It doesn’t happen so much now. She’s more cautious and wary of strangers. The events of three years ago are to blame. She no longer smiles at strangers or gives money to beggars; or offers to provide directions to people who are lost.
Emma has fallen back to sleep. I tuck her elephant next to the bars of the cot and ease the door shut.
On the far side of the landing, I hear Charlie’s voice.
‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine. It was a nightmare. Go back to sleep.’
‘Got to go to the loo.’
She’s wearing baggy pyjama pants that sit low on her hips. I didn’t think she’d ever have hips or a proper waist. She was straight up and down.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she says, standing at the bathroom door.
‘Sure.’
‘Darcy ran away.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will she come back?’
‘I hope so.’
‘OK.’
‘OK, what?’
‘Nothing. Just OK.’ And then, ‘Why doesn’t Darcy want to live with her aunt?’
‘She thinks she’s old enough to look after herself.’
She nods, leaning against the doorframe. Her hair falls in an arc across one eye. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if Mum died.’
‘Nobody is going to die. Don’t be so morbid.’
She’s gone. Tiptoeing back to bed, I lie awake. The ceiling seems far away. The pillow next to me is cold.
There has been no word on Gideon Tyler. Veronica Cray has called once or twice, keeping me informed. Gideon isn’t listed on the voting rolls or telephone directories. He doesn’t have a UK bank account or a credit card. He hasn’t visited a doctor or a hospital. He didn’t sign a lease or pay a bond. Mr Swingler took six months rent in advance, in cash. Some people walk softly through life, Gideon has barely left a footprint.
All we seem to know for certain is that he was born in Liverpool in 1969. His father, Eric Tyler, is a retired sheet metal worker living in Bristol. Full of gristle and bone and ‘fuck-you’ animosity, he abused police through the letterbox and refused to open the door unless he saw a warrant. When he was eventually interviewed he harped on about his children letting him starve.
There is another son, an older one, who runs a stationery supply company in Leicester. He claims he hasn’t seen or spoken to Gideon in a decade.
Gideon joined the army at eighteen. He served in the first Gulf War and in Kosovo as a peacekeeper after the Bosnian War. According to Patrick Fuller he transferred to the Army Intelligence Corp in the mid-nineties and we know from Bryan Chambers that he trained at the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.
Initially, he was stationed in Northern Ireland and later transferred to Osnabruck, Germany, as part of the NATO Immediate Reaction Force. Normally British servicemen do tours of only four years, but for some reason Gideon stayed on. Why?
Every time I contemplate what he’s done and what he’s capable of, I feel a rising sense of panic. Sexual sadists do not stay silent. They won’t go away.
Everything about his actions has been deliberate, unperturbed and almost euphoric. He believes he is cleverer than the police, the military, the rest of humanity. Each of his crimes has been a little more perverse and theatrical than the last. He is an artist, not a butcher- that’s what he’s saying.
The next one will be the worst. Gideon failed to kill Maureen Bracken, which means his next victim takes on added significance. Veronica Cray and her team are tracing every one of Helen Chambers’ old schoolfriends, university buddies and workmates, particularly those with children. It’s a massive task. She doesn’t have the personnel to guard all of them. All she can do is provide them with a mugshot of Gideon Tyler and make them aware of his methods.
These are the thoughts that follow me into sleep, sliding between shadows, echoing like someone walking behind me.
Saturday morning. There are chores to do before I leave for London. The village is having a fete.
Local shops, clubs, and community groups have set up stalls, draping their tables with bunting and gimmicky signs. There are second-hand books, homemade cakes, handicrafts, dodgy DVDs and a pile of cheap dictionaries from the mobile library.
Penny Havers, who works in a shoe-shop in Bath, has brought stacks of boxes- most of them one-size only, overly large or ridiculously small, but very cheap.
Charlie walks through the village with me. I know how this works. As soon as she sees a boy she’s going to drop a dozen paces behind me and pretend to be on her own. When there are no boys, she makes me stop and look at fake jewellery and clothes she doesn’t need.
Everyone is excited about the annual rugby clash between Wellow and our nearest neighbours, Norton St Philip, three miles away. It’s on this afternoon on the rec behind the village hall.
Wellow is one of those villages that lay almost undiscovered until the mid-eighties, when its population swelled with commuters and sea-changers. The influx has slowed, according to the locals. Property prices have soared out of the reach of weekend visitors, who gaze in the village estate agent’s window, daydreaming about owning a stone cottage with roses climbing over the door. The dream lasts as long as the M4 traffic jam getting back into London and is forgotten completely by Monday morning.
Charlie wants to get a Halloween mask: a rubbery monster with glow in the dark hair. I tell her no. Emma is already having nightmares.
There is a policeman on traffic duty outside the post office, directing cars into neighbouring fields. I think of Veronica Cray. She’s in London today, knocking on doors at the MOD and Foreign Office, trying to discover why nobody wants to talk about Tyler. So far all she’s managed to get is a single line statement from the Chief of Defence Staff: ‘Major Gideon Tyler is absent without leave from his unit.’
Ten words. It could be a cover-up. It could be denial. It could be a classic example of true British brevity. Whatever the reason, the outcome is the same- an echoing, uncomfortable, unfathomable silence.
Apart from the mugshot taken of Gideon ten days ago, under Patrick Fuller’s name, there is no photograph of him that is less than a decade old. CCTV footage of him entering the UK on 19 May shows him wearing a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes.
The evidence against him is compelling, but circumstantial. He had Christine Wheeler’s mobile. Alice Furness has identified him as the man she spoke to in the pub four days before her mother disappeared. Darcy is still missing but might also be able to recognise him from the train. Maureen Bracken only met Gideon once, seven years ago. She didn’t remember his voice but the man who spoke to her asked about Helen Chambers.
Police haven’t managed to link Gideon to any of the other mobiles used in the attacks, which had either been stolen or purchased using fake identification.
Charlie is talking to me: ‘Earth to Dad, Earth to Dad. Are you reading me?’
It’s her mother’s line. She is looking through a rack of clothes, trying to find something dark and goth- like.
‘Did you hear anything I said?’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re hopeless sometimes.’ Again, she sounds like Julianne. ‘It was about Darcy.’
‘What about her?’
‘Why can’t she come and live with us?’
‘She has her own family. And we don’t have the room.’
‘We could make room.’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘But her aunt hates her.’
