‘Don’t fuss,’ Meunier says, placing his rifle on the back seat. ‘It’s valeted every week. If you mess it up, at least they’ll earn their money.’ His lips spread further apart, and I’m struck by just how horrid it would feel to be kissed by him. Poor Mrs Meunier. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we never see her.
He throws the 4x4 into reverse and performs a thumping three-point turn. Between us, the central console holds a bulky set of keys, a folded Daily Telegraph, a black mobile phone and a Zeiss night scope. There’s also a brown leather wallet falling apart at the seams, stuffed full of cash, bank cards and receipts. Other than that, the vehicle looks like it’s just been driven from the showroom.
Meunier accelerates up the track. When the front wheels bounce over a hump, the quartered newspaper falls open, exposing half the front page.
Gretel stares up at me.
It’s such a shock that I slam back in my seat. When Meunier turns towards me I peer straight ahead, praying he won’t glance down. I need a distraction, and fast. Pointing to Fallow Field, I ask, ‘What’s the plan for next year?’
Meunier follows the thrust of my finger. ‘Personally, I want to try a biofuel,’ he says. ‘A starch crop we can convert into ethanol. Something along those lines.’
With his attention diverted, I risk another look at the paper. The headline swims in and out of focus, but two words are unmistakable: HOPE FADES …
When we pull up outside my parents’ cottage Meunier faces me. ‘Remember what I said. Don’t let me catch you in those woods again.’
‘I won’t.’
I have every intention of keeping that promise too. Perhaps I’ll get Kyle to teach me his silent walk or lend me his stinky camouflage paint. Clambering out of the Land Rover, I slam the door.
HOPE FADES.
Meunier waits a few moments before driving off. I feel his eyes on me as I trudge up the garden path.
Mairéad
Day 5
I
Nearly one hundred hours, now, since the abduction. The pressure on the investigation team is huge. Elissa’s fate is discussed on radio phone-ins, on social media, by parents collecting their kids from school. Her face appears on every news site and front page. Sightings continue to roll in, an unrelenting tide; to the control room at Winfrith; to forces across the UK. The task of logging them, prioritizing them and investigating or discounting them is a major feat of logistics.
Many of the calls come from dog-walkers on Dorset’s beaches. Karen Day, the Police Search Adviser, coordinates a huge team of officers, fire crews and civilian volunteers. Together, they search vast swathes of coast. The RNLI and coastguard provide waterborne support.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Bedford CF vans are tracked down, their owners interviewed and eliminated. The BMW driver who brake-checked Lena Mirzoyan is identified as Stuart Nicholas Pearson, an obnoxious financial adviser in his forties with a string of motoring convictions. He’s not a suspect – ANPR data shows him fifty miles away during the abduction. Officers drag him into an empty interview room regardless; leaving him there for a few hours to sweat gives everyone an odd sense of catharsis.
During her Wednesday-morning press briefing, Mairéad is fielding questions from the assembled press pack when she feels a sharp twinge of pain in her lower abdomen. For a few seconds, she cannot speak. Around the room, cameras click and flash. Journalists lean forward in their seats, eyes full of mischief. She knows what they’re thinking. Is the pressure getting too much? Are the cracks starting to show? Is she too emotional? Too fragile? Can she be trusted with this?
And all Mairéad can think, as she stares into a forest of blank lenses and boom mics, is Hold on, please hold on, stay with me, please don’t go.
She tries to say something, anything, but pain lances her abdomen once again. She wants to bend double, knows that she can’t. Mairéad’s ears fill with shouted questions. When she turns her back on the room, the journalists howl like wolves denied a kill. Halley, standing to one side, stares at her in open dismay. She pushes past him without breaking stride.
A minute later she’s in a cubicle, leaning against the partition wall. Already, the pain has retreated. But chaos rules inside her head. She cannot get her breath, cannot slow her heart.
At last, she lifts up her skirt and tugs down her underwear. There’s the evidence: two spots of blood, stark and accusatory and bleak. Her shoulders sag. And then she’s sitting, and her mobile’s in her hand, and she’s phoning Scott.
‘I was just watching you on TV,’ he says. ‘What is it? Are you OK?’
Deep breath. ‘I think it’s happening,’ she says. ‘The baby, I mean. I think I might be losing this one too.’
She’s pleased – pathetically so – by her matter-of-fact tone. The last thing either of them needs is hysterics.
‘OK,’ Scott says. ‘I’m here. I’m listening. Talk me through it.’
‘There’s … I felt some pain.’ She swallows. ‘And there’s spotting.’
Silence, on the line, for the space of two breaths.
‘Hon, listen to me. I know that’s scary, I know. And I know it’s your body, and you know what you’re feeling, and there’s no better judge. But … but those symptoms, on their own – they don’t necessarily mean you’re miscarrying. They don’t. I can be out of here in five minutes. I’ll come and pick you up. We’ll call the surgery, get Dr Michaels to refer us. I’ll drive you over to EPAU. And if—’
‘Scott, no.’ She shakes her head. ‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘I think we should get this checked out.’
‘I know. I agree. I’ll call the surgery right now. But you don’t need to come down here and get me. Seriously. I’m a big girl.’ Mairéad forces out a laugh she doesn’t feel. Truth is, if the worst really has happened, it’ll be easier to face without him there.
Perhaps, on some level, Scott understands that, because he doesn’t put up much of a fight. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m positive. Look, I’ll phone them now, see what they say, let you know how I get on. And Scott … I’m sorry.’
Mairéad hangs up before he can respond. And then she searches her contacts for the surgery. Her hands are shaking so much it’s difficult to navigate the directory.
Hold on, please hold on, stay with me, please don’t go.
She finds the number and is just about to call it when her phone starts ringing. It’s Halley.
‘Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing,’ he says, ‘stop right now. We’ve got something.’
Elissa
Day 5
I
After Elijah leaves, Elissa’s so weary that she curls around her rucksack and sleeps. When she wakes, cold and bruised from the rocky floor, she lights a fresh candle and reviews their conversation. She’s gained a few insights, particularly via his throwaway comment about the building above her head: The walls are stone, the windows are all broken and Papa’s stripped most of the tiles off the roof.
Does Elijah’s father own the cottage? Is he restoring it? Since she’s been down here, she’s heard no building work, but the cell’s partition wall and ceiling have been carefully designed to stifle sound. If he is renovating the place, he surely isn’t blind to what’s happening in the cellar, which means there’s a chance that Papa is the ghoul. If that’s true, it explains a lot of her observations about his son; Elijah, quite clearly, is one deeply troubled individual.