Local Gone Missing(89)

Charlie threw open his car door and almost fell out in his haste.

“What on earth’s happened?” he said to the small crowd of neighbors held behind black-and-yellow tape, but no one would look him in the eye, not even the Simpsons from next door.

An officer walked toward him, took his arm, and led him gently to a police car. “Mr. Williams? Could you come and sit in here for a moment,” he said. “I’m DI Wicks. Can you tell me where you’ve been this evening?”

“Er, a Rotary do at the Park Lane Hotel.” And he fished the invite out of his dinner jacket pocket. “I’m on the committee. What’s happened? Has there been a break-in?”

“Who lives at this address, Mr. Williams?”

“Me.”

“Just you?”

“Yes, I live alone. What is this about?”

“Well. I’m sorry to have to tell you that two people were attacked at your address tonight. One person has died and the other is critically ill.”

And the world stopped. He stared at the detective for what felt like an age. “Died? Critically ill?” he managed to croak. “Who?”

“We are still in the process of formal identification of the deceased but we have a witness who says the survivor is your daughter.”

His stomach heaved and he spewed the last course of his meal, filling the police car with the sweet-and-sour stench of undigested tiramisu.

“Christ! Sergeant,” DI Wicks shouted out the window, “get some wet wipes pronto.”

Later, at the police station, they’d taken his soiled clothes away and given him a paper overall to wear. But he could still smell it.

He wept as he told them about Birdie. How she and her mother had moved out. “She’d only recently come back into my life. I’d given her a key to the house—and the code to the alarm in case I wasn’t there to let her in.”

“But you didn’t know she would be there tonight?”

“No, no. Oh, God, why was she?”

“We don’t know. A neighbor saw the door was open when he walked his dog. When we arrived, we found the victims in the living room.”

Charlie wasn’t able to bear to hear the details of what had happened then, but the detective carried on, punctuating each horrific point with a small apologetic cough.

“A plastic bag? What sort of monster would do that?” Charlie sobbed.

Birdie had been asthmatic as a child, struggling to breathe some nights. He and Lila had had to sit with her, watching her fight, trying to decide whether it meant a trip to the hospital. He could still hear the slow rasp and wheeze of each breath.

“Have you caught the bastard who did this?” he shouted to stop the sound.

The inspector shook his head. “But we will,” he added. “We’ll get whoever was responsible.”

And they thought they had, of course.



* * *



—

That night at the festival, he heard himself scream, “Birdie!” over the music and the girl whirled round.

And he screamed again, the shock rattling his jaw.

“Are you okay?” The girl crouched beside him and took his hand.

“Why are you here?” he said, his focus slipping off the face in front of him. He must have been hallucinating.

When he saw the mistletoe necklace round her neck, Charlie tried to grab it.

“Birdie . . .” he gasped.

But she pushed him back and ran off. He heaved himself onto his shaking legs and threw himself into the crowd to follow her, ricocheting off the dancers.





NOW





Sixty-nine


MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2019





Dee


We walk Cal’s friend Mikey home after a bit. It isn’t far and I need the air. Liz wants to chat but I tell her I’ve left something in the oven. She hasn’t heard about Liam being charged yet but she will. She won’t want anything to do with us then.

On the way back, we go on the beach and throw pebbles into the sea. Cal loves doing that. And I throw my necklace in as well. I should never have kept it. Should have thrown it away years ago. I knew that. But I had nothing when I was little. I wanted one thing to keep. I made a hole in my little anorak and pushed it inside, in the stuffing. I started to wear it only when I got back to Ebbing. When I felt safe.

But I’m not now. Elise says she won’t tell anyone but she’s a cop. She’ll tell someone one day. We need to move. I’ll have to tell Cal tomorrow. There’s too much going on.

I’ll just pack up and go. I can now that I know they’ve arrested Toby and Kevin for what they did to Charlie. And I’ve said as much to Elise. She won’t come looking. She’s got her story now. About Dee the victim. I dreaded it but it was easy in the end. I told her what I wanted her to believe and she heard what she wanted to hear. Lots of it was true. The stuff about Phil and Stuart being way out of their depth.

And I told her enough so she didn’t feel she had to press me on what had happened that night.

I shouldn’t have been there but Phil had left me with the boy in the next room that night. Stuart, the boy who let us boil water.

“Can you watch her for an hour, mate?” Phil said. “I’ll be back in plenty of time for tonight.”