The Siren (20 page)

She looked straight up at the toilet-bowl tinted ceiling, and promised herself that she’d swap them back to the older set of curtains on her next day off.

And that thought brought her working day into focus.

With it came that bad, empty, pit-of-the-stomach feeling. She knew it well, because it felt like guilt, but it came with the humiliation of mistakes made and the realization that she was the
greatest threat to her own chances of success. She wanted to get this job right. More than anyone knew. More than she had words to express.

She tried not to think about Marks finding her in his office; only time would tell whether she’d done any long-term damage to their relationship. Instead, she wished she’d stayed
with Kimberly; she could have spent the hours wasted both here and at Parkside by learning more about her.

Woulda-coulda-shoulda.

She kicked herself out of bed and ignored the ongoing urge to let her thoughts fester on any part of the previous day. As it turned out, she found it difficult to concentrate on any part of this
new day except Kimberly’s forthcoming press conference. Everything felt like a countdown until that moment when Kimberly would look into the camera and beg for the return of her little
boy.

Gully’s instincts told her that it would all kick off from there; that everything prior to it was just part of a holding pattern of resources, witnesses and anxious hours. And that
everything that followed would be . . . She paused, the fingers of her left hand holding her hair in place, the fingers of her right hand poised with hairclip ready.

She wasn’t sure what those next hours would hold, apart from the revelation of truths. A few truths, one truth, all the truths; she didn’t know. She just had the feeling that today
could be a big day.

She promised herself that today would be one for observing more and talking less and, with that resolution firmly in mind, she had been at work for about ten minutes before uttering her first
words of the morning.

TWENTY-SIX

From first light, Anita McVey began to make regular checks from her upstairs windows. She checked her garden and each possible approach to her house, finding that her usual
secure feeling of this being her sanctuary had deserted her. By 9 a.m. she was watching two robins bobbing back and forth between the lowest branches and her vegetable patch. As she drank her third
coffee of the day, she tried to take comfort in remembering how Harvest Path had a history of being a forgotten spot.

It had been in 1955 when the ‘Path’ had been bisected by an access road for the post-war sprawl that developed on Cambridge’s east side. The major part of the lane had been
left as a cul-de-sac, so the final six houses were marooned on the other side of the new road, accessed via an unadopted track that alternated between hard-core bumps and muddy ruts, or
alternatively by foot across the allotments.

Since 1955, four of the six had lain vacant after plans for the new road had earmarked them for demolition. Eventually they had crumbled and in a rare reversal of the progress of urbanization,
the plots they stood on had disappeared under extra allotments.

The other two, both halves of a semi-detached pair, had at the time been occupied by the Boyle family. Cedric Boyle had managed to purchase both in the late forties and for the next thirty odd
years his children and grandchildren had exercised a free hand in redesigning the house and its garden with a succession of ‘projects’ and ‘finds’.

Trainee social worker Anita McVey had first visited in ’82. The windows were open wide and ‘A Town Called Malice’ was rattling out from a large black and red portable stereo
standing on the bathroom window ledge.

A mould-covered Vauxhall Viva stood in the far corner of the overgrown lawn. Two kids were perched on its roof. They both had wedge cuts, closely clipped from the back of the neck upwards and,
even though their fringes were fairly long they both looked male. She knew from her notes that at least one of them was a girl; the Boyle children didn’t have other kids round to play. They
both wore bleached denim jeans, one wore a check shirt, the other a faded black T-shirt and a leather belt with chrome studs.

Check shirt turned out to be Darren, and chrome studs was Mandy. Anita was able to work this out herself, since Mandy’s voice definitely sounded female as she yelled out. ‘Who the
fuck are you?’

Kelvin appeared at the bathroom window, aged seventeen and obviously quite happy to flash his naked body at anyone in sight. From there on, her Boyle experiences deteriorated, till her
increasingly frequent trips into the mire of Harvest Path felt more and more like a one-way trip to the battlefront.

She had visited the family regularly for nine years, learning in gritty first-hand detail what had made the owners of the other four properties so happy to cash in at the first whiff of a
compulsory purchase order.

Then in 1991, with the last of their children safely through their truancy years, and now happily unemployed or pregnant, the Boyle parents divorced, whereupon the pair of houses had remained
abandoned for fourteen months. Despite feeling sure that she felt zero sentimentality for the whole mess, Anita found herself visiting first the empty property and then the half-empty sale room.
The property market had been dead back in ’92, so she made the only bid and found herself the proud but bewildered owner of a pair of cottages and the two lorry-loads and eleven skipfuls of
crap that were finally cleared from every corner, inside and out.

There were still moments when she wondered about the eventual fate of Darren, Mandy and the five other Boyle siblings. In fact, she knew there always would be such moments and it was her
inability to let the worst social cases leave her thoughts that prompted her to wonder what more she could do. Which led her to consider how else she could help, and finally led to her first foster
child arriving at the newly painted, freshly decorated and renamed front door of Viva Cottage.

The arrival of the first, second and every subsequent child had cracked, dented and shattered all her chintz-filled fantasies about the whole escapade. There had been a huge gap between her
original good intentions and the harsh realities of vandalism, police visits and foul-mouthed outbursts.

Two pints of cider on a Saturday night usually enabled her to smile at herself, but right now she felt nothing close to amusement. Throughout the countless times she’d heard ‘Who the
fuck are you?’, she’d never once seen herself heading to this point.

Anita knew that she’d always swum in deep waters, murky in some places, fast-flowing in others, but she’d never seen the danger. That had emerged organically, as a series of
developments that had rippled over one another and ultimately carried her too far out of her depth. She was no longer convinced that she could reach the shore, nor even had any idea whether the
tide was in ebb or flow.

The knocked-together cottages allowed Anita a view of the approaches on each side of the building, and her new habit was to thoroughly check in all directions, then to sit with a drink near the
upstairs window and watch to see if anyone should come up the pitted driveway.

As habits went she knew this wasn’t healthy, and she also knew it couldn’t continue for very much longer.

TWENTY-SEVEN

By 9 a.m. DI Marks was drawing his early-morning briefing to its conclusion.

‘In light of the similarities between the attack on Jay Andrews and the attack on Rachel Golinski, we’ll need another statement.’ Marks paused and scanned the room. Gully
thought this a slightly theatrical gesture since the only detective waiting to receive instruction was Gary Goodhew.

‘Gary,’ he continued, ‘how’s your Morse code?’

‘Dash dash dash, dash dot dash, sir.’

Bloody smartarse
, she thought. Then she realized that Marks was looking at her, and hoped she hadn’t mouthed the words.

‘Gully, I’d like you to go along with Goodhew.’

‘I thought I was going back to Kimberly Guyver?’

‘Change of plan.’ There was an edge to his tone that made one or two of the other detectives look interested, Goodhew being one of them.

For a moment she thought Marks had made a mistake. ‘But you said . . .’ she began, then instantly realized how much worse she’d just made things. When would she learn that
sometimes it was better to just nod and do what she was told.

She spent three of the final five minutes feeling like everyone in the room was thinking up some quip to deliver at her expense, then the last two asking herself whether she really was becoming
too self-absorbed. No one cared about any job allocation except their own.

Marks then dismissed them. By the time Gully left the room, Kincaide was already in the hallway, where he slipped alongside and tapped her on the elbow. ‘Bad luck,’ he whispered.

Gully stopped and turned towards him. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. She watched him carefully, less than keen to accept anyone just at face value.

Kincaide seemed earnest and genuinely interested. ‘Did you say something to upset him?’

‘Who, Marks?’

‘Yeah – why’s he suddenly reallocated you?’

Gully concentrated on looking unconcerned. ‘I have no idea. Obviously it wasn’t going as well as I thought.’

‘Really? Then maybe you should have a word with him.’

‘No, I’ll leave it. It’s embarrassing enough already,’ she said although she wasn’t even the first shade of red.

‘He’s a decent bloke,’ Kincaide persisted. ‘You should talk to him, just tell him you don’t want to be with Goodhew.’

She shook her head. Some people could just get too earnest and too interested. ‘Are you winding me up?’

Kincaide raised his eyebrows. ‘No, let me finish. Think about the resourcing situation. If you say you don’t want to be with Goodhew, where else is he going to put you but back with
Kimberly Guyver?’

‘Thanks, but I’ll stick with what I’ve been given.’

Kincaide’s voice was gentle. ‘Hey, I’m sorry.’ He shrugged and raised his palms to the ceiling. She guessed this was a gesture designed to signify his divine acceptance
of her will. Saint Kincaide: patron saint of hapless females. ‘I was just trying to help.’

‘Hey . . .’ Gully paused long enough to note how much clarity could be gained from a few hours’ decent sleep. ‘Why do you blokes always say that when you want to
manipulate? I’m starting to feel like a ping-pong ball being flipped back and forth between you and Goodhew.’

Saint Kincaide’s palms got folded into his pockets. ‘No, of course you’re not. And that’s quite insulting, actually. I’ve gone out of my way –’

‘Oh, please!’ She said it quietly but with a half-smile on her lips.

‘I have, I’m trying to make sure you don’t come unstuck. And all you do is lay into me.’

Goodhew was finally leaving the briefing room; he loitered in the doorway, having a final word with Marks. She lowered her voice further. ‘You know that’s not the case. I’ll
fight my own battles – which means I don’t need you offering me direction any more than I need to get it from
him
.’ She hooked her head towards Goodhew, just as Goodhew
turned and moved towards them.

Kincaide flashed her his warmest smile. ‘You’ll be fine.’ Then he reached out and squeezed her arm before she had the chance to move away. ‘Have fun,’ he added then
left.

‘For Pete’s sake.’ She rolled her eyes, then turned to Goodhew. He was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved, aqua-blue shirt. ‘You look like a Tommy Bahama ad.’

‘Not enough palm trees.’

‘Yeah, but that colour still belongs on a beach.’

He started towards the main stairs and she followed. He set a brisk pace and her uniform already felt like she wore too many layers. By mid-afternoon it would feel like one of the hottest places
in Cambridge. Maybe it was just the mood she was in, but she couldn’t help wondering whether Goodhew’s current choice of outfit included a small percentage of rubbing her nose in
it.

They walked the length of the building and down two flights of stairs without another word. Gully felt little desire to break the silence, so it was no surprise that Goodhew spoke first.
‘Kimberly’s found you very supportive.’

They reached the car but she dallied over sorting out her car keys even though there were only two attached to the ring. ‘She told you that, did she?’

‘I’ve just been speaking to Marks and –’

‘Oh, great.’ She rammed the correct key into the lock, but still didn’t turn it.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ Goodhew tapped the roof of the car a couple of times, but she still didn’t glance at him. ‘I said, what’s wrong with
that?’

Her better side urged her to find some way of mustering a cool and dignified silence, but her mouthy side won through, after years of virtually undefeated practice. She glared at him.
‘You’re a DC, I’m a PC. You’re new, I’m even newer. I understand that, but how would you feel if someone barely your senior was giving Marks feedback based on his cosy
chats with a witness? Huh?’

Goodhew sighed. ‘Unlock the car, Gully.’

‘And why is it you don’t drive yourself?’ She turned the key and they simultaneously opened their doors and climbed in.

‘I haven’t slept enough. Wouldn’t be safe.’

‘Firstly, we’re only going about a mile and a half across town and we’ll be lucky to get out of first gear, so no real safety issue there. And, secondly, you never seem to
drive anywhere.’

Goodhew didn’t reply.

She turned left out of the car park, and left again across the front side of the police station heading towards the junction with East Road.

‘Go straight on,’ he advised.

‘Quicker if I turn right, then left up Hills Road.’

‘No, Mill Road, Devonshire Road, then join Hills Road up by the railway station. Nothing in it.’

His tone suggested it was now an instruction, not a discussion. She let it go and drove straight on. About two hundred yards after the lights, her mouth decided to have the last word after all.
‘It’s longer this way, but whatever you want.’

He said nothing but from the corner of her eye she could see his face turned in her direction. After a couple of minutes of this she couldn’t stand the suspense and glanced across at him.
‘What?’