Deborah Crombie - In A Dark House

“They wanted you to ask your dad?”

Nodding, she tugged harder at the skirt. “But I couldn’t. He’d kill me. I mean, it was one thing to make him mad over things like moving out or not finishing my school course, but this – something like this could ruin his career.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t. They gave me a few days, and I thought if I just didn’t go back to the club…”

Cullen groaned inwardly. And to think Stella had called him innocent. “But they came to you.”

“First at Tia’s. Then they came to Nigel’s friend’s flat, where he’d been staying. I don’t know how they knew…”

If the police had an information network half as good as the London gangsters’, thought Cullen, they’d solve every case on the books. Chloe Yarwood had been a perfect pigeon, had possibly even been marked before she ever set foot in the club. Had the gallant Nigel been in on it? he wondered.

“So I thought… maybe I could stay at the warehouse at night, and just hang out somewhere in the daytime, you know, where no one knew me, until…” Her expression was bleak. She’d have realized by that time that they weren’t going to forget about her, but she’d been cornered.

“You had a key to the warehouse?” Doug prompted her, gently.

“I’d made it for a lark. I’d told Nigel that Daddy was going to give me the top-floor flat, when it was finished, and I’d wanted to show it to him. I got him to go with me that night. He was going to leave for France, after the blokes came round his flat, and I didn’t want…”

“You didn’t want to be alone.”

“No.” She glanced up at Cullen, then back at her hands. “We went in, and I showed him round a bit. I had a torch. We went upstairs… and after a while, we heard voices. I thought – I thought it was those guys, looking for me, but then we heard a woman. It was a woman and a man, and they were arguing. There was something – I don’t know.” Her shoulders jerked. “I got really scared. We got our – Nige and I got put together again, you know? And then we ran down the stairs, as quietly as we could, and out the back door.

“Nige left. He went – I don’t know, to another friend’s, I think. He – he didn’t want to take me with him. But I was afraid to go back to Tia’s, and I kept thinking about the woman I’d heard. She’d sounded frightened. I walked for an hour or two, and then I went back.

“But the warehouse was on fire. It was… terrible. The heat and the smoke, and the shouting. I thought maybe they’d done it, to show me they meant business. And then, the next morning, when I heard about the body, I thought maybe they’d thought it was me… or, I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to disappear, and I couldn’t bear my dad finding out it was all my fault… His building… He loved that building…”

“Chloe…” Doug tried to sort out the relevant bits of her story. “Could you or Nigel have started the fire? Did either of you smoke, or light a match, while you were there?”

“No.” She looked horrified. “We don’t smoke, and I told you, I had a torch. Why would I light a match?”

He thought about the CCTV film and what it had not shown. “Chloe, did you unlock the back door before you and Nigel went upstairs?”

“Well, yeah. I was showing him my private entrance, like, and we looked up at the balconies. Then we went up. I never thought of anyone coming in-”

“When you and Nigel ran out, did you see anything? Did you see the man and the woman?”

She shook her head.

“Did you recognize the voices?”

“No.” She frowned and chewed on a fingernail. “No, but I heard her say something like ‘How could you, of all people, when you knew what would happen?’ It didn’t make any sense.”

“And him? Did you hear what he said?”

“No. It was just that one bit, as we went out the door.”

“Do you know what time it was, when you left the warehouse that first time?”

“We can’t have been there more than half an hour,” she said slowly. “Half-past ten, maybe.”

“Good girl.” He patted her shoulder. “One more thing, and then we’ll get you out of here. Did you ever know a woman named Laura Novak?”

“No. Who is she?”

“Right.” Doug stood up, avoiding the question. It would be some time before they released Laura Novak’s name. “Get your things together, luv. You’ll need to come into the station with me, to make a statement, but first we’re going to your dad’s office.”

“My dad?” Her voice rose in a squeak. “But I don’t want him to-”

“Chloe, your dad’s been desperate with worry,” he said, adding with certainty, “The blokes from the club went to him, probably when they didn’t get anything out of you on the first try. Your dad thought the fire was a warning to him that they’d kill you if he didn’t find the money. And then, for a while, after he saw the videotape, he thought the body was yours.”

At daybreak, Harriet got up and crossed the room to the chest by the window. Trying to ignore the growing pain in her arm, she ate the last of the apricots and picked at the dried crust of oatmeal in the bowl. Then she tilted the water glass above her mouth, licking at the last drops. That made her dizzy, and she crawled unsteadily back to bed.

She waited, then, for the sound of footsteps and the creaking of the door, at first with dread and then, as her hunger and thirst grew worse, with dread and longing, but no one came.

After a while, even that ceased to matter so much. Her arm was swollen and hot to the touch, and she shivered and sweated in turn.

She thought she heard the patter of rain against the window, but the sound faded away as she drifted in and out of a restless sleep. In her dreams, she wandered in a long corridor filled with endless rows of doors, hearing voices she could never quite reach.

As noon approached, Kincaid called Maura Bell and Cullen into their temporary office. “Maura, will you take charge of coordinating the searches of Tony Novak’s flat and car? Doug, you can take the statements from the Yarwoods. I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He meant to get a bite of lunch, then to meet Gemma, Kit, and their solicitor at the family court. “You’ll let me know if there’s any news about Harriet?”

“Right, guv,” said Cullen, then he hesitated a moment before adding, “Good luck with the hearing.”

Kincaid nodded his thanks and left the station, his mind occupied with sifting and sorting what they’d learned to date.

When Gemma had called a few minutes earlier to say she’d pick Kit up from school, he’d told her about Rose Kearny’s theory, and the news about Laura.

She’d listened in silence as he confirmed what she’d already guessed. After a moment, she said quietly, “You know Harriet’s running out of time, don’t you? Every hour she’s missing lessens our chances of finding her alive.”

“I know,” he told her, “but I’ve run out of ideas.” They’d put out an all-points bulletin, now that they were sure the child was not with her mother. He and Bell had sent uniformed officers to interview the children and personnel at Harriet’s school, to reinterview hospital staff who had worked with Laura and with Elaine Holland, and to search for any useful background information on Elaine.

At least they had reunited one child with a parent. Michael Yarwood, Cullen said, had crushed his daughter to him in a spasm of relief, then shaken her and called her an idiot, then hugged her again. Yarwood admitted that the men from the club had threatened him, and that he’d feared Chloe dead when he couldn’t reach her after the fire. He’d gone on in desperate hope, trying to raise the money, trying to find Chloe, and cursing the involvement of Scotland Yard.