The Other People: A Novel(64)

For Gabe, it was the pinnacle of his achievements. For Jenny, it was the sort of home she had grown up in, the sort of home he felt, sometimes—uncharitably—that she expected.

Jenny was a kind person, a brilliant mum, a saint for putting up with him, but he could never quite shake the feeling that he would never be good enough for her. He would always be the boy from the estates who got lucky. One day, his luck would run out.

And he was right.

The home he built for his family might as well have been made of straw. All the time, there was a big, bad wolf lurking in the shadows, just waiting to blow it all down.



* * *



—

THE HOUSE HADN’T changed that much. The driveway had been paved, two Range Rovers parked outside. The garden, where Izzy used to love to run and play, had been landscaped, with new decking and a hot tub.

It had been sold to a professional couple in their forties with no children. Gabe didn’t understand why two people needed a five-bedroomed house with grounds. But then, all the people with families had pulled out of buying it once they found out what had happened there. As if the house’s grim history could somehow rub off on them. As if tragedy were contagious.

He stared up at his former home. When the police had arrived that evening, the electric front gates and the rear patio doors were both open. Jenny always shut the front gates. They were both security conscious, Jenny because of growing up with parents who wanted to safeguard their wealth, Gabe because he grew up in a place where people would steal the glue from your gran’s false teeth, so you protected what little you had.

Now he wondered if someone had ensured those gates were open. Had that been the woman’s role? To get Jenny to let her guard down, leave the gates open and let the real killer in? But something had gone wrong. Jenny had died, the woman’s daughter had died, and she had run, with Izzy.

The police had spoken to everyone at Izzy’s school, other mums, colleagues at work. Everyone she knew. Or, at least, everyone they thought she knew.

Could your wife have let the killer into the house?

Had she arranged to meet someone?

Do you know the names of her friends?

And of course, he didn’t. He had never realized what a stranger his wife had become until she was gone. He didn’t know her friends, her routine. They shared a house, a bed, but at some point, they had stopped sharing their lives. When did that happen? he wondered. Maybe that was why the word “divorce” was never spoken. They didn’t need to. They were already retreating, ending their marriage stealthily, slipping away from each other so slowly that neither even noticed the other one was disappearing.

His phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out.

“Hello.”

“Gabriel, it’s DI Maddock.”

“Yes?” He waited.

“Just to inform you—your father-in-law presented at the police station, he’s being interviewed now.” A pause. “I also wanted to let you know that we have revisited blood and forensic samples taken from the body of the girl we found at your home.”

Blood and forensic samples. Such cold, clinical words. He swallowed. Not Izzy, he reminded himself. But she had been somebody’s daughter. Somebody’s little girl. And, just like Izzy, she had probably giggled at Peppa Pig, written letters to Father Christmas and cuddled a favorite toy to ward off bad dreams. He hoped she was sleeping soundly now. He hoped, despite him never having been big on God or religion, that she was somewhere safe and warm.

“Gabriel?”

“I’m here,” he croaked through a hot, hard lump in his throat.

“It confirms that she is not your daughter, Gabriel.”

“Okay.”

It should have felt good. He should have felt vindicated. But he didn’t. Izzy was still lost and, even in death, this other little girl was being discarded and abandoned all over again.

“There’s something else,” Maddock said. “The woman we found—”

“Do you know who she is yet?”

A longer pause. “That’s why I’m calling.” The silence echoed down the line. “I just spoke to the hospital. She never regained consciousness. I’m afraid she died fifteen minutes ago.”

He let this sink in.

“What about the man in the trunk?”

“Forensics are still working on it, but no luck yet.”

“So, there’s no way of knowing what’s happened to Izzy?”

“There may be one thing. Does the name Michael Wilson mean anything to you?”

“No. Why?”

“He was killed in a burglary gone wrong nine years ago. When we searched the database for familial matches to the samples taken from the girl’s body, his name came up.”

“He’s her father?”

“More likely, grandfather. And our records show that Michael Wilson has three daughters.”

He tried to process the significance of this.

“We are now comparing his DNA with the unidentified woman,” Maddock continued. “I’m pretty certain we’ll get a match.”

The girl’s mother, her grandfather. Both dead. But…

“You said three daughters. What about the others?”

“Trust me, Gabriel. We are pursuing every lead.”

“Not quickly enough.”