in hospital after her first stroke and having the distinct impression that Jean wanted to tell her something. But they had ended up talking about Kate, as usual. And Jean had adored the child whom Arthur, now a doting granddad, had once described as ‘a bastard grandchild’. Ruth supposes that this represents closure of some kind.
Does Ruth’s father know? She thinks not, remembering his genuine confusion over the Dawn photograph. Arthur and Jean met and married in 1964, Simon was born in 1966, Ruth in 1968. Ruth imagines that her mother simply left her past behind her. Something that her daughter, as an archaeologist, could have told her is almost impossible to achieve.
This explains, of course, why Zoe Hilton, née Dawn Stainton, came to rent the house next door. She must have known that this was where she spent the first year of her life. Did she also know that Ruth was her half-sister? You’re allowed to trace your birth parents, aren’t you, when you reach eighteen? Zoe had acquired a photograph of Jean from somewhere. It wouldn’t have been hard to trace the line from Jean to Ruth. Ruth tries to remember what Zoe told her about her early life. Only that she’d married her teenage boyfriend, now white-haired but still cool, and that she thought they’d still be together if they’d had children. Her parents were both dead and her mother had been a keen gardener. Nothing about being adopted or the reasons for her child-free state. Jean would have been proud of Zoe, thinks Ruth. Nurse was top of her list of respectable professions. Archaeologist was near the bottom.
But where is her respectable nurse neighbour now? And does her disappearance have anything to do with the fact that her history is now known to Norfolk police? Ruth has not enjoyed the few instances when she has appeared on screen, as an expert witness in various archaeology programmes. She can only imagine how it would feel to have your face emblazoned across the papers, charged with the very worst of crimes. That Zoe was completely innocent doesn’t seem to have affected the prurient tone that still accompanies her original name. Even Nelson called her a murderer.
Ruth goes to the window, hoping that Zoe will materialise in front of her. But all she sees are the marshes, the long grasses moving endlessly in the wind.
‘We need to find Joe McMahon,’ Nelson tells Tanya. ‘His dad lives in London. Says he hasn’t seen Joe for a year but maybe he’ll turn up there. People do normally drift home in the end. Here’s the number.’
‘Do you think he’s the bearded man the neighbour mentioned?’
‘I don’t know but he’s got a bloody big beard and he’s been acting suspiciously. That’s enough for me. Try to find this neighbour of Samantha’s too. Oh, and now Ruth’s neighbour’s gone missing.’ He tells Tanya briefly about Zoe Hilton.
‘I remember the Dawn Stainton case,’ says Tanya. ‘Deadly Dawn they called her.’
‘You don’t surprise me. She hasn’t turned up for work today and apparently that’s very out of character. I’ve put a trace on her car.’ When Nelson had asked Ruth what car Zoe drove, she had replied ‘I think it’s blue’. The surgery had been more helpful and now they are looking for an electric blue Nissan Juke. The receptionist even knew the number plate, ‘We need it for the parking permit.’
‘Next of kin?’ says Tanya.
‘There’s an ex-husband,’ says Nelson. ‘Patrick Stainton. She put him as next-of-kin on her personnel records, but I’ve contacted him and he hasn’t spoken to Zoe in years. They divorced in 1994.’
‘That must have been about when the court case was.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ Nelson is impressed, though he should be used to Tanya’s powers of recall by now. ‘Anyway, there’s no one else.’
‘That’s a bit lonely,’ says Tanya.
‘I suppose it is,’ says Nelson.
The thought doesn’t make him feel any less troubled. Lonely people can be dangerous. When Tanya goes out of the room, bristling with purpose, Nelson rings Ruth.
‘I’ve found out who Zoe is,’ she says, without waiting for him to say anything. ‘I think she’s my sister.’ Then she’s off on a saga about photographs, foster parents and Zoe always reminding her of her mother. When Nelson can get a word in, he says, ‘I take it she’s not back yet?’
‘No. I keep looking out of the window.’
‘Keep your doors locked,’ says Nelson.
‘Why?’ says Ruth.
‘Because it’s always a good idea to keep your doors locked. Especially when you live in the middle of bloody nowhere.’
‘But do you think Zoe could be in danger?’
‘I don’t know but there’s a lot that feels fishy to me. Joe McMahon having a room full of photos of you and then going missing. Those messages about the Grey Lady. Zoe disappearing on her way to work.’
‘I’m a bit worried about Eileen too. You remember, the student who showed you Joe’s room?’
Nelson remembers the girl shivering in the porch of the halls of residence.
‘What’s happened to her?’
‘I don’t know. She’s not attending lectures. Her personal tutor hasn’t heard from her in a while. I’ve asked the warden of the halls to check up on her today.’
‘It’ll be quicker to go myself,’ says Nelson.
‘That would be great,’ says Ruth. ‘I don’t like to think of her in that place on her own.’
‘Nor do I,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ll call you later. And keep the doors locked.’
The halls look even bleaker today. It’s April now and there’s a real feeling of spring in the air but the blue skies and bright sun contrast with the general sense of abandonment. The grass grows high around the empty buildings and litter blows across the courtyards. Nelson has asked the warden, Jeremy Stokes, to meet him outside Vancouver House. He thinks the man looks nervous. He’s wearing a surgical mask and backs away from Nelson even as he greets him.
‘How often do you check on the students here?’ barks Nelson from behind his own mask.
‘They can call us whenever they need anything,’ says Jeremy, tapping in a passcode to open the door.
‘But you don’t come here yourself?’
‘No. I’ve been shielding. My wife has cancer.’
Nelson lets the man off but, all the same, UNN’s student care leaves a lot to be desired. Eileen’s room is on the second floor and, as soon as Jeremy lets them in with his master key, it’s clear that it’s been empty for a few days. There’s mould on a coffee cup by the bed and an intricate spider’s web across the en-suite shower.
‘Maybe she’s gone home,’ says Jeremy.
‘Have you got a number for her? Perhaps you could find out.’
Nelson goes into the corridor and starts knocking on doors. Before he’s got to the end of the line, one of them opens.
‘What’s going on?’
It’s Mei. The girl he met on his last visit, the one who said she’d keep an eye on Eileen.
‘It’s DCI Nelson. Have you seen Eileen?’
To his surprise, Mei nods. ‘She put a note through my door on Monday night.’
‘What did it say?’
Mei looks slightly alarmed at the urgency in his voice, but she says, equably enough, ‘I think I’ve still got it. I’ll show you.’
She disappears into her room and comes back with a postcard which she hands to Nelson.
I’m off! Thanks for everything. Love you Exx
Nelson stares at the rounded blue letters, the heart that follows the kisses. ‘Does this sound like her?’
Mei smiles. ‘It does.’
‘Do you know where she was off to?’
‘I assumed home.’ Mei is starting to look worried.
‘Can I take the card?’ asks Nelson.
‘Of course.’ There are probably fingerprints all over it now, but Nelson gets out an evidence bag and inserts the card. Eileen wrote it on Monday. It’s Wednesday now. Not that long for a teenager to go missing but long enough.
‘How did she seem when you last saw her?’
‘A little down. We all are. It’s very hard, living here on your own, trying to keep up with your studies, worrying about Covid.’
‘Are you on your own here?’
‘There’s one other girl. Lan. Her family are in China too.’
Nelson turns to Jeremy. ‘You should be looking after these girls better.’
‘I know,’ says Jeremy. ‘But what can I do?’
‘You could check up on them sometimes,’ says Nelson. ‘Send them food parcels. Buy them a Netflix subscription. Show some bloody compassion.’
He thinks that the warden is about to burst into tears.
‘It’s OK,’ says Mei kindly. ‘We’re all under pressure.’
Nelson leaves after a few more well-chosen words. He wishes he could find somewhere else for Mei and Lan to live but no one is going to be taking in lodgers during a pandemic and all the hotels and B&Bs are closed. Nelson gets back into his car feeling frustrated. He’s about to text Tanya and ask her to put out a description of Eileen when a message appears on his screen.
Judy.
Cathbad worse. Think it’s the end.