Chapter 37

I went to the kitchen, found the kettle and the tea.

Set the kettle boiling, checked outside the door to see if Kathryn was anywhere to be seen. Figured she wasn’t much up for going anywhere.

I kept my distance from the broken glass, figuring when they finally got round to it, the first officers on the scene weren’t going to appreciate someone trampling the scene. I looked at the French doors; the gaping hole to the night outside. Wouldn’t feel safe myself with that kind of damage overnight. Had she called for help? When I came to the door, she thought I was the police, which made me ask: where were they?

Response times were an issue these days; every couple of months, the local papers made a noise about how the police weren’t responding appropriately. Like they understood the kind of pressures the lads were under, especially the boys on the beat.

I pulled out my mobile, dialled Susan’s number.

“I’m nearly there.”

“Leave the badge outside,” I said. “Don’t tell her you’re a cop.”

I could sense the anger on the other end. “I’m not lying to anyone.”

“I’m not asking you to lie. Just to…omit certain facts. Look, she’s jumpy, okay? And she doesn’t trust the police. Not about this situation.”

“She’s got something to hide?”

“Doesn’t everyone.” I checked back the corridor again. I was talking low, a hoarse kind of whisper.

Susan went quiet on the other end of the line. I wondered if maybe she’d just hung up. Then: “I’ll go with it,” she said. “But if this is another wild goose chase, I’m arresting you for obstruction of –”

“Fine,” I said, and hung up.

The snap of the phone echoed too loudly and afterwards, the house seemed uncomfortably silent even though the kettle was reaching a boil.

I made the tea fast, went back to the living room. Told Kathryn that an associate of mine was coming round.

“You want to know where Deborah is?”

“Yes,” I said.

“She didn’t abduct the girl.”

I didn’t know what to say. Mary was still under sixteen years of age, had disappeared from her home without her mother’s knowledge. What else would you call it?

But I didn’t disagree.

Like I’d said to Susan; no lies. Just omissions.

Kathryn Brown didn’t like Wickes much before she met him.

When he came to pick up Deborah’s things, she liked him even less.

“You’ve seen him, the way he carries himself. He’s a big man. Imposing.” From the minute he walked in the door, she said, he treated her like shite. Practically pushing her out the way as he made straight for Deborah’s belongings.

Kathryn put it succinctly: “This was the man she said she was falling for.”

Aye, they’d had the heart to heart. Deborah had come to her sister for advice about Wickes’s plan. Uncertain, but undecided. Talking as though Wickes was some kind of rough-edged saint.

Nothing close to the man who barged past Kathryn, who called her an uncaring and manipulative bitch.

“The thing that struck me…not his size. But…I remember looking at his eyes, and…I don’t know. You’ve seen these wildlife documentaries? The small animals take one look at the predator bearing down on them and it’s like they’ve been hypnotised? Like that. I was scared. I’m not afraid to admit it, either.”

Looking into someone’s eyes, seeing evil there, it’s the kind of description I’d dismiss as overactive imagination. If I didn’t know Wickes. Hadn’t seen his true self shifting uneasily beneath the mask he wore.

“He came to the door angry, like I’d already refused him entry before he knocked. Didn’t say hello. Barged past me. The kind of strength in it, I don’t think he cared if he hurt me or not.” Kathryn massaged her hands as she talked. Maybe feeling guilt at not having done anything for her sister fifteen years ago.

I wanted to ask her why she didn’t do or say anything. Why she didn’t act on her instincts.

It’s easy to judge.

I’ve had to teach myself to step back. Understand that people are their own judges in the end. Consciously or unconsciously we all punish ourselves.

“He went straight to her room. Like he’d been there already. Although I’d never met him before. Never seen him in the house.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I tried.”

“And?”

The real hesitation. Right there. The massaging became intense and she started looking around the room.

“And?”

She couldn’t escape. Maybe realised it would only compound her first mistake. She drew a long breath, raised her head. “I talked to him. Tried to.” She shifted on the sofa, played with her blouse, pulled it up to reveal her lower abdomen. The left hand side.

An ugly blotch on pale skin. Blackened and cracked and wrinkled; the kind of wound that doesn’t heal quickly. Doesn’t allow you to forget.

She let the silk drop back to cover it, and fell back onto the sofa. Her eyes damp and her face pale with exertion.

What had it taken to show me that?

I said, “He did that.” Wanted it to be a question. But it wasn’t. I knew the answer. Made my stomach churn.

She nodded. “I asked too much,” she said. “Insisted. All I wanted to know was whether he’d take care of my sister, if he’d really look out for her. You know, I just didn’t like what was happening. Needed to hear from someone other than Deborah that –” She crumpled in on herself. Doubling up. Her body shuddered.

Across the other side of the coffee table, I couldn’t offer any comfort.

Didn’t know if there was any I had to give.

“I’d been ironing,” she said. “When he came round. Ironing. The kind of thing…it’s a chore, aye? Boring. Mundane. Not dangerous.”

I closed my eyes. All I could see was that scar. The puckered skin. The angry outline.

The kind of scar that stays with you.

“I asked him about my sister. Over and over. He didn’t answer. I grabbed his arm. He turned round. I slapped him.” She spoke with slow deliberation. There would be no faltering. She’d lived with this for years. Now she could tell someone. Someone who would listen.

She talked with the inevitability and rising momentum of an avalanche. “That was when he grabbed me. I remember thinking he was going to break my arm. Just twist and…snap! That’s what I was waiting for. Feeling sick at the thought of it, aye? But it never came. The pain, not like that.”

Sitting in the calm of her house, I tried not to think about it. But couldn’t help imagining Kathryn fourteen years younger being grabbed into the spare room where she’d been ironing, listening to the radio. Being thrown to the floor.

The big bastard looming over her.

First time I saw Wickes, I’d had this mental impression of him as The Big Friendly Giant and Brian Blessed’s unholy love child.

The truth was nothing so reassuring.

Over the past day and a half I’d realised that he was nothing more than a force of sheer hatred. Nothing discernible about it; just an absolute distaste for the world about him. A contempt for all the people.

But I’d only scratched the surface of his insanity.

Kathryn Brown had seen his true face.

Buried that memory deep for all these years.

What was it doing to her, reliving it in front of a complete stranger?

I wanted to reach out, tell her she could let it go. That she didn’t have to do this.

More, I wanted to break something. Burn down the house where this had happened, purify the past in fire.

I wasn’t just angry at Wickes.

But at myself for making Kathryn Brown relive that moment.

Not for her own sake.

But for mine.

So that I could know the truth.

Aye, tell me again, between me and Wickes, who really caused the most pain?