‘Think, Ben. It’s important.’
‘Erm… they asked me how many other little girls I’d invited onto my lap in the clinic.’
‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Not that, something else.’
Hawley shrugged. ‘You mean me knowing all about Rosie from the notes? They kept on about it. Like Woakes did.’
The cockroach’s leg spasmed.
‘Ma’am?’ Khosa’s voice again, small from the speaker. ‘Is there something we should know?’
‘Stay ready, Ryia. You and Justin. Do not put down your phone.’ Anna killed the call and accelerated to a roundabout with a Travelodge and a KFC. Hawley braced against the dash as she took the curve, doubling back at full speed.
‘Have I missed something?’ he said as she emerged back onto the dual carriageway, back towards Cheltenham and the hospital at speed.
‘Not only you. We all have. Every single one of us.’
Thirty-Seven
Starkey stood in the yard at Pux cottage glancing at the adjacent barn. He walked towards it. Through the gap between the padlocked steel doors of the barn he could see two vehicles. One a large horse transporter, one a van covered in tarpaulin. The cover had slipped a bit, revealing a white Vauxhall Combo. Before turning away he put on a policeman’s hat. His old hat from his time on the force. He’d kept it because you never knew when it might come in handy. He walked across to the cottage and unlocked the front door, walked quietly into the house and closed the door behind him.
As soon as he pulled back the bolt securing the basement door the smell hit him. Something scurried away below.
‘Blair? Are you there. Are you alright, Blair?’
No answer.
The smell was coming from the bucket. Starkey took it out, poured it into the toilet and flushed it. Went back to the basement.
‘Time we left here now, Blair. Time to go,’ he said softly.
‘No,’ she said from the well hole.
Starkey walked across and looked down at her. She was clean. Had looked after herself. ‘You need to come out from there, Blair.’
‘No. What do you want?’
‘I’ve come to get you. To take you home.’
Blair shook her head.
‘Back to your mum and your sister.’
Tears sprang to Blair’s eyes and her face crumpled. ‘You’re lying. You’re not a bobby. You’re not taking me home.’
‘Of course, I am.’
Blair shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Don’t you want to go home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it’s OK, it’s safe. But you need to come out.’
‘Bring Kirsty. Then I’ll know you’re telling the truth.’
‘I can’t do that, Blair.’
‘Then I’m not coming out!’
Thirty-Eight
Anna pulled in to the hospital car park and got out. Hawley followed. She barely noticed.
She hurried back through the entrance, flashed her warrant card at reception and this time was let in without needing the administrator. Coleen Bridges was pushing a cart laden with a dozen or more sealed and packaged items. Anna stopped her.
‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘I had a fresh thought. I see you’re busy, but this is urgent. Five minutes, I promise.’
‘Right,’ Coleen said.
‘I want to go back to the room where Rosie was seen.’
Coleen obliged and they stood once more in the room with the couch.
‘But you told me this is not where you would have normally seen her?’
Hawley replied from behind her. ‘No, the room next door has, or had, black-out blinds for eye exams. For looking at the back of the eye. But we didn’t need that here with Rosie.’
‘Because you were examining the front of her eye and the equipment was mobile?’
‘That’s correct, the slit lamp is on a wheeled adjustable table.’
‘But normally you wouldn’t move it?’
Coleen shook her head. ‘The ophthalmologists go spare. They say rattling it around can dislodge mirrors and lenses.’
‘And that day you had to move it because of maintenance?’
‘Yes.’ Coleen pointed to the wall unit. ‘We have people in to service all the bits of equipment we have. That day it was the Rowsys guy. I know because when I went in to put the light on for Rosie to be seen, he had the wall unit in bits on the desk. Has to be done, of course.’
Anna felt the tingle surge.
‘He?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said, “He had the wall unit in bits.”’
‘Yes. He’s been coming for years and he’s as good as gold. Never a bother. Gets on with it and he’s quick. But in a unit like this there’s never a good time. So, we have to work around him otherwise he’d never finish,’ Coleen said brightly, but then her expression became puzzled as she saw the look Anna gave her.
‘Do you have a name?’
‘Rowsys. That’s the com—’
‘The man. The one that’s as good as gold.’
‘Ooh, uh, he was here a few months ago. Big chap. Could do with losing a few pounds. We even offered to take his blood pressure last time. I’m sure we have his card somewhere.’
Anna nodded, her brain fizzing. She forced herself to be calm. ‘Can you find it?’
‘Sure.’ Coleen smiled and walked away.
Anna didn’t look at Hawley but she sensed his eyes upon her. Coleen came back with a card. Anna took it, placed it on a desk. She read the name and felt the world tilt once again.
Rowsys-uk Specialists in on-site calibration and repairs.
Systems engineer: Kevin Starkey
Thirty-Nine
In the basement of Pux Cottage, Starkey turned away from Blair Smeaton and came back with a bucket. She looked up at him, her eyes huge with fear. She sucked in a great gasp of air, her body quivering, terror turning her eyes into globes of pure fear. Starkey looked down at what was in the bottom and said, ‘Eels like well holes, too.’
Blair wailed.
Starkey upended the bucket into the hole. Blair screamed and leaped upwards reflexively as the eels writhed and flexed at her feet, all thoughts of hiding now gone. Starkey grabbed her by the shoulders and had her out in three seconds. Put tape over her mouth and her hands tied within a minute. Her struggles were futile. Five minutes later, he was driving back out onto the main road, music turned up loud in the car so that he didn’t have to listen to her moving about in the boot. She’d exhaust herself soon and settle down.
He had a CD in the player. Hits of the 1980s. Frankie Goes to Hollywood kicked in. ‘Relax’. Starkey smiled. Yeah that’s what he should do: relax. But he couldn’t. A crackling inferno of anticipation was raging inside him as he pointed the car north on the motorway. He’d only truly begin to relax when he was over the bridge. He’d keep the music on loud as he paid the toll just in case Blair decided to make some extra noise. Something gnawed at him. A hunger.
Only this hunger, he knew, could not be assuaged by food.
This was a different type of hunger altogether.
His palms were sweating. He half-turned, checking the contents of the back seat. The big, camouflaged backpack was there and he knew he’d put the ropes inside it.
Everything he needed.
Good. Everything was good.
He’d never told anyone about the crime perpetrated upon him by the Turners.
He preferred, instead, to scream it into the faces of his terrified victims as they trembled before him.
Madness’ ‘Baggy Trousers’ began. Starkey knew all the words. He started to sing.
Forty
Anna’s hands were shaking as she took out her phone.
Kevin Starkey. The witness she’d spoken to a few days ago. The special constable who’d seen the red van. Whose useful statement had given them a direction of travel. A direction of travel that deliberately sent the whole investigation the wrong way.
Kevin Starkey. An engineer. A fixer.
Forcing her hand to be as steady as possible, she photographed the card back and front. When she looked back up she was all smiles. ‘Right, thanks Coleen, we’ll let you get back to work.’
‘Don’t be a stranger,’ she said to Hawley.
He nodded and smiled.
But Anna was already striding out of reception, phone to her ear, and Hawley had to hurry to catch up.
‘Do you think—’