She ran back onto the drive and, at the end of it, headed towards the village. She stumbled along a corridor of hedges and trees, the beam of the torch becoming less necessary with every step, fear clenching her throat like a fist, hoping desperately that suddenly she was going to see Luke and Phoebe in their winter coats and their red and blue wellington boots, walking hand-in-hand back towards her.
Another siren now. Moments later an ambulance with all its lights blazing came around the corner. She waved the torch, frantically, and the ambulance stopped. ‘Dene Farm Barn?’ the driver asked.
She pointed, gulping air. ‘Just back there, a hundred yards, turn right, the first entrance, up the drive. I can’t find my children.’
Seconds later she stood, breathing in a lungful of diesel fumes, watching streaks of cold blue light dart like angry fish across the shimmering road, watching the ambulance turn right, slowly, ever so slowly, like one frame at a time, into their drive. Their home. Their sanctuary.
She stood still, blinking tears and rain from her stinging eyes, gulping down more acrid air, shaking, shivering so badly her knees were banging together. ‘Luke?’ she said, her voice feeble now, forlorn, lost. ‘Phoebe?’
She stared at the lame yellow glow of the torch; the beam didn’t even register on the road any more. She switched it off, swallowed, hugged her arms around herself to try to stop shaking. The rain hardened; she could have been standing in a shower, but she was oblivious to it as she turned, one way then the other, taking one last hopeless look, as if she might suddenly spot their little faces peeping out from behind a bush, or a tree or a hedge.
Where are you?
She was trying, desperately, to focus her mind. Who was the man? Who had shot the man? Why? How had anyone got into the house? How had anyone got Luke and Phoebe into their coats and boots and taken them away? Who were these people? Paedophiles?
The Disciples?
Could Luke or Phoebe have shot him? Then run away? Was that why they had run away?
Run away? Taken away – abducted?
In some space, way beyond her bewilderment at the moment, in some dark place deep inside her heart, she harboured a certainty, an absolute dead certainty, that they were gone for ever.
99
A grey van pulled up beside Naomi as she trudged back up the drive to the house, and a man asked her in a kindly voice if she was all right. For a moment, her hopes soared.
‘Have you got them?’ she said. ‘Have you found them? Have you got my children? Are they OK?’
‘Your children?’
She stared at him, utterly bewildered. ‘My children? Have you got them? Luke and Phoebe?’
He opened the door and moved over, making space for her. ‘Jump in, love.’
She backed away. ‘Who are you?’
‘Crime scene officers.’
She shook her head. ‘I have to find my children.’
‘We’ll help you find them. Hop in, you’re going to freeze to death like that.’
A two-way radio crackled. The driver leaned forward and pressed a button. ‘Charlie Victor Seven Four, we have just arrived on scene.’
The man in the passenger seat held out his hand. Naomi took it and climbed in, then pulled the door shut. A fan was roaring; hot air began toasting her feet, blasting on her face.
She shook her head, the giddying heat making her feel faint and disoriented. ‘Please help me find my son and daughter.’
‘How old are they?’
‘Three.’
‘Don’t worry, love, we’ll find them.’
The van moved forwards. She watched the hedgerows passing as if in a dream. ‘They weren’t in the house when we woke up,’ she said numbly.
‘We’ll find them, don’t you worry.’
The kindness in his voice made her burst into tears.
The van clattered over the cattle grid and onto the gravel. Sobbing uncontrollably, she saw the ambulance, its doors shut, side window screened off from view, the first police car she had seen earlier, and two more. There seemed to be police everywhere. Three were standing in the garden wearing flak jackets and holding rifles. No sign of the shot man; she presumed he was in the ambulance.
There was a tape barrier sealing off a wide area in front of the house where the shot man had lain, with two uniformed policemen in caps standing in front of it. As the van pulled up, yet another car appeared, a dark Volvo saloon, bristling with aerials, this one with four uniformed policemen inside it.
‘Where do you think they might be, your kids?’ the crime scene man asked.
‘I-’ She shook her head, opened the door and clambered quickly out. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. In a daze, she mumbled a thank-you and walked towards the taped-off front door. One of the uniformed policemen raised a hand and said in a kindly voice, ‘I’m sorry, madam, would you mind using the kitchen entrance.’
She went round to the side of the house. The kitchen door was shut and locked. She rapped with her knuckles. A uniformed policewoman opened it. It might have been the same woman she had spoken to earlier, in the car, her face streaked with blue light, she wasn’t sure. Then John, still in his dressing gown, was walking towards her, hair matted to his head, face sheet-white. He put his arms around her.
‘Where have you been, darling?’
‘Have you found them?’ Naomi sobbed. ‘Have you found them?’
‘They’re around somewhere,’ John said. ‘They must be.’
She sobbed back at him. ‘THEY’VE GONE! SOMEONE’S TAKEN THEM, OH GOD, SOMEONE’S TAKEN THEM!’
John and the woman police officer traded glances.
‘Our children have gone, John – don’t you get it? Do you want me to spell it out to you? Do you want me to spell it out to you backwards with every fourth letter missing?’
Two uniformed officers came into the kitchen. One looked about nineteen years old, tall and very thin, and rather green. Slightly odd, still wearing his cap inside, Naomi thought inconsequentially. The other was older, stocky, with designer stubble and a shaved head. He held his cap in his hand and had a kind smile. ‘We’ve searched every room, all the cupboards and roof spaces. We’ll go and check on the outbuildings. Garage and greenhouse, right? And the dustbin shed? Any other outbuildings that we haven’t seen, sir?’
John, soaking wet and shivering with cold, said, ‘No.’ Then to Naomi he said, ‘Got to get you into some dry clothes. Go have a shower, I’ll deal with everything.’
‘We need to go back out,’ she said. ‘They might be down at that pond on the Gribbles’ farm – they might have fallen in.’
‘Get some proper clothes on and we’ll go out and look. We’ll find them, they’ll be somewhere around.’
The stocky officer turned to the younger one. ‘I’ll check the outbuildings. You start a log of everyone who enters the house.’
Just as Naomi left the kitchen to go up and shower, there was a rap on the door. John opened it to see a tall man of about forty, with dark, wavy hair, dressed in an unbuttoned, rain-spotted mackintosh over a grey suit, white shirt, sharp tie and shiny black lace-up shoes. His nose, squashed and kinked, looked like it had been broken more than once, giving him the thuggish look of a retired prize-fighter.
‘Dr Klaesson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Detective Inspector Pelham. I’m the duty Senior Investigating Officer.’ His tone was courteous but brisk. Extending his hand, he gave John’s a brief, firm tug, as if more would have been eating into valuable time, his sharp, grey eyes assessing John as he spoke. Then, a tad more gently, added, ‘I’m sure you and Mrs Klaesson must be feeling a little shell-shocked.’
‘I think that’s an understatement.’
‘We’re going to do everything we can to help you. But I’m afraid we’re going to have to seal this house up inside and out, as a crime scene, and I’d like you and your wife to pack a bag with your essentials and enough clothes to last for a few days, and move out.’