‘You can’t even find him,’ scoffs Bryan Chambers. ‘Nobody can. He melts through walls.’
I look around the room, trying to summon a reason, an argument, a threat, anything that might change the outcome. The images of Chloe are everywhere, on the mantelpiece, the side tables, framed and hung on the walls.
‘Why did you give the Greek authorities the photograph of someone other than Helen?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says Bryan Chambers.
I take the faxed photograph from my pocket and unfold it on the table.
‘It’s a criminal offence to provide false information to a police investigation,’ says Ruiz. ‘And that includes an investigation in a foreign country.’
Bryan Chambers face turns three shades darker, blood up. Ruiz doesn’t back down. I don’t think he understands the concept of giving ground, not when it comes to missing children. There have been too many in his career; children he couldn’t save.
‘You sent them the wrong photograph because your daughter is still alive. You faked her death.’
Bryan Chambers sways backwards to throw the first punch. It’s a giveaway. Ruiz dodges it and slaps him on the back of the head like cuffing a naughty schoolboy.
This just fires him up. With a bellow and a loping charge, the bigger man drives his head into Ruiz’s stomach and wraps his arms around him, running him backwards into the wall. The collision seems to shake the entire house. Photographs topple over in their frames, falling like dominos.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ screams Darcy. She is standing near the door, fists bunched, eyes shining.
Everything slows down. Even the ticking of the grandfather clock sounds like a slow dripping tap. Bryan Chambers is holding his head. He has a cut above his left eye. It’s not deep but it’s bleeding heavily. Ruiz is nursing his ribs.
I lean down and begin picking up the photographs. The glass has broken in one of the frames. It’s a snapshot of a birthday party. Candles spark in Chloe’s eyes as she leans over a cake with her cheeks puffed out like a trombone player. I wonder what she wished for.
The photograph is not unusual, yet something jars as being wrong. Ruiz has a memory like a metal trap that seems to lock up facts and hold them. I’m not talking about useless ephemera like pop songs or Grand National winners or right-backs who’ve played for Manchester United since the war. Important details. Dates. Addresses. Descriptions.
‘When was Chloe born,’ I ask him.
‘August 8, 2000.’
Bryan Chambers is now violently sober. Claudia has gone to Darcy, trying to console her.
‘Explain this to me,’ I say, pointing to the photograph. ‘How can your granddaughter be blowing out seven candles on a birthday cake if she died two weeks before her seventh birthday?’
The button beneath the floor has summoned Skipper. He’s carrying a shotgun but this time it’s not resting in the crook of his arm. He points the barrel at chest height, moving it in an arc.
‘Get them out of my house,’ bellows Bryan Chambers, still holding his forehead. Blood has leaked over his eyebrow and the side of his cheek.
‘How many more people are going to get hurt unless we stop this now?’ I plead.
It makes no difference. Skipper waves the rifle. Darcy steps in front of him. I don’t know where she gets the courage.
‘It’s all right,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll go.’
‘But what about Charlie?’
‘This isn’t helping.’
Nothing is going to change. The wrongness of the situation, the imminent catastrophe, is lost on the Chambers who seem to be caught in a permanent twilight of fear and denial.
I’m being escorted out of this house for a second time. Ruiz goes first, followed by Darcy. As I cross the foyer, in the very periphery of my vision, I catch sight of something white, pressed against the railings of the stairs. It’s a barefoot child in a white nightdress peering through the turned wooden railings. Ethereal and almost otherworldly, she’s holding a rag doll and watching us leave.
I stop and stare. The others turn.
‘You should be asleep,’ says Claudia.
‘I woke up. I heard a bang.’
‘It was nothing. Go back to bed.’
She rubs her eyes. ‘Will you tuck me in?’
I can feel the rhythm of my blood beneath my skin. Bryan Chambers steps in front of me. The stock of the rifle is tucked against Skipper’s shoulder. There are footsteps on the stairs. A woman appears, looking agitated, scooping up the child.
‘Helen?’
She doesn’t react.
‘I know who you are.’
She turns to me, lifting a hand to brush a fringe from across her eyes. Her head is drawn down between her shoulders and her thin arms are tightly folded around Chloe.
‘He has my daughter.’
She doesn’t answer. Instead she turns to climb the stairs.
‘You’ve come this far. Help me.’
She’s gone, back to her room, unseen, unheard, unconvinced.
60
Crossing a carpet of dead leaves on the paving stones, I let myself through the French doors into the dining room. The furniture is covered in old sheets that turn armchairs and sofas into shapeless lumps.
A cast iron coal grate, forever black, sits in the small fireplace beneath an old mantelpiece that is dotted with pinholes left by dozens of Christmas stockings, none of them owned by the Arab.
I climb the stairs. The girl is lying quietly. She hasn’t tried to take tape from her head. How obedient she’s become. How compliant.
The wind outside is blowing branches against the walls, scratching at the paintwork. Occasionally, she lifts her head, wondering if the sound is something more. She lifts her head again. Perhaps she can hear me breathing.
Sitting up, she lowers her chained feet cautiously to the floor. Then she leans forward until her hands touch the radiator. Feeling her way, she hops sideways until she reaches the toilet. She stops and listens, then pulls down her jeans. I hear the telltale tinkle.
Pulling up her jeans, she manages to find the sink. There are two taps, hot and cold. Left and right. She turns on the cold tap and puts her fingers beneath the stream. Lowering her head, she tries to position the hose in her mouth into the stream of water. It’s like watching an awkward bird take a drink. She has to hold her breath and suck at the water. It goes down the wrong way, triggering a coughing fit that leaves her sobbing on the floor.
I touch her hand. She screams and tries to scramble away, banging her head against the plumbing.
‘It’s only me.’
She cannot answer.
‘You’ve been a very good girl. Now I want you to hold still.’ She flinches as I touch her. Leading her to the bed, I make her sit. Using a pair of dressmaker’s scissors, I hook the lower blade beneath the tape at the nape of her neck and begin snipping upward, a little at a time.
Her sweat and body heat have glued her hair to the tape. I have to cut it away. I slice through her locks, pulling at the balls of tape and hair. It must hurt. She doesn’t show it until I wrench it away from her face, trying to do it quickly to spare her pain. She screams into the hose and spits it out.
I put the scissors down. The ‘mask’ is off, lying on the floor like the skin of a gutted animal. Tears and snot and melted glue cover her face. There are worse things.
I hold a bottle of water to her lips. She drinks greedily. Droplets fall onto her cardigan. She wipes her chin with her shoulder.
‘I’ve brought you food. The hamburger is cold, but it should taste OK.’
She takes a mouthful. No more.
‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘I know.’
I pull up a chair and sit across from her. It’s the first time she has seen me. She doesn’t know whether to look.
‘Do you remember me?’
‘Yes. You were on the bus. Your leg is better.’
‘It was never broken. Are you cold?’