Mo Hayder - Gone

‘But your wife,’ Jonathan said woodenly, ‘she was friendly with the other parents. I know because I remember her well. She always had a group of friends at the school gates.’

‘Anyone in particular?’ said Simone.

‘No. But . . .’ Jonathan’s eyes rolled up as if he was recalling something.

‘What is it?’ Janice was half out of her chair. ‘What?’

‘She got involved. In an incident.’ He looked at Damien. ‘Do you remember?’

‘What sort of incident?’

‘With one of the other parents. It got unpleasant.’

‘The sweetie jar? Is that what you’re talking about?’

Jonathan loosened his collar and turned bloodshot eyes to Janice. The room was suddenly hot. As if it was full of electricity. ‘It was the Monday after a fête. Lorna, Mr Graham’s partner, came into my office. She was holding a sweetie jar. She said she’d bought it at the fair. I remember it clearly because it all seemed so very odd at the time.’

‘A sweetie jar?’

‘I’d asked the parents to bring old jars filled with sweets to sell at the fair. For a pound, or whatever. It was to raise funds for the school roof that year, but when Mrs Graham got her jar home she found—’

‘A note in it,’ said Damien. ‘A little Post-it. Some writing scribbled on it.’

‘Lorna, Mrs Graham, read the note and brought it straight to me. She would have taken it to the police, but she was concerned it could have been a prank. She didn’t want the school in trouble.’

‘What did the note say?’

‘It said,’ he looked at her gravely, ‘ “Daddy hits us. He locks Mummy up.” ’

‘ Daddy hits us. Locks Mummy up ?’ The words put ice into Janice’s veins and made her want to stop breathing. ‘Did you find out who wrote it?’

‘Yes. Two of my pupils. I remember them very well, brothers. I think their parents were going through a divorce. I took it very seriously and, yes, I got Social Services involved. It didn’t take long to find out it was true. Two boys being abused by their father. Months before the sweet jar they’d been off school for a week. Came back looking very subdued.’ He rubbed his arms as if the memory made him cold. ‘Once Social Services were on board the mother got custody of the children. Father never went to court. He was police, I seem to recall. Backed down and never fought the custody case . . .’ He trailed off. Janice, Cory and Neil Blunt were sitting forward, their faces white. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What have I said?’

In her chair, her legs still crossed at the ankles, Janice began to shake.

A man, quite a large man, crouched unnoticed in the lee of an old olive-green telephone switching box on a residential street in Southville and stared intently at a front garden on the other side of the road. He wore jeans, a sweatshirt and a nylon jogging jacket. Nothing remarkable, really, but from his back pocket hung a length of coloured rubber. A face, sloppy and limp. The grinning mouth of a rubber Santa Claus mask – the sort of thing that could be picked up from any novelty shop for a few pounds. His dark-blue Peugeot was parked a few hundred yards away. Since the woman in Frome had seen him outside her house he’d learned to keep his distance better.

A woman came out of the front door, dressed in a bright-red coat and carrying two bags and a blue and yellow baby seat. She loaded up the car: baby seat first, safely strapped to the back seat, blanket all tucked in neatly. Then handbag on the front seat, nappy bag in the footwell. She got an ice-scraper from the glove compartment and leaned across the bonnet to get to the windscreen. Her back was turned to the man for a moment and he took the opportunity to creep from the shadow of the switching box. He walked calmly across the street, back straight, checking all around him as he did. He ducked into a neighbour’s front driveway and crossed the frosted lawn. He stopped in the line of shrubs that divided the two houses and watched as the woman walked around the back of the car, lifted the rear wiper to scrape the glass. The woman gave the windows one last brush and went to the front. Paused to wipe the wing mirrors and got into the driver’s seat, blowing on her cold hands, fumbling with the key.

The man pulled on the Santa Claus mask, stepped over the low stone wall – a wolf taking its time – and walked calmly to her side of the car. Opened the door.

‘Get out.’

The woman’s response was to throw her hands into the air. It was an instinctive thing, to protect her face, and it succeeded only in clearing the way for him to reach over and unfasten her seatbelt. By the time she realized her mistake it was too late. He was already pulling her out of the car.

‘Get out, bitch.’

‘No! No! No! ’

But he was strong. He took her by the hair and dragged her out, her hands scrabbling at her scalp, legs kicking, frantically trying to find purchase. She got a knee wedged up under the steering-wheel and her left hand into the sill above the door, but she couldn’t hold it. With one wrench she was out, staggering, dropping once, cutting her knee through the tights. She got her fingers into his gloved hands, tried to get him to release her hair, but he dragged her backwards, ignoring her nails in his hands. She bounced her feet off the ground, kicked and screamed. He could feel little pieces of hair popping out all over her scalp as he flung her up against the front door of the house.

‘Fuck off.’ She pushed him away with all her might. ‘ Get away from me .’

He gave her a shove, sent her staggering across the porch. Her arms went up, pinwheeled, slammed into the brick pillar, scraping the skin on her hands. Her left leg shot out, almost stopped the forward momentum, failed. She stumbled, went down, landing on her right shoulder. She rolled on to her side in time to see the man jump into the driver’s seat and start the engine. The radio came to life, pumping ‘When A Child Is Born’ into the cold air. The engine revved, a cloud of fumes shot out of the exhaust, the handbrake came off and he twisted in his seat to reverse the car rapidly out of the driveway.

The car stopped in the middle of the road just long enough for Prody to change gear, then screamed away. It was only then, with the almighty squeal of brakes rocking round the street, that any of Skye Stephenson’s neighbours realized what was happening. One or two came running out of their doors, down their paths, but it was too late. The cherry-red four-by-four had turned the corner at the end of the road and disappeared from sight.

Clare Prody didn’t wear makeup and she didn’t colour her lifeless blonde hair. She dressed nicely and plainly in neutral and pastel separates from mid-price high-street stores like Gap. Flat shoes. She looked as if she might come from the same socioeconomic bracket as Janice Costello. But then she opened her mouth and it was pure country bumpkin that came out. A Somerset girl, Bridgewater, and the furthest she’d strayed out of the area had been the train to London twice – once for Les Mis and once for The Phantom . She’d been a trainee nurse at Bristol Royal, dreaming of working with children, when Paul Prody had walked into her life. He’d married her and cajoled her into giving up work and staying at home with the two children, Robert and Josh. Paul had a good job, and Clare was dependent on him. It had taken her years of abuse to get up the courage to leave.

Caffery scrutinized her where she sat on the other side of his desk. She’d arrived at the offices wearing the first things she’d had to hand when his call came – a jogging T-shirt and khakis. For some reason she also wore a chequered blue blanket around her shoulders, clasped at her chest in bloodless fingers. It wasn’t because she was cold. It was something more. It was because she felt like a refugee. Someone in the permanent process of running away. Her face was pale, as if there wasn’t enough blood in her body, but her nose was an awful chapped red. Since she’d arrived half an hour ago she’d cried enough to break a person’s heart. She simply couldn’t believe this was happening to her. Just couldn’t believe it.