When I get to Leigh Woods, just up the road from the place I disappeared ten years ago, I see the police lights flashing in the distance. I don’t know what to expect, but the confusion is the only thing that keeps me conscious.
I pull up outside a line of police tape and traffic cones, seeing my mum’s car just up ahead and police officers looking inside through the passenger door. This must be it, Mark’s house, it’s exactly how Annie described it. The large black gates, the low brick wall, the long driveway.
What is she doing here?
I slam the door shut and duck under the tape. Tiger barks as I run up the driveway, and officers shout at me as I go, but I ignore them, until I see the detective I recognise from the TV, standing on the front steps speaking to a man in a suit with a notepad.
I fly at him, startling him.
‘Where is she?’ I cry. ‘Is she here?’
‘Katy,’ he whispers, grabbing me by the shoulders gently, his face searching mine. He knows me instantly – of course he does, he spent years looking at my face on a piece of paper, years searching for me. No amount of hair dye or age could hide me from him.
I push past him but he doesn’t stop me, no one stops me. Are they all too stunned, too shocked at seeing me? I’m supposed to be dead, I’m supposed to be gone. I call for her as I lurch down the hallway, through the lounge, following the confused, disbelieving faces down the lined corridor and steep steps to The Golden Key. I pause at the door, unable to force my breath through my chest. I stare up at the sign.
‘You can’t go in there,’ a voice says, someone clambering down the steps after me, but I push the door open anyway.
An officer stands on the other side holding tape, a hand raised to me, as if he knew I was coming.
‘I’m her daughter,’ I say, before he can stop me. But he knows who I am, he recognises me, and more officers appear and start to circle me like they’re trying to catch a wild animal.
I search the room frantically, but I can’t see her.
‘Where is she?’ I cry.
But as an officer moves to grab me, a piece of net curtain blows open, and she disappears in and out of view. Everyone around me is still. I take a step forward and the circle breaks, the officers fall away. Detective Lane joins them. He stretches out a hand to take mine, but he doesn’t.
I can’t move when I see her. Strapped to a chair, her head hanging loose, her red curls covering her face. I take a small step forward just as the detective grabs my hand.
‘Katy, you need to leave, this is a crime scene, I can’t let you.’
I start to cry, shaking my head.
‘No.’
‘Let’s go, come on, I’ll take you back to the car.’
‘No.’ I pull away.
I take a few steps forward and the detective holds out a hand to the officer as a gesture to let me go.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ I whisper to her. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
I smile, wrapping my fingers around my mum’s hand for the last time.
* * *
Sitting in a police interrogation room, I don’t know what I expect to happen, or whether I care. Everything has been taken from me, and now I’m more dangerous than ever – I have nothing to lose.
I try and fight back the tears and swallow the bile that’s working its way up my throat. I can hear Tiger pining for me up the corridor in the room where they’re holding him. He’ll be so confused, sad for me, but not sad for her, because he never knew her. I let the tears run freely.
‘I never knew her.’
The door opens and two officers walk in, a man and a woman in dark suits. The woman smiles at me, placing a cup of water on the table. They slide back the chairs and open a folder. The man straightens his suit jacket.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
I don’t reply. He can see that I’m not.
‘We have a few questions for you, but we’ve already spoken at length to Detective Inspector Lane, and he’s filled us in on quite a few details,’ the woman says.
‘How did you know where my mum was?’
‘The police received an anonymous call, that someone was in danger at the residence.’
I look at them like they’re the enemy, like I’m about to be silenced, I’ll be forced into writing a fake statement and pushed back into the shadows.
‘I don’t have anything left,’ I say quietly. ‘You can’t make me lie anymore. Whether anyone believes what I have to say, I don’t know, but I’m done waiting.’ I point at the door and then towards them. ‘You have taken everything from me, my entire life.’
I expect them to sit down, to place a firm hand on the table and tell me to really think about this, to weigh up my options. I know senior police officers in the force are members of The Golden Key, I know that lawyers and court officials are all involved, I know I’ll be wiped away like a piece of muck on their shiny, polished shoes and they’ll just go about their day again, like I’d never existed.
‘How’, I whisper, ‘did she die?’
The woman sighs. ‘I’m afraid we’re still working on the crime scene; we can’t give you any further information other than that.’
‘Other than what? That she’s dead, that he did it? Mark Crawley, beloved journalist and national treasure. He did it, you know that. You know what he tried to do to me?’
She nods.
‘We’ve spoken to your dad, Ian Walters.’
I bite my lip and tip my head back, my knee shaking. I stretch out a hand to steady it. ‘He isn’t my dad. He is no one.’
She smiles. ‘He was the one that got you out? That provided you with the new identity?’
I don’t reply.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘He’s told us what happened, and that he believed you might be in danger. He tried to connect with you through the show, hoping you’d give him some sort of sign you were okay.’ She leans forward. ‘You called him tonight. Is that how you found out something was wrong? Is that why you came back?’
I lick my lips and think carefully before saying, ‘You know he works for Mark, you know that.’
She nods.
The man coughs and adjusts his tie before saying, ‘We’re just trying to establish your movements, and why you turned up out of the blue. How did you know your mum was at Mark’s?’
‘Have you spoken to Annie?’ I say.
He jots something down in his notepad and glances back up at me. ‘We’re going to speak to her, yes.’
‘What about the other girls? What about your boss?’ I hiss. ‘You will not silence me anymore.’
The woman smiles and holds two hands up. ‘I think you have this wrong,’ she says. She produces something from her pocket, wrapped in a plastic evidence bag. ‘This is a little unorthodox, but I think you should hear this.’ She undoes the bag and with a gloved hand pulls out my mum’s phone.
She sets it on the table and opens up an audio file.
‘This might be upsetting to hear,’ she warns, pressing play. My mum’s voice croaks, almost inaudible, muffled like fabric is brushing up against the speaker, but it’s her voice.
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know, but my best bet is the bottom of the River Avon.’
‘No.’
‘I’m afraid so. She was just a silly girl that got herself in way too deep, and she drowned in it.’
‘What – did – you – do?’
‘Me? I did nothing. But my clients, my members, my friends. They need to be kept happy, safe. This is a sanctuary for them to escape the world. And Katy was about to ruin that, or try to, at least.’
‘The police—’
‘The police? Who do you think my clients are? This is The Golden Key, Grace. The Golden Fucking Key. The most exclusive club in England. And some little girl with hopes of being a journalist was going to try and spread misinformation about some very important people.’
The officer stops the audio and swipes the phone from the table, placing it back into the evidence bag.
It’s Mark, it’s him, clearly, speaking so close to the microphone it’s like he’s the one holding it. But that’s not true, it’s my mum’s phone. She went in there with intent. She knew something, she felt something wasn’t right. She did it. But to hear her last words, to hear her fear, it’s too much.
‘She got him,’ I say. I bend my neck and scream at the top of my lungs until there’s nothing left, but they don’t even flinch. ‘Why are you showing me this?’
The woman smiles and, reaching across the table, places a hand over mine.
‘She got him?’ I nod, trying to get them to nod back.
She nods slowly and the man leans forward.
‘We’re not from the police,’ he says. ‘So I’m going to need you to start from the beginning, everything you know about Mark and The Golden Key.’
‘You have him?’ I whisper, sniffing. The woman hands me a tissue.
‘We do.’
The relief hurts every bone and muscle in my body, but I breathe, for what feels like the first time.