M. Arlidge: The Doll's House

Why? Why? Why?

Why was she here? What had she done?

At first, she had assumed he was going to kill her. Or worse. But he had made no attempt to harm her. Then she’d assumed he wanted money. But he didn’t. He wanted her. This strange room with its pastiche of homeliness – the stopped clock, the empty shelves, the freshly laundered sheets – was designed to be a home, not a prison.

How did he know her so well? Had something she’d done prompted her abduction? Was she in some way responsible ?

In the shivering darkness, this explanation had made the most sense. She had been a terrible daughter and a bad friend. Since Alison and Jonathan had adopted her, her life had been steady and productive. Unwanted at birth, Ruby could have gone badly wrong, but thanks to the kindness and charity of her adoptive parents she had had a decent start in life. And she had thrown it back in their faces. Her intentions had been good. The knowledge of her abandonment by her birth mother had never left her and she needed to meet her, to see if, years later, she cared for her child at all.

What had she found? A calculating, manipulative criminal, interested only in how her abandoned child could benefit her. Ruby cursed herself for her stupidity in ever having trusted her. Because she swallowed her lies, because she desperately wanted her attention, she had spurned the only people who had ever shown her any real love. And when they reacted badly to her craziness, she had rewarded them with vitriol and abuse. She had called them every name under the sun, spat at them, clawed at them. She was under the influence – in more ways than one – when she committed those crimes against her family, but that didn’t excuse her behaviour. She had been vile to those who least deserved it.

As Ruby lay on the bed, her surrender complete, she thought she understood. She had done terrible things. She was, and always would be, a terrible human being.

And now she was going to be punished for it.

Helen stood stock still in the shadow of St Barnabas’ church. How she had got here she couldn’t tell. Perhaps she should have gone back to the station to make the call to Daniel Briers, but it was already very late and, besides, she was honour-bound to deliver her terrible news as quickly as possible. So she had made the call there and then. As the conversation progressed, Helen filling the heavy silences with as much detail and reassurance as she could, she had sought out a quiet spot and had ended up here, in a lonely churchyard.

The call had been upsetting, as they always were. Daniel Briers had not reported his daughter missing and had no idea that any harm had come to her. They had fallen out a few years back and though she had moved away, he claimed they had still kept in contact intermittently, through social media if not face to face. She had actually sent him a text earlier that day, so to be given news of her ‘death’ was a shock, to say the least. Helen could tell he didn’t believe it. Helen had told him as much as she could, then arranged for him to visit Southampton the following day. Perhaps the reality of this tragedy would start to sink in then.

Helen shivered. The silence after the call was disturbing, especially in these surroundings. However you tried you couldn’t rid yourself of the image of the person on the other end. What was he doing now? Telling his wife that Pippa was dead? Was he crying? Vomiting? Many did, having been given the news. It was terrible to be the instrument through which such awful pain was delivered.

Half an hour later, Helen was at Jake’s door, ringing the bell three times in quick succession – their secret code. The door buzzed and Helen let herself in, hurrying upstairs.

What was it about her conscience? She had done the right thing – the responsible thing – making the call. But now she was plagued by dark thoughts, images of herself as this remorseless engine of misery, tainting everything and everyone she touched.

The first blow landed, jolting Helen from her introspection. Her skin arched deep pink in protest and as the pain coursed through her, Helen shut her eyes and waited for that familiar feeling of release. Slowly it crept up on her, her demons finally in retreat, beaten away by Jake.

Afterwards, he watched her get dressed. Helen had been using Jake’s services for a few years now and they were long past the point where he would turn away. They had even spent the night together once and this had briefly promised to lead to greater intimacy, but Helen had run scared. Jake as her dominator was one thing. Jake as her lover was something else altogether. That was over twelve months ago now and Jake seemed to have swallowed his obvious disappointment and accepted a return to the status quo.

But as Helen pulled the banknotes from her purse, Jake stopped her.

‘Don’t.’ It was simply said, but with emotion.

‘Come on, Jake, you’ve earned it.’

‘This one’s on the house,’ he replied, smiling awkwardly.

Helen looked at him. Was this a genuine one-off – an act of friendship – or was this the first move in something more concerted? Helen didn’t know what had prompted this change of tack, but she didn’t like it.

‘I insist,’ Helen countered, thrusting the notes into Jake’s hand.

‘Helen -’

‘Please, Jake, it’s been a hard day. Take it.’

She turned and left – she didn’t have the stomach for a fight. The last twenty-four hours had been extremely tough and though it was still early days in the investigation, Helen sensed that the worst was yet to come. The storm clouds were gathering and she knew from bitter experience that she couldn’t fight on too many fronts at the same time. She walked back to her bike, never once looking over her shoulder. Despite this, she knew full well that Jake was watching her from the window, every step of the way.

DC Sanderson pressed the doorbell firmly and braced herself for what was to come. She had risen early and been on the M2 by 7 a.m., heading east towards Kent. Ruby Sprackling had only been missing for thirty-six hours but Sanderson was already seriously concerned.

Having arranged to meet her mother to rubberstamp her long-sought family reconciliation, Ruby had unexpectedly vanished. She had written a brief email to her landlord giving notice, then sent a single tweet to family and friends announcing that she was taking off. This from a young woman who was remorselessly sociable, a girl of the Twitter generation who lived her life in the open, tweeting her every thought, reproach or epiphany. More suspicious still was the fact that her phone had been turned off since she disappeared. For her phone to be out of commission for that long suggested she either didn’t want to be found or no longer had the phone in her possession. A nagging fear in Sanderson suggested it was the latter.

Her birth mother, Shanelle Harvey, lived in a rundown block of flats in Maidstone. Sanderson had visited some rough places in her time, but Taplow Towers really was an armpit – bursting with sink estate mums and blokes on day release. Sanderson’s mood plummeted as she surveyed the large penis spray-painted on Shanelle Harvey’s front door.

Footsteps, then the front door opened a sliver, the chain firmly on.

‘DC Sanderson, could I have a word?’

Shanelle Harvey looked at her visitor, cleared her throat unpleasantly (the result landing close to Sanderson’s left foot) before reluctantly opening the door.

Inside was worse than out. A sea of cardboard boxes, probably full of knock-off gear, littered the place. There was little room for the usual decoration of a family home. In fact, the only ornaments Sanderson could see were ashtrays, overflowing with the butt ends of hundreds of unbranded cigarettes. The place stank of stale smoke – Sanderson would gladly have opened a window, if she could get to one.