Blink(82)

‘We’re doing everything we can, Toni,’ he says. ‘I promise you.’

‘Like what?’

‘I can’t divulge every single action, but I will let you know if our lines of inquiry lead to new information.’

That stupid f*cking jargon again.

‘Is Harriet Watson a suspect?’

‘Again, I’m not able to say, Toni. I’ll pop over and see you tomorrow. How’s that?’

I put the phone down without answering. He’s taking me for a fool; underneath, he blames me, just like the media. They’ll never find Evie, they’re moving too slowly and they think she’s already dead.

I’m not going to wait for them to help me anymore. From this moment forward, I will only rely on my own gut instincts.

‘What are you playing at?’ Mum demands when she comes downstairs. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Nothing for you to worry about, Mum.’

I feel energised for the first time in years. I feel close . . . close to finding out the truth about Evie. Good or bad, I have to know.



* * *



Thirty minutes later, I am waiting at the end of Harriet Watson’s street, the opposite end to the bus stop. At nine o’clock, she comes out of her gate and walks down to the bottom end of the road.

I don’t wait until she’s out of sight, I don’t have time. Evie could be upstairs, being held prisoner in that house – or, judging by that smell, even worse.

The police haven’t been round here in years. They’d believed all the lies Harriet had fed them, dismissed her as some kind of harmless loon.

I hurry through the gate and walk quickly around to the back of the house. There’s quite a large garden at the back and the house itself is tall – three stories high. I slip the key I took yesterday into the back door. The lock is greased and turns easily. I open the door and step inside the kitchen.

I gag when I reach the stairs and get the first strong waft of the smell, but I have one of Mum’s scented hankies in my hand and I hold it up to my nose and breathe through my mouth. I climb the stairs up to the second floor. The smell grows stronger.

I take a quick look in the two bedrooms. The bed is unmade in the double room overlooking the road, obviously where Harriet slept last night. The other bedroom is unused; the bed has a fitted sheet on it but no quilt.

I come out of the second bedroom and look at the second set of steep stairs, which lead up to the third floor.

I press the hankie closer to my nostrils and climb the stairs quickly.

There is a small bookcase on the square landing at the top and just one other door. I try the handle and find it is locked.

The smell is unbearable. I think about going downstairs and ringing the police. But they’ll only tell me to leave and wait for them outside, and I have to know.

I have to know right now if my daughter is in there.

I refuse to be apart from her for another second.





73





Present Day





The Teacher





Harriet waits in the hospital reception area until five minutes before the start of visiting time. Then she joins the droves of people swarming towards the lifts and stairs. Thanks to her ‘dry run’ visit the day before, she knows exactly where she is going. Joanne Deacon has been moved, apparently, to a stroke recovery ward. Less intense monitoring and more accessible for visits.

When Harriet arrives at the entrance of the ward, there is already a small group of people waiting to be allowed through the secure doors. Harriet tucks in behind an old lady and her grandson. The buzzer sounds and someone pulls open the doors. Harriet looks up just as a woman strides out of the ward, busy tapping on her phone. Too busy to notice Harriet’s mouth drop open as she stares at her.

It’s her. The woman she’d seen Joanne Deacon talking to several times outside the school.

Harriet had completely forgotten about it until now.

There had been another woman.



* * *



As Harriet had hoped, the ward station is chaos, the nurses running to and fro or caught up talking to relatives and giving progress reports. Harriet spots a young nurse looking nervous and inexperienced, standing back from everyone else.

‘I wonder if you could help me, dear.’ Harriet smiles, affecting a harmless fa?ade. ‘I’m looking for my cousin, Joanne Deacon. She’s just been moved here, apparently.’

The nurse smiles and glances at the clipboard in her hand, apparently pleased to be asked something she can actually help with.

‘She’s in her own room at the end here. It says here access is strictly for family or the police.’ The nurse glances at Harriet, seemingly taking in her benign appearance and pleasant smile. Satisfied, she nods. ‘I’ll take you to her.’

Harriet takes full advantage of the short journey across the main ward.

‘I understand she can’t move. Paralysed, they told me,’ Harriet says, remembering what the newspaper article had relayed.

‘Oh, haven’t they told you? Your cousin blinked at a nurse. It’s the first sign that her movement is returning.’ She smiles at Harriet. ‘The doctors have moved her here for recovery now they know she isn’t in a vegetative state as they first assumed.’