Текст книги "Jessica Daniel: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

36

After dropping Toby off at Longsight station and watching him walk in, Jessica drove Annabel back to Piccadilly Station.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Jessica said as she pulled up. ‘I hope you understand why I needed you to be there. He never would have admitted anything without you.’

Annabel barely acknowledged her. ‘Don’t tell Mum who he really is,’ she said, opening the car’s door. ‘She’d kill herself if she knew Toby walked out on her deliberately, then went on to murder someone else.’ She stepped out of the car. ‘I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again.’

With that, she slammed the door and stalked off. Jessica didn’t blame her.

As she was pulling away, Reynolds phoned to say someone had walked into the station and confessed to everything. Apparently he was a family friend of Benjamin Sturgess. Jessica tried to feign surprise but told him she wasn’t interested in coming in to take the interview. If it sounded suspicious, she was past caring.

The atmosphere in the station the following day was unlike anything Jessica had ever experienced. No one could quite believe someone had confessed to a case they thought was already shut. Officers were frantically looking into Stephen’s story but, rather than scepticism, there was an overwhelming sense of relief that everything was over. Jessica’s threat seemed to have worked because there was no mention of Annabel, herself or the text message she had sent. The only missing piece of evidence was Deborah’s mobile phone, which was currently sitting at the bottom of the reservoir next to the allotments.

Forty-eight hours later and everything was as close to over as it could be. Toby, or Stephen as everyone else knew him, had fully repeated everything he had told Jessica. She still wasn’t speaking to Cole but had heard everyone from the chief superintendent downwards was delighted with the outcome.

Jessica wondered if anyone would put two and two together and realise Toby was Stephen, her biggest worry being Lucy recognising her son, but no contact came. Jessica didn’t know if it was because the woman hadn’t seen the coverage or, more likely, because a twenty-five-year-old man looked significantly different from an eleven-year-old boy.

On their next day off together, Adam took Jessica for a drive to Prestatyn. It was cold but the day looked gorgeous. The town held special memories for Jessica as it was there, while she had been out with Adam and his grandmother, where she had first begun to think she might be in love with him. The low sun shone across the beach onto the path they were walking along, the sky blazing blue overhead.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Adam said, pointing out at the horizon and pulling Jessica towards a bench with his other hand. She didn’t reply but rested her head on his shoulder as they sat together looking out across the sand. ‘Are you going to be okay?’ he asked.

‘It’s not very easy to forget everything I did.’

‘How’s Dave?’

‘He seems all right but things are different between us. Izzy thought we’d had a falling out because we didn’t take the piss out of each other for two days. I’m sure it’ll be fine but, for now, every time I see him I know he’s the person who helped make everything happen.’

‘What about Iz?’

Jessica laughed. ‘Still talking about being fat. I think she knows something isn’t quite right with Dave and me but she’s good at keeping things to herself.’

‘And Caroline?’

‘She’s doing okay. She moved into her new flat yesterday and says the divorce is going to go through smoothly. I don’t know how she got herself into that mess.’

‘You didn’t say she had moved out already.’

‘That’s because I like staying at yours.’

Adam laughed. ‘And how are you?’

Jessica reached an arm around Adam’s waist and pulled him tightly to her. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for what I did to poor Annabel.’

Jessica gulped as Adam squeezed her a little too strongly, lifting her head from his shoulder and pulling him towards her, cradling his head. ‘Why did you forgive me for walking out on you?’ she asked.

Adam said nothing at first before gently responding, ‘Because you asked me to.’

Jessica said nothing but gazed towards the horizon. She didn’t really like the cold weather but sometimes the crisp days where the sun offered a wonderful bright light with no heat could be utterly enchanting.

She thought of being young, running through fields and getting muddy, wondering what it would be like if someone had separated her from her parents in the way Toby had been parted from his.

Jessica had felt close to tears every day since the night Annabel stepped out of her car and walked into the train station. A few years ago, she could have counted the number of times she had cried as an adult on one hand. She didn’t know whether it was her age but, just recently, she was finding it harder to control her emotions.

Jessica released Adam’s head, allowing him to sit up straight. As she started to stand, he motioned to move too but she pushed him down. Ever since he held her in the cafe and let her cry on his shoulder, she knew this moment would come. Jessica dropped to one knee, took Adam’s hand and asked if he would marry her.

Afterword

One of the things I get asked a lot is where my ideas come from. Sometimes it might be an article I have read in the news, often not a big story but a small, hidden-away item which sparks my imagination.

I have a fairly set way of working in that I write most of the book in short form, usually a mix of bullet points and key sentences. After that, I write everything out ‘properly’. I still go off at tangents and come up with what I think are better ideas along the way but I nearly always have that set framework to work with.

Think of the Children was a little different because I wrote the first chapter before I had anything else.

A few years ago I was driving home from work on a Saturday evening. It was early summer and still light, even though it was around 9p.m. A couple of miles away from where I live there is a roundabout which connects one dual carriageway to another. As you may expect, some drivers zip across at a speed that even Jessica might shy away from. Unfortunately, just after the roundabout is a turn which is easy enough to take if you are accelerating, but not so comfortable if you haven’t slowed down in the first place.

As I drove, a vehicle three cars ahead of me sped across the roundabout and tried to take the turn. Instead, it spun 180 degrees and flew off the road, across a lay-by, and down an embankment. The taxi which was overtaking it (yes, really) kept going, as did the two cars directly behind.

I pulled into the lay-by and could feel my heart beating. It’s one of those clichés that everything happens in slow motion but that’s what it felt like. I knew the bank dropped steeply, before opening out onto a tight row of trees, so anything could have happened if the vehicle had hit those.

As I got out of my car, the first thing I noticed was a woman in a black cocktail dress and short coat walking up the embankment with her heels in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. Miraculously, the car had spun so perfectly that it was resting parallel to the road in between two trees, having hit neither of them.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked in what was perhaps one of the most obviously stupid questions ever. Her car had just spun off the road at speed and slid down a grass bank. She was hardly going to be jumping around in delight.

Her eyes were blank and she was blinking really quickly, not entirely aware of what had happened. She told me she had been listening to ‘Robbie’ a bit too loudly and got carried away. I assumed she meant ‘Williams’, though never clarified it. Perhaps she was really into an audio book being read by Robbie Coltrane? I asked if she was cold (she wasn’t), then phoned the police while she waited. After I hung up, she turned to me and said she should call her husband.

I remember the conversation exactly:

Her (sounding shaky and slightly panicked): ‘Hi, it’s me. I’ve had an accident in the car . . .’

Her: ‘No, the car’s fine . . .’

I was a little shaken myself, more by her than anything else, so it was only later that I realised her husband had asked about the car’s welfare before he had checked hers.

That scene and the way I still see it in slow motion has stayed with me ever since and one morning I woke up with a really clear vision of a car crash which Jessica and Dave witness. The driver’s identity was always unknown, although, in my first notes, the person in the boot was alive. Much of the rest of the story moved around in my head and through my notes but that first chapter is almost exactly as I wrote it.

This was an incident where nobody was hurt and no one else stopped. Instead, it was ten minutes of my life while I waited with a bare-footed stranger as the sun started to go down on a summer’s evening. But that’s where a lot of the purer scenes and ideas I have come from – a few seconds here and a few minutes there: people and life.

As for the book itself, there are a few people who have collectively helped get this into your hands. Firstly, Claire, who helped me with the initial drafts of the first Jessica book, Locked In, what seems like an age ago. Without her, that would have been a lot worse and the rest of the series would likely not exist. Secondly, Imogen who gave me a hand with the ebook exclusive As If By Magic (yes, that’s a cheap plug).

The team at Pan Macmillan have been terrific in welcoming me into their family – and not just as that annoying cousin who turns up on Christmas Day getting on everyone’s nerves. Thanks to Natasha, Jodie and Susan, plus Trisha in particular, for their help, guidance and good humour. I’ve spent years learning the hard way that sarcasm in emails rarely comes across but somehow none of them have taken anything I’ve written too literally. Well, yet.

Then there are the two women in my life.

My wife, Louise, and I have been together for ten years. We lived in a small flat with noisy neighbours and no money. We scrimped, we saved and we moaned about our jobs and neighbours (obviously) – but it is our relationship which enabled me to write these books. They have very little in common but, simply put, without Louise, there would be no Jessica.

The ‘other woman’ is my agent, Nicola. She read Locked In and approached me at a point where the rest of the publishing industry didn’t know whether to poke me with a stick, or ignore me completely. Her help, faith, humour, and ability to ignore my complaining has been invaluable. She probably could have just emailed me though, as opposed to literally poking me with a stick.

Finally, I will thank my mum for forcing me to read as a kid. It’s easy to plonk your annoyingly loud hyperactive son in front of a television to shut him up but it isn’t so simple to invest time in him. I may have learned to read through Terrance Dicks’s Doctor Who books and Stan Lee’s comics but you still need someone to give you them in the first place – and then plonk you in front of the television and tell you to shut up.

Kerry Wilkinson

Contents

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33

A FEW DAYS EARLIER

34

35

Afterword

1

Andrew Hunter put his feet on the desk and leant back in his chair. In what was a less-than-impressive office, the chair was worth more than the rest of the furniture put together. The estate agent’s advert had enthusiastically declared the place came ‘fully furnished’ which, Andrew had to admit, it did – up to a point. What the advert hadn’t revealed was that the furnishings were apparently part of a job-lot of junk being cleared out from a school. He had already paid the deposit to secure the space when he realised the underside of the thick wooden table that served as his desk was plastered with dried chewing gum and felt-tip declarations that ‘Ian iz bent’. Among other things, ‘Ian’ certainly seemed to have a very varied sexual appetite.

The chair he’d inherited had a dreadful blue canvas covering and the back wouldn’t stay fixed in place. As part of a lavish exhibition of spending which he hoped at the time would impress prospective clients, he bought a brand-new leather-backed seat which the website dubbed ‘the Big Daddy’ of office chairs. It didn’t mention that it came flat-packed, which somewhat took away from Andrew’s enjoyment at receiving it. Two days later, he finally managed to relax in the height of luxury. Well, it would have been if he could have figured out how to make it go up and down.

Andrew pushed back into his new purchase and wondered why he once thought a chair would be enough to woo clients. Then he jumped as someone rapped hard on the frosted glass of his office. He tried to spin around but somehow mixed up his limbs, catching his knee hard on the solid wood of the desk. He shouted ‘Come in’, at the same time stifling a swear word and rubbing his knee.

A man in a sharp, perfectly fitting grey suit entered the office. He was somewhere in his late fifties, possibly early sixties, and had a bright pink tie with matching handkerchief sticking out from his jacket pocket. His grey hair was immaculately swept backwards, while his six-foot-plus height made Andrew, with his five-foot-eight frame, feel instantly insecure. Andrew watched his visitor peer from one side of the office to the other, taking in the white, largely empty walls and potted plant in the corner before turning to face him. It was pretty clear that he was underwhelmed.

‘Is this Andrew Hunter’s office?’ he asked abruptly.

Andrew stood, trying not to wince from the pain in his knee. ‘I’m Andrew,’ he said, stretching out a hand.

The man gripped it firmly. ‘You’re a private investigator?’

‘Er, yes,’ Andrew replied, wondering if he could match the iron handshake. He couldn’t and the man quickly released him.

‘I’m Harley Todd,’ the man said, still looking around. ‘You’re definitely the Andrew Hunter?’

Andrew wondered if his fame – or lack of – had somehow preceded him. ‘I am Andrew Hunter, yes. I’m a private investigator. Can I help you . . . ?’ He pointed towards the chair on the opposite side of the desk, the blue canvas one he had rejected for himself.

Harley edged around the table, as if making a special effort not to touch anything. Andrew didn’t think his office was dirty but it was somewhat sparse. Aside from the two chairs, the large desk and his computer, there was an empty bookshelf, the potted plant he had inherited and kept forgetting to water, and a stack of boxes which contained junk he didn’t have room for in his flat. To prospective clients, he figured the closed boxes might seem as if they contained vital paperwork. The fact they didn’t was something they didn’t need to know.

Light spilled through the window, partially obscured by the boxes, glinting from the man’s expensive-looking cufflinks. Harley carefully sat in the chair, instantly annoyed as the backrest fell backwards.

‘Sorry about that,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m waiting on a replacement. Delivery companies, hey?’ It was a lie which Harley didn’t seem convinced by. He certainly didn’t respond to Andrew’s lighthearted chuckle.

‘I’m not sure this is what I expected,’ Harley said. His voice was full of authority, the type of terrifying tone that made Andrew think of teachers and parents. Or worse, his former father-in-law.

‘I can assure you, I run a very professional service,’ Andrew said, only half-believing his words. He swivelled slightly in his chair, wondering if ‘the Big Daddy’ would impress this prospective client.

If it did, then the man hid it well. ‘I’ve never come to a private investigator before. I found you in the phone book. I think I was expecting some sort of ex-policeman around my age.’

Andrew had forgotten about the phone-book advert as he had been focusing mainly on Internet advertising. ‘I offer the highest class of service . . .’

The investigator tried to look confident as Harley again scanned him up and down. ‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-four,’ Andrew replied without thinking.

‘Hmmm . . .’ Harley was squinting slightly, apparently wondering what to ask next. ‘It might be better that you’re younger . . .’

Andrew sat up straighter, thinking he might be on to something. ‘How can I help you?’

The man ignored his question. ‘Are you married? Kids?’

It wasn’t the response Andrew expected but, given the man’s resonating tone, he felt obliged to answer. ‘I was married, I’m not any longer. I don’t have children.’

‘Hmmm . . .’

Andrew watched Harley repeat the examination. He was beginning to grow more and more uneasy under the older man’s gaze. The suit he was wearing was a little tight and compared to the quality of the garment the man in front of him was wearing it felt insufficient for the air of professionalism he was trying to portray.

‘Did you leave her or the other way around?’ Harley’s query was as direct as before.

‘I’m sorry, I . . .’ Andrew was stammering, uncomfortable with the question.

Harley fired straight back. ‘I know it’s not my business but I like to work with certain types of people, Mr Hunter. I have a very important job and I’ll pay you very well.’

Andrew paused for a moment. He dropped any pretence of being someone he wasn’t and leant forward in his seat, allowing himself to slump. ‘She left me.’

‘Hmmm . . .’

‘It wasn’t as simple as that,’ Andrew added, keen to justify himself. ‘We were very different. She has a very rich family, while I . . . don’t. Her dad never liked me. Her mum did but, well, that didn’t really matter. In the end, when we were thinking about kids, it fell apart.’

‘So her father didn’t approve?’

Andrew thought he sensed a flicker of sympathy in the man’s voice but he wasn’t sure. ‘No.’

Harley nodded slowly, scratching his chin. ‘We’re hard people to please when it comes to our little girls. You’ll learn that if you have children.’

Andrew said nothing but held the man’s gaze until Harley clapped his hands together loudly. For the first time, Andrew noticed how big they were. He’d felt his hand being squeezed when they shook hands but hadn’t noticed how brutish they now seemed. The clap echoed around the room.

‘I think you might be exactly who I’m looking for, Mr Hunter.’

Andrew nodded. ‘So how can I help you?’

Harley smiled and shook his head gently. ‘First tell me how you came to do this. Are you ex-police? Marines?’

Andrew snorted before he could stop himself. Just thinking of the marines’ training he had seen on television made him feel slightly sick. His idea of exercise was the walk it took to climb the stairs to his office each morning. His slightly overweight physique was certainly not the type to be accepted into the navy. He wouldn’t describe himself as ‘fat’ but he had noticed his suit clinging to his thighs in recent weeks. The football he used to play as a teenager seemed increasingly as if it was something from another life.

Harley was sitting impatiently with his legs crossed and fingers interlocked, waiting for a reply.

‘I have a degree in criminology,’ Andrew said.

The older man nodded. ‘But why are you doing this? Why aren’t you off with the police or MI5 or something?’

Andrew didn’t know why he continued to entertain Harley’s questions. It wasn’t because of the promise of money but perhaps it was because Harley had said he was the person he was looking for. Beyond money, Andrew was looking for something to stimulate his mind.

‘Do you want me to be honest?’ he said.

As if expecting something exciting, Harley leant in, licking his lips. ‘Always.’

‘It’s a bit of a complicated story. I studied criminology at university and met a girl, Keira, while I was there.’

‘The ex-wife?’ Harley interrupted.

Andrew nodded. ‘Her father is high up with a bank in London. They own this giant mansion in Cheshire which they use at the weekends. It’s unbelievable. Keira took me there one time while we were still first years. I thought the weekend had gone well but she was really upset on the drive home. She said her mum told her that her dad hated me and insisted we break up.’

Harley said nothing but Andrew looked up to see him nodding. He didn’t know if it was because the man had taken a dislike to him as well, or because he had children of a similar age of whom he was equally protective.

‘We didn’t break up,’ Andrew went on. ‘We stayed together through university and then flew to Vegas and got married the day after Keira’s final exam.’

The older man coughed and unlocked his fingers. He hadn’t said it explicitly but Andrew knew for sure that he had a daughter who was most likely a young adult, possibly with an equally troubling boyfriend.

‘Anyway, that didn’t go down too well,’ Andrew continued. ‘But her mum was great and her dad seemed to accept it in the end. Well, sort of. He got me a job in his bank. It wasn’t what I wanted to do but I didn’t have much choice.’

‘So how did you end up back here?’ Harley asked.

Andrew found the man hard to read. His legs were still crossed, while he was staring intently across the table, seemingly interested in Andrew’s story.

‘Guess.’

Andrew didn’t know why he’d said it but he suspected Harley Todd shared much in common with his former father-in-law. Harley seemed to relish the challenge. His eyes narrowed and he broke into a wide smile for the first time since entering the office. ‘He paid you off.’

Andrew laughed and spun his chair a quarter of the way around, before returning to face the other man. ‘How did you know?’

‘It’s what I would do.’

The answer was clinical and Andrew knew the person he was dealing with was uncannily like Keira’s father.

Andrew nodded slowly. ‘He told me he would make sure we broke up one way or another before we had children. He said that if I took the money, at least I’d have that. If I didn’t then he’d make sure I ended up with nothing.’

The other man didn’t speak for a few moments. ‘Smart man,’ he said eventually. ‘So you took the money?’

Andrew shrugged. ‘He didn’t give me much choice.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Seven years.’

Harley waved his arms around to indicate the office. ‘And this is what you did with the money?’ His tone sounded mocking but Andrew didn’t think he was trying to be cruel; it was simply the way he phrased things.

‘Among other things. I only started this six months ago.’

Harley nodded with a smile on his face. ‘Do you need my money?’

‘No.’ Andrew didn’t know why he continued to answer. It was almost as if he was facing his ex-father-in-law, unable to stop revealing his inner thoughts.

‘How much have you got left?’

‘Lots.’

‘So why do you do this?’

Andrew shrugged. ‘Because I want to.’

Harley made a point of looking around the room. ‘Why haven’t you got a better office if you have so much money?’

‘Money doesn’t interest me. It’s just there. I spend what I need to.’

Apart from nodding almost non-stop, Harley wasn’t moving. He stared at Andrew, as if fascinated by a new creature he had never seen before.

‘You’re perfect,’ he said, almost purring. Andrew didn’t respond. He didn’t know if he wanted to work for the man in any case. ‘Do you want to know what the job is?’ Harley asked.

Andrew sat up straighter, deciding that he would face the man, no matter if he felt intimidated. ‘Whatever it is, it’s going to cost you.’

‘I thought you had money?’

‘I do.’

Harley leant back into the broken seat, splaying his legs. He laughed loudly, the sound echoing around the room. ‘I’m really going to like you,’ he said.

‘So, what’s the problem with your daughter?’ Andrew asked.

The other man stopped laughing. ‘Who said I have a problem with my daughter?’

It was Andrew’s turn to smile defiantly at the man, waiting for a reply. Harley stared back before turning away.

‘Sienna,’ he said. ‘She’s just turned eighteen. She goes to college in the city. I wanted to take her away from the area but she insisted. In the end we agreed that she had to go to the university of my choice if she got to go to this college place with her friends.’

‘Why are you choosing where she goes?’ Andrew wanted to get a rise out of the man.

Harley didn’t react. ‘“We’re hard people to please when it comes to our little girls”,’ he repeated.

Andrew nodded. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘She’s pregnant. Well, she was . . .’

For the first time, Andrew thought he saw a small chink in Harley’s demeanour. One of his eyes twitched as if he was winking but it was clearly not deliberate.

‘What happened?’

‘What do you think happened?’ Harley said irritably. ‘I paid to make it go away.’

‘You made her have an abortion?’

The two men locked eyes but Harley ignored the question. ‘You’re on thin ice,’ he said and Andrew realised their roles had completely reversed.

‘I don’t mind if you walk away,’ Andrew said, indicating towards the door.

Harley didn’t move. ‘I made it go away.’

‘So what do you need from me?’

Any trace of a smile had disappeared from the man’s face. His eyes were narrow, the rest of his features fixed. ‘I want to know who the father was.’