Кара Хантер - In the Dark

I’m on my feet already. ‘Have you called an ambulance?’

‘On its way. DC Everett’s going to go with her.’

‘Have you got a number for the girl’s mother?’

‘I asked but she says she doesn’t want us to contact her.’

‘OK, but we’ll still need two officers. See if you can raise PC Somer – ask her to meet Everett at the John Rad.’

I’m at the door when Vicky calls me back.

‘You’re sure about this?’ she says, gesturing at the paper. ‘It’s really true?’

I nod. ‘She even sent an email asking to speak to someone.’ I pull out another sheet and give it to her. ‘See. I’m sorry, Vicky, but there’s no mistake. She may not have planned it that way at the start, but Hannah’s death – that changed everything. Because you were the only one who knew what she’d done. The only one who knew her secret.’

***

The girl standing in the doorway hesitates. After all these months, now it’s come to it, she’s not so sure. The space is so small. So dirty. And it smells.

‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to do it after all.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Vicky! What did you have that bloody kid for if you weren’t going to go through with it?’

Vicky bites her lip. ‘That was all your idea.’

‘Yeah, and you know why. You won’t get any of the money, you know, if you bottle it now. We’ve waited long enough – you’ve waited long enough –’

‘And whose fault is that?’ snaps Vicky. ‘We could have done this ages ago if you hadn’t gone and ruined everything. I’ve been stuck in this bloody house for months on end while you swan about doing what the hell you want – bringing those bloody students in out the back. You do know, don’t you, that the kid actually saw you having sex with that Danny?’

Tricia laughs. ‘I know, Dan looked up and saw him watching. Completely freaked him out. It was bloody hilarious.’

Vicky says nothing. ‘Look,’ says Tricia, conciliatory now. ‘I’m sorry you haven’t had much fun lately, but we’re going to go through with it now. We have to. You heard that social worker – he’s going to put the old git in a home.’

She reaches out and puts her hand under her sister’s chin. ‘I’ve cleared up upstairs and you have everything you need. I got you food, water, the torch. That diary thing for them to find. And it’s only for a couple of days. Just to make it look real.’

She turns to the small boy kicking against one of the sacks of junk and picks him up. His dark hair curls on his shoulders. They made sure not to cut it.

‘It’s an adventure, isn’t it?’ she says brightly. The boy puts out his hand and touches her face. ‘See? He thinks so too.’

Vicky reaches out and takes her son and holds him stiffly against her. She hesitates a moment, then steps over the threshold.

Behind her, the door clangs shut. And then there’s the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor and the bolt sliding across.

Vicky rushes to the door and hammers on it with her fist, her heart pounding. ‘Tricia! What are you doing?’

‘I’m making it look real, you idiot. What do you think I’m doing?’

‘But you never said anything about this –’

‘Because I knew you wouldn’t be up for it, that’s why. But it’s the only way – the only way to convince people you were really locked up down here.’

‘Please – don’t do this – open the door –’

‘Look, it’s only for a few days, right? Then I’ll call the police anonymously and tell them I heard something and they’ll come here and set you free. And we’ll get the money . Just keep thinking about that – three million sodding quid. It’s worth a couple of days of crap for that, right?’

‘No – I don’t want to – I can’t – please –’

But then the footsteps retreat back up the stairs and the light under the door goes out.

The child she’s holding goes rigid against her, his body contorted as he starts to scream.

***

Somer is already waiting outside when the ambulance pulls up outside the AE entrance, and two nurses come out briskly to meet it.

‘Possible miscarriage,’ says one of the paramedics as she opens the back door. ‘She’s lost quite a lot of blood already.’

As they lower the trolley to the ground Somer can see that the girl is pale and visibly trembling, clutching at her stomach.

‘OK, lovey,’ says the nurse. ‘Tricia, is it? Let’s get you inside and take a look.’

***

Interview with Vicky Neale, conducted at St Aldate’s Police Station, Oxford

10 May 2017, 9.00 p.m.

In attendance, DI A. Fawley, DS G. Quinn, M. Godden (duty solicitor)

AF: For the purposes of the tape, Miss Neale has previously been arrested on a charge of false representation and has been given police bail. She has now been arrested in connection with the death of Hannah Gardiner in 2015, and has decided, of her own free will, to assist the police by making a statement to clarify the exact extent of her involvement in this matter. That’s right, isn’t it, Vicky?

VN: [ nods ]

AF: OK, then. Why don’t you tell us what happened. In your own words.

VN: Where d’you want me to start?

AF: At the beginning. When you first came to Oxford. When was that?

VN: 2014. April 2014. I came first and got that place in Clifton Street. Then one day Tricia turned up.

AF: Your sister, Tricia Walker. The young woman currently using the name Pippa.

VN: [ nods ]

AF: But that wasn’t the plan? You weren’t expecting her?

VN: I hadn’t seen her for months. We’d had a huge row and I’d walked out.

AF: From your mother’s home?

VN: I was fed up living there anyway. Mum was always at her new bloke’s and I was bored with Tricia telling me what to do all the time.

AF: What was the row about?

VN: [ silence ]

There was a boy I liked. Only, you know.

AF He preferred Tricia?

VN: She took him off me . She didn’t even like him that much. She just did it because she could. It was the same with Mum’s boyfriends. Tricia was always walking about with hardly any clothes on whenever they were there. It was like she was daring them to come on to her.

AF: Did that ever actually happen?

VN: Once. Some bloke called Tony.

[s ilence]

Mum caught them in bed together. Tricia claimed it was all Tony’s idea. That he’d been ‘grooming’ her or some crap like that. He denied it, of course, but Mum still threw him out.

AF: What did you think had happened? Did you believe Tony?

VN: Look, Tricia never does something she doesn’t want to do, right? But she didn’t fancy Tony or anything. She just wanted to prove she could get him if she wanted.

AF: How old was she at the time?

VN: Dunno. Fifteen, maybe?

AF: So what happened when she came to Oxford?

VN: She moved in with me. She signed on and I had some money my dad left me when he died, but it wasn’t much. Trish always hated having no money. That was why she came up with the idea. All of it – everything that happened – it was all her idea.

AF: What, exactly?

VN: You know – all of it.

AF: You have to tell us, Vicky. We have to hear it from you.

VN: She’d seen a TV programme about that woman in the cellar in Germany. The one who had all those children. She said we could do something like that and get a whole load of cash. We just had to find the right person. An old bloke who lived on his own. Someone with Alzheimer’s, that’s what she really wanted.