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On my pillow, so lustrous they could have been minted hours earlier, lie two copper coins. They’re tiny, smaller even than the pennies in Papa’s change bowl. Both feature the same image: an old-fashioned sailing ship with billowing sails. When I move my head the light winks off them, making it seem like they’re gliding across a blood-red sea. Looking closer, I see they’re halfpennies. In Ancient Greece, coins were placed on the eyes of the dead to pay for transport across the River Styx. Whoever left these coins is making a very obvious point, designed to frighten me.
It’s worked. I can barely think. My heart knocks like a beating drum.
Have the coins been here all along? I didn’t spot themwhen I came in. For a crazy moment I wonder if Mama left them here, but she wouldn’t do that. Strange she didn’t say anything, even so – perhaps, like me, she failed to notice them. Papa didn’t come anywhere near the bed, which counts him out. And besides, he’s not the type to play games.
I don’t want to touch the halfpennies, but I can’t leave them. When I pluck them from the pillow they’re cold against my palm. Tugging open my curtains, I raise the sash window. The moon is up, its light made milky by cloud. Beyond our vegetable garden I see the western half of Fallow Field. A breeze rolls in, cold enough to give me goosebumps.
Winding back my arm, I throw the coins into the night. Darkness swallows them up. I remain at the window, taking deep breaths. There’s nothing I can do to fix what’s happened. There’s little about any of this I can control. But one thing Icancontrol is my behaviour from this point: how I act, and what I let others see. When I think of the Gingerbread House, and the awful antiseptic smell rising from its cellar, the snake in my tummy flops and rolls. There’s a sound, too, but not from me. It takes a moment to figure out, mainly because I’m not expecting to hear an engine this late. A vehicle appears, bouncing along the track beside Fallow Field. I’m too far away to see it clearly, but it looks – and sounds – like a 4x4. Meunier’s Defender, perhaps, or one of the beaten-up runabouts from Wheel Town.
Its headlamps are dark. No shred of light leaks from inside. I watch it skirt the Memory Wood’s eastern boundary, heading north towards Knucklebone Lake. I’m so focused on its progress that for a moment I forget that my bedroom light is still on, and that by standing at the window I am clearly silhouetted.
Mairéad
Day 1
I
Detective Superintendent Mairéad MacCullagh is bent over a toilet bowl inside Bournemouth Central police station when her phone starts shrilling. She glances at her bag, source of the interruption. Then she vomits a second time, as soundlessly as she can manage. The adjoining cubicles are empty right now, but another officer could stroll in at any moment.
Bile burns her throat. Her head pulses in time with her heart. With one hand, she tears a strip of paper from the hanging roll. With the other, she fumbles for the phone. ‘MacCullagh.’
It’s Halley, her DS and general gopher, calling from an internal line. ‘Where are you?’ he demands, breathless. ‘I turned round and you were gone.’
Mairéad frowns at his tone. She blots her mouth with paper. ‘What is it?’
‘Possible child abduction, East Cliff. Eyewitness saw a girl bundled into a van.’
Mairéad throws the toilet paper into the bowl. She climbs to her feet. For a moment the world grows dim. Worriedshe’ll pass out, she braces her arm against the cubicle wall. If ever she needed a quiet day at the office, this is it.
Halley’s voice bleeds back in. ‘—called from Winfrith. Says it looks bad and he wants you there right away. Guessing you’ll be SIO, but we need to move.’ He pauses. ‘Are you—?’
‘I’ll be right out,’ Mairéad says, hanging up. She spits into the toilet, flushes away the vomit and unlocks the door. In the mirror, she examines her face. Beads of sweat prick her brow. A damp helmet of hair hugs tight against her head. A couple of grey strands, which a few years ago she’d have been diligent enough to yank out, lace the black. Her eyes look bloodshot and lost. ‘Jesus Christ.’
Water blasts from the cold tap. Mairéad cups her hands beneath it. Washing the sweat from her forehead, she dries herself with two fistfuls of paper towels. Her stomach clenches again, but the worst is over now. The water, like a benediction, has revived her.
Possible child abduction, East Cliff. Eyewitness saw a girl bundled into a van.
Deep breath in, let it out.
Halley’s waiting in the corridor. His jaw falls open when he sees the state of her, but he’s wise enough not to say anything. Outside, he slides behind the wheel of a pool car. Usually, she’d insist on driving. Not today. As they squeal away from the kerb Mairéad closes her eyes and buckles in. ‘What’ve we got?’
‘First call came in ten minutes ago. Guest at the Marshall Court was looking out of his window at the car park when he saw someone drag a girl in a green dress into a van. Uniform arrived within minutes but couldn’t find anyone to back up the story. There’s a junior chess tournament taking place at the hotel – hundreds of kids and their families – so the scene’s pretty chaotic.
‘Few minutes ago, while you were … while you were busy,’ Halley says, throwing her an awkward glance, ‘a mother reported her daughter missing to the tournament organizers.’
‘Daughter was wearing a green dress?’
‘Yeah.’
Mairéad’s stomach tightens, this time not from nausea.
II
The Marshall Court Hotel, a grand Victorian edifice of whitewashed stone, stands high up on East Overcliff Drive, where it peers out across the sea. Mairéad recognizes the place. She’s been here with Scott at least twice. Not that she can remember what they were celebrating, or with whom.
A crowd has gathered on the pavement, held back by four community support officers in high-vis jackets. Two more guard the hotel’s main entrance. Other officers are visible through the glass doors.
Halley parks on double yellows behind a line of patrol vehicles. Mairéad throws open her passenger door and clambers out. A gritty salt wind twines over the cliff, whipping tears from her eyes. She crosses the road and eases through the crowd to the PCSOs, flashing her ID.