more self-contained.
‘This is Darcy Wheeler,’ I say. ‘Christine’s daughter.’
Claudia’s face bears all her sadness. She takes Darcy’s hand and pulls her gently into her arms. They’re almost the same height.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Your mother was a wonderful friend to my daughter.’
Bryan Chambers looks at Darcy with a kind of wonderment. He sits down and leans forward, resting his hands between his knees. His jaw is stubbled and flecks of white spit are gathered in the corners of his mouth.
‘Gideon Tyler has kidnapped my daughter,’ I announce.
The shudder of silence that follows reveals more about the Chambers than an hour in a consulting room could possibly tell me.
‘I know that Helen and Chloe are alive.’
‘You’re crazy,’ says Bryan Chambers. ‘You’re as mad as Tyler is.’
His wife stiffens slightly and her eyes meet her husband’s for just a moment. It’s a micro-expression. The barest trace of a signal passing between them.
That’s the thing about lies. They’re easy to tell but difficult to hide. Some people can perform them brilliantly but most of us struggle because our minds don’t control our bodies completely. There are thousands of automatic human responses from a beating heart to a prickling skin that have nothing to do with free will, things that we can’t control, that give us away.
Bryan Chambers has turned away. He pours himself a scotch from a crystal decanter. I wait for glass to touch glass. His hand is almost too steady.
‘Where are they?’ I ask.
‘Get out of my house!’
‘Gideon found out. That’s why he’s been harassing you, stalking you, tormenting you. What does he know?’
Rocking on his heels, he squeezes the tumbler in his fist. ‘Are you calling me a liar? Gideon Tyler has made our lives a misery. The police have done nothing. Nothing.’
‘What does Gideon know?’
Chambers looks ready to erupt. ‘My daughter and granddaughter are dead,’ he hisses through clenched teeth.
Claudia stands alongside him, her eyes a cold shade of blue. She loves her husband. She loves her family. She’ll do whatever it takes to protect them.
‘I’m sorry about your daughter,’ she whispers. ‘But we’ve already given enough to Gideon Tyler.’
They’re lying- they’re both lying- but all I can do is shuffle and clear my throat with a sort of helpless croaking sound.
‘We can stop him,’ argues Ruiz. ‘We can make sure he doesn’t do it again.’
‘You can’t even find him,’ scoffs Bryan Chambers. ‘Nobody can. He melts through walls.’
I look around the room, trying to summon a reason, an argument, a threat, anything that might change the outcome. The images of Chloe are everywhere, on the mantelpiece, the side tables, framed and hung on the walls.
‘Why did you give the Greek authorities the photograph of someone other than Helen?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says Bryan Chambers.
I take the faxed photograph from my pocket and unfold it on the table.
‘It’s a criminal offence to provide false information to a police investigation,’ says Ruiz. ‘And that includes an investigation in a foreign country.’
Bryan Chambers face turns three shades darker, blood up. Ruiz doesn’t back down. I don’t think he understands the concept of giving ground, not when it comes to missing children. There have been too many in his career; children he couldn’t save.
‘You sent them the wrong photograph because your daughter is still alive. You faked her death.’
Bryan Chambers sways backwards to throw the first punch. It’s a giveaway. Ruiz dodges it and slaps him on the back of the head like cuffing a naughty schoolboy.
This just fires him up. With a bellow and a loping charge, the bigger man drives his head into Ruiz’s stomach and wraps his arms around him, running him backwards into the wall. The collision seems to shake the entire house. Photographs topple over in their frames, falling like dominos.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ screams Darcy. She is standing near the door, fists bunched, eyes shining.
Everything slows down. Even the ticking of the grandfather clock sounds like a slow dripping tap. Bryan Chambers is holding his head. He has a cut above his left eye. It’s not deep but it’s bleeding heavily. Ruiz is nursing his ribs.
I lean down and begin picking up the photographs. The glass has broken in one of the frames. It’s a snapshot of a birthday party. Candles spark in Chloe’s eyes as she leans over a cake with her cheeks puffed out like a trombone player. I wonder what she wished for.
The photograph is not unusual, yet something jars as being wrong. Ruiz has a memory like a metal trap that seems to lock up facts and hold them. I’m not talking about useless ephemera like pop songs or Grand National winners or right-backs who’ve played for Manchester United since the war. Important details. Dates. Addresses. Descriptions.
‘When was Chloe born,’ I ask him.
‘August 8, 2000.’
Bryan Chambers is now violently sober. Claudia has gone to Darcy, trying to console her.
‘Explain this to me,’ I say, pointing to the photograph. ‘How can your granddaughter be blowing out seven candles on a birthday cake if she died two weeks before her seventh birthday?’
The button beneath the floor has summoned Skipper. He’s carrying a shotgun but this time it’s not resting in the crook of his arm. He points the barrel at chest height, moving it in an arc.
‘Get them out of my house,’ bellows Bryan Chambers, still holding his forehead. Blood has leaked over his eyebrow and the side of his cheek.
‘How many more people are going to get hurt unless we stop this now?’ I plead.
It makes no difference. Skipper waves the rifle. Darcy steps in front of him. I don’t know where she gets the courage.
‘It’s all right,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll go.’
‘But what about Charlie?’
‘This isn’t helping.’
Nothing is going to change. The wrongness of the situation, the imminent catastrophe, is lost on the Chambers who seem to be caught in a permanent twilight of fear and denial.
I’m being escorted out of this house for a second time. Ruiz goes first, followed by Darcy. As I cross the foyer, in the very periphery of my vision, I catch sight of something white, pressed against the railings of the stairs. It’s a barefoot child in a white nightdress peering through the turned wooden railings. Ethereal and almost otherworldly, she’s holding a rag doll and watching us leave.
I stop and stare. The others turn.
‘You should be asleep,’ says Claudia.
‘I woke up. I heard a bang.’
‘It was nothing. Go back to bed.’
She rubs her eyes. ‘Will you tuck me in?’
I can feel the rhythm of my blood beneath my skin. Bryan Chambers steps in front of me. The stock of the rifle is tucked against Skipper’s shoulder. There are footsteps on the stairs. A woman appears, looking agitated, scooping up the child.
‘Helen?’
She doesn’t react.
‘I know who you are.’
She turns to me, lifting a hand to brush a fringe from across her eyes. Her head is drawn down between her shoulders and her thin arms are tightly folded around Chloe.
‘He has my daughter.’
