The Child(58)

“So it’s going to be in the papers tomorrow?” Patrick had asked. “Will we get reporters coming to the house?”

“I don’t know, Paddy,” Angela said. “I hope not, but if they do, you don’t have to say anything. Just ask them to contact the police.”

“Oh, Mum, this is going to be so awful for you,” Louise said. “Do you want me to come and stay?”

“We’ll be fine, love,” Nick had said firmly. “We’ve coped with losing Alice all these years. We can cope with this.”

But he’d started coming home at lunchtime, pretending to have left something or that he’d just been passing. She loved him for it.

? ? ?

The Family Liaison Officer, a sweet-faced woman called Wendy Turner, rang them each morning with an update or a question, and Nick was relaxed when he went to the door.

“Oh, hello, Wendy. How are you?” Angela heard him say, and she poured his soup back in the pan.

“Didn’t expect you, Andy. You’d both better come through. Angie is in the kitchen.”

DI Sinclair came in first and Angela pulled out a chair for him without speaking. Detective Constable Turner stood with her back against the counter.

“Sorry to come unannounced,” DI Sinclair said. “But I wanted to bring you both up-to-date with the investigation.”

He sounded formal, and Angela sat down across from him with Nick standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Well, we’ve established that Alice’s body was buried in Howard Street in the 1980s. We know this because of the history of the site and forensic analysis of the debris around her body,” he said.

Angela went to speak but Nick stopped her. “Let Andy finish, love,” he said quietly.

“I know this must be distressing for you both. But we are doing everything we can to find out what happened to Alice. I just want to reassure you of that.”

Nick spoke first. “Thank you for telling us, Andy. Will this help you find Alice’s kidnapper?”

“It might,” the officer said. “We’ll be looking at who moved into the terrace in Howard Street in the early eighties. It’s at least ten years closer to today so people’s memories may be clearer.”

“Who would bury a body after ten years?” Angela said.

“We don’t know,” DI Sinclair said. “Not yet.”





FORTY-EIGHT


    Kate


FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2012

Kate filed the new story about Alice at 9:07. She’d had it written the day before—as soon as she’d put the phone down on DI Sinclair. But she’d waited to phone Angela for a quote that morning—“We don’t know what to think. We are just glad she’s been found,” she’d said. Kate had given the story a final tweak after the officer rang to give her the go-ahead at 8:40.

“Go easy on the headline, Terry,” she said as she reread her copy over his shoulder. “Let’s not go too gruesome. Think of the parents . . .”

Terry had quickly typed “Zombie Baby Rises from Grave,” laughed at Kate’s expression, and deleted it.

“Just kidding, Kate. How about ‘Alice Buried Ten Years After Kidnap’?”

Kate nodded grumpily. She knew he’d add “Shocking Revelation by Alice Cops” or something equivalent when she’d moved away but watched as he clicked the copy through.

“Okay, link tweeted and headline posted on Facebook, publishing on the website now. It’s a good story, Kate. And exclusive for the next thirty seconds. Anyway, what the hell’s gone on there? Shoebox under the bed? In the freezer? What made them decide to bury the body at all?”

“Good question, Terry. Andy Sinclair says there isn’t enough material to say if the body was mummified from being aboveground or had been buried and dug up. A lot of this is going to be guesswork. They’re concentrating on tracing people who came to live in Howard Street in the early eighties.”

“Okay. Assume you are, too?” Terry said.

“Of course,” Kate said. “Going out on it now.”

? ? ?

Joe had found Alistair St. John Soames listed in a flat in Peckham.

“There’s no Mrs. Soames, unless she’s a foreigner and not on the electoral roll,” he said conversationally, as they drove past dozens of practically identical fried chicken shops.

Kate’s sons collected the names of fried chicken shops—it had started as a joke, but they had a list of over 120 by now—but she decided not to share such family minutiae with Joe.

“Doesn’t seem to have held on to his money,” she observed. “This is where poverty lives, round here.”

Good. He might be more cooperative if he thinks there could be some cash in it, she thought.

There were five doorbells to choose from at the address, each bearing a faded name on a piece of card.

“Can you make these out?” she said, peering at them. “Can you see ‘Soames’?”

Joe’s younger eyes deciphered the writing and Kate pressed the bell for flat 4. There was silence.

She waited and then rang again. Nothing.

“Once more for luck,” she said and pressed long and hard then did a couple of staccato dings for emphasis. “That’d wake the dead,” she said.