Gemma Harrington tapped her finger against the side of her glass. There wasn’t enough wine in the world to get her through what was about to come. In the far corner of the pub Stu, her boss, was waving a karaoke microphone, while two of her co-workers were arguing over how to convince customers to buy the premium support package for the terrible computer software the company sold.
She was thirty-seven years old, single, and stuck at a monthly team bonding night with people she hated. How had this become her life? But she already knew the answer. There was only one thing she cared about and that wasn’t something that paid the bills. In fact, all it did was cost her money and keep her stuck where she was.
And yet, she couldn’t let it go.
Wouldn’t let it go.
A squeal came from the microphone and the opening bars of a Whitney Houston song came on. Several more of her colleagues let out a loud cheer, and one of them knocked Gemma’s glass of wine, sending the half glass of pinot noir splashing down the front of her white blouse.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she let out a startled cry and got to her feet.
‘Shit. Sorry, Gemini,’ a male voice slurred. ‘My mistake.’
Gemma bit her tongue. She’d long ago stopped trying to remind her manager what her actual name was, mainly because if she did, she might also tell him to piss off. And right now, she couldn’t afford to lose her job.
‘It’s fine. I’d better go and wash it before it stains,’ she said and, without waiting for an answer, she headed for the bathroom before peeling off and slipping out of the front door of the pub and onto the street outside.
There was a bus stop around the corner and she trudged towards it. She’d much prefer to book a car but the red wine on her blouse now looked like a crime scene and she doubted any driver would want to let her in, considering the stench of alcohol.
Thirty minutes later, she climbed down from the bus and reached her tiny studio apartment. It was the top floor of an old, converted house. The bathroom and kitchen were squashed onto one side of the gables, while the other half was large enough for a bed at one end and a couch and dining room table at the other.
She slid the deadbolt across and walked over to the large cage that took up most of the floor by the window. Thelma, her Rex guinea pig, poked her nose out of the hideout, but Louise was asleep in the corner. Gemma lowered herself down to have a chat with them, careful not to get too close. Despite having them for a year, they were still nervous around her, but that was just because they’d had a tough life in a research lab before she’d adopted them.
After feeding them, she had a quick shower before shaking salt onto her stained blouse and then letting it sit in soda water. Her hair was wet, but she couldn’t be bothered to dry it, so wrapped it in a towel and busied herself in the galley kitchen. Once she had a pot of peppermint tea, she settled down at the second-hand dining room table which doubled as her desk.
It was currently covered in newspaper clippings and photocopied articles as well as the pages and pages of handwritten notes that she’d taken from the last trip to Yorkshire where she’d spoken to Alan Ryman’s family. It had been forty years since the eight-year-old boy had gone missing, and while the family had lost hope of finding him alive, they were as anxious as ever to find the person responsible.
Not find, she corrected herself. Because they all knew who had been responsible.
Colin Wallace.
The problem was proving it was him, especially now he was dead.
He’d only ever been convicted of one crime, back in 1984 when he’d abducted eight-year-old Wayne Mason and held him prisoner in a lock-up connected to a rundown block of flats. It had been Wallace’s wife who’d found the boy and the evidence recovered from the gruesome scene had been enough to put him away for life.
But while Wayne Mason and his family got the justice they deserved, Colin’s conviction was no relief for the twelve other local families who were still frantically searching for their own sons, who’d all gone missing over a five-year period. The most terrible part was that on the night of his arrest, Wallace had talked at length about the young boys, all aged between six and ten. He mentioned names and hair colour, and even birth marks, as well as alluding to the fact the lock-up he’d used to hold Wayne Mason wasn’t the only one he’d rented.
The following day, after speaking to a lawyer, he retracted the statement and refused to give any details, thereby destroying any hope the devastated families had. But there had been a smugness to him all through the trial. His wide mouth curled into a mocking smile. As if he fully understood the pain he was causing, and liked it. That by denying the families answers, he was also denying the police a reason to keep searching for evidence.
And so it had continued until his death five years ago.
Even now, the unfairness of it made her chest ache. Which is why she’d spent the last ten years researching Colin Wallace and writing a book on him. But thanks to his refusal to help the police, he wasn’t considered a serial killer, and it had been impossible to find a publisher. So, she’d self-published it and set up her own website. But, unlike so many of the true crime influencers out there, Gemma had no interest in exploring any other cases. She was interested in Colin Wallace alone, which meant she only had a small audience and no revenue from it.
But it wasn’t enough to stop her.
Colin Wallace was an animal, and while he would never receive the punishment he deserved, she was determined to get to the truth. Because that’s what those lost boys deserved. The ones who never came home and whose stories weren’t told. All twelve of them. Including her own brother, Lucas.
* * *
Gemma woke with a start. Her neck hurt and her arms were cold. Then she groaned as she lifted her head and several pieces of paper fell away from her cheek. She’d fallen asleep at her desk again. Shivering, she fumbled for her phone to see the time. It was four in the morning and she knew from experience she wouldn’t get back to sleep even if she tried.
It was always the same when she thought too much about her older brother.
Lucas had disappeared before Gemma was born but she felt like she’d always known him. His shadow was the marker she used to judge her life. And up until age ten, it had been easy. Lucas loved swimming, so she did too. Lucas visited the pet shop every weekend, and so did Gemma. It got a little tricker when she turned eleven and there were no more of Lucas’s milestones or interests to aim for but she’d always tried her best.
Unfortunately, it had never worked.
She’d been born for one reason. To be the plaster that would heal her parents’ shattered lives. Instead, she’d made it worse. She was just a reminder that Lucas was no longer there. They lost a son and in return all they’d got was… her.
Her parents divorced and not long after her father committed suicide. While her mother – already old in spirit by the time Gemma was born – shrank in on herself, leaving Gemma alone to try and navigate her way in the world. And as far as she could tell, she only had one job.
Find out what happened to Lucas.
She rolled her shoulders, trying to shake out the cramps. Her shift didn’t start until ten so she stood up and made herself a pot of English Breakfast before returning to her work. She was halfway through doing a new blog article and this would give her a chance to get stuck into it. She yawned and turned on her computer but instead of opening her document, she found herself clicking onto the low-tech message boards that she’d first stumbled across back in high school. Looks wise, they had hardly changed in the last twenty years, making them out-of-date compared with more modern sites or the slew of online bloggers who had moved into the true crime space.
But apart from not having to listen to a YouTuber talking about their theories about real-life murders while putting on their make-up, the other advantage of the SK Boards was that they were like finding friends hiding away in the stacks of the library; she could always stumble upon live threads at any time of the day or night.
Down one side was a list of people currently online and she recognised a few familiar names. There was a discussion around a Netflix documentary and how it tackled racial profiling and she dipped in to read a couple of comments before bouncing across to an argument about a case that was going through the courts right now.
Gemma yawned. She should really get started on the blog post. She was about to flick it off when another thread involved a headline from a newspaper article that someone had posted.
Girl Escapes from Monster’s Sick Trap.
She gave a shudder. With that kind of sensationalist headline, there was only one newspaper the story had come from. Most of the comments were in disgust at the way the clickbait shock value of the article didn’t seem to care about the dignity and wellbeing of the victim.
What started as a small party to celebrate a friend’s birthday, down at a popular Bournemouth beach, resulted in A-Level student, Hayley Terrace, waking up to find herself trapped in an old lock-up that had once belonged to a block of flats, with no recollection of how she got there. She was lucky enough to escape, but has this happened before? And more importantly, will it happen again?
The world stopped and Gemma’s body seemed to shut down. As if it was too scared to move or do anything until she’d had time to digest what she’d just read. This time, she pored over every word until she got to the end, and then rubbed her chin. She hadn’t been mistaken.
The girl had been held in a lock-up that was near some abandoned flats.
A setting that was almost identical to where Wayne had been found.
Gemma scanned the rest of the thread, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. A few long-time members had also brought up the Colin Wallace connection but most had dismissed it, apart from Agatha in Southport, who was concerned it might be a copycat murderer. In response, Agatha’s long-time nemesis, Stuart from Wolverhampton, had informed her that a copycat wouldn’t take a seventeen-year-old girl.
He was right.
The terrible paraphernalia and pornography that had been found in the lock-up had suggested that Colin Wallace was a paedophile who targeted young boys. But that didn’t mean Agatha wasn’t right as well. It could still be a copycat who was trying to mix things up.
Gemma took a sip of tea and settled into her chair. Reading Agatha and Stuart as they battled it out was so much more relaxing than going to work events. These were her people.
She scrolled further down to where someone had posted another article about the case. It was almost as trashy as the first one, except instead of a photograph of the lock-up Hayley had escaped from, there was one of a paramedic leaning over the girl, who was wrapped up in a blanket. It was written by a journalist called Fiona Watkins and this article was focused more on the first responders and the hospital. Gemma sighed. It clearly meant there were no new leads and so they were trying to create a story out of nothing.
Forty-five-year-old paramedic, Libby Curtis, said, ‘Seeing the victim in that state was heart breaking. I have kids about the same age. I hope they find whoever’s behind it.’
The article moved to the ongoing problems associated with beach parties and the dangers of too much alcohol and drugs on the young adults of Bournemouth. But Gemma ignored it as she stared at the woman in the photo. There was something familiar about her.
She blew up the image to try and get a better look but it had been taken at a distance and was heavily pixelated. Damn. Libby Curtis. Curtis? Why was it familiar?
Chewing her lip, she brought up another screen and searched LinkedIn. There was no photo, just a timeline of her work history, along with a couple of posts to support paramedics who were after a pay rise. There was a husband called Nathan Curtis who ran some kind of company but nothing else.
Gemma sighed. Clearly, it was time to get off the Internet and start working on her blog before she had to leave for work. No doubt Stu would have something to say about her leaving early last night.
She picked up the unlined notepad that she preferred to write in and studied her notes. Her brother, Lucas, had disappeared on his way home from the local shops as he’d walked across a playing field and, according to the interview she’d recently done with the Ryman family, Alan’s aunt lived not far from the playing field. Although there was a year between when the two boys disappeared, Libby wanted to investigate it further.
All her old street maps were on the bookshelf and she quickly found the one she needed. Over the years, she’d methodically marked in every landmark and house number that she came across, hoping it would give her a better picture of things. There was software that could do it as well, but Gemma found that by working with her hands, it somehow kept her connected to her brother. And to her mission.
As she returned to the table, her leg brushed one of the folders she’d hastily jammed into the bookshelf. It fell to the floor, sending out the loose-leaf sheets of paper, landing everywhere.
Pages and pages of notes fanned out around her feet.
Okay, maybe there was something to be said for using software to store some of her research. Sighing, she dropped into a crouching position and gathered up the mess. Most of them were from her first trip to Yorkshire, back when she first started looking into her brother’s disappearance. There were pages of interviews with the few neighbours who were still living in the same street where Wallace’s family home had been. She’d also found several other people who’d known the family and been happy enough to talk to her.
She messily thrust them back into the folder when a name caught her eye.
Marion Curtis.
The words danced on the page as Gemma’s entire body went stiff. Curtis was Marion’s maiden name before she’d married Colin.
Gemma snatched up the piece of paper, scanning through her old notes. The interview had been with one of Marion’s co-workers, who’d gone into great detail about how Marion was from money and that her family had never approved of the marriage, believing that Colin Wallace, who’d been working as a labourer when they’d first met, wasn’t suitable.
How right they were.
Over the years, Gemma had spent a lot of time researching Marion’s history because after the court case, she’d gone to live in Spain, along with her five-year-old son, Ian, before the pair of them seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. Over the years, there had been a lot of speculation about where they might be, but no definite sightings.
Until now.
But was it too much of a coincidence that a teenage girl had been kidnapped in Colin’s signature style and that someone with his wife’s maiden name was involved? A cynic might say yes, but Gemma had been doing this for a long time. Months and months of her life without even a hint of a way forward.
Her skin prickled and she hurried back to her computer to find out more about Libby Curtis. This time, she went deeper into her history and bookmarked page after page. There were two children in high school, and the husband, Nathan. And while she couldn’t get into any of their social media accounts, there were several newspaper articles over the years, mainly for sports. Some just with the kids winning medals and once with Nathan and Libby dressed up for an art deco ball.
Gemma’s heart thumped like a drum as she stared at the photographs of the whole family. They looked happy. But that didn’t mean anything. All families had secrets. Question was, did the man in the photo have the kind of secret she was looking for? Was he the missing son of Colin Wallace?
She widened her search and found a couple of mentions of the mother, Eloise Curtis, but there were no photos. It wasn’t such a surprise. While lots of older people did use the Internet, there was still a large number who avoided it.
A buzz of dopamine blasted through her and Gemma scrolled through her phone to see when the next train to London was going. Because if Marion and Ian Wallace really were down in Bournemouth, possibly living under a different name, she needed to find them. To get justice for the many families whose lives had been destroyed by the monster. And revenge for the brother she’d never met.
* * *
‘Can I just remind you that this is a terrible idea?’ Stephen said an hour later as he pulled to a stop outside the station. It had started to rain and he flicked on his wipers before turning towards her.
At forty-four, he was five years older than her, with the first sprinkles of grey streaking his dark hair. It suited him more than the soft brown of his student days when they’d first met. But unlike her, he’d gone on to finish his degree and now worked as a lawyer, while she’d dropped out after a year and had jumped from one dead-end job to another. He also lived five minutes away and was the only one of her friends that Thelma and Louise weren’t scared of. And while he’d immediately agreed to look after them, he’d also insisted on driving her to the station. No doubt with this in mind.
‘No, it’s not. This is the break I’ve been waiting for. It could change everything,’ Gemma reminded him.
‘Or it could be a wild goose chase that costs you lots of money. Not to mention that you have no holidays left. What did your boss say?’
Gemma swallowed. Stu hadn’t taken it well but had grudgingly agreed to let her take a week off. But if she wasn’t back at her desk by the end of next week, then there would be trouble. But that was a problem for another day.
‘He said it’s fine. We’re not that busy,’ she said. Steven raised an eyebrow as if her feeble excuse wasn’t even worth cross examining.
‘What if you do find Marion and Ian? They’ve obviously gone underground for a reason. Trying to start a new life without the shadow of Colin Wallace hanging over their heads. What right do you have to expose them to the world again?’ he said.
‘What about the rights of the grieving families to know where their loved ones are?’ she countered, her gaze holding his. Finally, he shrugged, just like she knew he would. Gemma gave him a grateful smile and leaned over to kiss his cheek. ‘Thank you for the lift. And for agreeing to feed the girls.’
‘You say it like I had a choice,’ he said, the worry still deep in his eyes. She swallowed back her guilt. They’d slept together several times over the years and she had the feeling he wanted more. Maybe she should have just asked Edith in the downstairs flat to feed the guinea pigs instead? ‘Just make sure you check in with me every day while you’re down there, so I know you’re safe.’
‘Safe from what? Colin Wallace is dead.’ Gemma reached for her small travel bag and opened the car door. ‘I’m only chasing the bones.’
‘No, Gem, you’re chasing ghosts, and sometimes that can be worse.’