This was the reason that, although the car that Collins and Woods arrived in was unmarked, curtains twitched on both sides of the road as they emerged and made their way up the front path towards Number 230.
‘You think they already know?’ asked Woods, glancing around.
‘Doubt it,’ said Collins. ‘I think it’s just that kind of area. Everyone is into everyone else’s business. Try to make a mental note of where the biggest busybodies are – the houses where the most noses are poking through the curtains. Might be worth having a word with them later on. We’ll get a different take on the home life of young Miss Matthews.’
The door was opened by WPC Louise Mitchell, who, earlier that morning, had been appointed family liaison officer to Jessica’s parents. It was her job to fend off the unwanted attention of the press, remain with the family at all times and provide a direct link to the highest levels of the investigation. It was a service performed not just for victims but also for families of the accused, who, in many cases, became victims in their own right. Although some parts of the press were likely to end up calling Matthews a hero for killing off paedophiles, they could never be sure exactly how people would react.
‘They’re in the sitting room,’ said WPC Mitchell. ‘I’ll show you the way.’
The living room was like something out of a catalogue. Beautiful but entirely sterile. It was the kind of room that existed more for display purposes than anything else. Only on special occasions would anyone actually be allowed to sit there. The carpet was deep and luxurious, the shelves filled with figurines and trinkets far too delicate to touch. For Woods it was the sign of a house ruled with an iron fist. The kind of house where discipline was a constant companion. The kind of house that any young girl would be dying to run away from.
‘Mr and Mrs Matthews, I presume,’ said Collins, extending one hand in greeting.
The man and the woman were sitting close together on the larger of the two sofas in the room. Their hands were tightly clasped together between them. The woman was slim, her hair cut just below the line of her chin in a kind of carved bob. She looked tired and strained but smiled up at him. The man wore a full beard that was starting to show patches of grey. He had a muscular build, his broad shoulders pressing tightly against his shirt. His eyes twinkled with a fierce intensity. He wore a cream and brown Pringle-pattern knitted vest over a thin-striped shirt and tie.
‘Actually it’s Robertson,’ said the man, extending his own hand to meet that of Collins. ‘Larry Robertson. I’m Jessica’s stepfather and this is my wife, Lucy. Jessica’s birth parents died when she was young. Matthews was their name. She was Robertson for a while during the time she was with us but changed back to Matthews almost as soon as she left home.
‘During her time here we did our best to make her comfortable but she could be incredibly difficult, very mischievous and at times, to be perfectly honest, a little bit frightening.’
‘I understand,’ said Collins.
Mrs Robertson spoke up for the first time, her voice cracking with emotion at the end of each word. ‘Is there any news? Have you found her? We’re worried sick. Do you think she might have done something to herself? We’ve been looking in the papers. All those terrible things she is supposed to have done. I can’t believe it would really be her. And that’s why I think she might do herself in.
‘It’s just awful, so awful. And then this … this killing. How on earth could that little girl be involved in something so horrible …’
Her sentence trailed off into a stream of sobs, and Larry edged towards her on the sofa, putting his arm around her shoulder and pulling him towards her. ‘Come on, love,’ he said gently. ‘They’re here to help. We need to help them so that they can help us.’
Collins and Woods watched them closely. Larry pulled the woman’s sobbing face into his shoulder before speaking once more.
Larry Robertson was speaking again. ‘I don’t want to believe it’s true, I really don’t, but the more I think about it, the more some of the clues have been there all the time. We used to have a small holding up in Bedfordshire. That’s where we were when Jessica first came to live with us. We thought it was the perfect environment for any small child – lots of fresh air and dozens of animals to play with – but she was never that happy there.
‘And then one year we had a spate of attacks on the animals. A couple of horses got slashed, one of the rabbits was killed. At the time it was all blamed on gangs of local lads looking for kicks, but now I’m not so sure. The finger of suspicion never turned to Jessica – well, it wouldn’t, would it – but the following year we had to sell up and leave. New health and safety regulations and all that. Made it impossible for us to continue. We shut the whole thing down and that’s how we ended up here.
‘Jessica seemed to like living near London – a lot more for teenagers to do – but when I think back … well, you just wonder, don’t you? We always feared there would be some backlash, considering what had happened to her before. But we never imagined it would be anything like this.’
Collins and Woods looked at each other, silently confirming that neither knew exactly what it was that Mr Robertson was talking about.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Collins. ‘When you say what happened to her before … I think you need to explain.’
22
Thirty Years Earlier
She had relaxed in a nice warm bath, brushed her teeth thoroughly and spent twenty minutes reading from her favourite story book, but she was still far too excited to get to sleep.
‘Please, please, please, Mum, can’t I just stay up a bit longer? I really don’t feel tired at all.’
Joanne Matthews looked down at the pleading face of her young daughter and smiled. ‘Now then, Jessica, we talked about this. If you don’t get to bed soon you’re going to be too tired to enjoy your party tomorrow. And all your friends who come and give you presents will end up being very disappointed. And we don’t want that, do we?’
Jessica shook her head slowly. The seven-year-old had been ready to burst with excitement over her birthday for the best part of the past month, and now that the day had almost arrived, she was ready to go into overdrive.
Joanne Matthews kissed and cuddled her daughter, pulled the blankets up so that her little shoulders were covered, switched on the nightlight and then shut the door.
‘Sleep tight, my little angel. I’ll see you in the morning. Love you.’ Jessica shut her eyes tight, certain that if she closed them tightly enough and for long enough, the next time they opened it would be morning.
She was somewhere in the in-between twilight world of sleep and wakefulness when she heard the doorbell ring. She turned over and lifted the thumb of her right hand up to her mouth. It was an old habit she had repeatedly fought but failed to kick. Despite knowing it made her look incredibly childish, nothing else gave her quite so much comfort. Sleep did not always come easily and the fact that the following day was her birthday was making it more difficult than ever for the little girl to drift off.
The sound of footsteps, the creek of the front door opening, followed by her father’s voice, deep, low, serene. A voice like a warm blanket. A voice you could wrap yourself up in. A voice as smooth as warm chocolate. It was a voice that for years had been at the heart of a massive dilemma. Each night she would have to choose which of her parents she wanted to read her a bedtime story. Her father’s voice was so thick and dreamy that it would send her to sleep within minutes and she would get to hear only a few pages of whatever story they were reading. By contrast, her mother’s voice was delicate and expressive and displayed a talented mimicry that made a story’s characters seem to truly come alive. But her mother often stuttered and stumbled over her words and lost her place, which meant they would often have to go over the same parts of the story time and time again in order to make sense of it all.