Emily was there. I’d almost forgotten about her. She kept wailing that her mum was going to kill her and that her dad would use it as another excuse to get custody.
Doors opened and people came out onto the street. I don’t remember their faces. I wanted to run. I know it sounds stupid, but I thought if I could run fast enough, I could stay ahead of what had happened. That Callum wouldn’t be dead and I wouldn’t have to see him tumbling through the air and hear the sound of his body hitting the tarmac.
He wasn’t dead, but I didn’t know that then. An ambulance took him to hospital and the doctors induced a coma, keeping him alive with machines that kept his heart pumping. But they couldn’t save his legs. The bones had been crushed and one was already partially amputated, so they kept going and finished the job.
These memories are flooding back to me, filling my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I take a big gulp of air and look at my hands, which are bunched so tightly that my fingernails have left red marks on my skin.
Muddy light has broken through the gloom outside the window. Another day begins.
21
Isaac McBain lives in a shack on the edge of a building yard that smells of mildew and wet wood. Ruiz knocks on the door, but there’s no answer.
I peer through the dirty front window. In the gloom I see a living room full of indistinct lumps of furniture, a bar fridge and a fifty-inch flat screen. The man has his priorities. Along one wall is a record collection: hundreds of vinyl albums stacked upright on shelves; a lifetime of music, catalogued into genres and filed alphabetically.
“Can I help you, lads?”
The voice belongs to a big man with tight curls, who is standing behind a wire fence. Dressed in a Nike sweatshirt, baggy trousers and expensive trainers, he’s holding a bull terrier on a shortened leash. The dog lunges at the fence, all fangs and fury but no bark. The animal’s voice box has been removed or damaged in a fight. The man jerks at the chain, hauling the terrier off its feet.
“We’re looking for Isaac McBain,” I say.
“Who told you he was here?”
“His son.”
Most of the man’s attention is focused on Ruiz.
“Are you debt collectors?”
“No.”
“You work for the Connolly brothers?”
“No.”
This must be Vic McBain. Natasha’s uncle.
“It’s about Natasha,” I say. “Did Isaac tell you?”
“Yeah, he told me. What was Natasha doing at Radley Lakes?”
“We don’t know.”
There is another long pause. The bull terrier has calmed down.
“Nice dog,” says Ruiz.
“He could rip your throat out.”
“Must be good around the kids.”
Vic rubs his mouth. “You look like a copper.”
“Used to be,” says Ruiz. “Now I’m doing a bit of freelance work. Better hours. Fewer rules.”
“Isaac didn’t turn up for work today. Can’t say I blame him.”
“Any idea where he’d be?” I ask.
“Drunk by now. Self-medication. Dulls the pain.”
“Where does he normally drink?”
“The White Swan in Abingdon.”
Vic McBain turns away and walks back through the muddy building yard, between the racks of scaffolding pipes and lumber. The dog limps after him, nosing at a metal drum and casually cocking a back leg.
The White Swan is one of those pubs you won’t find unless you’re a local or a lost traveler. We had to ask twice for directions. The only interior lighting consists of the neon tubes above the bar and the ambient glow from two open doors that are marked oxymoronically as ladies and gents.
The barmaid has punked blue hair, shaved on one side, and black fingernail polish.
Ruiz leans fully over the bar, studying the taps. “The sign outside says you have a fine collection of real ales.”
“So?”
“You have one hand-pump of Morland’s Original. That’s hardly what I call a selection.”
She looks at me. “What’s his problem?”
“He thinks he’s a connoisseur.”
Isaac McBain is sitting at the far end of the bar beneath a Union Jack flag. Between his forearms he has a pint glass and a whisky chaser centered on matching cardboard coasters. Making his choice, he lifts the shot glass and downs it in a swallow.
We pull out bar stools on either side. Isaac turns slowly, his eyes swimming in an alcoholic haze.
“I’m not in a talking mood,” he slurs.
“Your brother told us you’d be here,” says Ruiz.
“He called me. Said you were coming.”
“We’re sorry for your loss,” I say, making the introductions. My outstretched hand is ignored. Withdrawn.
Isaac blinks slowly and I get a whiff of the ashy stink coming from his hair. I see a man who is torturing himself with alternative scenarios. What if he hadn’t gone to jail? What if he’d been a better father? Would his daughter still be alive? Could he have protected her?
These thoughts have haunted him for three years, sweating through his dreams, hooking his heart whenever he turned a corner and caught a glimpse of someone who looked like Natasha.
“They let me see her,” he whispers. “That body didn’t look like Tash, you know. I mean, it did, but it didn’t. She was beautiful, you know.”
He drinks half his beer, his throat moving noiselessly.
“They’re saying she was held prisoner.”
“Yes.”
“Someone kept her alive.”
“Yes.”
“And… and did things to her?”
“Yes.”
His face creases in pain and I can tell that he’s screaming internally.
“I need a cigarette.” He stands and takes his beer through a rear door into a courtyard with a handful of wooden tables and benches. He lights up. White smoke curls around his wrist.
“A lot of folks blamed me,” he says. “Even the police. That’s why they wanted us to do the media conference when the girls went missing. They were studying me, analyzing my words and my body language.”
“That’s pretty standard practice,” says Ruiz. “Look at the families first.”
“Yeah, well, I had everyone looking at me sideways. They leaked the story about me having done time, you know. Lads I used to drink with suddenly didn’t fancy standing at the same bar with me. My local publican told me I should find somewhere else to drink. I finished up at this shitehole.”
The barmaid has come out for cigarette. “I heard that.”
“Fuck off.”
I can see the glint in Isaac’s eyes and know I’m witnessing the other side of him-the wildness that saw him go to prison; the wildness that Tash inherited.
“I pissed them off early-the cops. When Natasha and Piper went missing we organized our own search. We had hundreds of volunteers. Friends. Neighbors. Strangers. Vic did most of the work. We were chomping at the bit, but the police kept telling us to wait. Then I overheard this inspector saying that he didn’t want to compromise the evidence-like he thought the girls were already dead.
“I argued with him. ‘For fuck’s sake-it’s my daughter. We have to find her. It’s not rocket science.’ This guy told me to step away and lower my voice. I didn’t. Then he threatened to have me arrested. It was bullshit.”
We let Isaac talk, venting his anger.
“They still think it’s me, you know. They came and asked me where I was during the blizzard. They were sweating on me, trying to get me rattled, thinking I might confess. As if I’d be scared. I’ve been bounced off prison walls by cons who’d shank you quicker than look at you. The police don’t scare me.”
“Why were you in prison?” says Ruiz.
“Here we go.”
“I’m just asking.”
“Armed robbery. Sentenced to five, I served three. I don’t shy away from it. No point. Small town like this, everyone knows. But tell me something, Mr. Ruiz. How is that piece of information going to help you catch my daughter’s killer? I’m just asking.”