‘Potentially,’ Lucinda said. ‘It’s a long process though and not an exact science; I’ll need to look at the most frequently dialled numbers and make assumptions about which ones are likely to be family numbers.’
‘Do it. Please,’ he added as an afterthought. It was the first time Kelly had seen the DI rattled. His tie was already loosened, but now he took it off and chucked it on the table, flicking open the top button of his shirt and stretching his neck first one way, then the other.
‘Andrew, keep an eye on the website and tell me the second anything changes. Do what you can to find out where that most recent email was from. If it isn’t Espress Oh! maybe it’s another café. Kelly, if it is, get officers there pronto to view CCTV for customers in there around the time it was sent.’
Espress Oh!
That was it. The thought that had been circling Kelly’s head finally solidified. Meeting Zoe at the café in Covent Garden. The friend with the chain of coffee shops; the new business in Clerkenwell. The Australian girl at Espress Oh! and the absent owner with the chain of shops. ‘Not customers,’ she said, suddenly certain she knew who they were looking for. The person behind the website; the person who, right now, was sending nineteen-year-old Katie into danger, and who was potentially holding Zoe Walker hostage.
Nick looked at her expectantly. Kelly felt a rush of adrenaline. ‘We need to do a Companies House check,’ she said. ‘It isn’t a customer who’s been using the WiFi at Espress Oh! to administer the website. It’s the owner.’
37
‘Katie!’ I scream so loudly my voice cracks, my mouth suddenly devoid of moisture. I pull at the tape, feeling the adhesive tug at the hairs on my wrists. I find a strength I didn’t know I had, and I feel the tape give a fraction. Melissa smiles.
‘I win.’ She spins her chair round to face me, folding her arms and looking thoughtfully at me. ‘But then, I was always going to.’
‘You bitch. How could you do that?’
‘I didn’t do anything. You did. You let her walk into danger; danger you knew was out there. How could you do that to your own flesh and blood?’
‘You—’ I stop. Melissa didn’t make me. She’s right; I let Katie go. It’s my fault.
I can’t look at her. There’s a pain in my chest that’s making it hard to breathe. Katie. My Katie. Who was that man? What is he doing to her?
I try to keep my voice calm. Rational. ‘You could have had children. You could have adopted; had IVF.’ I look at the screen again but the door to what I assume is some kind of cupboard or maintenance room remains stubbornly closed. Why did no one notice? There are people everywhere. I see a fluorescent jacketed Underground worker and I want so much for her to open the door; to hear Katie crying out; to do something – anything – to stop whatever is happening right now to my baby girl.
‘Neil refused.’ Melissa is staring at the screen, and I can’t see her eyes. I can’t see if there’s any emotion in them, or whether they’re as dead as her voice. ‘Said he wanted his own child, not someone else’s.’ She gives a hollow laugh. ‘Ironic, given the amount of time we spent looking after yours.’
On the screen life is continuing as usual; people are getting in each other’s way, searching for Oyster cards, rushing to catch trains. But for me, the world has stopped.
‘You lose,’ she says, as easily as if we’ve been playing cards. ‘Time to pay up.’ She picks up the knife and runs a speculative finger across the blade.
I should never have let Katie go, no matter what she said. I thought I was giving her a chance, but I was sending her into danger. Melissa would have tried to kill us, but would she have succeeded, with two of us to fight her off?
And now she’s going to kill me anyway. I feel dead inside already, and part of me wants her to finish it; to hasten the darkness that began to descend after Katie left, and which now threatens to overcome me.
Do it, Melissa. Kill me.
I catch sight of the penholder on Melissa’s desk – the one Katie made for her in woodwork – and feel a surge of rage. Katie and Justin worshipped Melissa. They saw her as a surrogate mother; someone to trust. How dare she betray us like this?
I mentally shake myself. If Katie dies, who will be there for Justin? I work my wrists again, twisting my hands in opposite directions and finding perverse pleasure in the pain which ensues. It is a distraction. My eyes are still trained on the screen as though I can make the door to that maintenance cupboard fly open through the power of thought alone.
Perhaps Katie isn’t dead. Perhaps she’s been raped, or beaten up. What will happen to her if I’m not there, at a time when she needs me most? I can’t let Melissa kill me.
Suddenly I feel cool air on a tiny patch of newly exposed skin.