Cold as Ice (Willis/Carter #2)(38)
‘Careful Jackson.’ Tracy rushed towards him.
Jeanie held up her hand for her to take her time. Jackson looked back from Tracy to the table and he found what he was looking for, he kissed the Mummy puppet. Then he got down from the chair and came towards Tracy.
‘Night. See you in the morning.’ She looked up at Tracy as she came back out of the bedroom having settled Jackson down.
‘I’m going home now, Tracy.’ Tracy nodded and smiled. She sympathized with Jeanie – she could see she wanted to be going – but she needed to clarify something first:
‘What Jackson said about there only being one man in the flat when Danielle left, could that be his dad?’
‘I think he would have said so if it was,’ Jeanie answered.
‘But I know it’s been a long time since he saw him.’
Jeanie shook her head. ‘Nothing is certain, Tracy.’ She smiled kindly. ‘We’re bringing in Niall Manson and we’ll start from there. You must be shattered.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Please get some sleep and let’s hope it all gets resolved in the morning. I’ve left my number on the kitchen worktop. You call me if you need anything and I’ll bring more things for Jackson tomorrow.’
Tracy watched through the lounge window and saw Jeanie’s car tail-lights disappear down the road.
Jeanie tried Carter’s phone but it was busy. She rang Robbo.
‘The child has Down’s syndrome, right?’ asked Robbo.
‘Yes, but I think we have a bright child, despite that. He is perfectly able to count, to recognize colours. He draws to a good ability for his years.’
‘Have you been able to interview him?’
‘I’ve made a start. I think we can be sure that someone took her out of that flat in full view of her little boy. From what Jackson has said, I feel that she must have known her abductor. She must have known enough to trust that if he said he wouldn’t harm Jackson then he wouldn’t. She felt secure enough to think the best option was to go. Seems like there was just one man in the flat with him and his mother. I have a description of sorts: white, brown hair. I’ll keep chipping away.’
Tracy went to lie in bed next to Jackson and listened to his breathing.
She had given him a penguin toy she had got from the women working on the nail bar. It was being given away free with a Christmas manicure. She lay there listening to him and felt such a deep panic that she couldn’t have closed her eyes if she wanted. Only the sound of his rhythmical breathing calmed her.
She went over what Jeanie had said and what had happened with the puppets and drawings. If it was Niall Manson who was in that flat then Tracy felt sure things would be sorted out and he wouldn’t harm the mother of his child. Fingers crossed, Danielle would come back tomorrow. Jackson’s face was turned towards her. With Jeanie’s help she’d pushed her bed up against the wall to make sure he couldn’t fall out and she’d put a rubber sheet beneath his side of the bed. She’d found it in the spare-room cupboard, kept from when Steve’s niece and nephew used to come and stay when they were young.
Tracy watched Jackson as he slept, his eyelids pink and paper-thin. He was dreaming. She dreaded what he might say when he woke up. What questions would he ask her? He’d never said a whole sentence to her yet. She had no idea what he was capable of. All she could think was that something awful must have happened to Danielle for her to leave her little boy.
She didn’t remember falling asleep but she awoke when she heard people outside on the street warming their car engines ready to go to work. She heard a whine coming from the kitchen. She got up, agitated; she’d forgotten all about Scruffy, who she’d bedded down on an old duvet on the kitchen floor and now he was whining for something. She thought about calling Steve – he’d be getting ready for work now – but decided against it. She would get everything organized so that when he came home later he wouldn’t notice a thing out of place. If she told him the truth about what was happening she would have one more problem to deal with. She’d tell him when and if she had to. After all, Danielle might appear at any moment.
She pulled on her dressing gown over her pyjamas and opened the bedroom door, leaving it slightly ajar as she padded softly out into the kitchen. As she opened the kitchen door Scruffy went ballistic with happiness.
Tracy unlocked the back door to their patio garden, which had half a dozen tubs, a gazebo and a barbecue. The patio furniture was all covered up for the winter outside. There was no lawn, just pots, mostly emptied now till spring when they would be planted up with geraniums. But some of her pots had herbs in all year. She had brushed the snow from them. The purple sage was still usable, the rosemary a great asset to her culinary skills.
Scruffy went bounding outside and cocked his leg against the herbs.
‘Oh God,’ Tracy moaned.
She watched him nose around the rest of the garden until he was satisfied that he was master of the territory and then he leapt up onto the shrubs in a small bed at the end of the garden and crapped.
She let Scruffy back in and then crept back into the bedroom. Jackson was still asleep but he looked like he’d moved slightly. He was frowning, cross. He was fighting something in his sleep.
She tried hard not to feel despondent when she walked out of the bedroom and back into the lounge and saw Scruffy on the couch.