Page 44 of The Cut

‘Lily? Nate?’ Ben opened the front door to the dark house and called out.

He began to head upstairs, desperate to see a light under Lily’s door and the sound of Nate’s Castlevania game spilling from his room.

He was halfway up when he noticed someone sitting in his dad’s old wing chair in the den, not moving.

A wave of anxiety coursed through him before he realised it was Dani.

She’d heard him come in but was just silently sitting there in the dark, like a corpse.

What did she know? He descended the stairs and headed towards the kitchen. He decided to strike first.

‘So, apparently Lily and Nate have been absent from school for this sodding film. I’ve just sat outside the school waiting for her … and I’ve been driving around all the villages looking for them both.’ Ben was trembling.

‘Course you were.’ Dani huffed out a laugh. ‘I’m not an idiot, Ben.’

‘What’s going on, Dani? Where are Lily and Nate?’ His questions were met with silence. ‘Dani … where are my children?’ My children, he checked himself as their eyes met. ‘What? … What have I done?’ The sing-song tone was Ben’s way of trivialising her.

He did it all the time, turning her into the proverbial hen who enjoyed picking and pecking.

He moved towards her, rounding the armchair. On the glass coffee table was his computer, open on an email account, a thread of words and a collection of low-res attachments, too small for him to make out any detail. 242

‘Is that my laptop?’ She had gone through his emails.

She had found out how deep underwater he was, that they were about to lose everything.

She knew the house was going to have to go on the market and that a court case for fraud wouldn’t be far behind.

He should have told her while he still had the chance. He took a step closer to her.

‘Is there something you want to tell me, Ben?’ Dani’s voice was soft and calm.

‘Sorry?’ Ben rooted himself to the spot.

‘God, the irony. You’re not even my husband.’ Now she looked at him, laser focused, wound up and ready to explode. ‘They’re not even my kids, and yet here I am, playing happy families.’

‘Dani … what is all this?’ Ben perched on the arm of the love seat opposite.

‘Your search history is very telling, love.’ Dani folded her arms. ‘It’s like a digital fingerprint … I can see where you’ve been.’

‘What are you doing?’ Ben was genuinely baffled. He looked closely at the computer screen. The article about Karine Mickelsen was open, alongside all the other tabs where he’d googled her, researching her online. Based on his search history, one might think Ben was obsessed.

‘I’m just worried about what she’s doing here. Something is off. Lily and Nate are missing school, gallivanting around at all hours of the night, bruised black and blue. I’m seriously worried and you don’t seem to be.’

‘Oh, don’t try to turn this around on me.’ Dani held up her phone. ‘There’s more.’

On her phone, Dani showed her Instagram feed. It was the shot the schoolgirl had taken of him inside his car earlier that night. Dani read out the caption while her eyes filled with tears. ‘Pervert kerb crawler … heading down to Doggers Dive.’ 243

‘What?’ Ben sat on the arm of the sofa, his hands over his face.

‘Do you know how embarrassing this is?’ Her voice was sad, resigned to her fate.

‘Dani, stop … listen to me.’ Ben leant forward and took her shoulders, gripping her hard. ‘This is all my fault. I was looking for the kids. I swear to you. I saw PC Davis down there. Ask him yourself.’

‘Oh yeah, so what did you and your old friend Chris Davis talk about?’ Dani was shaking with rage.

‘Karine’s been asking him questions, sniffing around. I’m telling you, she’s up to something.’

‘Up to what, Ben? This doesn’t make any sense.’

‘She’s here all the time, in our lives, messing with the kids, investigating the past. This film isn’t what it seems. I think she’s looking into Annie’s murder. I think she’s going to try and rake up all the details about the case.’

‘Wow, now you’re really pushing it.’ Dani got up from the armchair and made to leave. ‘It’s just a stupid horror film, Ben. You’re losing it.’

He grabbed her by the wrist. ‘I’m serious – listen to me! She’s going to try and pin it on me.’ His whole body was shaking.

Dani was quiet, finally listening. ‘Pin what on you? Annie’s death? But Patel …’

Ben convulsed as the tightness in his chest sent a wave of nausea through him. ‘Oh … love.’ He had to tell her. That’s what this pain was, something leaching on his heart. He needed to get this unbearable weight off his chest.

‘I’ve never told anyone this before.’ He rubbed at his sternum. Dani tightened her mouth with quivering breaths. ‘Chris Davis doctored the DNA test for me … I took a swab from my dad.’ 244

‘What are you talking about?’ Dani looked confused as she sat back down.

‘Before the Patel trial. He switched the sample.’

‘What?’ She retracted, folding her arms and tightening herself into a ball.

‘She was my girlfriend; my DNA would have been everywhere. I was panicking and Chris had access to the forensic team at the police station, or at least his dad did. He helped me. I didn’t know what else to do.’ Ben was white, his hands were shaking.

Dani stared at him. ‘But he went to prison, Ben.’

‘Because he was guilty.’ Ben was calm. ‘Yes … and the sentence for that crime has been served.’ The pain in his chest had lifted and his hands were still.

‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Dani stood up calmly, but her knees were trembling.

‘I’m telling you that Karine is investigating the case, and if she finds that detail out from somewhere, I’m in serious trouble. She’ll burn us to the ground.’

Dani felt light-headed. There was an awful silence.

‘I loved her. We were teenagers.’ Ben’s voice was distant and broken.

‘Ben, I think you need some time to yourself.’ Dani turned, her eyes searching for her car keys on the kitchen counter.

She had to get out of this house. ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, but I’m …

I’m going to go to my sister’s for the night.

Lily is having a sleepover at Gaynor’s and Nate is upstairs talking to God knows who on the internet. ’

She leant in for a kiss and pecked him on the cheek. Her hand touched his face and then she backed away and left the room. 245

Ben stood at the front door and listened to Dani’s car engine disappearing down the street. He turned to the door of the basement, flicked the light switch on and descended the stairs.

The service cupboard door was open and a bundle of heavy-gauge cables trailed along the floor. Ben followed them with his eyes, past the shelving covered with junk, and his wine collection, to the door at the end. The entrance to the garage was cracked open so the cables could pass through.

He opened the door and moved into the empty concrete bunker that was supposed to have been home to a collection of classic cars.

The cables trailed across the pristine floor towards the up-and-over double door.

Set up in a square, like a hide, were a number of heavy metal trunks, stacked high.

Trolleys with piles of cabling and electronics, and two LED large-screen monitors.

Ben sat in the fold-up camping chair that was set in front of them and pressed the switch on the side of the monitor.

A flicker of electronic activity burst into life as the monitor turned white, then a time code and date flashed in the corner of the screen.

He leant forward to the small electronic box below that looked like a hard drive.

He pressed play and it whirred into action.

On the screen, various thumbnails appeared with dates and times.

Shots of his children, frozen in small postage-stamp-sized icons, and other faces and names he recognised.

Ben sat with his head in his hands for a moment, then moved the cursor to ‘Davis’.

‘ Could have been another Ripper if my dad hadn’t finally got a conviction. We all knew who it was anyway .’

Ben stopped the tape. The floor felt soft under his feet and the sensation of sinking into the concrete overwhelmed him. He clicked on the next one: ‘Patel’. 246

‘ They othered him, so he buried himself in separate pursuits, solitary interests … Pity they didn’t find all the tapes .’

‘ You think there were more? ’

‘ Well, let’s just say some houses were never searched … not like ours. Like I said … shouldn’t have let them in. ’

Ben’s heart thumped inside his ribcage and his palms began to sweat as he frantically moved the cursor to fast-forward to the next thumbnail: ‘Lynette’.

‘ Stringing them all along she was. She weren’t a virgin neither. She were on the pill. Din’t tell her parents .’

He stopped the tape and pressed his fists into his temples, then smashed his knuckles hard against his skull, over and over.

Like a frenzied madman. He tore at his hair and sank to his knees, pushing his face into the rough concrete floor.

But he couldn’t cry, for help or for sorrow.

Nothing came out; he had no tears. He wanted the flesh to burn off his body right there, but he felt nothing except an excruciating pain in his chest. His head lifted to the monitor.

Ben sat in stunned silence, with his head in his hands. John Maddock had been right. This film wasn’t fiction, it was an investigation.

A steely coldness started from the crown of Ben’s head and descended through his body. His heart slowed. He looked up from his hands and into the monitor.

He knew what he had to do. He needed to put a stop to this, whatever it took.

He began to erase the hard drive.