‘Just do it. Do it now.’
Shakily Sally scrolled through her contacts. She found the number and dialled.
‘Put it on speaker.’
She did, and the two women sat, heads together, looking at the display flashing. After four rings the call connected.
There was a muffled noise at the other end. Then, clearly, someone breathing. A word, so slurred it was impossible to hear it. A male voice.
‘Nial?’ Sally whispered, horrified. ‘Nial?’
More breathing. A noise. Like something soft being banged against glass. Then the phone went dead. Sally turned her eyes to her sister.
‘What was that noise?’ she murmured, her eyes watering with fear. ‘What the hell was that noise?’
‘Shit.’ Zoë slammed her hands on the dashboard. Her head dropped back against the seat. ‘Jesus, shit, I can’t believe this is happening.’ She turned in her seat and peered back up the track towards the main road. Gloucester was a good forty miles away. Ben wouldn’t be here for at least an hour. ‘OK. Let’s think.’ No way was she calling the police. She could just see Kelvin being hauled off by some Support Group officers and yelling out everything he knew about her and about Sally’s connection to Goldrab. She felt in her pockets. She’d left her expandable ASP baton in her car. All she had, tucked into her leather jacket, was the little CS gas spray canister issued to all officers. ‘Where do the family keep their tools?’
But the shock had hit Sally. Her face was white and she had started to shake. ‘It means Kelvin’s got them,’ she said, her voice almost lapsing into hysteria. ‘Both of them.’
‘No.’ Zoë shook her head. ‘It doesn’t mean that at all.’
‘Yes, it does. You know it does. Millie’s not answering her phone. He’s done something to her. Call the police.’
‘Sally.’ She grabbed her sister’s arm. ‘Keep it together. You know why I’m not calling the police. Ben’s on his way and we can do this. We can.’
‘Oh, God.’ She put her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God, I can’t.’
‘We can. You’ve got to listen. OK? We need tools. Where do I look?’
‘There’s a garage, but …’ She waved vaguely behind her. ‘In the boot. There’ll be something in there. Oh God, he’s going to kill her.’
Zoë got out of the car. What warmth had accumulated during the day now radiated up into the open sky, as if it wanted to reach the stars. It was freezing. Really and truly freezing. She left the car door wide open and went silently to the back, throwing cautious glances at the lights of the Sweetmans’ house shining through the trees. There wasn’t a sound. All she could hear in this lonely farm land was the vague hum of cars going by on the distant road. But what kept reverberating in her ears was the noise in the background of that phone call. Thud thud thud. What the hell had that been? She went through the contents of the boot quickly. A few DIY tools – a ball-pein hammer, a pair of long-handled shears and a chisel. A small axe.
‘Here.’ She grabbed the hammer for herself and carried the axe back to Sally, who took it dumbly, staring down at it as if she had no idea where it had come from or how it had got there.
‘Call me on your phone. On my work number.’
She did as she was told, trembling. Zoë scooped the work phone out of her pocket and when it began to ring hit the Accept call button. ‘Don’t end the call, just leave the line open. That’s how we’re going to communicate.’ She pushed the phone back into the pocket of her gilet. ‘Now listen to me. Concentrate. Absolutely no chance Isabelle’s back? Or her husband?’
‘No. He’s in Dubai and she’s – I don’t know. I don’t know, I can’t remember, but miles away.’
‘Where’s the main living area?’
‘In the back. The kitchen.’
‘What’s on the next floor?’
‘I d-don’t know. Four bedrooms, I think. The front one on the left is Nial’s and that’s Sophie’s on the right. There’s a bathroom in between them.’ She looked woodenly at the axe and at the phone in her hand. Still linked to Zoë’s. ‘What’s going to happen, Zoë? What’re we going to do?’
‘I’m going to go into the house. We keep the line open. Don’t, whatever you do, speak to me. No matter what. But do listen. If it sounds like I’m in trouble, all bets are off. Kill this call and get straight on to the police. It’s the only way – we’ll deal with the fallout later.’
‘Oh, Christ.’ Sally shook her head. Her teeth were chattering loudly. ‘Oh Christ oh Christ oh Christ.’
Chapter 44
Over her two years in uniform, and then on occasion in CID, Zoë had done hundreds of searches, not knowing what to expect. She’d lost count of the stairwells she’d crept down, CS gas at the ready, the car boots she’d clicked open, not knowing what might explode out at her. She’d always been rock steady. Not even a waver. Even when a crack addict in St Jude’s had jumped out at her in a multi-storey car park waving a syringe in her face and screaming about the devil and Jesus and police cunts and what does your pussy smell like, beeatch? it hadn’t wobbled her. Tonight, though, she felt as if she was coming face to face with God. Or with the devil. As if the whole sky was pressing down on her, squeezing the air out of her lungs.
The first thing she noticed when she got close to the house was that the front door was open. Just a crack, a tiny slice of the hall carpet visible. She dropped to a crouch with her back to the front wall. Somehow she’d pictured the house locked and shuttered, not open, like an invitation. She kept thinking of that awful sound, like meat being slapped against a wall.
Tentatively she craned her neck and peered round the door. She could see an umbrella stand, a table. She reached out and pushed the door open. It swung back on its hinges. The hallway was empty. Nothing moved inside. The only noise was the electronic hum of a fridge from the last doorway on the right, where Sally had said the kitchen was.
She hooked out the phone and whispered into it, ‘Don’t answer this, Sally. I’m at the front door, can’t hear anything inside. I’m going to go in now. I’ll be on the ground floor. Start counting slowly. I’ll speak to you again before you get to three hundred. If I don’t, make that call.’
She returned the phone to her pocket, straightened and stood in the doorway. Trying to put height and weight into her shoulders. It wasn’t how you should enter premises, but police school and uniform seemed a lifetime ago and she had to struggle to recall the routine. She held the CS gas at arm’s length and took two steps into the hallway. Waited. Took two more. She stood at the door to the living room, put her head round it, gave it a quick glance, snapped her head back. Nothing. Just a lot of chairs and tables sitting in a silent circle, as if they were having a quiet conversation in the absence of their owners. Then the music room – empty too.
She closed the doors – that much she did recall from training: close the rooms you’ve cleared – and continued down the hallway, checking, throwing switches, closing doors. By the time she got to the back of the house the ground floor was blazing with light. She lifted the phone to her mouth. ‘Nothing so far,’ she murmured. ‘I’m going upstairs. Start counting again.’
The stairs creaked as she climbed, even though she tried to place her feet on the edges, where the boards were supported. This was an old house – it wasn’t neat and painted and scrubbed and nailed down. It had nicks and bumps and the bruises of a lifetime. On the landing, a paper Chinese lantern hanging from the ceiling moved slowly from side to side as she disturbed the air. There were six doors. She worked through them methodically, pushing the ones that were nearly closed with her toe, holding up the CS gas as they swung open. In each one she left the light burning, the door closed. It wasn’t until she came to the last bedroom, Nial’s, that she found any sign of Millie. There, heaped on the bed, were a pair of girl’s trainers and a sweater with Millie’s name stitched on the label inside. She picked it up and went back downstairs.