‘I have no idea,’ said Bretherick. ‘All I know is Geraldine asked if she and Lucy could come with me, and I was delighted. It was much nicer not to go alone.’

‘I’ve been told that Lucy said to a friend of hers, “My mummy hates it when I play with Amy. She and my granny think Amy’s a bad lot.” She’s also supposed to have said, “Amy’s not horrible all the time, but I’m glad my mummy doesn’t like her because now we can go to Disney World.” ’

‘It’s possible.’ Bretherick shrugged. ‘Lucy’s understanding of the way people’s minds worked was… advanced for a child of her age.’

‘Geraldine didn’t work,’ said Sam to Bretherick and Goddard equally. ‘We’ve established that she rarely went on holiday. Would someone have risked burying two bodies in her garden while she nipped to the shops or round to a friend’s house? They’d have had to dig for hours, and lay new lawn afterwards.’

Bretherick’s eyes sparked with excitement. ‘The bodies in the garden: how long had they been there? Do you know?’

‘The pathologist couldn’t be precise, but-’

‘They were buried while we were in Florida, weren’t they? Whoever killed them knew we’d be away, knew he’d have time to… And that part of the garden, where they were found, isn’t overlooked.’

There was something that hadn’t occurred to Mark Bretherick and maybe never would: among the people who had known about the trip to Florida was Geraldine herself. Had she arranged to go abroad with her husband and daughter in order to leave the coast clear for a double murder and burial? Or perhaps only a burial-the murders might already have been committed. In which case, Geraldine had either had an accomplice or was herself an accomplice.

‘William Markes.’ Bretherick slapped the table with the flat of his hand. ‘Find out if he’s the father of a child at St Swithun’s.’

‘We’ve already checked,’ Sam told him. ‘There are no children with the surname Markes.’

‘Is there something wrong with you mentally? What about any single mothers, or divorced ones who might have changed their names back, and their children’s? What about cohabiting parents, where the kids have got the mother’s name? Or mothers who have got new boyfriends or partners, father-substitutes? Start with Lucy’s class and don’t stop until you’ve checked the background of every child in the school. And then check the teachers, and their husbands and partners.’

Cordy O’Hara had a new boyfriend, baby Ianthe’s father. What was his name? Sam saw Paula Goddard watching him, amused. Should he end the interview now, he wondered, or wait for Mark Bretherick to dismiss him?

He didn’t have to wait long. ‘Come back and tell me when you’ve found Markes,’ said Bretherick. ‘And you…’ He swung round in his seat to face Goddard. ‘Make sure they check properly. I’ve said right from the start: William Markes killed Geraldine and Lucy.’

13

Friday, 10 August 2007

I hear a clinking sound, like two glasses banging together. Cheers. A noise I’ve heard before. I’m not dreaming. Opening my eyes rearranges the chunks of raw pain in my head. I have to close them again.

He held the gun to my forehead and made me swallow a pill. When was that? Last night? Two hours ago or twelve? He said it was a vitamin pill and would do me good. I thought at the time that it tasted familiar and safe. I didn’t mind taking it, not as much as I mind everything else. It must have knocked me out.

My feet are tied. I can’t move them. I open my eyes more slowly this time and find myself face down on the leather massage table. I prop myself up on my elbows, turn to look at the rest of my body and realise what’s restricting the movement in my feet: it’s the hard loop at the end of the table. I’m lying the wrong way round, with my head at the bottom. He must have put me like this, with my feet threaded through the stiff noose. Why? Is there a reason for anything he’s doing to me?

Zoe and Jake. I have to speak to them. I have to persuade him to give me my phone again. I see them clearly in my mind, tiny and far away, two little flares of colour and hope in the darkness: my precious son and daughter. Oh, God, please, please, get me out of here.

The clinking noise… Thinking about the children brings my memories of home into focus: it was the sound of a milkman putting down bottles, I’m sure of it. Zoe and Jake are milk addicts, and we have three pints a day delivered. Our milkman comes later than most, between seven and seven thirty. When Nick and I hear the glassy jangle of bottles banging together-the same sound I’ve just heard outside the window of this room-we grin at one another and say, ‘Whose turn?’ On my days, all three bottles are brought in together and put straight in the fridge. On Nick’s, he goes down for one bottle at a time, as and when he needs them, because carrying one bottle upstairs is easier than carrying three. In winter, for added annoyingness, he says daily, ‘It’s as cold outside as it is in the fridge, so the bottles might as well sit out there. It’s not as if anyone’s going to nick them.’ Once he added, ‘This is Spilling, not… Hackney.’

‘Why Hackney of all places?’ I snapped.

‘Didn’t you know? It’s the milk-bottle-theft capital of the UK.’

I swivel my body into a sitting position, trying to quell the storm of panic that’s raging inside me. I love Nick. I love our flat, with its too many stairs. I love everything about my life, even every bad experience I’ve ever had-apart from this, what’s happening to me now.

Across my shoulders and the top of my back, there are three distinct centres of pain. Did I fall on to some railings, something with sharp points? It seems unlikely. Ludicrous. I can’t move or think quickly, and I know I must do both if I’m to have a hope of escaping. My chest is itchy beneath my shirt, and my clothes are as twisted and uncomfortable as they were the last time I woke up in this room.

I pick up the towel that’s draped across the massage table, bring it to my face and inhale. That fruity smell again, but stronger. And-oh, God-now I recognise it: orange blossom. My masseur at Seddon Hall used it on me. I told Mark… I told the man who has locked me up that I loved it.

And he remembered, and he bought some, just like he bought the massage table…

I jump to my feet, pull off my shirt, losing a button in the process, and smell the inside of it: orange blossom. No, no, no. I reach over my shoulder and touch my back. It’s oily; my fingertips skid. He has given me a massage. That’s why there are sore patches across my shoulders. While I’ve been unconscious, he has been kneading and pressing my skin with his fingers. And… the itching on my chest. I look down. My bra is on the wrong way round: the semicircular lines of sewn-on pink roses have been rubbing against my skin.

I stifle a scream. I don’t want to wake him up. The darkness is still lifting outside, the milkman’s just been; it must be between 4 and 5 a.m. Which means he might well be asleep. If he doesn’t wake until, say, seven, that gives me two hours.

To do what?

Crying hard, I take off my bra and check the skin beneath for oil. I find none. Next I take off my trousers and run my hands up and down my legs, front and back, over the scabs and bruises on my knees. No sign of any oil, but… My knickers are also on the wrong way round. I press my clenched fist into my mouth so that no sound escapes. Tears drip over my fingers and down my arm. What has he done to me?

Eventually, I force myself to move. I put my clothes back on and start to walk up and down the room, try to clear my head. Nick is always accusing me of working myself into a state if I can’t solve the whole problem in one stroke. What would he do?

He would bring in the milk bottles one at a time.