Sleep Tight (2 page)

Who lives here
?

It could be anybody. Maybe, for Robert, the decor was an inevitable outcome of living in my flat for too long, where orange walls and emerald green throws appeared to live happily side by side. But those colours radiated joy. What does this room tell you?

Nothing.

I have answered all the questions the policeman has asked. We have already determined
that Robert wouldn’t have taken the children to visit family or friends after their meal. Neither Robert nor I have any family. My parents died years ago, when Jaz was a baby, and Robert never knew his father. His mother died when he was a child, and we have no siblings either. These are cold, hard facts, not choices.

But how could I explain that I can’t think of a single friend he might have gone to see with the children? How had we become so isolated? So alone?

I know why, though. Robert wants me to himself. I am not to be shared.

I should have known something was wrong when he wanted to take the children out without me. That was something he never did. If only I had listened,
really
listened, to what he was saying, I might have been able to stop it all before it was too late.

‘Olivia,’ he’d said, ‘there’s nothing strange about a father taking his children out for a pizza, is there? After all, some dads only
ever
get to see their children on their own.’

Was Robert trying to tell me something? Has he guessed how I’m feeling? If this were anybody other than Robert, I would think that maybe – just maybe – he has accepted that I might leave him and he’s trying to prove he could cope on his own. But this isn’t somebody else. This is Robert, and nothing is straightforward.

In my head I have gone through every possible scenario to explain where they might be, and each of them fills me with dread. I don’t know which is worse: the image of my babies lying hurt somewhere, or my other fear. The one I daren’t put into words.

2

It’s gone eleven now. Five hours since I have held Freddie's warm body in my arms and inhaled his sweet smell. I can't bear the thought of him being confused. And Billy. He needs his sleep. He gets grumpy when he’s tired. And my lovely Jasmine will want to be home with her mummy by now; she never likes me to be far away and thinks far too much for a seven-year-old.

If Robert just brings them back safely, I’ll forget all my stupid ideas of leaving. I’ll learn to live with the constant scrutiny, as long as my children are unharmed.

Bring them home, Robert
.

The police have been searching the house just like the last time when I lost Dan, as if I might be hiding my children somewhere. They’re out knocking on doors and waking up the neighbours. What have they seen? What do they know?

More police are arriving now. Detectives this time.

‘Mrs Brookes?’ My thoughts are interrupted by a voice. I look up into the kind eyes of a woman who doesn’t look much older than me, but she must be because everybody calls her ma’am.

‘Do you mind if I call you Olivia? My name’s Philippa. I’m afraid we’ve now called all the local pizza places, and nobody remembers seeing your husband and children.’

‘Maybe they changed their minds and went for a burger instead. They could have done that, couldn’t they?’ I’m clutching at straws, and we all know it.

‘Why didn’t you go with them, Olivia?’

How can I answer that? I don’t
know
. He’s never done this before. I feel I have to make something up, although I don’t know why.

‘Robert thought I looked tired, and could do with a bit of a rest. He was trying to help.’

‘Do you have a stressful job? Is that why you were tired? Or have the children been
playing you up a bit?’

Does she think I’ve hurt my children?

‘They’re good kids – I promise you they are. And I don’t work. There’s enough to do looking after the children and Robert.’

I’ve never really worked, other than for a few months before I had Jasmine. By the time my maternity leave was over, Robert had asked me to marry him and he didn’t want me to work at all. He wanted me at home, looking after him, and it suited me just fine. But now I don’t know why I was content with that decision. Content with being nobody in my own right.

The questions keep coming, but all I want to do is scream at them all.
Stop asking inane questions
.
Find my children
.

‘I’m sorry to have to ask you, Olivia – but would you mind going upstairs with one of my officers? We’d like you to check if anything of the children’s is missing. Clothes, favourite toys, books. You know the sort of thing.’

What?
I stare at her wordlessly for a moment.
Why would anything be missing?

I push myself up from the sofa, feeling like a woman three times my age as tense limbs struggle to take my weight. I don’t know what they are thinking, but this is ridiculous.
Why would anything be missing?
The thought revolves in my head like a ticker tape.

One of the detectives follows me upstairs and I recognise him but I can’t think why. Not that it matters. I decide to start with Jasmine’s room, which I know will be tidy so it will be easy to see if everything is where it should be.

I walk over to the bed and lift the cover, expecting to see Lottie – Jaz’s rag doll – lying on the pillow. She’s not there. I whip back the duvet.
Where’s Lottie?
Even at seven, Jaz loves to have Lottie in her bed, but there is no sign of her. I look at the policeman in my anguish, but he just watches me and says nothing.

I walk slowly over to the wardrobe. I almost don’t want to open it. But he’s still watching me. I gently pull on the handle, as if doing it slowly will change the outcome. Jasmine’s pink backpack is not on the shelf. Suddenly I’m like a wild thing, pushing coat hangers backwards and forwards, pulling open drawers.

‘Nooo!’ I am wailing, dragging out the one syllable into twenty.
Where are my daughter’s clothes?

I hear a thundering up the stairs, and Philippa appears at the door. She comes over to me and holds my arm. She doesn’t have to ask questions – she can tell from my face what has happened. I’ve been trying not to admit it to myself, but now I have to face the truth.

He’s taken my children.

3

Tom Douglas stood up wearily from his desk and stretched his arms above his head. Since his boss, Detective Chief Superintendent James Sinclair, had taken early retirement for health reasons, working at the Met hadn’t been the same. The new guy was good, but he was too much of a numbers man for Tom’s liking. And it wasn’t just that he controlled the budget with a rod of iron. That was his job. To Tom, the new DCS seemed to want to solve crime by numbers too, as if a magic formula could be applied according to a predefined set of criteria.

Tom had originally taken a job with the Metropolitan Police to be close to his daughter, Lucy. His ex-wife, Kate, had upped sticks and moved to London after their divorce, and he had followed. In many ways this had been his dream job, but there wasn’t much about his London life that appealed any more. Kate had taken Lucy back to the North-west after her new relationship fell apart, so there was nothing keeping Tom here now and once again, he was missing Lucy.

He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair and picked up his keys. There were few signs of life at this late hour and, although the lure of his soulless apartment wasn’t exactly appealing, he did need some sleep. And some food; at least he could still enjoy cooking. He started to think about what he might prepare for a late supper.

As Tom switched his desk lamp off, his phone began to ring. He glared at the handset for an indecisive moment, but he knew he’d have to answer it – he’d never been able to resist a ringing phone.

‘DCI Douglas.’

‘Tom, I’m glad I caught you. It’s Philippa Stanley. I could do with a bit of info, if you’ve got a minute.’

As soon as she mentioned her name, Tom knew he was in for a long conversation, so he pulled out his chair and sat down, dumping his jacket and keys back on the desk. Philippa had been an inspector on his team just before he left Manchester, and she had already
jumped up the ladder to match his rank of Detective Chief Inspector. There was no stopping her. She was definitely heading for the top.

‘Hi Philippa. Good to hear from you. What can I do for you?’ he asked.

‘I need to pick your brains about an old case – seven years old, in fact. Apparently you were getting a lift home from PC Ryan Tippetts and he got diverted to go and deal with a woman called Olivia Hunt, who had reported her boyfriend missing.’

Tom knew there would be no friendly catch up with Philippa – she was all business. He could picture her clearly. She would be wearing the same version of her ‘uniform’ as always: a white blouse with an open neck, not showing too much cleavage, a straight navy-blue skirt and elegant but sensible shoes – what his mother would have called court shoes. Her short dark hair would be shiny bright and tucked behind her ears, with no make-up other than a subtle lipstick. She’d always looked perfectly neat and feminine, but any sex appeal she might have had had been beaten into submission by her imperious attitude.

‘Strangely enough I
do
remember, yes. I’d forgotten the name, but if it’s the one I’m thinking of, she had a small baby that wouldn’t stop crying, and she was adamant that something had happened to her boyfriend. When Ryan learned that the missing guy was a Muslim, he acted as if that answered everything. In his view we were bound to find the guy beaten up in some alley – which, of course, we never did. I gave him a right bollocking for his attitude, and apologised to the girl. What do you need to know?’

‘I’d like your impression of her – the girl.’ Philippa answered.

‘Why? What’s up?’ Tom asked. This was a long time ago and the records would contain all the details, but Philippa wouldn’t be asking without reason.

‘I’ll get to that – I don’t want to cloud your judgement. Tell me what you remember, and then I’ll explain why I want to know. I’ve tried speaking to Ryan about this by the way. He’s a DC now, although God knows who made that astonishing decision. He has an over-inflated opinion of his unacknowledged brilliance, and yet he’s still as bloody useless as he’s always been. I thought I might be more likely to get some sense out of you.’

Tom wasn’t sure if this was Philippa damning him with faint praise or not, but he decided to ignore it because this wasn’t a case Tom would forget in a hurry. Not because of that night specifically – but because of what happened later.

‘As I said, the first time I met her she called because her boyfriend – an Iranian lad, I think – hadn’t come home. It wasn’t that late, though, so we did think that maybe he’d just buggered off to the pub and would turn up in the early hours looking sheepish and apologetic. But the boyfriend was quite strict about his religion’s anti-drinking rules, apparently, so the girl knew this couldn’t be right. We registered him as missing, but after a bit of digging we found there had been some activity on his credit card. He’d bought a train
ticket from Manchester to London, and then later that night he’d booked a flight to Australia. He sent her a text message too, I think, saying he was sorry. It was transmitted from somewhere around Heathrow. You’ll be able to check that. I seem to remember he didn’t catch the flight he’d booked – but he’d bought a flexible ticket so he could have gone at any time, and once Olivia had heard from him there wasn’t any reason to follow it up.’

‘It all ties in with what we have in the records. That’s some memory, Tom.’

‘Well,’ Tom answered with a laugh, ‘I don’t think I would have remembered it quite so clearly if she hadn’t become my case again a couple of months later. You know what happened next, I presume?’

‘I’ve read the file, but you tell me.’

Tom paused. He could see Olivia Hunt now – a look of such desolation on her tear-streaked face that the whole idea of investigating her seemed ridiculous, but also inevitable.

‘She’d sold her flat and was about to go and live with her parents – out of necessity, I think, rather than desire. Anyway, the day she was due to move, she drove round to her parents’ house to find out why her dad was late with the van they’d hired to move her stuff. She found her mum and dad dead in their bed. Carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty boiler and a blocked air inlet, it turned out. We investigated it, and we looked at Olivia very closely. To lose her boyfriend and then her parents in the space of a couple of months seemed more than odd – especially as the boyfriend had paid a significant deposit on the flat and put it in her name,
and
she was the only beneficiary of her parents’ will. The Foreign Office tried to track down the boyfriend’s family – I think his name was Dan?’

‘Danush Jahander,’ Philippa interjected.

‘Yes, that’s it. They wanted to find out if his family had heard from him. It wasn’t easy with the relationship between Britain and Iran being what it was, so I don’t think they found anything either one way or the other. Olivia was already in a state of shock because her boyfriend had dumped her and left her with a tiny baby, but she completely fell apart when her parents died. She said her father was paranoid about safety, and an accident like this didn’t make sense.’

‘But nothing was proven – either against her or anybody else.’

‘That’s right,’ Tom said. ‘It seemed to be just a tragic accident. Olivia was utterly distraught. She’d completed the sale of her flat that very morning, and she couldn’t stay at her parents’ house – nor did she want to. She had the baby to worry about too, but I seem to remember that the guy who bought the flat from her offered to let her stay on. He had somewhere else to live so I think he let her move back in. But I can’t remember anything much about him.’

‘His name was Robert Brookes. He ended up marrying her.’

‘Well, something good came out of it then,’ Tom said with a smile. ‘But all this information is in the files. What can I help with?’

‘I need to know what you thought. Not what the evidence suggested, but what you thought of Olivia – how much credence you gave to her, and how good you think she might have been at acting.’