Wilcox shifts a little in his chair. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking.
‘The only sheet that was different was the last one. Where you talked about the water running out – about how desperate you were for someone to come –’
She bangs her palms down on the table. ‘That’s because I thought I was going to die. Don’t you get that?’
‘Oh yes, Vicky, I get that.’
Wilcox glances across at her. ‘Perhaps we can take a break?’ he says. ‘This stuff – it’s all pretty stressful.’
‘OK. We’ll get some coffee sent in and start again in about half an hour.’
*
The incident room is packed. Even Gow is there. The only ones missing are Quinn and Gislingham. I wonder in passing what exactly is going on there, because something sure as hell is. And now Gislingham’s got dragged into it too.
‘So Harper let her out?’ says Baxter as soon as he sees us. ‘Why the hell didn’t she try to get away?’
‘She had just given birth, Baxter –’
‘Yeah, OK, but that doesn’t mean she was completely incapacitated, does it, sir? Couldn’t she have broken a window, called out to someone? There must have been something she could’ve done.’
Everett is looking thoughtful.
‘What is it, Ev?’
‘When Donald Walsh was being charged, he talked about hearing something upstairs in the house. He thought it was the cat from down the road. It’s a Siamese. My aunt used to have one – bloody whingey thing. But you know what – it sounded unnervingly like a baby.’
Baxter is staring at her. ‘What are you saying?’
Everett shrugs. ‘How do we know she was only upstairs for the birth? Maybe he let her out more than once. Maybe she got that baby food herself.’
I turn to Gow. ‘Is that feasible? You said there could have been some sort of collusion between them.’
He doesn’t answer straight away; he always was one for the theatrical pause. ‘Yes, it’s possible,’ he says eventually. ‘That could have been the deal she made with Harper – he let her out of the cellar for periods of time, in exchange for some sort of concession on her part.’
‘Like sex, you mean?’ says Everett.
‘That’s the most likely. But a different type of sex to the rapes. She may have agreed to play along with him that they were in some sort of relationship. A family, even. There are hints of that in the journal.’
‘I still don’t know why she couldn’t have escaped if he was letting her out of the cellar,’ says Baxter. ‘Especially if he was actually allowing her to go outside.’
Gow looks around the room. ‘It’s not uncommon, in these situations, for the abductor to separate the mother and child for fairly lengthy stretches of time. To weaken the attachment between them. Harper could have allowed the girl out occasionally, but kept the boy locked up. So the child was, in effect, a hostage. The girl couldn’t escape without leaving him behind.’
Baxter shakes his head, strident now. ‘No way I’m buying that. I think she’d have left the kid there at the drop of a hat and good riddance.’
Gow smiles thinly. ‘I’m just setting out the range of possibilities, Constable. Profiling isn’t a sausage machine. You can’t just press a button and out pops the answer. It’s for CID to determine what actually happened.’
The door pushes open. One of the uniform PCs. He’s carrying a tray with coffee and a can of Coke. He looks around the room then spots me. ‘Your wife’s here, sir. She says it’s urgent.’
‘My wife?’
Alex never comes to this place. And I do mean never. She hates it. Says it smells of lies. Lies and lavatories.
He looks a bit embarrassed. ‘Yes, sir. She’s in reception.’
*
Alex is sitting on one of the grey plastic chairs lined up against the wall. The boy is next to her, standing on the seat and looking out of the window. She has her hand on the small of his back, taking care he doesn’t fall.
I walk towards her quickly. ‘You really shouldn’t be here,’ I say in a low voice.
‘I’m sorry, I know you’re busy –’
‘It’s not that – Vicky’s here. She’s in the building. It could be awkward – I mean, if she sees the boy.’
The boy starts to bang on the window and Alex reaches up to grab his hands.
‘Look, what is it, Alex – why didn’t you phone?’
‘I finished the novel. Room.’
It takes me a moment to remember. ‘Right. OK. But I really need to get back – can you tell me tonight?’
‘There’s a bit at the end – after the girl is released. Her little boy has to adapt to a world he’s never seen before.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘He has to learn new things. Things he’s never done before because he’s spent all his life in one room. A room on one level. With no stairs.’
I turn to look at the boy. He’s banging on the window again, shrieking with laughter. I try to remember – try to picture him –
‘He can do it,’ she says, reading my mind. ‘I’ve seen him. Several times.’
‘And he did it straight away?’
She nods. ‘He had no trouble at all climbing the stairs. Because he’d clearly done it before.’
***
Quinn parks the Audi along by the old prison quarter, now prinked out as a swanky hotel and a paved courtyard with bars and pizzerias. People are sitting outside, drinking coffee, talking, smiling in the sunshine.
‘The store manager’s been told to keep her there until we arrive,’ he says, turning off the engine.
‘You were bloody lucky Woods overheard uniform radioing in that shoplifting report,’ says Gislingham, just a bit resentful now that fate seems to have handed Quinn a get-out-of-jail card. Or perhaps he just wanted to collect all the available brownie points himself.
Quinn shrugs. ‘He knew I was trying to track her down, so I guess the name must have jumped out.’
‘And it’s deffo the same Pippa Walker?’
‘I’m pretty sure – apparently this girl nicked a handbag pom-pom. A pricey designer job. I’ve seen her bag – she has loads of those things.’
‘What the fuck’s a handbag pom-pom anyway?’ mutters Gislingham as he follows Quinn up towards Carfax, struggling at times to negotiate the unwieldy crowds, the people not looking where they’re going, the small children who don’t keep to the rules and lurch out at erratic angles; the shoppers, the idlers, the lost. The high-end fashion store is – appropriately enough – on the High. In the plate-glass window, chrome cubes display jewellery, shoes, bags, sunglasses.
Quinn points at one of the shelves as they push open the door.
‘Right,’ says Gislingham, ‘so that’s a handbag pom-pom when it’s home. Who knew, eh – who bloody knew.’
The manager has clearly been hovering by the door on the lookout, and quickly ushers them away from a couple of extremely thin elderly Americans poring over leopard-print headscarves.
‘So,’ says Quinn, looking around. ‘Where is she?’
‘I asked her to wait in the office,’ says the manager, lowering her voice. ‘She was starting to get a bit, well, loud.’
I bet she was, thinks Gislingham.
‘Can you show us?’ says Quinn, clearly agitated now.
They follow her through to the back, which is dark, cluttered and pokey after the sparse over-white brilliance of the sales floor. The manager kicks a box of promo leaflets to one side and opens the office door. But there’s no one there. Just a plastic chair, a computer and shelves stacked with paperwork. Quinn turns on her. ‘You were supposed to be keeping her here – where the hell is she?’