The Mother, page 33
‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Which is it? No, or you don’t know?’
She swallows. ‘I mean, the police showed me some photos but you couldn’t see the face, could you? You couldn’t tell who it was.’
‘You’re certain about that?’
She nods.
But there is a change in her demeanour, a shift in her posture so subtle I almost miss it. A moment ago she was confident, almost defiant when I had confronted her with the evidence about North Star. Now she avoids my eye, slumping back against the chair.
I tap the printed-out news story with the tip of the knife.
‘When I found the blackmail threat,’ I say, ‘I assumed that they were just generic pictures to serve a purpose, posed by a model or something.’
Again, she hesitates before answering, staring at the pale grey carpet beneath our feet.
‘He never told me directly,’ she says quietly. ‘But I did suspect there might have been one admirer who was more persistent than the rest, who had been in touch and wouldn’t leave him alone. He wouldn’t talk to me about it though, just denied it and said it was no big deal. I assumed he would have flagged it with Andrew if he thought it might turn into a problem.’
‘Andrew?’
‘Young.’
I shrug. ‘Am I supposed to know who that is?’
‘The chief whip, back then.’
Liam had not had many dealings with the whips’ office, and in any case it was so long ago that most of the names of his colleagues had vanished from my—
The realisation hits me with an almost physical force.
AY.
The notation in Liam’s diary.
AY was Andrew Young.
The chief whip, the MP in charge of party discipline, of keeping his colleagues in line, of dealing with any issues of reputation or wrongdoing that might have a wider impact on the parliamentary party.
If Liam had been about to turn whistle-blower, the chief whip was a logical place to start.
Christine looks up at me. ‘What is it?’
‘Liam had been due to meet the chief whip at eight o’clock on Monday morning, just two days after he was killed.’
‘I don’t . . . think so,’ she says. ‘I ran his diary and I would have remembered something like that.’
‘He didn’t put it in his main diary,’ I say. ‘It was a private meeting. I don’t think he wanted anyone else to know about it.’
‘I suppose, he could have arranged it himself and—’
‘This person who wouldn’t leave him alone,’ I say. ‘Any idea who it was?’
She shakes her head. ‘It was just a few things I overheard at work. A few phone calls, arguments. Thin walls in that office, you know?’
I think back to that last conversation I had had with my husband, on the night he died. The strange phone call I had interrupted when I stormed into his study.
‘No I have to do it and you know why, I can’t carry on like this, I need to be honest about it and I need to tell her . . .’
‘Did you tell the police?’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘but they didn’t seem very interested. They’d already charged you with murder at that point.’
My mobile buzzes with a new message – which is odd, as barely anyone has the number. I stop the video, take the phone from the tripod and click to open it. A picture fills the screen.
The world stops.
It’s a photo of Amy, lying flat on her back with a handcuff around her wrist. Her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open and a horribly familiar, waxy pallor to her skin.
Empty pill packets and an empty bottle of gin by her side.
Just the same as Jodie.
No, no, no. Not Amy too.
There is an icy liquid feeling in my stomach and the fear is racing, raging, pulsing through me like a tidal wave.
The text below the message says:
Another tragic overdose on your conscience. You were both warned. You should have listened.
My heart plunges into my shoes as I read the rest of the thread.
Finn is next. Then Theo.
Or you can trade your life for theirs.
Dormers. 1 hour. No police.
‘What is it?’ Christine says. ‘What’s happened?’
‘North Star,’ I say, typing a quick reply to the message.
On my way. Don’t hurt them.
Dropping the phone onto the table, I pick up the paring knife again and Christine flinches, pressing herself into the high-backed dining chair. With one upward slice of the razor-sharp blade I cut the duct tape around her left wrist, freeing it from the arm of the chair.
‘You’re not . . . you’re not going to hurt me?’
I shake my head, slicing through the tape on her right ankle too before scooping the rest of my props – the plastic bag, pliers and everything else – into my backpack.
‘I was never going to hurt you, Christine. I just need the truth. I’m sorry.’ I scribble my number at the bottom of the bank statement. ‘If you think of anything else, anything at all, this is how you can reach me.’
She starts to cry then, for the first time since I surprised her in the kitchen, sobs racking her chest with the realisation that her ordeal was nearly over. Tears of relief spill onto her cheeks and she wipes them away with her free hand.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To my boys.’ I swing the backpack up onto my shoulder. ‘To finish this.’
67
It was my fault.
They had gone after Amy again, gone after the boys, and it was my fault. I had not stopped looking for answers, not stopped digging, and Amy had paid the price. Jones had carried out his threat and now it looked as if I would have to pay too.
But if that was the only way to save Theo and Finn, so be it.
I fight back tears as I drive out of the city, thoughts tumbling through my head, too many to hold in. I think of the boys, of how frightened they must be at this moment. Of Amy, of her fears that this would happen, of exactly this. Of her parents, the horror and devastation of losing another child. Of Jodie. My friend, who had not died of an accidental overdose: she had been murdered, the same way Amy had been murdered. That was what her last message meant. 999. A final desperate plea for my help.
I’m sorry, I say under my breath, over and over again. For both of them. I’m sorry.
Traffic is light as I head north, the Renault’s engine protesting as I push it to the limit. An hour is only just enough time to get to Dormers, my in-laws’ weekend place in the Cotswolds, and I will have to keep my foot to the floor all the way if I’m to meet Jones’s deadline.
And by the time I get there, I need a plan. Going in alone seemed like the worst of all options, but there was only one other person left that I could call. One person who understood the situation, the stakes. A man who believed I was dead.
Whether I could trust him was another question. But it was the only card I had left to play.
Stopped in traffic queuing at a roundabout, I pull up Owen’s number on my phone and send him a message.
Need your help. Please come now. Urgent, will explain when you get here. Jodie
I add the postcode and the name of the house.
His reply is quick.
What’s going on?
He sends another moments later, then two more, but I can’t read and respond to them while I’m driving. After another minute my phone vibrates in its cradle with an incoming call. I touch the screen to answer and cut him off before he can say anything.
‘Owen,’ I say, ‘answer me one question or I’m hanging up right now.’
There is a stunned, empty silence before he replies.
‘Heather? What the—’
‘What were you doing at Boivin’s office building this week? I saw you there, on New King Street. Are you on his payroll too?’
‘No.’ It comes out firm and fast. ‘Of course not.’
‘So what were you doing there?’
‘I was interviewing him off the record,’ he says. ‘About North Star.’
I listen for any tremor of deception in his voice, but detect none. There is only surprise at hearing from me again, from beyond the grave.
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Because it’s the truth,’ he says emphatically. ‘Listen, Heather, what the hell is going on? I just went to your funeral. And I need to tell you—’
‘There’s no time for that,’ I almost shout into the phone. ‘The boys are in danger and I’m on my way to that address right now. I can explain everything later but please help us. I need you.’
I hit end and reject the calls that follow. There’s no time for long explanations now and I need to concentrate on the road.
Pushing the little Renault as hard as I can, I overtake car after car and flash past speed cameras on the A46 as it winds its way north into Gloucestershire. Crossing over the M4 and heading deeper into the Cotswolds, I try to gather my thoughts, to put them in some kind of order. There are still so many questions after what Christine told me, after what she had denied and what she had hinted at: some kind of stalker that Liam had kept secret from everyone. The new information in Musgrove’s unpublished book, the revelation about Artemis Tech and my sense that there was a loose thread somewhere there that might unravel the whole case against me.
It is past ten o’clock by the time I turn off the country lane. The gate is open, the long private driveway unlit. My headlights pick out the avenue of trees standing sentry on each side of the curving drive as I approach and park up in front of Dormers’ grand north wing. Peter Vernon’s Jaguar is here, but there is no sign of Owen.
The house is in total darkness, not a single window lit.
I turn off the engine and get out of the car, slipping the knife into the back pocket of my jeans and grabbing the phone from its cradle on the dash. In among the messages and missed calls from Owen, there is a single message from Christine’s number, sent almost forty minutes ago.
You’re looking in the wrong place.
I frown at the screen. The wrong place? What did that even mean? I was here, at Dormers, where the message had told me to come. Had I told Christine where I was going? I send back three question marks in reply and shove the phone back into my pocket, hurrying across the drive to the big front door.
The night air is unnervingly still, an intensity to the quiet that I had forgotten after so many years of close living with hundreds of others. There had never been true quiet in prison, not even in the middle of the night. Not like this. There is no man-made noise to disturb the silence here, no one living nearby. The nearest village, Hale’s End, is almost a mile away and consists of a half-dozen houses, a tiny church and an old red phone box.
The front door of the house is ajar. I climb the steps and push it open all the way, aware of the dark eye of a camera mounted over the threshold.
Inside the house, the silence feels even more concentrated, more intense than it had outside. There is no life, no sound. The smells of this grand old place are the same as they always were: of polished wood and fresh flowers and high, airy ceilings. Of money.
I leave the lights off. I knew this house once, had spent many happy hours here and I still know it well enough to navigate in the dark as my eyes adjust. The wide staircase curving up to the right, drawing rooms on the left, the broad central gallery directly in front, to take me through the middle of the house to the dining room, kitchen and sun room at the back. We had come here the day after we’d got engaged, to tell Liam’s parents face to face. Had our rehearsal dinner here in the exquisite dining room, the weekend before our wedding. Theo’s naming day party. Dozens of times before and afterwards too.
In the kitchen, I push through another open door and step out into the courtyard.
The black Mercedes van is here, squatting like a giant beetle in the dark.
I skirt around the front, staying in the shadows to check the van’s cab. Empty. I keep going across the courtyard to the old stables where a pale wash of light is just visible through a crack in the heavy wooden doors.
Taking the knife from my pocket, I creep to the doors and peer in. Inside it’s the same as it’s always been, a row of straw-filled stalls at one end, a workshop-cum-garage at the other. Low light from the far end illuminates something else: two people.
The first is a figure sprawled awkwardly on the ground, an older man with his head down, handcuffed to an iron ring in the cobblestoned floor. A smear of blood visible in the thinning hair at his temple.
Peter Vernon.
Behind him is the balding man, sitting in a folding chair, a double-barrelled shotgun cradled in his arms. At the sight of me, the side of his mouth turns up in a cruel smile. He gestures at me with the gun. Come in.
I do as he says, my shoes clicking on the uneven floor as I move closer. Peter doesn’t acknowledge my approach and seems dazed, stunned, his movements slow and unsteady.
‘Where are the boys?’ I say, my voice echoing inside the stable block. ‘Where are Theo and Finn?’
The balding man points at my hand. ‘Drop the knife.’
His voice is a flat, Thames Valley drawl. It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak since I plunged a different blade into his leg, two weeks ago.
Again, I do as I’m told, letting the weapon fall from my hand and clatter to the cobblestones in a way that might almost be within Peter’s reach, if he can just raise his head.
‘I’m here,’ I say. ‘I’ll do whatever you want, just let the boys go.’
The balding man stands, takes a couple of limping steps forward. Puts the stock of the shotgun into his shoulder and the muzzle to the back of Peter Vernon’s head. For a horrible moment I think I think he’s going to execute my father-in-law right here in front of me, but after a few seconds he raises the gun and points it squarely at me, at my chest, finger curling around the trigger.
‘Payback time,’ he says, his lips curling again in a cruel smile of triumph. ‘I’m going to enjoy this.’
‘Tell me the boys are safe. That was the deal.’
He shakes his head. Keeps the shotgun levelled at me as he calls out over his shoulder.
‘OK,’ he says, his voice raised. ‘We’re good in here.’
The heavy wooden door behind him swings open with a creak.
Two men walk into the low light of the stables.
Rennick and Jones.
More footsteps click on the cobblestones, as a third figure emerges from the darkness and comes to stand between them.
68
Amy.
Very much alive.
‘Family,’ she says, ‘it’s the most important thing in the world, isn’t it? A child’s love for her parents, a parent’s love for their children – look how far it’s brought you. How far you’ve come in the last ten years. Family can make us do anything.’
‘Amy, I thought you were . . .’ I look behind her. ‘Where are the boys?’
She ignores my question.
‘Ever wonder what you would do,’ she says, her eyes blazing, ‘if everything you knew and loved was threatened with absolute devastation? Every last thing that meant something in your life? If everything you’d worked for, everything your parents had built, everything your grandparents had slaved and sacrificed for, all of it was suddenly balancing on the edge of a blade? One tiny push and it would be gone. What do you think that would do to a person?’
While she talks, Peter gets to his feet. Produces a key from his pocket and unlocks the handcuff around his wrist, his movements quick and assured. With a handkerchief from his other pocket, he wipes the red smears away from his forehead. There is no wound beneath.
He looks grim, determined. Deadly serious.
There is a weird dynamic between them, between this old man and his younger child. I’ve never seen them like this before: as if she is calling the shots, she is in charge and he is merely playing his part. Jones and his two men are the same. Rennick puts a heavy hand on my shoulder, forcing me to my knees. He takes the handcuffs from Peter and loops them around my wrists, the short chain between them passing through the iron ring in the rough cobblestone floor. He pats me down roughly as well, extracting my car keys and handing them to Peter.
All the while, fragments of my conversation with Christine Lai float, just out of reach. The text she’d sent me on the way here.
You’re looking in the wrong place.
‘What are you doing?’ I say to Amy, indicating Jones and his hulking colleague. ‘Why are they here? They attacked me, they attacked you.’
‘Hmm.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Yes and no. With me it was more of a . . . collaboration.’
‘This is mad, Amy, what the hell is—’
‘The boys are fine, by the way.’ She gestures to Rennick to back away from me and he does so instantly, his big hands leaving my shoulders. ‘They’re in the dairy with Colleen, having a sleepover. You don’t need to worry about them.’
The old dairy. On the edge of the estate, the one part of it that the Vernons had allowed to be fully modernised. It had been the boys’ favourite, ever since they were small, with its own cinema room and games room, where they had been allowed to make a camp and as much mess as they liked.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘What about North Star? Corruption, pay-offs, Liam blowing the whistle about Artemis Tech? All the evidence we found?’
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a key on a familiar black-and-orange fob. Total Storage.
The lock box.
‘You thought you were the only keyholder, didn’t you?’ She jingles the key as if taunting me. ‘It never occurred to you that someone else would have one too – the person who helped your mum gather all that junk in the first place? Made it easy to prepare a few good forgeries where I knew you’d eventually find them.’
I stare as her words sink in.
‘The minutes of that meeting? The North Star connection that tied in Christine Lai?’
