ago. No. Some things just happened. And no one could stop them. That was life. His life.
He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. Because even with that in his head, he knew who he was now. It had all come back to him. Even that.
His life had come back to him.
92
‘He’s getting agitated … No. That’s better. He’s calmer now.’ Marina looked through the two-way glass, kept observing him. ‘Looking at us again. Right there. Like he can see us.’
‘Pulling a gun on a kid?’ said Franks. ‘I’ll give him bloody agitated.’
Marina stood, arms folded round her body, staring at him. The observation room was small, usually managing to fit only two people at the most. Although sparsely furnished, it also served as a graveyard for deceased office furniture. The chair Franks was sitting on had seen better days back when John Major was in power. The desk he leaned on was scarred and pitted by the frustrations of a thousand investigations. The filing cabinet behind them a sixties period piece.
Franks took his eyes off Tyrell, glanced at Marina. She looked terrible. Her hair was unbrushed, her clothes dirty and torn. Huge dark rings under her eyes. He couldn’t begin to guess what she had been through the past few days.
‘Marina … ’
She kept her attention firmly on Tyrell, nodded to show she had heard.
‘Why don’t you go home? Get some rest. I can handle things from here.’
‘No.’ Still staring at Tyrell.
‘You shouldn’t be here, Marina. You shouldn’t have come back here. And you shouldn’t be working.’
Marina ignored him.
The bare-knuckle fight had been too tempting to resist for Franks and his team. As an added bonus, it had yielded a pleasant crop of minor local villains engaged in illegal activity, who were currently overcrowding the interview rooms waiting for various solicitors and mouthpieces to arrive.
In the process, though, they had lost Josephina and the woman holding her. They had, however, managed to get Tyrell, and had brought him straight back to the station.
‘Marina.’ Franks’s Welsh baritone was firm with authority. She turned to face him, reluctantly drawing her attention from Tyrell.
‘It’s after midnight. You haven’t slept in God knows when, and you shouldn’t be here.’
‘But Gary, I—’
He held up his hand. ‘Let me finish. If you are directly involved with an investigation, personally involved, then you have to withdraw. You know the rules. And no one’s more involved in this than you.’
She said nothing.
‘If we want a successful conviction, then we have to be seen to have followed correct procedure. And if I keep you here, then your role could be questioned. Am I right?’
‘With all due respect, Gary, I don’t care about that. I just want my daughter back.’
He sighed, shook his head. ‘And that’s exactly why—’
‘All right then, look at it this way,’ she said. ‘It’s just gone midnight, like you said.’ She pointed to Tyrell. ‘And he’s sitting right there, probably able to tell us where my daughter is. And you’re going to question him. Fine.’ She leaned on the desk, stared straight at Franks. ‘But look at the state he’s in. Mentally. Emotionally. You’re going to get nowhere. You’re going to need a psychologist. One who’s familiar and up to speed with what’s going on. And where are you going to get one at this time of night?’
It was Franks’s turn to say nothing.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Apart from the one standing next to you.’
Franks crossed his arms. Set his jaw. It made his features look even more bull-like.
‘Besides,’ said Marina, ‘I couldn’t go home and sleep. You know that.’
He sighed. ‘Yes. All right. But on your own head be it.’
Marina managed a small, tight smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘And if this all comes back on us, I’ll tell them it was your fault. That you talked me into it with your … psychologist’s ways.’
Despite the situation, her smile widened. ‘My psychologist’s ways?’
Franks was reddening. ‘You know what I mean. Twisting my words and all that.’
‘Fine.’ She went back to looking at Tyrell, but a new thought struck her. ‘Oh. Another thing.’
‘Oh God … ’
‘My brother. He’s … God knows where. Somewhere in this building. Can we let him go?’
Franks shook his head. ‘He was charged with taking part in an illegal activity … ’
‘He was helping me to catch the woman who had my daughter. And that’s not why you were there in the first place.’
Another sigh from Franks. ‘Fine. Right. Yes. He’s an asset to the community and a boon to the force. Let him go. Right.’
‘Thank you.’
They both looked once again at Tyrell. Marina took a deep breath. Another. She turned to Franks. ‘Ready?’
He stood up. ‘Let’s go.’
93
A my’s head was pounding. The pain sharp, intense, almost blinding. But she wasn’t going to stop. She couldn’t stop. Not yet.
The child was screaming. Screaming … screaming … screaming …
‘Shut up! Shut up, you little brat.’
Amy pulled the child along by her hair, legs kicking and flailing trying to keep up, trying to walk. Failing.
She looked round, wanting somewhere to put the kid, keep her quiet, shut her up for a while. Because there was still a chance for all this to work out. She just had to think bigger, be bolder, that was all.
The kid kept screaming, wanting its mother, trying to pull away.
Amy turned, twisted the kid by her hair. The kid screamed all the more.
‘Oh God, I’ve had enough of you … ’
She backhanded her across the face.
The kid’s eyes widened in pain and surprise. Then the screaming started again, louder even than before.
This was no good. This had to stop. She needed peace and quiet. She needed to be able to think.
She looked round the house once more. It was falling apart, almost before her eyes. Just how they’d wanted it, just how they had left it. But it had taken longer than they thought it would. She didn’t know how it made her feel being back inside. She had thought it would be strange, with ghosts haunting every room, behind every door. Triggers for memories everywhere.
But it wasn’t like that. Probably because the house was so dilapidated, so ruined, she found it hard to associate it with the home she used to know. This could be any crumbling old mansion. Any falling-apart Scooby- Doo haunted house.
But still she walked through it, room by room, familiarising herself with the layout, checking everything was still the same, as she had done when she had last been there.
The house’s footprint was the same. But things had started to rot, collapse. Curtain rails had fallen, the
