Into the dark, p.23
Into the Dark, page 23
‘There’s a place two miles down the road. They might know it.’
She watched him saunter back to his van and climb inside. An excellent performance from her. Not a flicker of unease, nothing to arouse suspicion. Light and friendly. But would it be enough? With luck, he’d be drinking pints with his friends in the pub by tonight and have forgotten all about her.
But as he started the engine, the attic window exploded in a shower of glass. The jug she had left upstairs with Artie and Riva shattered as it hit the concrete, the noise explosive in the still of the afternoon. And then Artie began to shout, his voice far away but clear.
At the entrance of the farm, the young man got out of his van, indicator still flashing.
What a fucking disaster.
‘Are you all right?’
She tried to think, clear-headed, smart. If she hurt him, attempted to kill him, he might fight back. She wasn’t prepared, no weapon to hand except surprise, and if she failed, he would be a dangerous witness. To him, she was not a woman in distress, held captive against her will, but a smiling if harassed mother. And so her best option would be distraction, to send him on his way and hope he didn’t give them a second thought.
‘Don’t worry.’ She jogged over to the van, determined to keep him as far away from the house as possible. She injected a note of disapproval. ‘Let me apologize for my children. They were playing a game that’s got out of hand. I’ll go up in a minute and tell them off.’
A voice tossed forwards and backwards by the wind, too distant to be distinct now. But she knew it well and could pick out the rigid consonants, the looping vowels of his cries. Help us.
The faint lines of his forehead deepened into uncertainty. ‘If you say so.’
A quicksilver smile. ‘I’m sorry if it startled you. Must have been a shock. Don’t give it another thought.’ Another smile for good measure, to convince and reassure.
Two minutes later, he’d returned to his van and was gone, disappearing down the narrow tree-lined lane, not knowing he’d brushed up against death in female form, and how she’d almost closed her fingers around his heart.
Piper had run out of time. Even she could see that. But the children had gifted her an opportunity. She ripped at her tights until the nylon was torn, and tugged buttons from her blouse. Scooping up dirt from the yard, she rubbed it into her face, the dry skin of her knees, the bleached fabric of her skirt, and finally, into the parting of hair she’d deliberately left unwashed.
She retrieved the suitcase she’d hidden in the linen cupboard during her last visit and removed the women’s clothes, folding them carefully into her mother’s drawers. Unless she came back for it, she would have to write off the money for now. But it couldn’t be helped. When the police arrived at the farm, they would find it, but they’d assume – and she would tell them – that the rolls of banknotes had been packed by Gray, and take it away as evidence.
Piper had always planned to frame Gray for her murder and assumed the children would escape – or be discovered. But the delivery man had put paid to that. It was too much of a risk. He had witnessed her alive, smiling. What if he went to the police and told them what he’d seen? Yes, in theory her murder could have happened after he’d visited Church Farm, but it would raise questions. Too many of them – and ones she didn’t want to answer.
And then there was Julianne and the rest of the money. She would have to go back.
Using a short length of rope she’d found in the barn, she bound her wrists with it, using her teeth to tighten the knots, the fibres getting trapped between the gaps and cutting into her gums. In the furthest corner of the barn, she’d left a threadbare horse blanket and the bucket she’d been pissing in since arriving at Church Farm.
And then, steeling herself for the performance of a lifetime, she stumbled up the stairs to the attic, screaming the names of her children.
The key was in the lock, exactly as she’d left it. Limping into the bedroom, tears tracking through the dirt on her face, she fell onto her knees, bound hands in front of her.
Riva was lying on one of the twin beds, matted hair and listless. Artie was by the broken window, still shouting, but to no avail.
The room smelled of human waste and sweat and despair.
‘Oh, fuck, Mum. What has he done to you?’ Artie was at her side, holding her elbow and guiding her to the opposite bed. As his fingers worked to loosen the rope’s knots, his face darkened. ‘Where is he now?’
‘He’s gone.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘When you broke the window, he took the car and drove off. I don’t know where.’
‘Fucking coward.’ More than two days in captivity, the skin had stretched across his cheekbones. Effects of dehydration. ‘Who was at the door?’
She tried to think, seeking a plausible answer, a convincing lie. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But whoever it was, I think they scared off your father.’
Artie said something she didn’t catch. Her son seemed older, more authoritative, despite his ordeal. Her daughter was a different story. She had not changed position or uttered a word.
Artie unwound the rope with tender hands. She winced, as if stiff from hours of holding her wrists in the same position. ‘Where was he keeping you?’
‘In the barn. Outside.’
Artie swore again and put his arm around her ‘You’re safe now, but we need to get some help.’
Piper thought about the phone she had retrieved from the bedside table after she’d strangled Gray and deposited on the kitchen table. ‘He’s left his mobile downstairs.’
With tentative steps, she crossed the room and sat on the bed next to her daughter. ‘How long has she been like this?’
Artie’s lips were cracked and dry, a fresh drop of blood forming as he spoke. ‘A while. She just sort of shut down a few hours ago.’
Her daughter’s forehead was burning. She laid her cool hand across it. ‘She needs something to drink. Help me get her downstairs.’
Between them, they persuaded Riva to her feet and manoeuvred her down two flights of stairs. She didn’t resist but there was an absence to her that Piper found disconcerting.
Her son poured glasses of water for the three of them. ‘Don’t gulp it. Small sips.’ He switched on his father’s mobile phone. Piper wondered if the police were tracking his signal and if it would triangulate between masts and give away their location.
Artie handed her the phone. ‘You do it.’
She nodded, accepting the responsibility as hers. She searched on the internet for the incident room number. It didn’t take long. Their disappearance was news. Dozens and dozens of stories about them, their faces staring out from a family photograph Julianne had taken at the beach last summer, all smiles and freckles and ice-cream cones: MISSING, FEARED DEAD.
A bored-sounding female voice answered the telephone. ‘How can I help you?’
She drew in a deep breath and started to cry. For once, the tears were real, except they were not from trauma or pain or hurt, but relief that her meticulously detailed plan was holding together.
‘My name is Piper Holden. My husband has been holding me and our two children at a farm against our will for two days. He’s disappeared for now, but we don’t know when he’ll be back. We’re terrified of him. Please send someone to collect us. Tell whoever is running the investigation we’ve come back from the dead.’
42
Thursday afternoon
Two days after the Holdens disappeared
News of the Lazarus-style resurrection of three out of the four members of the Holden family spread rapidly amongst the jubilant Midtown murder squad.
Before O’Neill had time to delegate tasks and organize a briefing, he’d spoken to Mrs Holden over the telephone from the car park of Holden Investments.
‘We’re on our way to pick you up and take a statement,’ he said. ‘Don’t move. The local police will be with you in five minutes or so. You’re safe now, OK?’
‘My husband—’ Her voice – already distorted through the speakerphone – cracked in the pin-drop silence of the car. ‘He killed a woman.’
Saul, who’d been instructed to take notes, almost dropped his pen, but recovered his composure to record and time-stamp the allegation.
O’Neill was sombre. ‘That’s a very serious accusation, Mrs Holden. Are you able to provide any proof of this?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am.’
The shirt was in the drawer at Holden Investments, exactly as Piper Holden had said it would be. They found a record of the financial transactions in the filing cabinet and three empty bleach bottles in the bin. CCTV footage of Gray Holden buying bleach in a supermarket had also surfaced as a result of publicity. Within forty-five minutes, a specialist search and recovery team had been dispatched to the area of the cliffs where Gray Holden had confessed to disposing of Autumn Ellis’s body and car to his wife.
Two hours later, O’Neill and Saul were pulling into the yard at the front of Church Farm. Two patrol cars were parked by the barn, their livery bright against the overcast day.
Piper Holden had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. Her son Artie was sitting close to her. Riva Holden sat with her eyes shut, her head resting on her brother’s shoulder.
Saul observed it all.
The Scenes of Crime team photographed the attic bedroom, the barn and the unmade bed where Gray Holden had been sleeping for the past three nights. They photographed the broken glass from the Claude Monet picture and the shards from the jug on the yard floor. The washed plate on the draining board and the wilting lamb’s lettuce and the tyre tracks of the vehicle in the dust.
They photographed and documented everything, and O’Neill and a couple of specialist officers walked the family through the events of the past two days, making notes and asking questions. When the family had returned to Seawings, been examined by a medical professional, eaten and slept, they would interview them again.
Piper Holden was composed when relating her husband’s abuse. She had a memory for forensic detail. He’d kept her bound and gagged in the barn for two days. Yes, he’d been violent to her before, although never in front of the children. Artie Holden bridled when asked about his father, expressing that angry energy of a teenage boy with nowhere to put it. Furious at being held against his will. Humiliated at having to shit in the corner of a room he was sharing with his sister. Hurt at his mistreatment at the hands of someone who was supposed to love him. Riva Holden said nothing.
Through extensive questioning and several telephone calls, the picture they built up was this: Gray Holden was a killer. He had been living a secret life in which he embezzled money from his clients, had extra-marital affairs, was physically violent to his wife – Julianne Hillier’s statement corroborated this – and had emptied their joint bank accounts so he could escape to a new life. If he hadn’t been interrupted by the delivery driver at Church Farm, it’s likely he would have killed his family too. The evidence checked out and it was damning.
And yet an instinct twitched in Saul when he thought about Mrs Hillier and the voicemail recording and the writing on the mirror at Seawings.
O’Neill and Saul drove the Holdens back to their home in Midtown-on-Sea. Essex Police’s offer of a family liaison officer to stay overnight with them was declined. Piper had made a statement but they would interview her again in the morning. Their priority now was to find and arrest Gray Holden.
‘It’s going to be a late one,’ said O’Neill, stopping at a Turkish takeaway for grilled lamb kebabs and hot sauce. ‘Eat something now.’
Saul messaged Blue while O’Neill was in the toilet. Tomorrow instead? Her reply took twenty minutes. Already looking forward to it, DC Anguish. A warmth he wasn’t used to spread through him. So am I, Dr March.
The briefing room was full of the buzz that swelled and spread throughout the station when an investigation took flight. Saul relished it, especially because it diverted attention from Austin Kellaway’s murder.
O’Neill called for quiet and ran through the tickets that were active in locating the suspect. ANPR on Julianne Hillier’s stolen car. Fresh checks on Gray Holden’s bank cards and accounts. Investigations into the frequently contacted numbers on his mobile phone call log to flush out potential lovers. An INTERPOL Red Notice in case he tried to evade justice and leave the country. Forensics teams were at Holden Investments and Church Farm.
‘And – as of two minutes ago – search and rescue divers have found a car registered to Autumn Ellis.’ O’Neill was fired up, talking rapidly. The excitement rolled off him in waves. ‘Let’s find the bastard.’
When the briefing was over, Saul checked his voicemail. He listened to it, intent and alert, and then he walked up to the inspector and quietly made his point. ‘Some things don’t add up, sir.’
O’Neill chewed on his thumbnail. ‘Go on.’
‘Dr March says the messages on the cards and the mirror were written by two different women.’
The senior officer shrugged. ‘Did you check with the florist?’
‘Yes. She gave both cards to Julianne Hillier apparently.’ A thought slid into his brain and clunked, like those penny-push machines at the arcade. He tried out his theory. ‘So it’s possible she wrote the anonymous card sent to Anoushka Thornton’s funeral.’
‘Why would Mrs Hillier do that?’
‘Revenge on behalf of her best friend? To make it seem like Gray Holden was having an affair when he wasn’t? In the same way that voicemail wasn’t actually recorded at 3.37 a.m., and the security cameras at Seawings were switched off.’ He waited a beat. ‘And what about Mrs Holden? How did she manage to free herself if her husband was keeping her captive?’
‘What are you saying?’ O’Neill narrowed his eyes.
Saul tried to shape it into words. ‘It’s very neat and tidy, isn’t it?’ He paused. ‘There’s something else you need to know.’ He explained the message he’d just received.
To his credit, O’Neill didn’t flinch but pursed his lips. For a minute, he considered what Saul had said. ‘What do you want?’
‘Permission to speak to Julianne Hillier one more time.’
‘It’s yours. But only if I come too.’
Night had settled over Midtown. The wind and rain had stopped and a filigree web of stars lay across the clear, cold sky. Quiller opened the front door.
‘Is your wife in?’
‘This is beginning to feel like harassment. What do you want?’
‘We can either do it here, or make it more formal and take it down the station,’ said O’Neill. Quiller huffed but stood back to let them in.
‘Found my wife’s car yet?’
Saul felt the pulse of his anger as he walked past him.
Julianne was washed out. The Mallen streak in her hair had widened, ageing her by ten years. She was wearing her coat, as if she was about to go out.
‘Off somewhere nice?’ asked O’Neill. She didn’t answer but sat across from him at the kitchen table for the third time. Her manicured nails were chipped and her make-up was patchy, darkening the creases by her eyes and the folds in her neck. ‘You found them,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful.’
‘It is,’ said O’Neill, ‘but we’ve got a couple more questions we’d like to ask you, if we may.’ He lifted an eyebrow in Saul’s direction.
‘Is it correct to say that you sometimes organize flowers for Piper Holden?’
She eyed the young detective with a wary expression. ‘Yes. She has so many commitments she occasionally asks me to sort them out for her.’ Defensive. ‘I’m happy to help her if she’s pushed for time.’
‘Did you arrange the flowers and card for Riva?’
A complex wave of emotions crossed her face. Saul had already checked with the florist. Mrs Hillier was smart enough to know that. ‘Yes.’
‘And the teardrop arrangement for Anoushka Thornton’s funeral?’
The effect was immediate. She paled, eyes flicking between the two detectives like a frightened rabbit.
‘A forensic linguist has confirmed the style of language and handwriting on the card sent anonymously to Mrs Thornton’s funeral matches yours.’ Saul watched her. ‘Did you tell David Thornton that Gray Holden was having an affair with his wife?’
To her credit, she didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Piper told me.’
‘So you took it upon yourself to send flowers to her funeral, designed to stir up trouble. Why did you do that?’
She was silent, but her fingers were plucking a loose thread on the cuff of her jacket in compulsive jerks. Saul leaned forward, a neutral expression on his face.
‘You’ve already told us you had a couple of glasses of wine with Piper on the night the Holdens disappeared.’
Mrs Hillier folded her hands in her lap, glad to be on firmer ground. ‘Yes, that’s right. I stayed for a couple of hours.’
‘Can you remember what time you left?’
‘About ten, something like that.’
O’Neill steepled his fingers. Saul shifted in his chair. The air in the kitchen thickened in anticipation of a storm. ‘Can you explain why data from your mobile phone company places you in or around Seawings between 4.40 and 5.30 a.m.?’ Both men watched her.
Mrs Hillier sat very still. ‘I must have left it there earlier in the evening.’
‘But you received a call from Piper in the early hours while you were in bed. Your husband has confirmed that.’
Fixing on a spot above Saul’s shoulder, Mrs Hillier made a performance of frowning, then chewed the inside of her cheek. ‘I must be getting confused. Perhaps I’m thinking of the night before.’
Neither man challenged her, but all three of them knew the facts did not lie.
O’Neill stood up. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Mrs Hillier. I’d like you to come to the station to be formally interviewed under caution tomorrow at 10.30 a.m. You’re entitled to legal representation. In fact, I’d recommend it. We can arrange a duty solicitor if you’d like.’ He softened. ‘Don’t look so worried. We’ll untangle it all.’
