Acid Row (21 page)

He used to tell Amy how thick I was .. . then get her to say something clever to prove she took after him and not me. You end up believing it after a while." She gave an unhappy shrug.

“Did Amy believe it?”

"I didn't blame her. All she wanted was her father's approval.

Sometimes I wished he'd hit me so I could prove he was abusing me .. .

Confidence is very shallow."

"Is that why you liked Eddy Townsend? Because he gave you your confidence back?"

She nodded. "It was so easy for him. He used to come to our house regularly on business, so he knew what Martin was like." Another hollow laugh. "All he had to do was be pleasant, and I turned him into a saint. It's pathetic, isn't it? Maybe Martin's right .. . maybe I am thick."

“Or lonely,” said Tyler. "We've all been there at one time or another.

You shouldn't put yourself down."

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes again and he guessed she was holding back tears. "He started coming round when Martin wasn't there .. . that's how the affair started. Then he said he wanted to take videos of me because he couldn't stand being away from me .. . needed something to remind him that I loved him." Her voice faltered. "Oh, God! I was so flattered. Can you believe that? What sort of sad little bitch flaunts herself naked in front of a camera because a man says he loves her?"

Franny Gough, thought Tyler soberly. It was one hell of an MO.

Persuade a woman you loved her, then make movies of her masturbating.

Did any of them ask what happened to those images? Did it cross their minds they might end up on the Internet to be drooled over by millions?

“Thousands every day,” he said unemotionally. "Men do it, too. It's no big deal. We're fascinated by our bodies. We love them. We hate them. Most of all we want to know what they really look like .. . and you can't tell that from a mirror."

His kindness destroyed her. It was a while before she was composed enough to speak again. “I should have known, though.”

"What?

"That he didn't want me ... he wanted her. He was for ever asking her to dance for him or sit on his lap and tell him stories. She loved it ... it's all she ever wants to do ... make people smile. And I thought what a fantastic man he was ... so patient ... so kind. Martin just got angry when she showed off. It took the limelight away from him."

“When did you first start to worry about Eddy?”

She threaded her fingers through her hair, yanking at it. "When I found him making a video of her in the bath,“ she admitted. ”He'd been bad-tempered for weeks nothing I did pleased him then I saw him looking at her .. ." She petered into silence again.

“When was that?”

“Two weeks before we left.”

“Why didn't you leave immediately?”

"I couldn't be sure. He'd filmed her everywhere, you see ... playing in the garden, playing in the house .. . always with her clothes on. I thought maybe I was over-reacting, because I knew the sort of videos he'd made of me. And she wasn't a bit upset .. . rather the opposite really .. . she liked being filmed ... so I didn't think he'd asked her to do anything bad.“ She raised haunted eyes. ”I should have known,"

she said again.

“What happened then?”

"Nothing much for about a week, then he started being unkind to her. He wanted her to sit on his lap one evening after school, but she refused and he smacked her. After that, he just kept picking on her for no good reason."

Sexual frustration? wondered Tyler. Did he find children more attractive than the girly-looking substitutes? Or was a child who masturbated on film more profitable? “Did you ask him why?”

“No.” It was a whisper.

“Why not?”

Her eyes filled with tears. She opened her mouth to say something but the words seemed to gag in her throat. Instead she shook her head.

“You were too frightened?”

She nodded.

“Of him or of what he was going to say?”

“I thought he'd try and keep us there,” she managed.

“How could he have done that?”

She shook her head again, but whether because she didn't want to say or didn't know wasn't clear. Tyler allowed the silence to lengthen.

“Amy loved him,” she said at last. "If I'd said I was taking her away he'd have told her."

“What would she have done?”

“Made life unbearable .. . like Martin. They're very alike.” Another long pause. "I lied to her. I said Eddy was bored with her and had told me to take her away before he started hitting her."

“Which is when you went to the hotel?”

She was on surer ground. “Yes.”

“How did Amy feel about that?”

"She was difficult for a few days, but only because she was unhappy about leaving school without telling anyone. She was worried that if we kept moving she'd never make any friends .. . kept asking why we couldn't go back to Bournemouth."

“Not Southampton?”

“No. She never mentioned Eddy.”

“What explanation did you give?”

"I said if she wanted to go back to Bournemouth it would mean her living on her own with her father .. . and she said she'd rather be with me.“ She looked to Tyler for reassurance. ”She wasn't lying, you know. In all the time we were living with Eddy, Martin made no attempt to see her or contact her. She phoned him a few times .. . but he was always busy. She knows he doesn't love her .. . didn't want to be with him .. . not on her own anyway .. . even if this' she gestured round the kitchen 'wasn't what she wanted either."

Whatever Tyler's feelings for Amy before more objective than involved as he would admit himself, if he was to do his job successfully he was appalled by the terrible turmoil the child must have been suffering.

What was love? Her mother's resigned dependence on men? Her father's indifference? Townsend's lust? Ephemeral school friends Was a smile synonymous with affection? Did she dance and tell stories to feel wanted?

“Did Eddy try to contact you after you left?” he asked Laura.

“He couldn't. He didn't know where we were.”

“Nor did Martin?”

Laura shook her head.

"Would Amy have given either of them the number here? Did she write letters? Did she have the means to pay for a call or buy a stamp?"

She clasped her arms across her chest and rocked in misery. "I told her not to," she said.

“But you didn't ask?”

“I was too I hoped .. .” Her eyes filled with tears again. "She thinks I'm stupid .. . and I truly can't bear it when she lies to me."

No, thought Tyler, you'd rather delude yourself than face the truth. At least to that extent she understood herself, although whether she would ever be able to forgive herself for it was another matter.

Barry said he didn't remember Amy receiving any calls at the house, but agreed that, as he and Kimberley slept till midday, they might have come through in the mornings before she left the house. He said she'd made at least three calls from a public telephone box in town during the first week of the holidays.

“It was before she started disappearing,” he said. "The three of us went down the centre a couple of times. She made one the first day and two the next."

“How did she pay for them?”

“Reversed the charges.”

“Did you listen to what she said? Hear the name of the person?”

“Nope.”

“Where were you standing?”

“Close the first time. Miles away the second.”

“Then you'll have heard the first call. Try and remember, Barry.”

He shrugged. "I wasn't interested. You don't listen when you're not interested. She was crying, anyway, so it was embarrassing." He quailed before the inspector's irritated frown. "It might have been someone whose name began with “M”, 'cos Kim said afterwards it was fucking rude to call someone by their intial."

Tyler went upstairs to check with Kimberley, then returned to the kitchen. “What does Amy call her father?” he asked Laura.

“Daddy.”

“Not ”M“ for Martin?”

“No,” she said, rather shocked. “He'd never have let her.”

Tyler had guessed that. “Does ”M" mean anything to you? Barry and Kimberley both say she phoned someone from a public box and called them “M”. She reversed the charges so she must know them well. At the moment I can only think of Em .. . short for Emma. Did she have a schoolfriend in Southampton or Bournemouth with that name?"

The final vestiges of colour drained from Laura's face. "She swallows her Ds,“ she whispered. ”She was saying Ed."

Saturday 28 July 2001 inside 23 Humbert Street

SOPHIE HAD LOST track of time because her watch had stopped. Whenever she looked at it, it read the same as when she'd been trying to work out how long she'd been a prisoner. There was so much silence in the room she felt as if she'd been there for days. The beat of the helicopter blades came and went. The screams from the street rose and fell like a Mexican wave. She strained to pick up anything that would give a hint as to what was going on.

“It wasn't the police,” she murmured at last. "They'd have broken in by now."

“They'll have to clear the street first,” said Nicholas.

It was true, she told herself determinedly. These things did take time. How long was a piece of string? How many policemen were needed to quell a riot? Nicholas returned to staring at the wall in front of him, with only the odd nicker of his eyes towards the door betraying any kind of concern. Franck appeared to be asleep.

She couldn't understand Nicholas's composure. Was his habit of submission so ingrained that he accepted everything without question?

Did he lack imagination? Or was hers too active? She made an effort to clamp down on the endless hypotheses that took it in turns to bedevil her brain, but it was like trying to stop a runaway horse.

There was nothing to do in the oppressive silence inside that room except replay her fears.

Why was the response so delayed when she'd told Jenny she was afraid of being raped? Was something worse happening somewhere else? Supposing the police couldn't get through? What would happen? How long would they have to remain like this? What if men from the crowd banged on the door and claimed to be officers? How would Nicholas and Franck know the difference? How would she know? Should she call out? Should she stay quiet? What if the room was stormed? What did the people outside want? To frighten? To kill?

She had to talk to remain sane. “Do you have a job?” she asked Nicholas.

Reluctantly, he shifted his attention back to her. “Not any more.”

“What was it when you had it?”

“Teaching,” he said flatly.

“What kind of teaching?”

“Music.”

“What made you give up?”

“I was sacked.”

It signalled the end of the conversation unless Sophie was prepared to ask him why he'd been sacked. Which she wasn't. It was an area that she'd rather leave unexplored. She had no idea if Fay had had any real knowledge about a paedophile in the street, or whether it was rumour that had spiralled out of control, but she had to assume there was a connection between what Melanie had told her and what was happening outside.

She recalled Nicholas's discomfort when she'd asked him if he'd known Amy Biddulph in Portisfield and Franck's remark about the police causing trouble for them 'by banging on the door and making interviews about the missing girl'. The fear that the child's body was somewhere in the house kept trying to intrude, but she blotted it out to avoid panic-overload. The police would have searched for Amy, she told herself, and they certainly wouldn't have left the men unchaperoned if there was any suspicion that one or both of them were involved in her disappearance.

But which of them had been interviewed? That question could not be blotted out so easily. She wanted it to be Franck, but reason told her it was Nicholas, and she had no wish to hear him confirm it. It could only make the situation worse once secrets were out they lost their shame and she would rather keep Nicholas as an ally, however imperfect than force him to reveal that he was as bad as his father.

Again, the silence drifted. Again, she found herself concentrating on the sounds from outside. The direction had shifted. Some of it seemed to be coming from the gardens. "There are people shouting at the back now!" she exclaimed fearfully.

Nicholas heard it, too, because he glanced nervously towards the window.

“You said they couldn't get round without breaking the fences,” she accused him.

“I expect that's what they've done.”

His refusal to understand implications enraged her. "Then where are the police?“ she hissed. ”You keep saying they're out there .. . but where? They wouldn't let the crowd run riot in the gardens. That's not how it works. It's all about containment and controlled channels of escape. They seal roads, designate safe exits. I've done courses on this ... it was part of my training in hospital emergencies."

“What difference does it make?” he said quietly. "There's nothing we can do except wait."

She stared at him in disbelief. "Is that it? We hide our heads in the sand and hope the problem goes away?"

He smiled slightly. "Nothing's ever as bad as you think it's going to be," he murmured.

“No,” she snapped, stress getting the better of her. "It's usually worse. Do you know what the pain of cancer's like? Do you know how brave a person has to be to suffer the agonies of having their organs eaten away by tumours?“ She jabbed a finger at him. ”Do you know how many of them want to kill themselves? All of them. Do you know how many of them stick it out for the sake of their families?" Another ferocious jab. "All of them. So never .. . never .. . never .. . say to me again that nothing's as bad as you think it's going to be."

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't keep apologizing,” she stormed. “Do something!”

He hadn't intended it as an apology. He had spoken with genuine sympathy. Her fear was a physical thing that needed constant expression, and there was nothing he could say that would allay it. She hadn't experienced real terror before, didn't know that the mental torture of anticipation was a thousand times worse than the brief pain of reality. But it wasn't something he could teach her. She had to learn it for herself. "We could board up the window in case they start throwing stones again," he suggested.