Michael Robotham - Say You're sorry

“I’m sure that’s not true. Your mother loves you.”

Phoebe rocks forward and puts her feet on the floor. From downstairs, I can hear her brother Ben calling her.

“Goodbye,” she says. “I’m glad you can see me.”

Sarah Hadley is not in the house. I find her outside in the garden hitting golf balls into a practice net. Pieces of ice fly off the mesh every time a ball smacks into the hanging curtain. I can imagine her in the summer at her country club, her long tanned legs in tailored shorts.

She drives a ball, wrapping the club around her back and holding the pose. Her shirt rides up over her flat stomach.

“Nice swing.”

“I used to play on the county team.”

At first glance her complexion had looked golden and almost unblemished but now I notice the skin around her eyes has been tightened. Repairs have been done. She takes a swig of something from a glass. Alcohol has glazed her eyes but hasn’t numbed anything else.

“Maybe you should ease up on that,” I tell her.

“Bit late now. I was two years sober until this morning.”

“I could give you someone to call?”

“Therapy? Tried that too. None of it lasts.”

“Where is your husband with this?”

“He makes excuses for me. He’s not one to complain.”

She swings at another ball and this one shanks to the right. “You know the saddest thing about all this?”

“What’s that?”

“Phoebe doesn’t know how to ride a pushbike because we haven’t taught her. She’s never taken the school bus or walked to the shops by herself. I’m scared that if I let her out of my sight she might not come back.”

“That’s understandable,” I say, remembering my conversation with Phoebe.

“It’s affecting her, you know. Little by little, I see her regressing. She was always a strong-willed little madam, but now I’ve made her helpless. She has nightmares, wakes up crying and shouting. Dale has to calm her down.”

“Not you?”

“She doesn’t settle so easily for me. You should see her bedroom. She kept every single one of the soft toys that people sent. The attic is bursting with them. Dale wanted to donate them to charity, but Phoebe wouldn’t let him.”

Sarah glances over her shoulder at the house, proud of her family but unable to explain the mix of feelings that marriage has brought her. The Christmas tree is visible through the drawing room window.

“We still hang Piper’s stocking every year. And we have a cake on her birthday, with just the right number of candles. We’ve been going through the motions, but now it seems more real… more real than yesterday.”

She tees up another ball, checks her grip, makes a practice swing.

“I’ve grown used to being stared at. People whisper behind my back-they think I’m a publicity-seeker. Phoebe came home from school one day and said a boy had told her that Piper was dead and that I should shut up and stop talking about her.

“That’s what people think. They think our little girl was murdered or ran away because we were awful parents. They think I waste my time, banging on pointlessly… putting up posters, not letting them forget. Do you know why I’ve never given up?”

“No.”

“I talked to a medium… a psychic. She told me that Piper and Natasha were still alive. She said they were together and were trying to get home. She said, “They are beneath the earth, but not a part of it. Breathing in the darkness.”

“How did you meet this medium?”

“Vic McBain was going out with her.”

“Natasha’s uncle?”

Sarah nods and something feverish passes across her face. She doesn’t strike me as being the sort to hang her hopes on the cold reading capabilities of a psychic, but three years is a long time without news and desperation is a cold cup of coffee.

“What else did this medium say?”

“She said she could see flashing lights and a tall building like a smokestack or a windmill without any sails. The girls were under the ground, but not in the ground. Alive, that’s what she said, definitely alive.”

There is a sound from the bushes behind the practice net. A face appears. Young. Brazen. The reporter has mud stains on his knees.

“Mrs. Hadley, I spoke to Hayden McBain. He said that Natasha was raped and mutilated by a pedophile. Is that what you fear for Piper?”

Sarah’s fists tighten around the driver. She marches towards the reporter swinging the club through the air like a two-handed machete.

“You are a grubby little man,” she screams. “You’re a vulture… a ghoul… get off my property!”

He turns and runs, leaping onto the wall, his shoes scrabbling for purchase on the wet bricks.

Sarah drops a golf ball onto the lawn and takes her stance. The club swings through a graceful arc and she drills the ball towards the reporter, who has just reached the top of the wall and raised his arms to celebrate his escape. The ball hits him between the shoulder blades and he drops like a felled tree, making an oof sound as he lands in the neighboring garden.

We’ve had five hundred phone calls since six this morning,” says Drury, staring out the car window. “Each one of them has to be logged, categorized and followed up… I’m all in favor of public support, but we’re getting calls from every nutter, do-gooder and pissed-off ratepayer with a grudge against his neighbor.”

“Who broke the news blackout?”

“Hayden McBain took thirty pieces of silver from the Sun.”

“The news would have leaked eventually.”

Drury shakes his head in disgust, silent for a long moment. His job has become a lot harder. People are scared. Parents want reassurance and a quick resolution. The media will be demanding answers. Progress. Daily briefings. Failure will bring blame.

The road out of Bingham is choked with traffic, belching fumes into the frigid air. Drury tells Grievous to use the siren. Motorists pull over and the unmarked police car squeezes past.

Sarah Hadley’s words are still grinding through my mind. Grief has kept her busy for three years, held her upright. The news of Natasha hasn’t restored her belief, it has caused her to doubt.

“I want to ask you about Victor McBain,” I say.

The DCI glances over the seat. “What about him?”

“Nelson Stokes claims that he saw Natasha kissing her uncle in the front seat of his car. It wasn’t a peck on the cheek. He says he told police, but I can’t find any mention of it in his statement.”

Drury seems to be chewing on my question, deciding how much to say.

“We looked at Vic McBain,” he says, speaking to the windscreen. “You know how it works. When a child goes missing or is murdered we look at the family first, then friends. Ninety per cent of the time it’s a fair assumption.”

“Why wasn’t the allegation included in Stokes’s statement?”

“McBain threatened to sue the police if anyone repeated the claim.”

“Were the allegations investigated?”

“Of course.”

“So there’s no truth-”

Drury interrupts. “He gave Natasha some inappropriate gifts.”

“What gifts?”

“Bikinis, booze, condoms.”

“Not the sort of things an uncle gives a niece.”

“I saw Vic McBain three years ago. He would have torn this town apart to find Natasha. He also had an alibi for the morning the girls disappeared.”

“What about the night of the blizzard?”

Drury loses patience. “If you have new information, Professor, let’s hear it, but don’t play twenty questions with me. I don’t have the time.”

“Sarah Hadley said she talked to a medium-some woman who was introduced to her by Vic McBain. This medium claimed that Natasha and Piper were being held somewhere against their will. She used the phrase ‘Beneath the earth but not a part of it.’ ”