Shatter (38 page)

‘You never stop worrying,’ says Chambers. ‘You worry through the pregnancy, the birth, the first year and every year that fol ows. You worry about them catching the bus, crossing the road, riding a bike, climbing a tree… You read stories in newspapers about terrible things happening to children. It makes you frightened. It never goes away.’

‘I know.’

‘And then you think how they grow up so quickly and suddenly you don’t have a say any more. You want them to find the perfect boyfriend and the perfect husband. You want them to get their dream job. You want to save them from every disappointment, every broken heart, but you can’t. You never stop being a parent. You never stop worrying. If you’re lucky, you’re going to be around to pick up the pieces.’

He turns away but I can see his misery reflected in the window.

‘Do you have a photograph of Tyler?’ I ask.

‘Maybe at home. He didn’t like cameras— even at the wedding.’

‘How about a photograph of Helen? I haven’t seen a proper one. The newspapers had a snapshot of her in Greece taken before the sinking.’

‘It’s the most recent one we had,’ he explains.

‘Do you have any others?’

He hesitates and glances at Julian Spencer. Then he opens his wal et and pul s out a passport-sized print.

‘When was it taken?’ I ask.

‘A few months ago. Helen sent it from Greece. We had to organise a new passport for her— in her maiden name.’

‘Would you mind if I borrowed this?’

‘Why?’

‘Sometimes it helps me to understand a crime if I have a photograph of the victim.’

‘Is that what you think she is?’

‘Yes. She was the first.’

Ruiz hasn’t said anything since we left the lawyer’s office. I’m sure he has an opinion but he won’t share it until he’s ready. Maybe it’s a legacy of his former career but there’s an aura of no-place and no-time about him that releases him from the normal rules of conversation. Saying that, he’s noticeably mel owed since he retired. The forces within him have found equilibrium and he’s made peace with whatever patron saint looks after atheists. There’s a patron saint for everything else, so why not for non-believers?

Everything about this case has shimmered and shifted with emotion and grief. It’s been hard to focus on particular details because I’ve spent so much time dealing with immediate concerns such as Darcy, worrying what’s going to happen to her. Now I want to take a step back in the hope I can see things in some sort of context, but it’s not easy to let go from the face of a mountain.

I can understand why Bryan and Claudia Chambers were so angry and inhospitable when we visited their estate. Gideon Tyler has stalked them. He has fol owed their cars, opened their mail and left obscene souvenirs.

The police couldn’t stop the harassment, so the Chambers gave up co-operating and took their own security measures, organising round-the-clock protection with alarms, motion sensors, intercepts and bodyguards. I can understand their reasoning, but not Gideon’s. Why is he stil looking for Helen and Chloe, if that’s what he’s doing?

There is nothing artless and spur-of-the-moment about Gideon. He is a bul y, a sadist and the control freak who has careful y and systematical y set out to destroy his wife’s family and to kil each of her friends.

It wasn’t purely for pleasure— not in the beginning. He was looking for Helen and Chloe. Now it’s different. My mind goes back to Christine Wheeler’s mobile phone. Why did Gideon keep it? Why not dispose of her mobile or leave it in Christine’s car? Instead he took it back to Patrick Ful er’s flat, where Patrick’s sister unwittingly used the mobile to order a pizza. It almost brought his plans unstuck.

Gideon bought a charger. Police found the receipt. He charged the battery so he could look at the phone’s memory. He thought it might lead him to Helen and Chloe. It’s the same reason he broke into Christine Wheeler’s house during her funeral and opened the condolence cards. He must have hoped that Helen would turn up to the funeral or at the very least send a card.

What does Gideon know that we don’t? Is he delusional or in denial or does he have some insight or information that has escaped everyone else? What good is a secret if no one else knows of its existence?

Ruiz has parked the Merc in a multi-storey behind the law courts. He unlocks the door and sits behind the wheel, staring over the rooftops where gul s wheel in spirals like sheets of newspaper caught in an updraft.

‘Tyler thinks his wife is stil alive. Any chance he’s right?’

‘Next to none,’ he answers. ‘There was a coronial inquest and a maritime board of inquiry.’

‘You got any contacts in the Greek police?’

‘None.’

Ruiz is stil motionless behind the wheel, his eyes closed as if listening to the slow beat of his own blood. We both know what has to be done. We need to look at the ferry sinking. There must be witness statements, a passenger manifest and photographs… Someone must have talked to Helen and Chloe.

‘You don’t believe Chambers.’

‘It was one half of a sad story.’

‘Who has the other half?’

‘Gideon Tyler.’

49

Emma is awake, mewling and snuffling in the grip of a dream. I slip out of bed half-asleep and go to her bed, cursing the coldness of the floor and stiffness of my legs.

Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut and her head rocks from side to side. Reaching down, I put my hand on her chest. It seems to cover her entire ribcage. Her eyes open. I pick her up and hold her against me. Her heart is racing.

‘It’s OK, sweetheart. It was only a dream.’

‘I saw a monster.’

‘There are no monsters.’

‘It was trying to eat you. It eated your arm and it eated one of your legs.’

‘I’m fine. Look. Two arms. Two legs. Remember what I told you? There are no monsters.’

‘They’re just make believe.’

‘Yes.’

‘What if he comes back?’

‘You have to dream about something else. How about this— you dream about your birthday parties, fairy bread and jel y beans.’

‘Marshmal ows.’

‘Yes.’

‘I like marshmal ows. The pinks ones, not the white ones.’

‘They taste the same.’

‘Not to me.’

I set her down and tuck her in and kiss her on the cheek.

Julianne is in Rome. She left on Wednesday. I didn’t get a chance to see her. By the time I arrived home from the Fernwood Clinic, she’d already gone.

I talked to her last night on the phone. Dirk answered her mobile when I cal ed. He said Julianne was busy and would cal back. I waited over an hour and cal ed again. She said she didn’t get my message.

‘So you’re working late,’ I said.

‘Nearly finished.’

She sounded tired. The Italians had changed their demands, she said. She and Dirk were redrafting the entire deal and approaching the major investors again. I didn’t understand the details.

‘Wil you stil be coming home tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you stil want me to come to the party?’

‘If you want to.’ It wasn’t an enthusiastic affirmative. She asked about the girls and about Imogen and Ruiz, who went back to London yesterday. I told her everything was fine.

‘Listen. I have to go. Give my love to the girls.’

‘I wil .’

‘Bye.’

Julianne hung up first. I held on, listening, as if something in the silence was going to reassure me that everything was fine and by tomorrow she’d be home and we’d have a wonderful weekend in London. Only it didn’t feel OK. I kept picturing Dirk in her hotel room, answering her mobile, sharing a room service breakfast. I’ve never had these thoughts before, never doubted, never fretted; and now I can’t tel if I’m being paranoid (because Mr Parkinson wil do that to you every time) or whether my suspicions are justified.

Julianne has changed, but then so have I. When we first met, she sometimes asked me if there was something caught in her teeth or wrong with her clothes because people were staring at her. She had so little sense of her own beauty that she didn’t recognise the attention it garnered.

It doesn’t happen so much now. She’s more cautious and wary of strangers. The events of three years ago are to blame. She no longer smiles at strangers or gives money to beggars; or offers to provide directions to people who are lost.

Emma has fal en back to sleep. I tuck her elephant next to the bars of the cot and ease the door shut.

On the far side of the landing, I hear Charlie’s voice.

‘Is she al right?’

‘She’s fine. It was a nightmare. Go back to sleep.’

‘Got to go to the loo.’

She’s wearing baggy pyjama pants that sit low on her hips. I didn’t think she’d ever have hips or a proper waist. She was straight up and down.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she says, standing at the bathroom door.

‘Sure.’

‘Darcy ran away.’

‘Yes.’

‘Wil she come back?’

‘I hope so.’

‘OK.’

‘OK, what?’

‘Nothing. Just OK.’ And then, ‘Why doesn’t Darcy want to live with her aunt?’

‘She thinks she’s old enough to look after herself.’

She nods, leaning against the doorframe. Her hair fal s in an arc across one eye. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if Mum died.’

‘Nobody is going to die. Don’t be so morbid.’

She’s gone. Tiptoeing back to bed, I lie awake. The ceiling seems far away. The pil ow next to me is cold.

There has been no word on Gideon Tyler. Veronica Cray has cal ed once or twice, keeping me informed. Gideon isn’t listed on the voting rol s or telephone directories. He doesn’t have a UK bank account or a credit card. He hasn’t visited a doctor or a hospital. He didn’t sign a lease or pay a bond. Mr Swingler took six months rent in advance, in cash. Some people walk softly through life, Gideon has barely left a footprint.

Al we seem to know for certain is that he was born in Liverpool in 1969. His father, Eric Tyler, is a retired sheet metal worker living in Bristol. Ful of gristle and bone and ‘fuck-you’

animosity, he abused police through the letterbox and refused to open the door unless he saw a warrant. When he was eventual y interviewed he harped on about his children letting him starve.

There is another son, an older one, who runs a stationery supply company in Leicester. He claims he hasn’t seen or spoken to Gideon in a decade.

Gideon joined the army at eighteen. He served in the first Gulf War and in Kosovo as a peacekeeper after the Bosnian War. According to Patrick Ful er he transferred to the Army Intel igence Corp in the mid-nineties and we know from Bryan Chambers that he trained at the Defence Intel igence and Security Centre at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.

Initial y, he was stationed in Northern Ireland and later transferred to Osnabrück, Germany, as part of the NATO Immediate Reaction Force. Normal y British servicemen do tours of only four years, but for some reason Gideon stayed on. Why?

Every time I contemplate what he’s done and what he’s capable of, I feel a rising sense of panic. Sexual sadists do not stay silent. They won’t go away.

Everything about his actions has been deliberate, unperturbed and almost euphoric. He believes he is cleverer than the police, the military, the rest of humanity. Each of his crimes has been a little more perverse and theatrical than the last. He is an artist, not a butcher— that’s what he’s saying.

The next one wil be the worst. Gideon failed to kil Maureen Bracken, which means his next victim takes on added significance. Veronica Cray and her team are tracing every one of Helen Chambers’ old schoolfriends, university buddies and workmates, particularly those with children. It’s a massive task. She doesn’t have the personnel to guard al of them. Al she can do is provide them with a mugshot of Gideon Tyler and make them aware of his methods.

These are the thoughts that fol ow me into sleep, sliding between shadows, echoing like someone walking behind me.

Saturday morning. There are chores to do before I leave for London. The vil age is having a fête.

Local shops, clubs, and community groups have set up stal s, draping their tables with bunting and gimmicky signs. There are second-hand books, homemade cakes, handicrafts, dodgy DVDs and a pile of cheap dictionaries from the mobile library.

Penny Havers, who works in a shoe-shop in Bath, has brought stacks of boxes— most of them one-size only, overly large or ridiculously smal , but very cheap.

Charlie walks through the vil age with me. I know how this works. As soon as she sees a boy she’s going to drop a dozen paces behind me and pretend to be on her own. When there are no boys, she makes me stop and look at fake jewel ery and clothes she doesn’t need.

Everyone is excited about the annual rugby clash between Wel ow and our nearest neighbours, Norton St Philip, three miles away. It’s on this afternoon on the rec behind the vil age hal .

Wel ow is one of those vil ages that lay almost undiscovered until the mid-eighties, when its population swel ed with commuters and sea-changers. The influx has slowed, according to the locals. Property prices have soared out of the reach of weekend visitors, who gaze in the vil age estate agent’s window, daydreaming about owning a stone cottage with roses climbing over the door. The dream lasts as long as the M4 traffic jam getting back into London and is forgotten completely by Monday morning.

Charlie wants to get a Hal oween mask: a rubbery monster with glow in the dark hair. I tel her no. Emma is already having nightmares.

There is a policeman on traffic duty outside the post office, directing cars into neighbouring fields. I think of Veronica Cray. She’s in London today, knocking on doors at the MOD and Foreign Office, trying to discover why nobody wants to talk about Tyler. So far al she’s managed to get is a single line statement from the Chief of Defence Staff: ‘Major Gideon Tyler is absent without leave from his unit.’

Ten words. It could be a cover-up. It could be denial. It could be a classic example of true British brevity. Whatever the reason, the outcome is the same— an echoing, uncomfortable, unfathomable silence.

Apart from the mugshot taken of Gideon ten days ago, under Patrick Ful er’s name, there is no photograph of him that is less than a decade old. CCTV footage of him entering the UK