Stranger Child (30 page)

One thought had been forcing itself into her mind, however hard she had tried to keep it at bay.
What would have happened if I hadn’t taken Ollie?
What if she had disobeyed them?

It was a stupid thought. They would have sent Finn to get her. The only way she could have stayed was if the whole family had gone into hiding, and Natasha didn’t believe England was a big enough country to hide from the likes of Finn McGuinness.

There was somebody else who had to take some of the blame, though.

David
.

This was her chance – a chance to get him to explain while they were the only two people in the house. She was scared to know the truth; maybe Rory had lied to her all these years and she had hated David for nothing, but she had to know. She pushed herself off the bed and made her way quietly down the stairs, hands gripped into fists straight by her side.

Her father was in the sitting room, standing with his back to the door, arms on the mantelpiece, leaning forwards with his head bent. Natasha silently stood behind him, struggling to find the courage to speak. She must have made a sound, because David spun round.

‘Goodness, Tasha – you scared the life out of me. What are you doing just standing there? Come and sit down.’

Natasha didn’t move. David frowned.

‘I’m not getting the silent treatment again, am I? Surely we’re past that by now?’

‘I need to ask you something, David.’

‘Ask me anything you like, but come and sit down.’

Natasha didn’t move.

‘I want to know why you did it.’

‘Why I did what?’

‘You know what.’

‘Tasha, darling, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She swallowed a lump in her throat, finding it hard to say the words out loud.

‘Was it because you didn’t love me? Or didn’t you love Mummy? Which was it?’

David couldn’t meet her eyes.

She didn’t really need to ask anything else. His face told the story.

All she wanted to know was
why
.

*

Everything had gone to plan at the petrol station. Becky had handed over the keys and they had exchanged tops. Emma had rushed back out, wiping her face with tissues and letting her hood fall back. If they were watching, they could see her face. She had filled the car, paid the bill and was now on her way home. She had no idea what the next few hours would bring, but with every cell in her body she hoped they would bring Ollie back to her.

She felt safe on the main road, but as soon as she turned into the lanes, she was struck by how vulnerable she was. The windscreen wipers swung rhythmically backwards and forwards, and the headlights reflected back the tiny shards of silver light from the thin rain. She turned a bend and was on a straight stretch. Nothing ahead.

Suddenly a blinding light flashed into her eyes – a reflection from the rear-view mirror. There was a car behind her.

‘Shit.’

Without lifting the phone to her ear, Emma pressed a button to make a call, and another to put the phone on speaker.

‘Tom,’ she said. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yes I can. Loud and clear. Are you okay?’

‘No. There’s somebody behind me on the lanes. What should I do?’

‘It’s okay, Emma. He’s one of ours. At the next junction, he’ll turn off to the left when you go right, and another car will take over from there. You’re safe.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Sorry – I didn’t know they were going to make it on time. I didn’t want to promise something and not deliver. I just want to make sure you get back safely.’

As Tom had said, the car behind her tailed off at the next junction, and a few moments later she picked up more lights in her mirror and prayed that this was another police car. She saw the gates to her home ahead and felt her muscles sag with relief.

She pulled into the drive, glad to be home, but dreading the hours ahead. She leaned back against the headrest for a moment.

The adrenaline of the last half hour had seeped from her body, and with it the last trickle of energy. She felt like an old woman as she got out of the car and quietly let herself into the house. The hall was dark. Nobody had bothered to switch on the lamps.

The door to the sitting room was half open, and Emma could see David standing there, not hurrying towards her as she would have expected. He hadn’t seen her. He was staring at his daughter, a look of horror on his face.

Emma was about to burst in and demand to know what had happened when she heard Tasha speak.

‘Tell me
,’
she said. Emma could hear the throbbing note of misery in the girl’s voice.

‘I don’t know what you mean.
Honestly
.’

‘You’re a
liar
. Tell me what happened. Tell me about that night, six years ago.’

Emma stepped back slightly. She didn’t know what was happening, but this was between the two of them.

‘I don’t know how many times I have to say how sorry I am that I didn’t come with you.’

‘Oh
please
,’ Natasha said, ‘don’t start all that again. You were
never
going to come with us, were you? It wouldn’t have worked then – would it?’

From the shadows of the unlit hallway, Emma watched her husband. He swallowed and she saw his Adam’s apple move up and down.

‘What do you know, Natasha – or what do you think you know?’

‘Can you not just tell the truth – for once in your sorry life?’ she said, her voice harsh with disappointment. ‘What was the plan?’

‘Tasha, let’s stop this now. It was all six years ago, and you’re back with us. Let’s get Ollie back too and move forwards.’

‘That would be great, wouldn’t it? Forget the last six years. I will
never
forget the last six years, David. Just tell me. Why did we have to be kidnapped, me and Mum? Why was that the only way?’

‘It wasn’t like that, Tasha. Nothing was supposed to happen to you, I promise.’

Emma smothered a gasp.
What was he talking about?

‘So what
was
supposed to happen, then? Did Mum know?’

David turned away, and somehow Emma knew that he didn’t want Tasha to see his face.

‘Of course your mum didn’t know. She would never have agreed to it, and she wasn’t much of an actress. It had to be real so the police would believe her afterwards. It was all supposed to be over really quickly. You and your mum were going to be taken somewhere safe. Just for an hour or two. I would never have put you in danger. You wouldn’t have come to any harm.’

‘
What?
’ There was a note of incredulity in Natasha’s voice.

Oh David, what did you do?
Emma didn’t want to hear any more, but she couldn’t drag herself away.

‘I couldn’t have known that your mum would crash the car. I don’t know why they took you – I didn’t expect that.’

‘What did you think they would do? I was
six
– not a baby. I could tell the police what had happened. I might have even recognised faces.’

David was silent.

‘So they were telling me the truth, then,’ Natasha said quietly.

‘I’m so sorry, Tasha. It seemed like the best way out at the time. I owed some money. I owed it to some … brutal people.’

‘Yeah – funnily enough, I know them. I’ve
lived
with them for six years, remember.’

‘I knew there were diamonds in one of the safe deposit boxes, and I knew which one. If they’d just broken in and stolen them, though, I would have been implicated. So the plan was that they would pretend to kidnap you – but it wouldn’t be
real
.’

‘It would have been real to me and Mum, though, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, but not for long. I was going to help them get into the vault so they could steal the diamonds. My debt would have been paid, and then you and your mum would have been set free. The police would know I’d only done it under duress. Nobody would have been hurt. That was the plan.’

‘So when it all went wrong, if you knew who had me, why didn’t you tell the police?’

‘I
didn’t
know. I
never
knew. I promise you. The guy I owed the money to disappeared, and I never knew his name. We used to meet – to play cards. I got in over my head – kept thinking my luck would change. He was the only link.’

Emma heard a high-pitched laugh from Natasha – a cross between that and a sob.

‘You really are dumb, aren’t you? They would
all
have been in on it – all the men you were playing cards with. I bet they pretended not to know each other, didn’t they? They set you up from the start – another mug who doesn’t know how to hang on to his money. How did you pay the bloody debt then, when the robbery went wrong?’

He closed his eyes and spoke in a voice so soft that Emma could barely hear him.

‘Your mum’s life insurance.’

Emma heard a sharp intake of breath that turned to a sob. She’d had enough of this.

She pushed the door fully open and walked over to Natasha, wrapping her arms around the girl, pulling her close. She felt Tasha relax against her for a moment.

‘Emma,’ David said, his eyes flicking backwards and forwards between her and Natasha, clearly wondering how much she had heard.

All Emma could think of was her husband’s grief when she had met him; he had talked endlessly about how much he had loved his family, about how, if he had his time all over again, he would have done things differently. Maybe it was more than grief, though. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

Guilt
.

49

Becky was glad to be back in what, to her, felt like a normal world, with people she knew how to handle – such as the riffraff of Manchester. At least she could usually read them – know what they were thinking. The last few hours had been difficult to say the least. She felt David was stonewalling her, even though on the face of it he was trying to be helpful.

Natasha was a different matter, of course. She was understandably very confused, but she had committed a serious offence.
And
she had been brought up to steal, cheat, ferry drugs – so was she a criminal or was she a victim? Becky could deal appropriately with either, but when both were rolled up into one person, it confused her. To her, it was a simple dichotomy. Actions were either right or they were wrong.

Tom had always told her that few things were black and white, and that sometimes good people did bad things. For Becky, life was simpler when the good behaved themselves, and the bad were the rotten bastards she expected them to be.

‘You’re very quiet,’ Tom said as he drove through the dark, wet streets of the Manchester suburbs.

‘Sorry – I thought we’d covered everything.’

‘We have, but that doesn’t normally shut you up.’

Becky turned her head slowly and raised her eyebrows. She saw a half smile on Tom’s face.

‘Come on, Becky – what’s bugging you?’

She was quiet for a moment longer.

‘You know when David was on the phone to whichever scumbag called – we don’t know who, because we couldn’t hear. Well – he could see me signalling him to put the phone on speaker. In fact I tried to lean over to do it for him, but he moved away. Why would he do that?’

‘Do you think he’s involved?’

‘I don’t know, Tom, but I hope and pray that he’s not.’

Tom drew his car up next to Becky’s.

‘You and me both.’ He left the car running and turned to Becky. ‘Okay, we’ve got an armed response team in place close to the Joseph family, and another in Salford at Finn McGuinness’ home address. We’re assuming Julie will have taken the baby there rather than to her other house, which is no doubt full of inquisitive women and punters. Can you get over there and wait for the all clear so you can go in and get the baby? With any luck we’ll have Ollie Joseph safely home before anything else has a chance to happen.’

Becky looked at Tom’s strained face. She knew how difficult he was finding all of this and felt like leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek. She paused for a second then turned her head away.

‘I’m on it, boss,’ she said, pushing open the door and racing through the rain to the sanctuary of her own car.

*

Tom watched Becky’s car pull away. He wanted to feel confident that by the time she got to Salford, little Ollie would have been found, but he knew he mustn’t be too optimistic. The minute that Ollie was safe, Tom would want to call a halt to the job, whatever it was – but he wasn’t sure where that would leave the Titan team. For them, it would be best if the gang’s plan continued, so Titan could catch them red-handed – finally, after all their years of effort.

Tom hadn’t had time to process the information that had been flying at him from all quarters in the last few hours, and he wished he could find the time to think about Jack – the letters, the bank account and his brother’s habit of hacking into people’s computers to leave them messages. Jack’s life was becoming clearer, and it was a picture Tom wasn’t enjoying. But his death was more confused than ever. Accident, suicide or murder?

Would he ever know?

He needed to stop thinking about Jack, but at every turn in this investigation he seemed to rear up unexpectedly, and, more than anything, he was concerned about Jack’s call to Caroline. How the hell had he known what was going to happen?

Tom had suspected for some time that Natasha Joseph’s abduction six years ago had been no accident. He couldn’t believe that Caroline’s death was planned, though – nobody could plan a road traffic accident so precisely that death was a certainty – so was the plan that Caroline was taken, or Natasha, or both of them? Was that a tiger kidnap too?

And had Jack known about it? It certainly looked that way – but how?

Becky was right about one thing. David Joseph’s behaviour on the phone suggested that he was hiding something. Tom felt certain that David was the key to it all. He wanted to shake the truth out of the man, but at this moment David Joseph was off limits.

Tom slammed his car into gear. There was little he could do now but watch – and wait.

50

The Josephs’ sitting room was silent. Since Emma had appeared in the room, nobody had spoken, and it was almost as if none of them dared, because when they did the floodgates would open. David was staring anxiously at his wife and she looked back, her expression blank.