From the Cradle (23 page)

Chapter 25
Patrick – Day 4

Sharon Fredericks backed up to the edge of the balcony then stopped, looking behind her then down at the street, a dazed expression on her face. Liam McConnell wailed, and she picked him up, holding him fiercely. It was then that Patrick spotted the huge knife in Sharon’s free hand. His heart sank. They were both wielding dangerous weapons, the pair of nutters. And where was Frankie? In the room Sharon had just come out of? Patrick had a terrible feeling that she was going to hurt Liam, then go back to get Frankie. Or worse, that somehow it had been Frankie on the receiving end of the bullet they’d just heard fired.

Patrick became aware that the voice on the phone still held to his ear had gone silent. ‘What’s going on? Koppler? Are you still there?’

He thought he heard a reply, but in the heat of the moment couldn’t tell for sure.

The knife glinted in the sunlight as Sharon raised it above her head, a deranged High Priestess on her second-floor sacrificial altar. Suzanne, Carmella, Mike and Fraser approached the house and stood beneath the balcony, calling up to Sharon, imploring her not to do anything stupid.

‘Here, you talk to him.’ Patrick shoved the phone back at
Fraser
and legged it after the armed police, pushing aside the swinging bashed-in front door. He heard Suzanne call his name but ignored her. He heard barked orders from upstairs, an officer demanding that a door be opened, then a crashing sound, splintering wood, a yell – and more gunshots. Patrick ran up the first flight of stairs and pushed past the half-a-dozen armed police who filled the hallway. At the end of the hallway, an office door had been kicked in. On the floor inside the office, Koppler lay on his back, his shirt blooming red across the chest, a trickle of blood tracing a line from the corner of his mouth to his ear.

‘Shit!’ At least it wasn’t Frankie.

He heard men’s voices and a child’s scream from the next floor, where Sharon was, threw himself back down the hallway and up the second flight of stairs.

Four armed officers stood in what was presumably the master bedroom. French doors were wide open, revealing the balcony, curtains undulating in the breeze. One of the officers was ordering Sharon to put down the knife she was still holding, but now her hands were shaking so much that she could barely hold either the knife or the child in her arms.

Patrick raced to the French doors, ignoring the protests of the black-clad officers. ‘Sharon,’ he said. ‘My name’s Patrick. I’ve come to help you.’

She turned her head towards him. Her face was twisted with confusion, pink and wet with tears and snot. Her expression reminded Patrick of a documentary he’d seen in which a cow was led into a slaughterhouse.

‘Where’s Samuel?’ she demanded.

‘He’s downstairs. Everything’s OK, Sharon. We’re your friends.’

She sobbed.

‘Put Liam down and come back inside. No one is going to hurt you. I promise.’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ she screamed. ‘They shot Samuel. I heard it.’

‘No, he’s fine. Just put . . . the boy down and let’s talk.’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘I’m not going back to that place, that hospital. I don’t want to be locked up. I don’t want them to pump me full of drugs again, make me feel like I’m evil. I’m not evil.’

‘I know you’re not, Sharon.’

Her voice was choked. ‘I’m a good mum. I was always a go
od mum.’

‘I’m sure . . .’

‘They’re not taking me back there.’

And in one fluid movement, she turned and spread her arms wide so that there was distance between the knife and the crying child. He was sure that she was just planning to put Liam down on the balcony – but one of the marksmen inside the room clearly thought otherwise, as another shot was fired from inside the room, whizzing past his sleeve. Sharon’s body jerked backwards, a look of surprise on her face, and Liam was suddenly in mid-air. Patrick lunged forwards and caught him before he hit the floor of the balcony. In one swift movement he handed the shocked boy to one of the armed police. ‘Get him out of here.’

Hardy entered the room. ‘Nice work, detective,’ he said, clapping slowly as they both surveyed the splayed body of Sharon
Fredericks
, the hole in her belly pumping red. Patrick rubbed his hands together in a washing motion, trying to wipe the blood
splatters
off them. His head pounded afresh and he had to swallow hard to prevent himself vomiting.

‘Shut up,’ he managed. ‘Get the paramedics up here, now. Where’s the other kid? Frankie?’

‘There’s no sign of her.’

‘What do you mean?’

Patrick turned and pushed past Hardy, ignoring his throbbing head and churning stomach. He raced from room to room, looking under beds, in closets and wardrobes. He pulled open the attic door and poked his head inside, and half-fell down the stairs in his haste to find Frankie. As he ran around he noticed that smell again, the one that had been on Isabel’s clothes and in Koppler’s office.

Opening one door, he found Koppler’s body, zipped into a body bag, momentarily abandoned where the paramedics had rushed upstairs to see to Sharon. The mobile phone Koppler had been talking on to Patrick still lay where it had fallen when he’d been shot.

There was no sign of Frankie. In the room next to the dead man, Patrick found one bedroom that had clearly been occupied by a child: a single bed, Disney characters on the walls, stuffed toys, a pair of child’s pyjamas on the pillow.

One
child. As he exited the house into the warm evening sunshine, his blood felt cold.

Sharon was brought out on a stretcher immediately afterw
ards –
a stretcher, not in another body bag. For a moment, Patrick felt a flash of hope. Carmella rushed over and crouched down on her haunches beside the injured woman, at the same time that Patrick shoved the paramedics aside and joined them.

Sharon was still alive, just. The blood that trailed from mouth to ear formed a terrible symmetry with what Patrick had seen upstairs on her lover’s face.

Patrick leaned close to her. She was trying to talk.

‘He . . . promised me . . . a family. I couldn’t have a baby of my own. They were too fragile . . .’ Her voice faded and she closed her eyes. Patrick was sure they’d lost her. But her eyes opened. ‘I’m so . . . sorry . . . about the little girl. When Samuel brought her to me it was like . . . like a wonderful gift. He wanted to make me happy. But it all . . . it all went so wrong . . .’

‘What happened, Sharon?’ Patrick asked, keeping his voice low, respectful of witnessing a life coming to an end, the guttering of the candle that was her spirit.

‘She wouldn’t stop screaming. We tried to give her . . . a bath. But she screamed and . . .’ Again her words trailed off. ‘It was
Samuel
. He was worried . . . the neighbours would hear. He pushed her under the water. Just for a minute.’

Tears rolled from the dying woman’s eyes.

‘And Liam?’ Patrick asked. ‘He was a replacement?’

Sharon’s eyes said yes. ‘We just wanted a child. Someone to love. I saw him in the car and recognised him. Such a sweet boy. His so-called mother didn’t care about him . . . She just left him in there, didn’t even lock it . . .’ She broke off, gasping and coughing.

So Liam’s mother, Zoe,
had
been lying about not leaving the car unlocked. Patrick would allow himself to feel angry about all the hours wasted hunting for the man who supposedly bumped h
er later.

Patrick leaned closer. There wasn’t long left. ‘And what about Frankie? Where is she?’

‘Who?’

‘Frankie Philips. The other little girl.’

Sharon’s face was a mask of confusion. She opened her mouth to speak but, instead, took in a long, rattling breath and lay still, her eyes still open, staring as if she would be confused for eternity.

Patrick and Carmella exchanged a long, fearful look. As
Patrick
pushed himself to his feet, his knees crunching as he stood, he saw a woman with soft black hair running full pelt towards them, a uniformed PC in pursuit. The woman had broken through t
he cordon.

‘Oh shit,’ he said. ‘It’s Helen Philips.’

‘Where’s Frankie? Where is she?’ Helen gasped as she pulled to a halt beside them, the PC catching up and grabbing hold of her. She shook him off. Her face twisted with contempt as she looked at the dead woman on the stretcher, the paramedics preparing a second body bag. There was not an ounce of compassion or fear at being witness to such recent death. ‘Is that her? Is that the bitch who took my baby?’

Then her eyes widened and Patrick followed her gaze. Liam McConnell was sitting in the back of an ambulance with two policewomen. His own eyes were like saucers and he was pale, but he was alive, found. Whereabouts known. Tonight he would be back with his family. Whatever else happened now, Patrick told himself he had to remember that. They had reunited one family with their lo
st child.

‘Where’s Frankie?’ Helen insisted. ‘She’s not still in there,
is she?’

Patrick steeled himself.

‘Mrs Philips, I need you to remain calm. Frankie’s not here. It doesn’t look like she was ever here.’

Chapter 26
Patrick – Day 4

As soon as he could get out of DB1, Patrick headed back to the station. He’d only intended to go there to pick up his car, but once he was through the doors, he sat down at his desk and found
he coul
dn’t move. To give himself an excuse to stay at his desk, he switched on his computer and surfed around news and social media websites reading all the breaking news reports with their differing slants and conclusions: ‘SIEGE ENDS IN DISASTER – POLICE SHOOT TWO DEAD’ ‘LIAM MCCONNELL FOUND, FRANKIE STILL MISSING’, ‘FRANKIE PHILIPS’ MOTHER DISTRAUGHT’ . . .

The only person who was happy right now – apart from Liam’s parents – was Wesley, who was already back at the travellers’ camp, having been immediately released from custody.

Eventually Patrick’s hand stilled on the computer’s mouse and he surrendered to his exhaustion. His eyes closed and he tried to empty his throbbing head. The noise of the door opening made him jump. It was Suzanne.

‘Didn’t think you were still here,’ he said, wearily squinting at her through one eye.

‘Nor should you be. Particularly not with that egg on your forehead. You look like you either need a drink or medical attention, and, call me selfish, but personally I think the former is the preferred option. Swift half before we wend our ways home?’

Patrick grinned weakly. His head was still pounding, and if he was honest, he knew he probably should be checked out for a mild concussion – but Suzanne was inviting him for a drink? He’d have to be missing a limb to turn that down.

‘I’m fine, boss. The Nurofen are kicking in. You’re right ‒ I need a drink
way
more than I need to sit in Casualty for four hours.’

‘Let’s go.’

Patrick had a moment of doubt. What if Suzanne was only asking him for a drink so that she could give him an off-the-record bollocking about how much he’d fucked it all up?

Have I fucked it up
? he wondered as they entered their local and Suzanne headed for the bar. Frankie was still missing and two
people
were dead – but Liam had been found, and they knew what had happened to Isabel. Grim swings and roundabouts. And besides, he hadn’t been the hostage negotiator . . .

He headed for a table at the back of the cool dark bar. After the harshness of the fluorescent station strip lights and the dramas of the day, he needed somewhere dark and quiet for his head.

And for his heart, if he was honest. The darker and quieter the better. In all the years he’d worked with Suzanne, they had never socialised together apart from office Christmas parties and people’s leaving dos, at which she had always been unfailingly profess
ional –
apart from that one time about a year ago, in her office when Suzanne had unexpectedly produced a bottle of whiskey and two chipped mugs and they’d proceeded to get pissed like two
teenagers
with their first bottle of Thunderbird. That night, Patrick had opened his heart about Gill and what had recently happened with Bonnie, and Suzanne had started talking a little bit about her own marriage. That night was seared into Patrick’s memory: the way their chairs had inched closer together as the drinks went down, the heat in the room that led Suzanne to pop open the top two buttons of her blouse, the fizz in the air . . . and how Suzanne had suddenly stood up and told him it was time for them to go, like she’d shoved a knitting needle into his bubble.

Because it had never been spoken of since, Patrick sometimes wondered if it had really even happened or if he’d just imagined it.

Suzanne came back with the drinks, handing Patrick a pint. ‘How are you feeling now?’

He swallowed a mouthful and, despite his headache, felt the cold lager help ground him, restoring a sense of normality to the insanity of the day.

‘Better,’ he said. ‘Definitely better.’

‘How’s Bonnie?’ Suzanne suddenly asked, fiddling with a beer mat and not meeting his eyes, as though she had just propositioned him or something.

‘She’s fine . . . well, basically. We’re still living at my mum and dad’s, which is pretty . . . interesting . . . and I think they’re struggling with the childcare. Especially as she’s developed quite a strong personality.’

‘What – you mean she has tantrums?’

‘All the time, apparently,’ Patrick said glumly. ‘I feel so responsible. My folks should be enjoying their retirement, not conducting damage limitation for a narky two-year-old. They’re knackered.’

Now Suzanne looked him full in the face. She knew, of course, all about Gill and what had happened, although rarely mentioned it. Not since that session with the whisky in her office. Her eyes were tawny and flecked with gold. ‘It’s hardly your fault, is it? And presumably it won’t be forever – won’t she go to nur
sery soon?’

‘She could do. But it’s so expensive, and I just feel she should be around people who know her really well . . . I’m probably being over-protective but . . . you know . . .’

‘I do know,’ Suzanne said with sympathy. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing an amazing job.’

‘Really?’ Pat said, with genuine surprise. He constantly worried that his slightly haphazard methods and sudden disappearances home to troubleshoot the latest Bonnie crisis had marked him down as unreliable in her books. ‘That’s great to hear. Thank you. I’ll feel a lot better when I find this Philips kid, though.’

‘If anyone can, you can,’ she said. ‘Right, that’s enough blowing smoke up your arse. Another pint?’

He noticed that she had already finished her G&T.

‘It’s my round,’ he said, and got up, staggering very slightly. ‘Lovecats’ by The Cure came onto the jukebox and he grinned, quashing a fleeting notion that it was A Sign. Suzanne, he reminded himself, was not only his boss, but a married woman. And he was a married man – technically, at least. Waiting at the bar, he turned around to look at her, sitting with her back to him, engrossed in something on her phone. He liked the way her long blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her narrow back.

When he came back, there was a glint in her eyes as she put her phone away and accepted her second G&T. ‘Now, Lennon. We could talk about what just happened and what the ramifications of it all are – but you know what? I really don’t want to. What I would really like to do is to sit here with you and get quite drunk. I think we’ve earned it. Tomorrow we’ll be back at the grindstone, and today was hell, but this evening is neither one nor the other.’

Patrick appraised her, his head on one side. God, he wished he didn’t have such a headache. He sensed that this was not an opportunity that would often present itself again.

‘Fine by me,’ he said. ‘Are you sure everything is OK?’ He wanted to add ‘at home’, but it felt too personal.

She immediately changed the subject as though she hadn’t heard him – something she often did at work when someone said something she disliked. ‘Tell me about those,’ she commanded, reaching her forefinger towards his arms. The tip of her finger traced the swirl of the darkest of his tattoos, and her touch sent an electric shock straight to his groin.

He shrugged. ‘Had that one since I was eighteen,’ he said, pointing at an abstract shape on his right arm, just above the elbow. ‘I got the rest over the following ten years, one a year. I stopped when I met Gill because I didn’t want to end up like one of those freaks who get every spare inch done, even eyelids. It’s very addictive. And Gill didn’t like them.’

‘They look sort of Maori,’ Suzanne said. ‘I’ve often wondered about them but you usually have long sleeves at work.’

‘They’re Maori-inspired, but not actually the traditional Maori
kori
, because those aren’t tattoos done with needles like these ones are. They’re actually carved out of the skin with
little
chisels. I just really liked the shapes. This one,’ he showed Suzanne a spiral on his left bicep, ‘is based on a
koru
, which is a fern shape.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Suzanne said. Was he imagining it, or did she have a slightly dreamy expression on her face? Patrick wondered if she’d have used those same words if she hadn’t been halfway down her second double gin – ‘impressive’ or ‘interesting’ were more the sort of words he would have expected her to use. ‘Than
k you.’

‘Are they just on your arms?’ Her eyes flickered over his whole body, and he thought,
fuck me, she is. She’s coming onto me!

‘Arms, over my shoulders, and one on my calf,’ he said, pulling up his jeans leg to show her. ‘Do you have any?’

She laughed. ‘Me, with tattoos? No. I’m far too much of a wimp. I’ll stick to admiring yours, thanks. Besides, like Gillian, Simon would hate it.’

Patrick couldn’t help it. He leaned forward slightly and put his elbows on the table. ‘Do you always do what Simon wants?’

She mirrored his movement. They were inches apart, and he could smell her perfume, something musky and subtle. He forgot about his headache.

Her phone rang. She pulled it out of her bag, examined the screen, made a face – but took the call anyway. ‘Hi darling . . . Yes, I’m fine, don’t worry . . . Did you? What channel? . . . Shit. Well, as you can imagine, there’s a lot of debriefing to do, so I’ll be late. Don’t wait up. Thanks honey. See you in the morning . . . You too.’

She put the phone away briskly. Patrick noticed the ‘you too’ cop-out. In his experience, ‘you too’ was what you said to someone who’d just told you they loved you when the feeling wasn’t reciprocal. But perhaps he was just extrapolating more than was strictly necessary, or even fair.

Her mood changed a little over the course of the next two drinks each, as the pub filled up around them. She was still friendly, but a distance had crept back in. There were more silences – in which they could then clearly hear that most of the conversations around them involved the siege, the found toddler and the dead couple. After a while Pat tried not to listen.

He felt disappointed, but didn’t let it show. He had started to experience a weird sort of euphoria – survival relief, perhaps. The after-effects of the earlier adrenalin. His headache had greatly subsided, he was getting drunk with his sexy boss, and Liam O’Connell had been found alive and well.

Things could be a lot worse.

A thought popped into his head. ‘You know that smell at
Koppler’s
house? Any idea what it was?’

Suzanne lifted her glass. ‘Sage. I only know that because someone bought me some sage incense sticks once. It’s used for cleansing, purifying.’

Patrick nodded. He could picture it: Koppler and Sharon burning the sage after accidentally killing Isabel, thinking it would help remove the stain of what they’d done. Clearly, they felt so tainted by it that they continued to burn it at home and Koppler filled his office with the smell. Or perhaps it was something they had alw
ays done.

Sometimes it’s easy to ascribe meaning where there is none.

‘Have you got a picture of her?’

‘Of who?’ Patrick was startled, thinking Suzanne meant of Gill, for some reason.

‘Bonnie, of course! I haven’t seen any of her for ages. She must have changed loads. Is she walking?’

Flustered, Pat fished out his phone and tapped into Photos. ‘Oh yeah, she’s been walking ages. She’s almost two now.’

Suzanne shrugged. ‘I don’t have kids. How would I know?’ But she said it in a down-to-earth rather than a bitter manner. He was pretty sure he’d heard her say she didn’t want children. The thought flashed through his mind, for just a second, that perhaps she wouldn’t be any good as a surrogate mother to Bonnie if . . . things ever changed . . .

As if!

As he scrolled through the pictures, holding out the phone to Suzanne, she wriggled closer to him. He almost dropped the phone, then reciprocated until their arms were pressed together. ‘Aw, Pat, she’s
adorable
!’ she cooed, and he laughed, with pride and amusement at how different she was when inebriated.

A text vibrated his phone and he groaned when he saw that it was from his mum.
WILL YOU BE BACK SOON? B NOT SETTLING AT ALL TONIGHT.

‘Oh hell. My poor mother’s been stuck with Bonnie all day and now she won’t go to sleep. Ma will be furious if I stink of beer when I get in.’

They both collapsed with laughter at the irony of big, muscular DI Lennon getting told off by his mum for coming in late smelling of drink. ‘You’d better go, then,’ Suzanne said.

Suddenly she leaned her head against his chest. ‘This has be
en nice.’

‘Really nice,’ he agreed, instinctively sliding his arm around her shoulders.

‘Back to normal again tomorrow, though,’ she said warningly, looking up into his eyes.

‘Yes boss. Understood.’

‘In that case, perhaps we could risk a quick if rather
unprofessional
. . .’ Her lips were moving towards his, her eyelids floating blissfully closed and he could smell her scent and the appley
shampoo
she wore . . . He bent his head towards her, risking one last glance around and then—

‘Oh shit,’ he hissed, jumping away from her as if stung. ‘Don’t look round. Winkler just came in.’

‘Winkler?’ she snapped, immediately back in sharp focus, sharp-tongued Suzanne, all the soft edges erased. ‘Did he see us?’

‘No, thank God. He’s got his back to us. But I think that’s my cue . . . Thanks for the – decompression. It was much needed.’

‘Indeed,’ she said gravely. ‘I very much enjoyed it. Goodnight, Pat.’

‘Goodnight, boss.’

She laughed. ‘One more thing,’ she said, as he swallowed the dregs of his final pint. ‘This will never be spoken of. Agreed?’

‘. . . Agreed.’

We’re still in London, and Frankie is locked up safe and sound while I go out to buy supplies. She’s still not eating properly and her body is starting to look like a bundle of sticks. I remember seeing a documentary about this once, a child who missed her mummy so much that she became depressed and stopped eating. As I’m walking round the supermarket I think about Sean and Helen and how they are to blame for the poor child’s mental frailty, and as if my thoughts have conjured them I look up and there they are.