M. Arlidge - The Doll's House

Sanderson watched them go. There was prejudice here all right but it wasn’t just coming from Price. Sanderson was the more experienced, better-qualified officer, with far more investigation hours and convictions under her belt, yet Lloyd Fortune had still been promoted over and above her. He’d only been at Southampton a little over a year – to her four – and already he’d shot past her. She knew the reason why – though of course she could never say it in public. It was political correctness pure and simple and it made her blood boil. Lloyd was keen to justify his promotion, to get a high-profile conviction under his belt, and Sanderson would suffer as a result. She understood this, she might even have done the same if she were in his shoes. But was Helen complicit too? She didn’t go in for that kind of thing normally, but had the landscape changed?

Walking back to her desk, Sanderson felt the ground subtly shifting under her feet and she didn’t like it one little bit.

‘Tell me about your relationship with Pippa Briers.’

Helen sat opposite Nathan Price, flanked by Lloyd Fortune. Now facing a Detective Inspector, Price had lost a little of his cockiness, the seriousness of the situation finally impressing itself upon him. Helen was keen to press home the advantage.

‘What do you want to know?’

Answering a question with a question. Price had never been charged with anything but Helen didn’t doubt he’d been in a custody suite before.

‘How long were you seeing her for?’

‘Nine, ten months.’

‘Did you live together?’

‘On and off. I had a wife at home, so you know…’

He was unrepentant, enjoying his status as a low-rent seducer.

‘And how did you get on?’

‘Good. She liked a drink, a dance. She was all right.’

‘Did you argue?’

‘Sometimes. When she went on about things.’

‘Like the fact that you had a wife and hadn’t told her about it.’

Nathan shrugged – he wasn’t going to deny it.

‘Am I right in thinking Pippa ended the relationship, when she found out you were two-timing her.’

‘Three-timing her, actually. I don’t know what it is about the girls round here.’

‘And how did you react when she dumped you?’

Helen clocked the tiny reaction from Price, a little spike of anger at the word ‘dumped’, which he quickly suppressed.

‘What are you going to do?’ he replied casually, but Helen wasn’t buying it.

‘You went nuts, didn’t you?’

‘No. I di-’

‘You didn’t like being dumped and you blew your stack. I have a witness statement here from one of Pippa’s colleagues at Sun First. Says you barged in there, caused a massive scene.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Apparently you had to be hauled out by security. We also have a statement from a long-term tenant at Bedford Heights in Merry Oak who confirms that you turned up drunk several times, banging on Pippa’s door, demanding to be let in.’

‘She’d changed the lock and I didn’t have a key. It was no big deal.’

‘Why had she changed the lock, Nathan?’

For once, Nathan didn’t have a ready reply.

‘Because she was scared of you? She told colleagues she was scared of you. Said you were stalking her.’

‘No way.’

‘You didn’t want to let her go, did you, Nathan? I think you liked her. Where did you take her?’

A long silence, as Nathan stared back at Helen. Then he dropped his gaze.

‘I want a lawyer.’

‘A duty brief is on the way. She should be here in a few minutes. But I’d like to keep going with these general questions, unless you’d specifically like me to stop for some reason.’

Another long pause, then a dismissive shrug.

‘Tell us about Ruby Sprackling,’ Lloyd said, taking up the baton.

‘Don’t know her.’

‘Pretty girl. Similar look to Pippa. You’re fixing a leak in her flat.’

‘Oh yeah, I got you.’

‘Still got keys to her flat, have you?’

‘I did until you took them off me.’

‘And where is Ruby now, Nathan?’

Another long beat, then:

‘No idea.’

‘When did you last see her?’ Helen countered quickly.

‘A couple of days ago. She was heading out to the shops or something -’

‘She disappeared on Friday night, hasn’t been seen since. Did you see her Friday night, Nathan?’

‘No, I was off to a job in Bournemouth.’

‘So you weren’t at Revolution then? On Friday night?’ Helen fired back.

Finally, a flicker of fear in Nathan’s expression. Helen slid a photo across the table towards him.

‘This is a CCTV still of you queuing up to enter Revolution, a club off Bedford Square. Look at the date and time code. Friday night. Ruby was there that night.’

‘Piss off.’

‘We see you going in, but we don’t see you coming out. A place like that must have emergency exits, somewhere you can slip out. Is that what you did? Before you followed Ruby home.’

‘I never saw her.’

‘Your van was parked in Ruby’s road. Traffic cameras pick you up entering the road just after six p.m. Same camera sees your van driving away at four a.m. But the club shut at two a.m. What were you doing in the intervening two hours, Nathan?’

‘I want a lawyer.’ His tone was angry now.

‘Why won’t you talk to me, Nathan? What have you done?’

Nathan stared at the floor, saying nothing.

‘This is your one chance to come clean. Any denials or lies will play very badly in court,’ Helen continued. ‘We can’t do anything for Pippa now, but if you give up Ruby, then maybe I can help you. So please, Nathan, tell me where she is.’

A long pause. Helen shot a look at Lloyd, then back at Nathan. Slowly the suspect raised his head. All the attitude was gone now, he looked like a cornered animal.

But when he spoke, he simply said:

‘No comment.’

The sharp pain had subsided, to be replaced by a dull ache. Ruby lay on the bed, cradling her defiled shoulder, wishing the whole thing would just go away. After he had finished tattooing her, he had seemed quite emotional. Tears hugged the corners of his eyes as he leant forwards and kissed her gently on the head. He left soon after, as if not trusting his composure to hold.

Ruby’s despair was total, her mood black – those early hopes that she might bargain with him, bribe him, were now in tatters. She had cried and cried, the pain of her recent tattoo amplified by her feelings of hopelessness. She realized now that she was his toy. She was his plaything in this doll’s house where everything that looked real was fake.

She had examined every inch of her surroundings now. There was little else to do in the long hours alone and she had spent the time hunting for anything that could be used as a weapon, should the need arise. Though she tried to deny it, she had seen the intense emotion that gripped him when he looked at her, had felt his eyes crawl over her body. If he did force himself on her, how would she fight him off?

There was a kettle on the rickety sideboard, but that was made of plastic and would be cumbersome to wield. There were other strange additions to the room – framed pictures on the walls, a calendar from 2013 and hooks on the walls on which to hang a hat or coat – but nothing of any use. She had tried to rip the hooks off the wall, but they were sealed in concrete and impossible to budge. Why were they there in the first place? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to visit. So why? Why go to such trouble to create a picture-perfect room that was just for show? Ruby buried her face in the sheets, trying to stem a rising wave of nausea.

Try and stay calm. Don’t give in. Ruby forced herself to think of happier things once more. She had only been here a couple of days, but already her anxiety about going mad in this hole was real. Total despair would lead to insanity, Ruby felt sure of that, so she once more turned her thoughts to her family. It was Sunday – what would they be doing? The washing-up from Sunday lunch would have eventually been done by Conor and Cassie – begrudgingly, as always – and Mum and Dad would have taken Max out for a walk -