don’t want to know the details. I want to pretend it didn’t happen.
Gideon Tyler has been inside my house. He has taken everything important- trust, peace of mind, tranquillity. He has watched my children sleeping. Emma said she saw a ghost. She woke and talked to him. He isolated Julianne. He told her what lipstick and jewellery to wear. He made her stand naked at the bedroom window.
I have always tried to put dark thoughts aside and imagine only good things happening to my family. Sometimes, looking into Charlie’s sweet, pale, changing face, I have almost come to believe that I could protect her from pain or heartbreak. Now she’s gone. Julianne is right. It’s my fault. A father is supposed to protect his children, to keep them safe and lay down his life for them.
I keep telling myself that Gideon Tyler won’t hurt Charlie. It is like a mantra in my head, but the message brings no comfort. I also try to tell myself that people like Gideon- sadists and psychopathsare few and far between. Does that make Charlie one of the unlucky few? Don’t tell me there’s a price to be paid for living in a free society. Not this price. Not when it involves my daughter.
Recording devices are being attached to the landline of the cottage and a scanner programmed to pick up conversation on our mobile phones. Our SIM cards have been transferred to handsets with GPS tracking capabilities. I ask why. The DI says it’s a contingency. They may want to try a mobile intercept.
The village is framed through the window, looking like a page from a storybook with great billowing clouds, streaked by the sun. Imogen and Emma have gone next door to Mrs Nutall’s house. Neighbours have come outside to look at the police cars and vans parked in the street. They’re having casual conversations, exchanging pleasantries and pretending not to gawk at the detectives going door-to-door. Their children have been shooed inside, locked away from the unknown danger stalking their streets.
I hear the shower running upstairs again. Julianne is under the water, trying to wash away what happened. How long has it been? Three hours. No matter what happens Charlie will remember this day. She will be haunted by Gideon Tyler’s face, by his words, by his touch.
Monk ducks as he enters the kitchen, making it suddenly appear smaller. He glances at DI Cray and shakes his head. The roadblocks have been up for more than two hours. Police have knocked on every door, interviewed residents and retraced Charlie’s steps. Nothing.
I know what they’re thinking. Gideon has gone. He managed to get away before police sealed off the roads. Neither of the mobiles Gideon used has transmitted since 12.42. He must know we can trace the signals. That’s why he changes phones so often and turns them off.
As if on cue, Oliver Rabb arrives, shuffling up the front path like a nervous bag lady. He’s carrying a laptop computer in a shoulder case and is wearing a tweed cap to warm his smooth head. He wipes his feet three times on the doormat.
Setting up his laptop on the kitchen table, he downloads the latest information from the nearest base stations, triangulating the signals.
‘It’s harder in areas like this,’ he explains, brushing invisible creases from his trousers. ‘There are fewer towers.’
‘I don’t want excuses,’ says Veronica Cray.
Oliver goes back to the screen. Outside in the garden detectives are congregating in the patches of sunshine, stamping their feet to stay warm.
Oliver sniffs.
‘What is it?’
‘Both calls arrived through the same tower- the nearest one.’ He pauses, ‘But they originated from a tower outside the area.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He wasn’t in the village when he called you. He was already out of the area.’
‘But he knew what Julianne was wearing. He made her stand at the bedroom window.’
Oliver shrugs. ‘He must have seen her earlier in the day.’
He checks the screen again and explains Charlie’s movements. She was carrying my mobile, which was pinging a tower about a mile south of Wellow while she was at Abbie’s house. The signal changed when she left the farmhouse just after midday. According to the strength analysis, she started moving towards home. That’s when Gideon knocked her off her bike and took her in the opposite direction.
Oliver pulls up a satellite image and overlays a second map showing the locations of phone towers.
‘They headed south as far as Wells Road and then west through Radstock and Midsomer Norton.’
‘Where did the signal die?’
‘On the outskirts of Bristol.’
DI Cray begins issuing orders, unsealing the village and re-assigning officers. Her voice has a metallic quality, as if bouncing off one of Oliver’s satellites. The focus of the investigation is shifting away from the house.
She waves a hand at Oliver. ‘We know Tyler has two mobiles. If he turns either one of them on, I want you to find him. Not where he was yesterday or an hour ago- I want to know now.’
Julianne is waiting on the landing, hanging back in a corner between the window and the bedroom door. Her dark hair is still tangled and damp from the shower.
She has changed again, wearing black trousers and a cashmere cardigan with just enough make-up to darken her eyelids and shape her cheekbones. It shocks me how beautiful she is. By comparison, I feel decrepit and ancient.
‘Let me know what you’re thinking.’
‘Believe me, you don’t want to know,’ she replies. I can barely recognise her voice any more.
‘I don’t think he wants to hurt Charlie.’
‘You don’t know that,’ she whispers.
‘I know him.’
Julianne glances up, her gaze challenging me. ‘I don’t want to hear that, Joe, because if you know a man like this- if you understand why he’s doing this- then I wonder how you can sleep at night. How you can… can…’
She can’t finish the statement. I try to hold her, but she stiffens and twists away from me.
‘You don’t know him,’ she says accusingly. ‘You said he was bluffing.’
‘Up until now he has been. I don’t think he’ll hurt her.’
‘He’s hurting her now, don’t you see. Just by taking her.’
Her face turns back to the window and she says accusingly, ‘You brought this on us.’
‘I never expected this. How could I have known?’
‘I warned you.’
I can feel my voice failing. ‘I’m forty-five, Julianne. I can’t live my life on the sidelines. I can’t turn my back on people or refuse to help them.’
‘You have Parkinson’s.’
‘I still have a life to live.’
‘You had a life… with us.’
She’s speaking in the past tense. This isn’t about Dirk or the hotel receipt or my jealous outburst at her office party. This is about Charlie. And amid the fear and uncertainty in her face, there’s something I don’t expect to see. Contempt. Loathing.
‘I don’t love you any more,’ she says blankly, coldly. ‘Not in the right way- not how I used to.’
‘There isn’t a right way. There’s just love.’
She shakes her head and turns away. It feels as though something vital has been cut out of my chest. My heart. She leaves me on the landing; an unseen string is pulling at my fingers, worked by a twitching puppeteer. Maybe he has Parkinson’s too.
The doors are open. The house is cold. SOCO have been examining the cottage for the past hour, dusting the smooth surfaces for fingerprints and vacuuming for fibres. Some of the officers I recognise. Nodding acquaintances. They do not look at me now. They have a job to do.
Gideon is a trained locksmith. He can open almost any door: a house, a flat, a warehouse, an office… There are thousands of properties lying empty in Bristol. He could hide Charlie in any one of them.
Veronica Cray has been conferring with Monk and Safari Roy in the kitchen. She wants a meeting to discuss tactics.
‘We have to decide what we’re going to do when he calls back,’ she says. ‘We have to be ready. Oliver needs
