The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(60)
In the centre of the bed, Samantha shivered uncontrollably, her body tucking into a ball, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.
This is Tyne Radio…
This is Tyne Radio…
I love you, Esme.
A man’s voice, and then her father’s face appeared, smiling at first and then angry.
Shut that kid up, Esme! She’s nothing but a crying brat!
Sorry, Charlie, she’s only a baby. Her teeth are sore.
Women’s laughter, their faces peering into the play pen, one after another, and their whispers in her ear.
You would have been mine…
You should have been mine…
A man’s voice now, his eyes like her own.
You’re mine, he whispered.
She began to cry out, to cry for her mother. Fretful murmurs, at first, then tearful shouts that woke Phillips and MacKenzie in their room along the hall.
She saw her mother at the sink and already knew what would come next. She fought to get away, to claw her way out of the dream, but there was nowhere to run. She could not hide from what she had already seen.
The door opened.
White hands. The monster had white hands.
Smiles, at first, then anger. Hard words, hard hands.
That sound again, the choking sound of her mother dying, while she looked on, helpless to stop it.
Your turn, now.
The monster’s hands, reaching down.
Samantha scuttled away, so fast her arm dislodged the lamp on her bedside table, but the noise of it breaking didn’t wake her.
MacKenzie rushed into the room.
Your turn, baby. You can’t live to tell anyone.
She started to scream, a long, keening wail of torment.
“Sam! Wake up, Sam!”
Mama?
“Samantha! Wake up! You’re safe,” a voice said. “You’re safe with us.”
Her eyes finally opened, and she looked at MacKenzie for long seconds—unsure, disorientated, and rendered immobile with terror.
She felt something warm pool against the sheets and began to cry.
“Oh, sweetheart,” MacKenzie said, reaching out her hand. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about that, we’ll clean it up.”
Samantha crawled into MacKenzie’s arms and buried her face against her shoulder, hugging her tightly in case she, too, would evaporate on the air. From the doorway, Phillips hesitated, then came to sit beside them and wrapped his arms around both of them.
Samantha’s racing heart began to slow again as their arms surrounded her, and the tears eventually dried.
And in the street below, a driver looked up at the figures moving behind the window with the buttercup yellow curtains.
*
The departure lounge at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport was almost empty, the last flight out of that terminal having already departed in the early hours. Cleaning staff and the occasional security guard patrolled the corridors, moving like automatons as they ploughed through the night shift, moving around the solitary man seated across two chairs beside the floor-to-ceiling window. In a couple of hours, there’d be a spectacular view of the sunrise, but for now, the windows served as a giant mirror against which depressing low-energy lighting was reflected.
Doctor Alexander Gregory rested long legs on top of a small carry-on suitcase, and re-read the e-mail from Detective Chief Inspector Ryan. It had been a little while since they’d seen one another, and the last time had been in the context of a highly-charged manhunt where his involvement had been born of police desperation rather than a genuine belief in his ability to help.
Gregory wasn’t offended by that.
The police were generally predisposed to be mistrustful of outside help and, frankly, they were right to be cautious. The world of criminal profiling was riddled with charlatans; fame-hungry men and women who chased their next ‘success’ story like some lawyers chased ambulances. He came across them all the time, usually because he’d been drafted in to clean up the mess. As a clinical psychologist by profession, he was reticent to call himself anything other than that. His worked delved into forensic psychology, since he was often required to assess people accused of a crime as to their fitness to stand trial, as well as often being required to give expert testimony in court.
But, then, there was the profiling.
Perhaps, because it had such a terrible reputation for being long on guesswork and short on science, he was reluctant to use the term or be associated with it. But there was no denying that his career had taken an interesting turn in that direction, whether he’d wanted it that way, or not.
The fact Ryan was seeking his help in a strictly clinical capacity was both surprising and appealing, especially as the client was a young girl of ten. He’d done some work with children, although mostly those who had committed early offences and for whom the state had high hopes of rehabilitation. But it had been a long time since he’d used his skills purely to help somebody to remember, and after several recent cases in which he’d been forced to work on the front line, dealing with some of the world’s most damaged men and women, it would be a welcome change to take a short assignment that would help him to remember why he had become a psychologist in the first place.
He sent a brief response to Ryan’s message, then leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, wondering what they might find inside a little girl’s mind.