it was her job to do it.
A mother. That was the first time she had ever thought of herself in those terms.
Clutching the screwdriver as hard as she could, she slowly began to creep down the tunnel towards the light.
The circus was on the move again.
Phil and Anni were in the lead car on the way to Wrabness. Other cars and vans followed, creating a heavy police presence on the road. They had used the sirens and lights to get out of Colchester, moving the remains of the rush hour to one side. But on the smaller roads just their sheer number had been enough to get other vehicles to move out of the way.
Phil sat in the back seat. He ignored the satnav, looked at a map of Wrabness, tried to focus his mind on the task ahead. Trying not to think about Marina. He sighed, unable to concentrate. It was always the same in situations like this. He was supposed to be trained for what was to come, to evaluate matters on the spot and take appropriate action according to what was needed. But every situation was different. He could look at the map, prepare all he wanted, but he knew it would be pointless. He had to wait until he was there, actually in the thick of it, before a course of action would present itself.
He looked across at Anni sitting next to him. She had been silent since they got in the car. No doubt psyching herself up in the same way he was.
‘You okay? Up for this?’
She looked at him, startled, as if pulled out of a trance or a power nap. ‘Yeah. Fine.’
‘Sure?’
She nodded. Phil sensed there was more, so waited, still looking at her.
‘I’m just trying to…’ she said. ‘Trying to get my head round it all, I suppose. Clayton; now this.’
‘Tired?’
‘Utterly shagged. Caffeine, sugar and adrenalin, that’s all I am now. But that’s not what I meant, boss. It’s just… everything’s fine now. But tomorrow, whenever, when the comedown hits, what happens then?’
Phil shrugged, tried to show nonchalance. He had been asking himself a similar question. ‘That’s why we have counsellors, I suppose.’
She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and fell silent again.
Phil couldn’t think about tomorrow. He couldn’t think about the rest of the night or what they were about to do. He tried not to think about Marina.
But failed.
He had once read a story, in a comic when he was a boy, about a supervillain who had all the powers you could think of. When the hero thought of a particular power, the villain ceased to have it. That was how he felt about Marina. He tried to imagine all the fates that she could be undergoing. No matter how horrible or upsetting. He hoped that, like that superhero, if he could imagine it, it wouldn’t happen.
He couldn’t think of the comedown or the day after. All he could think of, all his world had come down to, was catching a killer, making sure Marina and Caroline Eades’ baby were safe. And Marina’s baby. But that wasn’t due for months. A shudder ran through him. Maybe Hester had already taken her away, absconded to somewhere they couldn’t find them. He hoped not. He couldn’t… He just hoped not.
It was a hope he clung on to as the angry procession approached Wrabness.
78
Hester picked the baby up. Looked at it. Eyes screwed up. Still wailing.
‘Time to go to sleep,’ she said.
She held the baby girl almost tenderly, rocking her from side to side. Shushing her as she rocked. Talking all the while.
‘Yes,’ she said to the baby, her voice low, ‘sleep. Sleep. That’s right…’
The baby’s wailing began to subside slightly. Hester looked at it, at her, smiled sadly. ‘You’ve got to go to sleep, little one. Yes… Because my husband won’t come back while you’re here. No… he won’t…’ Shushing her again. ‘So I’m afraid you’ve got to go… got to go…’
The baby was quietening down. Listening to Hester’s words, or at least the tone of her voice, allowing herself to be calmed by them.
‘Ssshh… that’s it…’
Hester smiled as the baby became still, settled.
‘Good, good baby.’ She remembered its sex. ‘Good girl…’
She smiled again, pleased she had remembered that.
The baby began to close her eyes.
‘That’s it, good girl… go to sleep… everything will be easier once you’ve gone to sleep…’
Hester began to stroke the baby’s neck.
The baby’s eyes shut.
‘So this is Wrabness, then,’ said Anni, looking round. ‘Drabness, more like.’
Phil gave a tight smile. ‘Bet they’ve never heard that one before.’
They couldn’t see much in the dark, but Phil doubted it looked better in the daytime. It was flat, bleak. Fields and trees stretched away behind them, back to the horizon. In another place those features might have seemed bucolic, but here they just made the few houses that sat on the lane look abandoned, cut off.
They had followed directions to Hillfield, the Croft house. It had taken them off the main two-lane road and on to a single-track one. They had parked at the side of the road, blocking access if anyone or anything wanted to get past. Uniforms had already started stringing up tape at either end of the road, erecting barriers.
Phil joined Anni in looking round. The trees were winter bare, the fields desolate in the darkness. He could see the river and, beyond, the lights of Harwich port burning far away on the other shore, looking as distant and unreachable as a mirage. A sign by a five-bar gate gave directions down a dirt track to the beach.
‘House is down there,’ said Phil. ‘That’s our route.’
Everyone was piling out of cars and vans. The firearms unit were good to go, guns ready, body armour in place. Everyone had been briefed. Everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing, where and when. The night was cold and sharp, yet hot and alive with adrenalin and testosterone.
‘Right,’ said Phil to the assembled team, ‘we all ready?’
Grunts and nods of assent.
‘Everyone know what they’re doing?’
More grunts and nods.
‘Good. Come on, then.’
He went to the gate, opened it. Started to walk down the dirt track. It sloped downwards towards the beach. It was unlit. The further they got from the streetlights, the darker it became. They had been issued with torches and, loath though Phil was to use them for fear of giving themselves away, he had no choice. He switched his on, still leading the way.
Down past an old house with so much junk collected in the back garden that it looked like a contemporary art installation, then past a series of brick walls, overgrown with moss, lichen and ivy. A gate at the end. Phil shone his torch in. A caravan site. Small, the vans old, at least thirty years, he would have said. Most of them were well maintained, but one in particular stood out. Even older, mildewed and rusted. He wondered briefly what kind of person came to Wrabness for their holiday. Kept going.
At the bottom of the track they came to the beach. He stopped.
‘When we reach the beach,’ said Anni next to him, ‘it means we’ve gone too far. It’s before that.’
Phil looked around. He made out the silhouettes of stilted beach houses against the starless sky, looking like marauding misshapen aliens from a fifties sci-fi film. The beach was dotted with old, rusted boats sitting marooned on the dirty wet sand. Chained and abandoned, it looked like they had come there to die. He squinted back up the track. On the opposite side to the caravan site was a field. Beyond the field was what looked like a large shack or barn. Black slatted wood, partially derelict in appearance. He turned to Anni.
