Belle Moriarty was there one moment and gone the next. Ten years ago, she disappeared walking home from school, under the supervision of her older sister Eve. Eve has never recovered from the guilt of turning her back on her. But then Eve receives a phone call that changes everything. Belle has been found—alive. But who took her? Why did they keep her alive all these years? And now that Belle has escaped, will they try to silence her for good? With Belle in a coma and Eve receiving increasingly terrifying threats, she must discover the kidnapper's identity before they return to finish what they started...
Release date:
February 10, 2020
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
368
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I am in a bad mood. Mike had to go to work early and was gone twenty minutes before I even got out of bed. By the time I made it into the kitchen it was messy. Normally I’m the first one up even though I leave later. I need things to be a certain way before my day begins. Coffee must be brewing, and the side must be set out with my mug, spoon and the sugar pot. Mike always leaves it haphazard. It’s a little thing and normally I work around him, but today my preferred mug is already used and left sitting in the sink. I slam around the kitchen, making a fuss that no one can hear. It means that I’m late leaving, which means I’ll be late to work. It doesn’t matter really, but it’s not the point. We’ve been living together for less than a year. It’s a test of sorts. Let’s see how we fare and if we kill each other. Said way back when, in good humour, between giggles and the kind of sex you have when you only see someone once a week, and so have a chance to miss them.
He wants the whole shebang: wedding, kids, a white picket fence. I don’t know what I want, so sometimes I let him decide for us. Which is how he has come to be here, leaving things in the wrong places. Internally I suppose I still consider this place mine. It is the house I grew up in and vowed to one day leave, though I haven’t managed it yet.
Dale does her usual canine whine at being abandoned. I pat her and put her outside, slurping coffee quickly as I go. She has a kennel – it even has a heater in. It’s not the best arrangement, certainly from her viewpoint, but first and foremost in my mind is safety and safety means no dog flap. She used to go to work with Mum – the old people there loved her – but I can’t take her with me everywhere. Mike had laughed, assured me over and over that a dog flap would only open in conjunction with Dale’s chip, but I had stood firm. A panel in my kitchen that could easily be forced open and fit a small adult through wasn’t going to happen. He doesn’t understand, of course, what it’s like to live in fear.
I am used to it, so much so that it sits alongside every other feeling I have, like a prickly-toothed companion. When my sister, Belle, went missing ten years ago, we became the poster family for it. The story doled out for comparison every time someone disappeared in suspicious circumstances. Other people would read of our misery, printed on front pages, italicised in women’s mags and discussed on chat shows. What would it be like to lose a child? How would you cope? How scary.
I put my cup in the dishwasher and leave the sugar pot on the side. I pull my bike out of the shed, Dale huffing around my feet. I lock the gate and get going. It takes me fifteen minutes exactly, which makes me supremely happy. I used to commute across London to a big job working in the PR department of a bank. I’d been one of those stilettoed, suit-wearing women complete with identikit highlights and a phone constantly glued to one ear. I packed that in last year, shortly after Mum died. On a whim, some might say – a reaction to the grief – and it probably was. But she left me the house with a tiny mortgage, so I didn’t need to earn loads to ‘save for my own place’ any more, though I’m not sure I’d ever have had the guts to actually leave anyway.
Now I do the comms for a small, local charity that deals with victims of domestic abuse. The money’s awful, the hours are part-time and I’ve not had a need for any of my Louboutins since the day I started. I love it, and if I’m honest, it’s probably part of the reason I let Mike move in. The mortgage left on the house isn’t huge but it’s much easier shared between two people. He has a flat more centrally located, which he rents out. He’d be quite happy to sell it, but this way seems more sensible.
Natasha is on the phone when I arrive at the office. I put on a pot of coffee and start opening my emails. Nothing urgent. We’ve got an event coming up: our own ‘Party in the Park’ to raise awareness and funds. I’ll be overseeing it because I have experience in events. Natasha waves as I settle in and when I hear the coffee machine beep, I make us both a cup. We are always the first ones here. It’s a pretty casual place. As long as we show up Natasha is quite flexible about the hours we keep. I’m only contracted for twenty but often end up doing more.
My phone beeps with a text from Mike: Tenant called, won’t get a chance to ring back, could you?
I make a quick call. She just wanted to check a clause in the contract. I can’t answer her question, but I drop an email to our managing agent, and they will sort it out. I text back to let Mike know it’s in hand. He sends an ‘X’. He’s still in the city. It’s where we met, and I’d expected him to be the most shocked by my departure from that fast-paced life. Actually, he’d surprised me by being totally understanding. I’ve wondered since if he saw it as a good way to bring up the whole living together thing again. I can hear my best friend Mandy’s words ringing in my head. She’s always telling me I’m too suspicious. She has a point. Poor Mike. I make a mental note to try and be less of a bitch. Or at least keep it in my own head. I send back a smiley face.
Natasha is off the phone with a sigh.
I ask, ‘Bad news?’
She shrugs. ‘It was Michaela.’
‘Ah, is he back?’
She nods with an eye roll. I ask, ‘How did she sound?’
‘The usual. Confident that he’s changed. Pleading for understanding.’
The work here is enriching but can also be soul-destroying. We are front-line support for women trying to leave domestic abuse situations. It’s hard to believe how many of them get free and then go back. Michaela has recently started ‘dating’ her attacker again. A man who locked her in a separate room from her children and beat her so badly she was hospitalised for five days. She’s nice, bright. You’d never guess it.
I ask Natasha, ‘What did you say?’
‘I said it was her life and we’d be here to support her no matter what.’
‘Will you let Liz know?’ Liz Almore, Michaela’s social worker.
Natasha nods. ‘Yes, I’ll have to. Michaela knows the drill.’
Natasha makes the call while I fill out a funding spreadsheet, trying to work out what we will need for the one-day event in White-Heart Park. A local clothes shop will be giving away a series of prizes. Nothing I’d wear myself, but their floral tunics and sensible shirts seem to do a roaring trade with the suburban mummy set. I’m gathering together a list of local estate agents. They always have a load of cash in the budget and like to be linked to ‘good causes’ – probably a means for them to lessen the public rage at growing property prices. I am lucky and grateful I have the house even if it seems somehow haunted.
My desk phone rings.
‘Hello?’ Silence. ‘Hello?’ No response.
Silent calls aren’t unusual here. Neither are abusive calls from husbands and partners who consider themselves wronged by us. I wait a second, two, then hang up.
Mandy comes in with a crooked smile, a too-long scarf and a blast of icy air. She shivers dramatically. ‘It’s bloody cold out there.’
I ask her, ‘Want a coffee?’
‘Oh yes, two sugars please. It’s too chilly to be thinking about diets.’
I smile and bring her a mug, knowing that with each sip that is exactly what she’ll be thinking about. I’ve known Mandy since college and she’s always been on some kind of diet. Personally, I’ve never thought she needed it, but her weight is her obsession. She got me the job here – she has also never left our hometown, even after her parents moved to Chichester – and it’s been nice to spend more time together.
My mobile rings with a withheld number but I’m on a call already dealing with Baxters. The smarmy prick manager at the estate agency is blathering on about their recent successes and I make appropriately impressed noises at just the right moments. When I hang up, my phone rings again. Withheld. I usually avoid them but since it’s the second time and no voicemail, I grab it at the last minute.
‘Hello?’
I listen to the voice on the other end of the phone and everything shifts. The office becomes wobbly. The documents on my computer screen blur at the edges. By the time I respond and hang up, Mandy is kneeling beside me. I can see her mouth moving but I can’t hear the words.
I watch her for a moment, then all the sound and colour flood back in and I hear her voice …
‘Eve, Eve, are you all right?’
And then Natasha is next to her. ‘What’s the matter, Eve?’
I sit, staring dumbly for a few more seconds before I realise Mandy is holding my hand. Always so tactile. I squeeze it firmly and ask her, ‘Can you drive me to the hospital?’
‘Oh my God, what’s happened? Is it Mike?’ Her face is screwed up in concern.
I shake my head and for some reason I laugh. Stupid and inappropriate.
‘No. No, it’s not Mike. It’s Belle. They think they’ve found Belle.’
CHAPTER TWO
Belle is three years younger than me. Our father was never around. Mum met him in her thirties and though she didn’t talk about him much, from what I could gather he’d been married when they met. She’d believed him when he said he’d leave his wife. He was ten years her senior and also her boss. That was all I knew.
Our grandparents were appalled. My mother was bright, university educated. They didn’t understand how she could be so stupid. I tended to agree with them but Mandy, the hopeless romantic, has always tried to persuade me love is blind and all-consuming.
Either way, there we were. A little family of three because dear Dad’s wife insisted they move when she found out about us. And not just down the road either. They’d upped sticks and fled to the other side of the country. At first my mother said he sent letters and money. Eventually that all stopped. Mum accepted it and got on with the business of raising us. She was what you’d call a grafter, and her parents helped put the deposit down on the house, so we weren’t poor, but there wasn’t a lot left either. Mum worked long shifts at an old people’s home, nights when we were little and her parents could help out, and then longer day shifts once we started school. Grandad passed away the year Belle turned twelve and Grandma followed close behind. My mum declared that we were probably old enough to be seeing ourselves back from school by then anyway, and she should have been right.
The day that Belle went missing, she had been in a particularly annoying mood. We’d recently started walking home with a boy called Robert Anderton. Looking back, I definitely had my eye on him, though I didn’t think of it like that back then. I just knew I wanted to be near him and when our hands touched, it made my tummy feel funny.
The three of us had been walking home that day, Belle in a mood because I was ignoring her. Eventually she started lagging behind. We got to Robert’s house first and he hugged me – the highlight of my day. He’d gone in and I started calling for Belle.
When she didn’t answer I figured she was still sulking. She was a dab hand at it, and I remember worrying that she’d tell Mum on me. I want to say that I had some sort of sixth sense, but I’d be lying. All I felt as I called out for my annoying little sister was peeved that she wasn’t answering. I gave up after ten minutes, yelling into thin air that if she wanted to sulk, fine, and I was going to tell Mum before she did, anyway. I fully expected her to be there when I opened the front door – we both had keys. But she wasn’t. I called Mum at work and she was short, sharp and angry. Telling me that leaving Belle had been irresponsible and that I’d been trusted to keep an eye on her. She told me I’d better go look. I took my bike and cycled around for about half an hour. By the time I got in and called Mum back, the panic had taken root.
Everything after that is a blur. Mum’s voice the second time I’d rung. High-pitched and fraught. Her coming home.
Fear knotted in my stomach. A knot that has never left, some days worse than others.
Mandy is driving us to the hospital now. She’s chattering incessantly, which is her way. Always has been. It gets worse when she’s nervous, and she’s blathering on about Belle and having siblings, and I can’t quite keep up with the noise so I tune her out.
After Belle disappeared our house had been like a hive for the next week or so. Filled with police officers. Mum sat, white as a sheet. Desperate and quiet. Reporters camped out on our lawn and I cried until I fell asleep every night, knowing I would never forgive myself and thinking about how much I loved Belle. Even when she was annoying. The last thing I’d said to her was ‘I’m telling.’
We get to the hospital and although the machine is happy to dispense a ticket, there aren’t any parking spaces. In the end we make one up alongside a grass verge. Mandy gets out and double-checks that people can still get around the car. I watch, resisting the urge to snap that I don’t care, I just want to see Belle. But when she opens the door, I can’t seem to move out of my seat.
She reaches down and puts an arm around me. ‘Come on, Eve.’
I look up at her, my kind and loyal friend. I’m too scared to move. She sets herself lower beside the car and reaches for my handbag. She pulls out a packet of Marlboro Lights and a lighter, lighting the cigarette and putting it in my shaking hand. My illusion that I am a secret smoker is shattered but I inhale gratefully. I feel my shoulders relax slightly and my breathing even out.
When I’m done, I climb out of the car and we walk in through the hospital doors, looking for the intensive care unit. The hospital is a maze – they always are, aren’t they? Mandy has to stop twice and ask for directions. We are given a long-winded explanation by a woman who looks too old to be out of the house, let alone work here. I stand mutely, hands hanging by my sides, feeling altogether too big for my body.
Finally, Mandy makes sense of what the old girl is on about and we are on the move again. We wait for the world’s slowest lift. Mandy sneaks worried glances at me while we stand. I pretend not to notice because I don’t want her to ask me any questions. Like how I might be feeling. I wouldn’t have an answer.
Eventually the lift arrives and starts a slow crawl to the fifth floor. At the second floor, an old man on a bed is wheeled in and we move backwards. His skin is papery thin, almost translucent. The disappearance of age. I look down at my own hands and am reassured by the plump green veins. I imagine I can see the blood flowing. I am alive. The old man moans and one of the porters pushing him pats his arm. It is brittle, stick-like, ready to snap at too much pressure. They get off on level four, then it is our turn. Mandy has my elbow. I feel her warm, soft hand gently leading me, and then we are at reception and everything starts to speed up.
When Mandy tells them who I am, people seem to appear from nowhere. We are led to a room at the end of a wide hallway that smells of bleach. I am sat down by an incredibly young-looking female police officer. She asks if I’d like a cup of tea and I shake my head. She says we’re waiting for DI Locke, as if I should somehow know who that is. I nod. Mandy sits close. I can feel her left breast pressing against my arm. It’s comforting. I turn to her and she smiles reassuringly.
A tall man walks into the room and baby cop stands immediately. I assume this is the detective. I get the impression I ought to stand or somehow greet him as well, but I’m not convinced my knees would stay locked and support me, so I remain sitting, looking up at him like a small, baffled child. He sits opposite me and I can see that despite his serious expression he is very good-looking. My eyes wander to his hands. Big. He’d be able to circle my waist with both of them.
‘Hello, Eve. Thank you for coming so quickly.’ His voice is a low rumble.
I want to say of course I did but my mouth doesn’t seem ready for words yet, so I just nod. He stares at me. He has the kind of eyes that make you feel truly seen. I move mine away to focus on my feet.
Mandy says, ‘We only work around the corner.’
I watch him smile at her and she blushes, realising, perhaps, that it’s a pointless thing to say.
He gets out a tiny spiral notepad and opens it, glancing at rows of scrawled notes.
‘At ten a.m. a woman was brought into A&E. She’d been hit by a car and had suffered several serious injuries. She was stabilised and brought into intensive care. We were called in as she had no ID, no possessions, and was dressed in thin pyjamas, no shoes or underwear.’
It’s cold today. Bitterly so. Without gloves my hands would have become chapped on my cycle to work. She must have been freezing.
I resist the urge to scream or cry. Instead I nod.
‘The young woman appears to be in her early to mid-twenties.’ Belle would be twenty-three.
I’m itching to ask, but I know he’s about to tell me.
‘The woman has a very distinctive birthmark on her right shoulder covering a large portion of her shoulder blade.’
He checks to see if I’m listening – I nod. He goes on, ‘We started to look for information on missing persons in the area, thinking someone may have reported her. Your sister’s name came up. A picture of her birthmark provided ten years ago seems to match.’
Oh, God. I should be saying something, but I don’t know what. I look to Mandy, who pats my hand and asks me, ‘Do you want to see her, Eve?’ I nod. Mandy looks at DI Locke. ‘Can she?’
‘Yes, though I need to warn you that she is currently in an induced coma and has suffered a lot of injuries. In light of who we think she is, she’s being kept in a private room, and I have officers posted outside her door.’
‘Thank you,’ I say and am appalled to hear my voice come out low and wispy.
He says, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but we’d like to speak to you in more detail once you’ve seen her.’
I nod again, and Mandy says, ‘Of course,’ into my silence.
A nurse is there and leads us back up the hallway. We pass other beds. People in varying degrees of incapacitation lined up like the living dead. I am ridiculously pleased that she has her own room and isn’t here among them. Outside of a door that is half chequered glass, half white plyboard, there are two uniformed officers. Men. Nondescript. They stand as we arrive. Locke stops to talk to them. The nurse opens the door, and Mandy and I follow her in.
CHAPTER THREE
Lying in the bed, covered in tubes, and stick-thin, is a ghost.
I feel my breathing change and Mandy’s hand tightening on my arm. I lean in and hear a horrible mewing sound that I realise is me. I am bombarded by everything at once – thoughts, a wave of nausea and a deep heart-wrenching longing for my mother. It is the thought of my mum that makes me move out of Mandy’s grasp and walk over to the bed. I look down at Belle. It’s really her. Tubes seem to come out of every orifice. I ask the nurse what they are for and she talks me through the one that is helping her breathe, the one that is hydrating her, the one that is feeding her. Other lines administer pain relief and antibiotics. She is half woman, half machine. I look at her face. There are two thin strips of tape over her eyes. The nurse explains it’s to stop them opening.
I ask, ‘Is she still in a coma?’
‘Of sorts. We’re keeping her under sedation.’
‘Why?’
‘Right now the pain would be overwhelming. We want to get her stabilised and then we’ll wake her.’
Overwhelming. Pain.
‘Will she …?’ I want to a. . .
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