His eyes are glazed with shock, as he looks up, still not understanding what’s happened, until he slowly puts his hand where the knife went in, close to his heart.
The blood is dark on the floor, already soaking into the earth.
46
We’re outside. From far away I hear the wail of a siren. It’s dark now, the rain a drizzle, washing me clean. I’ve never felt more free. I feel fine, more than fine, untethered from the world, probably better than I should, still riding a wave of adrenaline and energy. She’s here, she’s here, my whole body is thrilling with the knowledge, but she’s in a bad way, I can see. My daughter is twisting her hands beside me, the tape bunching into rope but holding strong, and I know what I must do. I go back inside, and I pick up the knife, I wipe it on my jeans, then I cut the tape open, so carefully, making sure not to touch her skin. ‘Shh, it’s OK. It’s OK.’ Gently as I can, I pull the tape off her mouth, her hands fluttering over mine. The skin is raw underneath, her lips dry.
‘Mum.’ Her voice is thin with fear. I hug her. The siren’s closer now, the pitch getting higher.
‘Sophie. It’s OK, Sophie. It’s going to be OK. Let’s go.’ I start walking, propping her up, still hugging her – and holding her. I can feel her weight, solid in my arms, I can smell her hair, but she’s shaking and then she pulls back, her eyes wild, her mouth an open scream.
She manages to get it out: ‘Mum. He’s got Teddy. He’s got Teddy.’
For a moment I can’t understand. He’s got Teddy, she’s saying, over and over. And I just can’t get it, I’m imagining her stuffed toy. ‘Teddy? But that’s all right, Sophie, we’ll get you another one …’ She’s in shock, I think she must be, after what’s happened. She’s like a child again, wanting her teddy.
But she stops me, grabs me, surprisingly strong.
‘No, Mum, no. He took him, Teddy. He took my baby. My baby.’ Her voice is rising, desperate and thin. ‘What’s he done with him? What’s he done with Teddy?’
I’m stunned for a moment, before the understanding comes in a rush. And then it’s like the knowledge is already there.
‘Sophie, I know. I know where Teddy will be.’
We take his car, the keys still in the ignition.
‘He hasn’t taken him anywhere,’ I say. ‘If he’s – safe, I know where he’ll be.’
The journey there takes just minutes, but it feels like longer. I start to pray, holding Sophie’s hand as I drive. We don’t talk: there are no words now. Dear God, please please … I can’t shape the thoughts, until we pull up outside the cottage. I run in.
‘Lily,’ I call, pushing the door open. ‘Lily!’ There’s no answer.
Maybe I got this wrong. I rush through to the back, to her living room. Sophie’s behind me already, breathing too fast, half-sobbing. Maybe I—
And there’s Lily, bending over, in the corner, by the window. She straightens up and smiles, a big, beaming smile.
‘Oh, Kate,’ she says. ‘Just in time for tea.’
She drops a hand, a gentle pat on the head of the small figure clutching at her skirt. ‘Now careful of those sticky hands, darling. Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Kate, meet my lovely little boy.’
47
SOPHIE
So now you know. When he told me about the house, that he knew somewhere I could go, so they wouldn’t split us up, it felt like it was meant to be. And the situation had just got so … big, so terrifying, so quickly.
He’d come to give a talk at school, about careers in medicine, at the beginning of the school year. I only went because Holly was interested. But I stayed behind afterwards, just to say hello. And then he suggested I come see him at the surgery one time, on my own. Reception didn’t think anything of it when I said I wanted to book in with him myself. I didn’t tell anyone. He was my doctor, after all.
But I liked him. And very soon he went from Dr Heath, to just Nick. He wasn’t like my parents or any of their friends, or like any of the teachers. He didn’t talk to me in the same way at all. He talked to me like a grown-up. It was exciting.
And then … I suppose in the end, that is what happened. That was the problem. I grew up.
48
KATE
They found Nancy.
It was Nicholls who decided to dig in the building we’d been in – I heard Kirstie mentioning it to another officer. She’s back, helping us again. It was a hunch, but a correct one: to check what was under that compacted earth floor, why Heath had thought to pick that place to take Sophie, after he emptied the attic. And it was the way Heath operated, repeating himself, retracing his steps – trying to make the present fix his past.
I feel so sorry for Nancy’s sister, Olivia. It’s one thing to suspect that someone you love is never coming back, but to know, for sure …
She wasn’t buried deep. They couldn’t be sure how he’d done it, but from what we know of him – he’d strangled her. They think she just went to meet him there in the park, after everyone was asleep. They’d probably met there before. Teenagers looking for somewhere to go.
But this time, only he came back.
He could have taken either his step-dad’s keys or his mum’s – Lily’s – to get into Nancy’s house. They’d both have had a set, working there all the time. No one knew about him and Nancy: it seems it would have been awkward, to say the least, if her parents had found out she was seeing the son of the help. I wonder, perhaps, if she liked it a little bit – the excitement of a secret.
Afterwards, he just kept on as he always had, fading into the background, unnoticed. Maybe he helped the rumours about Jay along, we can’t really know. I think, given what he did to me, that he did.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. So much has happened since then. Since Sophie came back.
My house was very full. There were lights in the drive as more cars pulled up, people swarming around, asking so many questions. Someone had put a blanket over me. I found I was shivering as the summer night drew in, my hands shaking visibly.
I had, finally, silenced Charlotte. She couldn’t get a full sentence out. ‘Kate, I was so worried …’ She crouched down in front of me to pass me another cup of tea. Her face was pale. ‘You weren’t here, but your car was here. I thought …’
‘I know. I’m OK. We’re OK.’ But I almost couldn’t believe it either.
And there, in the middle of it all, the sun that we were all revolving around, was Sophie, right next to me on the sofa in our living room. Even the police felt it – I could hear it in their voices: something like awe. Teddy was in her lap, the little boy wide-eyed at all these people. She’d given him the remote control to play with – he loves pushing buttons – while I did the talking, Sophie quiet by my side. At one point, amid all the bustle, she fell asleep. She must have been exhausted.
Two years, three months and eleven days, she’d played that waiting game, seizing her chances, finding chinks in his armour. The message on the call to me. The email address in the diary. The drawings on the postcards. And then her last rebellion before the end came, so simple it looked like stupidity. It was stupid, so clumsy, so risky, it still scares me to think of it – her dropping the fizzy drink, hoping that it would be ready to explode, shaking his concentration just for a second.
Her eyes telling me to do it – to take our last chance.
They had an officer with Lily, I’d checked.
It had fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw. ‘My little boy.’
She hadn’t been imagining things; she was muddled, yes, but it was more than that: those drugs, keeping her more confused than she should be, dulling her natural sharpness.
And then there were my dreams, where I’d heard that childish laughter that sounded just like Sophie. Of course it did. It was Sophie’s baby. ‘He took him out, sometimes,’ she told us. ‘At night.’