First One Missing (31 page)

Suzy, on the other hand, didn’t bother to hide her annoyance at the interruption. ‘What do you mean, not well?’

‘She’s got a temperature and she says she feels sick.’

Suzy rolled her eyes. ‘I did warn you, didn’t I? All that pizza and Coke and then you lot would go outside on the trampoline in your jim-jams. Go and find her a paracetamol. You know where they are.’

‘She wants to go home.’

Suzy’s head, which was tucked under Jason’s arm, started shaking from side to side.

‘No way. Uh-uh. I am not calling Emily’s mum. Poor thing doesn’t even have a car. She can’t be dragging her little ones on the bus to come here and pick Emily up. And there’s no way I can give her a lift. I’ve already had two glasses of wine.’

Jason sat frozen, sure they must be able to hear his heart thudding against his chest. This was it. He didn’t even have to think up a way to get her on her own. Yet at the same time as he was celebrating this turn of fortune, he could also feel the nausea rising. What if he messed up again? What if he lost control? Another flashback assailed him – carrying a roll of heavy-duty plastic sacking and noticing a little foot hanging out of the bottom. No. It wouldn’t be like that again. He had changed. He’d worked on himself. He was different.

Emily was different.

‘I’ll take her.’ The steadiness of his own voice surprised him. ‘I’ve got the car. It won’t take a minute.’

‘You don’t even know where she lives.’

That Bethany had an answer for everything.

‘If she goes to your school it can’t be far, can it?’

‘You don’t have to.’ Suzy sounded dubious. ‘I think we should just wait a while. Play it by ear.’

Luckily Bethany had an answer for that too: ‘Aw, Mum. Please let him take her home. She’s being a right moody cow. She’s spoiling my birthday.’

‘There you are. That’s settled. We can’t have the birthday girl getting upset, can we?’

Jason was rewarded with a smile from Bethany and Suzy caved in, as he’d known she would.

‘Oh, all right. You win. You’re a good man, Jason Shields. Bit soft in the head, but good. Go and tell Emily to get her stuff together, Bethany.’

Once the girl was out of the room, Suzy rested her hand on the crotch of his jeans.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you when you get back.’

Her splayed-out fingers looked like fat spider legs.

40

One minute Leanne had been at her desk feeling like nothing good was ever going to happen again, and now here she was on a shabby street outside a door sandwiched between a convenience store and a launderette with the whole place cordoned off by patrol cars and yellow tape, and feeling like her heart was about to explode in her chest.

‘Back! Get back!’ shouted the cop nearest the door who, like the others in the advance group, was dressed in full protective gear. There was a loud crack and then they were all streaming in through the dark, narrow hallway and up to the first floor where Donna Shields had told her Jason rented a one-bedroom flat. Pete tugged her arm, pulling her back on to the pavement to wait.

She hadn’t yet had a chance to process it, this feeling of excitement mixed with anxiety. She knew that, without a confession, there might be an issue with the hair sample Donna had given her being used as evidence in court. The thought that they might catch him and then have the whole case collapse because she hadn’t followed procedure made her feel giddy with dread. But at least they had him. And they’d find something. There was always something.

The advance group, which had already made it upstairs, was now thumping on the flat door. Then there was another loud crack and the sound of thudding footsteps.

‘Not here!’ the shout went up.

The adrenaline that had been coursing around Leanne’s body for the last two hours dropped, leaving her able to breathe properly for the first time. By the time she, Pete and Desmond arrived upstairs, the cops in protective gear had gone back outside where they formed a guard around the main door of the building. Snapping on latex gloves and pulling covers over their shoes, Leanne followed Desmond into the small, neat, curiously impersonal flat, with Pete close behind.

‘Right, we’re looking for anything that gives us an idea where he’s gone. Scribbled note, anything at all.’

Another team had already gone to the strip club where Shields ran security, but they’d called to say it was shuttered up. Not open on weekends, apparently.

The flat was bland. The kind of thin grey carpet beloved of landlords everywhere, magnolia walls, a boxy two-person sofa and matching armchair covered in a beige synthetic fabric. A wood-effect coffee table that looked like it would snap if you put anything heavier than a magazine on it. An old-fashioned television with a deep back on a black metal stand in the corner. No pictures on the walls, no books, no DVDs. On the table between the two windows overlooking the street, there was a pile of what looked to be men’s fitness magazines, the corners all neatly lined up. There was nothing to say who lived here.

‘Leanne, check the bedroom; Pete, the kitchen.’

Leanne had to duck her head under the pull-up bar over the living-room door lintel. There was no room in the cramped hallway and her arm felt seared where Pete’s pressed against it as they opened the three closed doors. Tiny bathroom that stank of bleach and aftershave, a kitchen that wasn’t much bigger into which Pete disappeared, and a small, square bedroom with the same grey carpet and a narrow double bed neatly made. A line of shoes at the foot of the bed in matched pairs. Black shiny work-style lace-ups, pristine white trainers, well-preserved Timberlands, their laces neatly tucked into the boots.

She heard Pete cry out: ‘Guv? There’s a laptop in here!’

Then the sound of Desmond’s footsteps heading towards the kitchen. Jason Shields would have everything password-protected, she was sure of it. How long would it take to get into his laptop? An hour? Two? And all the time he was out in the world, looking at children in the street, sizing up his next victim.

She fought back a shiver.

There were no clothes on the floor or flung over the back of a chair, no glass of water by the bed. She looked at the toiletries in their grey bottles lined up in height order on the chest of drawers and the skin on her neck felt cold and clammy. This man left no trace of himself, as if he wanted to be J-clothed away. Still she went through the drawers with their neatly paired-up socks and dazzling white trunks and the colour-coded piles of carefully ironed T-shirts. Navy, grey, white, black. The last drawer had exercise gear. Lycra shorts and tops. White vests.

A cursory look through the flimsy free-standing wardrobe produced a similar lack of results.

She crossed to the window and looked out. A back yard full of stacked crates and rubbish surrounded by other back yards full of the same. The window of the building straight across was half covered by a purple sheet. Leanne’s heart stopped as a child’s face appeared in the bottom right-hand corner. The child raised its hand to wave and Leanne ducked away.

In the kitchen she could hear the sound of Pete talking to someone from IT on the phone.

‘No, I’ve done that,’ he was saying. ‘It’s not working.’

She knew they’d have to get going soon to take the laptop in for testing. She turned and her eyes swept again over the bed. Then, more from habit than hope, she bent to take a quick look underneath it – and saw a single piece of A4 paper, folded in half. As she picked it up, she saw it was a printout of a webpage. On closer inspection it looked to be from a dating website. Leanne’s heart started pounding. There was a profile from someone calling themselves ButterfliesInMyTummy and a photograph of a chubby orange-skinned woman with curly blonde hair and comfy sheepskin boots sitting in an armchair. Leanne frowned. This didn’t fit with the man who lived in this room and whose DNA had been found on the body of a murdered child. She stared down at the woman while her heart continued to hammer, and then slowly she turned over the paper at its razor-sharp crease and now there was a coldness in her head like her brain was freezing from the inside out as she saw that there was another part to the photograph. Now she saw the young girl with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes laughing into the camera. And she knew. She knew.

41

When Emily appeared in the living room accompanied by the others, she was wearing a cardigan over her pyjamas and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

‘Jason says he’ll drive you home. That’s kind of him, isn’t it?’ Suzy was smiling, but there was a faint edge to her voice. ‘Emily can be a bit of a baby sometimes,’ she’d complained to him after Bethany had gone back upstairs. ‘You can understand why – I mean, she never gets the chance to be babied at home, not with all those smaller brothers and sisters, but she’s got to understand sometimes it isn’t all about her. This should be Bethany’s day.’

Now the girl stood uncomfortably in the doorway playing with her bag. ‘But I thought you were taking me,’ she said to Suzy.

‘Sorry, sweetheart. I’ve had too much to drink, and I’m not someone who would ever drink and drive.’ Jason guessed she was saying that for his benefit. Could she really not see the sweat breaking out on his forehead or the way his fingers were trembling in his lap? He remembered when he’d felt like this before and his stomach twisted.

But now the girl, Emily, was looking nervous, darting looks at her friends as if wanting them to step in.

‘Actually, I’m feeling a bit better,’ she said in a soft voice that he struggled to hear. ‘Maybe I’ll stay here with you guys.’

Jason froze, then he felt the anger pierce him like a bullet, exploding inside him into sharp shards of shrapnel. He was so close, so close. Was he really going to be thwarted now, after everything he’d done? Emily was his reward for these past weeks of laughing at Suzy’s feeble jokes, and pretending to be interested in her petty arguments with people at work, and going to bed with her and imagining she was someone else. And now, after all that, it was all going to be snatched away?

‘Er, no. Sorry, Emily. I’m afraid it’s too late to change your mind.’ Jason could hardly believe that Suzy had chosen now to grow a backbone. He could have kissed her. ‘You said you didn’t feel well. Jason’s all ready to take you now and I’ve already called your mum.’

Emily looked as if she was about to cry, and Suzy visibly softened.

‘The thing is, lovey, you do look peaky and I’ve got to think about the others, haven’t I? I can’t have you giving germs to Katie and Tara. So Jason’s going to run you back home and, tell you what, if you’re feeling better tomorrow your mum can pop you back again in the morning. OK?’

Emily nodded, but the look she shot in his direction was one of fear, which both thrilled and angered him. Could she really not see what he’d done for her, how he’d picked her out as the special one?

He tried to speak but his mouth was suddenly bone dry. He cleared his throat and swallowed, then tried again. ‘Right then. Are you ready, Emily?’

And now he was moving towards her, and she was peeling herself slowly off the wall as if she was a frightened animal being led off to slaughter and he just wanted to shake her because she was being so ungrateful and had almost ruined the whole thing – and why did all of them have to spoil things? There was a burning feeling in his chest and his lungs weren’t working properly. She was still wavering, fixing her pale eyes on Bethany like she was asking to be rescued or something. He put his hand on her arm and he felt her flinch.

He forced his fingers to remain resting gently on her arm, resisting the urge to grip hold of her and drag her through the door. He was so close he could smell on her breath the sickly Haribo sweets they’d been scoffing from a big tub up in Bethany’s room.

‘The car’s just outside.’

He tried to make the words come out casual but his voice sounded false and high-pitched even to his own ears. Now the burning had reached his throat and he just needed to be out of there. He was so close, and this time he wouldn’t blow it. He felt her shrinking under his touch, but still she allowed herself to be guided out of the living-room door, and she wouldn’t do that if she didn’t want to, right? Because underneath it all, underneath the shyness and fearfulness, she wanted this as much as he did.

‘Wait,’ Suzy called just as they reached the hallway. ‘Maybe I’ll come with you, just for the ride. Let me get my shoes.’

Jason stopped, his hand searing where it touched Emily’s skin. The bitch. She was doing it on purpose. Playing with him.

The ball of anger ignited into a flame inside him. ‘I don’t believe you!’ he snapped. ‘You’d actually go out and leave three ten-year-olds on their own?’

‘Oi, I’m
eleven
now!’ yelled Bethany, but Jason paid her no attention.

‘Do you realize you could be arrested for that?’

He’d swung around to face Suzy who had one foot strapped into its sandal, one still bare, and was gaping at him uncertainly.

‘We’ll only be gone a few minutes.’

‘Yeah, well, how many minutes does it take for a fire to start or a nutter to break in? How many?’

He knew he should lower his voice but he couldn’t.

‘Fine,’ she said, and started unbuckling the shoe. ‘I’ll wait here.’

She looked upset.

‘I just think you need to be a bit more careful. That’s all.’

‘I said I’ll wait.’

She was glaring at him now and he had to get out of there. He had his hand on the small of Emily’s back, guiding her out. He could feel the little nubs of her vertebrae through her thin cotton cardigan. His breath was coming out in short gasps and he steered her towards the front door before anyone else could notice.

‘Nearly there,’ he said in his new gruff voice. He thought she might reward him with one of her shy smiles, but instead she arched her back, pulling away from him. Another savage bolt of anger shot through him.

The burning feeling was no longer just in his chest but had now taken over the whole of him – face, head, even the soles of his feet were on fire, so were the palms of his hands and his scalp under his gelled hair. He’d tried, he really had, but it was getting to the point where he couldn’t be held responsible any more. Not when she was being so ungrateful, and he could feel Suzy and Bethany and the others behind him watching them. Well, it was nearly over. Another minute and they’d be in the car.