The Silent Ones (26 page)

‘Of what?’

‘Of giving up too soon. Maybe if I had tried harder we could have found her—’

‘Dad, stop that right now.’

‘But it’s true isn’t it?’ He turned to Darren now, anger and pain and regret at work on his face, deepening the lines, obviously gnawing at him like an animal. ‘Carly was being held somewhere, wasn’t she, maybe for a long time, and we didn’t get to her.’

‘You are not to blame, not in any way.’

His dad’s face was breaking, collapsing under the burden of the revelations of the last few days. ‘But I am, Darren. I am to blame.’

Darren hadn’t seen his dad cry for years, and he was aware that he was the one who had brought this to pass. He had started on a voyage of discovery to make it better but instead he had made it worse, so much worse than he could have imagined. He should have let it all alone. The truth wasn’t going to set them free; it was a prison from which there was no escape. He tried to put his arms round his dad, but the older man pushed him away and stood.

‘It’s been ten years. And time hasn’t altered anything. I still think she’s going to open that door and walk in, smile that smile, throw her bag down.’ He shook his head.

‘I thought you had resigned yourself to her being gone,’ Darren said.

His dad threw his hands in the air in a hopeless gesture. ‘I have, but hope is irrational and never-ending.’

‘I’m sorry, Dad, more than you can know.’ Darren had to sit down. Something struck him forcefully. His parents must never know what he had done, of that he was absolutely certain. They had suffered too much already and he had made their traumas worse.

Dad began to laugh, snot and tears mingling in a sorry mess. By lunchtime, Darren knew, he would have drowned his sorrows. ‘Well, maybe there are some miracles in the world. You leave the ladder leaning up against the front of a house in south London, it hasn’t been stolen and we haven’t been burgled.’

O
lly ran to the corner of the street and pelted down towards the Spar, his school rucksack bouncing on his shoulders. He was trying out his new trainers, which Nan had finally bought him after a lot of nagging. He felt he could run for miles on these cushions of air. He also had persuaded Nan that he needed the same, newer version of the Nikes that Beggs had, so everything was good. He glimpsed the harbour in the abandoned lot between the end of the terraces and the Spar.

He sprinted past the shop and past the high wall. Where the wall ended and the little steps that led to the boats began, he nearly bumped into a woman walking away from the harbour. She had to step aside at the last minute to avoid being clattered into by him.

‘Soz!’ Olly shouted, wheeling away.

She carried on walking past the Spar, her face turned away, her blonde hair hanging low on her back.

It was the woman who liked staring at boats.

Olly slowed to a stop and looked down at the boats in the water. The day was still, the North Sea a mirror. Nan would be frying herself on the lounger in the yard when he got back from school. Olly watched the sun bounce off the water; the harbour was never busy, least of all on a weekday well after sunrise. At this hour it was all but deserted. His eyes tracked to the red boat, its tarpaulin a tight seal over the cabin and deck.

Olly looked back at the woman, but she had disappeared. She wasn’t interested in all the boats, Olly knew; she was interested only in the red one. The line of crafts sat in the still water, but the red boat was bobbing up and down as if someone had just jumped off the deck.

Olly ran further along the road and looked into the car park for the owner’s hatchback. Sure enough, it was parked there. He began to wonder where Gert Becker was as his boat was shut up, but then his eye caught sight of a stone and he kicked it with his new Nikes and was pleased to see it hit the wall and ricochet away. He headed off on the long road to school kicking every stone and discarded drink can he could see, the red boat and Gert Becker forgotten.

D
arren finished the cold curry and went for a shower. He stood under the steaming water for a long time, scrubbing away the memory of that pitch black, never-ending tube. As he got clean he felt stronger – and angrier. There was somewhere he needed to go.

He went straight to Orin’s office, barged past the secretary and her flapping arms and opened his door. Orin was up and around the desk immediately. His bulky form could move with speed and grace when required. ‘It’s OK, Margaret, I’ll take this from here. Take a seat, Darren. I’ve been expecting you.’

‘What kind of stunt were you pulling at the hospital? My mum was in there recovering from an operation—’

‘Doesn’t that make you mad? It would me. That
she
’s there, only metres away, being cared for by the state, and you don’t even know?’

‘That doesn’t matter—’

‘If I got her to feel even a sliver of fear, good. I’m not going to apologise. If I made those guards think, why am I protecting an enemy of the state? – good.’

‘I care about my mum. Nothing else.’

Orin gave him a long look. Darren could see him taking a careful look at his hair. ‘You sure about that, young gun?’

He began to feel uncomfortable under the big American’s unwavering gaze, but knew he had to fight back. ‘Who’s your contact at Roehampton? Someone tipped you off that Olivia was there. You have no remorse, do you? No thought of how others might feel. Think of Molly’s family!’

‘I prayed for Molly’s family, your family. You and I are in the same boat.’ Orin had sat back down now, the forefinger of his right hand tapping quietly on the top of the desk. ‘Your mum’s been in hospital for at least two days. It’s a strange thing when someone is confined to bed, there’s lots of time to kill. A young, energetic man like you, you can’t sit still, I’d bet.’ Tap, tap, tap went his finger, beating out its threat.

‘I—’

‘Don’t interrupt me. Someone got close to Duvall, far closer than they should have done, even when they moved her to the basement. They think it’s a woman, but they’re not sure, because this person escaped out of the hospital incinerator, if you can imagine such a thing.’

Darren swallowed. ‘A woman?’

‘Because they found long blond hairs at the top of the flue, fluttering in the breeze.’ There was a pause. Orin’s blue eyes never left Darren’s face. ‘Cut your hair and come and join my campaign.’ Tap, tap, tap went the finger.

Orin knew. He had him right where he wanted him.

‘Why haven’t they arrested you for barging into St George’s?’

‘Because I have very, very good lawyers, and I have moral right and public opinion on my side. The question is, what was this person even doing in Duvall’s room? She was unharmed.’ Orin looked at Darren again. ‘But that is a side issue. This isn’t the reason why you came to see me.’

Orin was right. He needed to concentrate on the reason he had come. ‘Something struck me about the papers you sent me.’

‘How so?’

‘They read like a police investigation. It’s like you’re searching for something.’

Orin snorted. ‘You been paying attention, young gun? I’m searching for my daughter.’ His finger started tapping again, a slow insistent beat on the table. ‘I know more about missing people than most police officers in this country. I know how killers’ minds work better than most profilers. I have access to information that officers spend their careers trying to get. I’m not in the service, but I can access the service.’ He was sweating, a strange pallor on his cheeks. ‘I accept my methods are unconventional.’ He gave Darren a knowing look. ‘But so are yours.’

‘There’s very little on Olivia’s sister.’

‘I gave you what I have on her. She went off the rails on a teenage fast track to destruction, the mother didn’t have the guts to rein her in. One daughter killed herself, the other ended up killing other people. The sister’s not relevant.’

‘There you go again, it’s as if you’re eliminating lines of inquiry. Which means you’re searching, which means you think someone else was involved in those girls’ deaths.’

Orin was very still. ‘I’ve waited ten years for a breakthrough in this case. I’m prepared to follow any lead, consider any theory. I’ve been told I lack perspective many times—’

‘Perspective.’ Darren stood up and put his hands on the desk. He didn’t care if Orin could see the scrapes and bruises on them, he had to share the revelation he had experienced earlier that morning. ‘A girl kneeling on the carpet, about to be bludgeoned to death by a woman, is an image to make a normal person shudder, isn’t it?’ He was thinking back to the moment when he had towered over his dad with the Tabasco bottle in his hand in the kitchen. ‘But hear me out on this. Duvall is five foot four, but what if Molly wasn’t kneeling? What if she was standing, and someone who was six foot tall, or taller maybe, hit her? With the same hand, at the same angle? Molly’s body being revealed has brought with it a new wave of information, hasn’t it? Information that can help us
solve
it.’

Orin got up suddenly as if the idea was electrifying. He stood staring out of the window across the river. ‘One idea from left field doesn’t unpick this riddle.’

‘But it’s possible, isn’t it?’ Orin didn’t reply. ‘This Eric guy, Olivia’s boyfriend—’

Orin held up his hand. ‘Just a minute.’ He walked out of the room and came back in a few moments later, carrying a file. He sat down at his desk and opened the cover, licked his thumb and began to leaf through the pages. ‘Let’s get this straight. When Duvall took the girls Eric had been her ex for years, there’s a girlfriend here in Hastings confirming it. The police found he had a solid alibi too, he was in a penitentiary –’ his finger traced down a line of dates ‘– when Heather and Molly went missing.’ Orin turned a few more pages, looking for relevant details. ‘After he completed his sentence he went to live in Spain, this was corroborated by several people. But then information on him dries up – no one knew where he was. Seems he wasn’t missed by anyone – even his mum didn’t like him, said she didn’t care what he was doing.’ He shut the cover of the file and pushed it away. ‘I tried to trace Eric Cox in the years after the trial, but I never found him.’

‘What do you think that means?’

Orin pursed his lips. ‘That this case can turn a sane man mad.’ He paused. ‘Or make a man do a stupid thing at a hospital. Cut your hair, come and join my campaign and maybe I can protect you from what might be heading your way, get you the freedom you need to pursue …’ He paused, searching for the right word, ‘pet theories.’

‘Give me twenty-four hours.’ Darren got up off his chair and walked out of the room.

Orin waited a couple of moments and picked up his phone. ‘I need you to follow someone for me. Starting today.’

W
hen Darren came home from Orin’s office his mum’s hospital bag was in the hall. He climbed the stairs to her bedroom and found her sitting on the bench seat in front of her mirror. She didn’t turn round when he came in the room. ‘Budge over,’ he said.

She shifted gingerly across and they stared at each other in the mirror. ‘I’m sorry I left you at the hospital,’ he got out. ‘I just had to go and … get some air.’ It sounded so lame, such an awful lie. She didn’t answer. ‘Are you sure you should be home? Are you well enough?’ he went on.

‘I’m stronger than I look.’

‘It must have been horrible being in there knowing she was near.’

‘I want to move on. Forget about it.’ She smiled briefly and pulled at her hair with the hand that she could still move freely. He was shocked to see a bunch of strands come away from her scalp.

‘Oh Mum.’

‘Just sit here with me.’ She had Dad’s electric razor on the dressing table in front of her and she picked it up now and turned it on. She ran a line through the right side of her hair and a leaf-fall of long strands cascaded to the carpet.

‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ But he knew it was the right thing really.

She winced, her body obviously still sore from her operation.

‘Let me help you.’

He shaved her head for her. She seemed to shrink in size in front of him as he went. He saw a slow tear roll down her cheek and he felt a terrible fondness for her that words could not express. When he was finished she turned her head this way and that in front of the mirror.

‘Feels cold,’ she said and sighed. ‘And exposing.’ He didn’t reply as they both absorbed her new look.

Darren walked over to the rail in the corner where her clothes hung. He was looking for a scarf.

‘I like the orange and red one,’ she said and he picked it up and brought it over. He stood behind her and folded it and tied it tight round her head and tucked it in. She looked surprised but also pleased. ‘Now where did you learn to do that?’

Darren smiled and sat down beside her again. ‘I guess I’ve got hidden talents.’ He looked at the razor and looked back at his mum. He picked it up and ran it up the side of his ear, a cascade of sun-lightened blond and matted hair falling to the carpet. His mum gave a little gasp, and tried to reach up with her hand to stop him.

‘No. It’s time.’

He did another stripe, quicker. The razor vibrated against his skull, lowered its tone behind his ears. He kept on until it was all gone and he was finished.

He didn’t know himself. His face was shockingly exposed, an outline of jaw and neck that was unfamiliar to him, cheekbones prominent. He was no longer a blond; a dark brown fuzz of fresh hair covered his scalp.

She smiled ruefully. ‘You’re a good-looking boy under all that.’

He took his mum’s fingers, placed them on the back of his neck and turned so she could see the tattoo.

‘It’s Carly’s initials,’ he said softly.

He felt the light touch of his mum’s fingers as they traced the inky lines. ‘I know you loved her, Darren. I don’t think I ever appreciated the pain you felt when she disappeared. I am still so lucky, you know? I have you, and I love you more than you can ever know.’