The Night They Vanished, page 10
“So, who’s going to call the police if we’re both in there screaming?”
“Just… unlock the door, will you? I’ll look inside—you can be ready to call the police.”
Chapter 13
Saturday 9 p.m.
I walk up to the front door, keys out ready; then I hesitate, take a hurried step back, bumping into Adam.
He steps up to me. “What is it?” he asks, keeping his own voice low.
“How long have you been here?”
“I dunno—about twenty minutes? I called Seb—he told me you and Dee were on your way back. Why?”
“My front door is open.”
“Shit,” he whispers. “I’ll call the police.”
“Wait.” I put my hand over his as he gets his phone out. “I don’t… I left the house in such a rush this afternoon… I wanted to go back home and find my family. I might not have locked it.”
“But are you sure?”
“No. But look—it’s ajar but there’s no sign anyone’s broken in.”
“But if you left it open, anyone could have gone in while you were out. I told you I saw someone in there…”
I waver. I really don’t want to have to face the police again. But… my family is still missing, and those women are dead. The hit-and-run was only a couple of streets from here.
“I’ll just have a quick look—if it’s obvious nothing’s been touched, I probably just left the door open.”
“Wait,” Adam says. “We stick to the original plan—I’ll go. Be ready to call the police.”
My heart pounds as he goes through the door and the seconds he’s gone seem to last forever.
I’m not reassured when he does reappear, gently pushing me away from the door.
“I’m sorry, Hanna—you do need to call the police. It doesn’t look as though anything big is missing, but it’s obvious someone has been in there.”
“Oh God,” I whisper, pressing a hand against my stomach. My flat, my home, my sanctuary. I shake off Adam’s hand on my arm and rush inside. Sod preserving the crime scene, I need to see—
I stop dead in the doorway to the living room. Adam’s right—the TV is still there, it doesn’t look like I’ve been burgled. I had my laptop and phone with me, so I know they’re safe. But the place has been ransacked. Books pulled off the shelves, letters and papers scattered everywhere, the coffee table tipped over. It doesn’t look like anything’s been broken, it just looks like someone came in and had a temper tantrum.
But then I think of what Adam said about the woman who’d been murdered—it looked like a violent break-in gone wrong. What if I’d been home when this happened? Would I be lying there dead as well?
“Hanna?” It’s Adam’s voice and I turn, tears in my eyes. He’s standing in the doorway. “I’ve called the police—because of what’s going on, I called DC Norton direct. He’s asked if we can leave the property.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice shaky. “Sure. Let’s go.”
Adam is back on his wall and I’m sitting next to him when the two cars pull up—one police car with two uniformed officers and a dark blue Toyota driven by DC Norton. He gets out and talks to the uniformed officers before coming over to us.
“Miss Carter, Mr. Webster,” he says, standing in front of us, his hands in his pockets. “My uniformed colleagues are going to make sure there’s no one still inside your house before forensics arrive, but I have a few questions if that’s okay?”
I nod and shove my own hands deep in my jacket pockets. It’s getting cold as it gets later. I think about correcting him on the name thing again—I don’t like being a Carter again. That’s a name I was happy to leave behind.
“Mr. Webster—you said you thought you saw someone on the property, before Miss Carter arrived home?”
“Yeah, but I was on my phone—it was out of the corner of my eye and I can’t be sure it was definitely Hanna’s house… I didn’t realize the other window was her neighbor’s.”
“And how long were you here before…?”
“Before Hanna got home? About twenty minutes.” He pauses and stares at the detective. “Not long enough to do the damage that’s been done in there, if that’s what you’re implying.”
DC Norton nods and turns to me.
“Mr. Webster said on the phone that the front door was open but there was no sign of damage to the lock or door?”
“Yes—I’m sorry, but I couldn’t remember if I’d closed and locked it when I left earlier. I was a bit distracted.”
He nods. “And if you did lock it, is there anyone else who has a key? Friends? Your landlord?”
“The flat’s mine—I own it. Or the bank does until I pay the mortgage back, anyway. But no landlord.” I pause, reluctant to say the next thing. “My ex had a key. I haven’t thought to get it back from him.”
“This would be the Liam Harrison you mentioned in your first interview? The ex you believed may have slashed your car tire?”
Shit, shit, shit. “Yes, him. But he wouldn’t… Please don’t go and see him.”
DC Norton raises his eyebrows. “Is there a reason you’re scared of us speaking to him?”
“I’m not scared. I just… He’ll think I’m doing this deliberately. He’ll think I’ve been accusing him because I’m a bitter ex-girlfriend.” I can feel myself going red. “It wasn’t the easiest of breakups.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but if he’s the only other person with a key, we will need to speak to him—if only to eliminate him from our inquiries.”
I wince. Oh, bloody hell.
“Have you got somewhere you can stay tonight? I’ll need to know where you are—I’ll probably have more questions after we’ve finished here.” He glances from me to Adam. “I’ll probably have questions for both of you. I’m curious, Mr. Webster, as to why you’re here. You must have come directly from the police station.”
Adam doesn’t show any nervousness as he responds to DC Norton. “I told you why—I wanted to talk to Hanna about those women.”
He nods, then turns away from us as one of the uniformed officers appears in my doorway and calls to him. “Okay,” he says to us as he walks away. “Make sure PC Morgan has full details of where you’ll be tonight. I’ll want to speak to both of you.”
It feels weird walking away from my own flat, leaving it swarming with police who’ll be poking through my drawers and cupboards. My cheeks warm as I try to remember if I put the washing in the basket or if a bunch of policemen are going to be tripping over my knickers.
“Do you want me to come with you to Dee and Seb’s?” Adam asks as we stop by my car.
“No, I’m okay…” I pause. “Unless you want to come as well? I’m sure they won’t mind if you don’t want to go home alone. Or I could give you a lift home—you said the police had your car?” I wince as I realize why they’re checking his car over. The hit-and-run. The woman who was hit so violently almost every bone in her body was broken. The car that hit her… there’s no way it escaped unscathed.
Adam looks at me. “You know none of this is me, right? Whoever broke into your flat—I was at the police station when that was happening. And I wasn’t even in Cardiff when that other woman was hit by the car. I was in London.”
But they’re still checking his car.
He shrugs and shakes his head. “Actually, I think I’m going to stop at the pub. I really feel the need for a cold pint in a noisy pub. Somewhere I can try to forget today ever happened.”
I waver as he turns away. “Do you mind if I join you? I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night waiting for the police to call me back and a noisy pub sounds quite soothing right about now. I’ll just text Dee and let her know I’m taking a detour on the way to hers.”
“So,” Adam says as he puts a Coke in front of me and picks up his pint. “I guess this counts as our second date? That’s a bit of a record for me—two dates, two nights in a row.”
“And who knew? All you had to do was get your site hacked, kidnap my family, and murder two women to make it happen.”
He shakes his head, downing a third of his pint in one go. “It’s so crazy. Two days ago, everything was completely normal—I had a Friday-night date to look forward to, I was meant to be having a few drinks with some mates tonight, a new project in work to get stuck into…”
“I’m sorry. And I know it’s stupid to even be saying sorry like there’s anything I could have done—but I feel bad. Because if Dee and Seb hadn’t set this up—set us up—you’d have been having that nice, normal weekend.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, it is stupid. Because if we’re thinking that way then I’m sorry for spotting you across the room at Seb’s New Year party and asking him about you.”
I smile, temporarily distracted. “Don’t tell me—it was my spectacularly bad singing that did it.”
“To be fair, I think I could beat you in a bad singing competition. I’d seen you before, but Dee told me you weren’t single. Then—there you were again at New Year, wearing one of those sparkly cardboard party hats even though no one else was and you had the best laugh.” He pauses. “I was coming out of a long-term relationship and you were the first girl I’d really wanted to ask out in a long time.”
I look down into the melting ice in my glass. “What frightens me the most about all of this is not knowing who is doing it or when it started. Is it you or me they’re targeting? Have they been watching us for months? Did someone overhear you asking Seb about me all the way back on New Year’s Eve? But that would mean it’s someone we know—Dee only invites friends to her parties.”
Adam visibly shivers and I wonder who’s walked across his grave.
“Bet you’re wishing you’d stayed in London and never moved down here,” I say.
He smiles. “Well, I’d lost my job and broken up with Natalie—I was ready for a change.”
“Bit of a major change, though—London for Cardiff, a whole new life.”
“Not completely—I lived here for three years at university. Seb’s always been a good mate and I had as many friends still living here as in London. I always liked Cardiff, probably would have stayed here after graduating if I’d found a good enough job.”
It’s difficult to see anything sinister in his only having lived here a few months when I’m actually here in front of him. He’s relaxed and open and—hate the word though I do—so damned nice. I can’t sit here and believe him capable of anything bad.
“Do you want another drink?” I nod at his empty glass, but he shakes his head.
“Too tempting to get drunk. I think I’ll head home. Do you want me to come with you to Dee and Seb’s?”
I smile. “No, it’s okay. It’s only round the corner.” I sigh as we stand up to leave. “I don’t think I’ll be getting any sleep, though.”
“No. Me neither. What will you do now? Are you still planning to go back to your home town?”
I shrug. “I guess. I’ll see what the police have to say—see if I can go back to my flat and clean up.” I shiver as I put my jacket on but it’s not from the cold air as we leave the pub. “To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll feel comfortable there for a long time knowing someone’s been in there.”
“That’s understandable—I’m sure I’d feel the same.” Adam turns to face me as we both hover on the pavement.
It’s so strange to think I only met him twenty-four hours ago. He hesitates then leans down and kisses me on the cheek. “Night, Hanna,” he says before turning to walk away.
I unlock the car and stop to watch him. “Adam,” I call after him.
He stops and turns back.
“Would you like to come with us tomorrow? If we go back to Littledean?”
He stares at me for a moment, then nods.
Dee has already made up the sofa-bed in their living room by the time I get there. She makes us tea and sits on the bed next to me as I tell her about the break-in. Seb hovers in the doorway. He’s got that wary look on his face again, like he thinks I’m going to bring trouble into Dee’s life.
“God,” Dee says with an exaggerated shudder, “I’m so glad Adam was there waiting for you.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say, sipping my tea. “Although I did have a wobble at first, wondering if it was him who’d broken in.”
“Han—come on,” Seb says, stepping into the room. “He really likes you. This whole nightmare has really upset him. And you have to blame me for him being there. I was the one who gave him your address.”
“I know, I know… We went for a drink. I asked him to come along when we go back to Littledean. I know it’s not him. But I think this, however it turns out, has really screwed up any chances of a proper second date. He’s going to run a mile, isn’t he?”
“Adam? Nah.” Seb sits on the bed, scooting behind Dee and wrapping his arms around her. “To be fair, even with all this going on, you’re lower maintenance than Natalie.”
“Ah, the ex? He mentioned her name.”
“Yeah—he hasn’t really had a serious girlfriend since they broke up. She was… He was a total mess after. But two years single is a long time. Murders and missing families aside, I have high hopes for you two.”
I stare at Seb. “Two years? He told me he broke up with her just before he moved here. He made it sound like the breakup was one of the reasons for the move.”
Seb shakes his head. “No, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there. I know because he was totally screwed up after they split, and I’ve spent the last year and a half encouraging him to get out there and find someone else. You probably misheard him.”
But I didn’t. I know I didn’t. He told me he was just coming out of a long-term relationship when he saw me at the party. He told me they’d just broken up before he moved here.
I’m about to ask him more when my phone rings. I answer and it’s DC Norton.
“We’ve finished with your flat,” he says. “We could do with getting your fingerprints along with everyone who’s been there recently so we can eliminate them from our inquiries—but we can talk about that more in the morning. There was no sign of forced entry or major damage, but we’ll need you to go through the place and see if anything is missing. We’ve made sure it’s secure, but it would be a good idea to get the locks changed.” He pauses. “We found a couple of things we’d like to talk to you about—can you come into the station tomorrow?”
“Of course, but what did you find?”
Another pause. “Nothing alarming. Just a couple of things we want to check belong to you.”
My heart is now racing as I try to imagine what they might have found. Did I have anything illegal or dodgy lying around the flat? Or is it something the intruder has left behind?
“There’s another thing,” DC Norton says. “We’ve traced your family’s new address and—”
“Were they there? Are they okay?”
“We’ve ascertained it is their address, but they’re not currently there.”
“So where are they?”
“The holiday park owners believe they’ve gone on holiday, but as they’re new to the area, we haven’t found anyone yet who can tell us where they went or how long they are supposed to be gone.”
Yes, it’s the school half-term, isn’t it? Dad always took his holidays early in the year because he worked all through the summer season. I allow myself a moment of relief. That’s all it is, a week away before he starts his new job, his phone switched off because he’s on holiday. He always was severely puritan about phones being off during meals or holidays. He would have been happier if none of us had ever had mobile phones if he hadn’t needed one for work.
“So that’s good, then?” I say, all the tentative hope obvious in my voice. “They’re just on holiday and incommunicado.”
“We hope so. But in light of what’s been happening, we’re still treating finding them safe and well as a priority.”
Chapter 14
Sunday 10 a.m.
Dee stops me as I’m about to leave the next morning.
“You might want to have a look at this…” She holds out a piece of paper. She’s frowning and I see her hesitate before handing it over. Ever keen to protect me, Dee couldn’t make it more obvious that, whatever this is, it’s bad news.
It’s a bit much sometimes. Not that I’d ever say it to her, but Dee is definitely overprotective. And I know it’s because she loves me, which is why I would never, ever say anything, but it also…
Like Seb and that hint of wariness. Like the way he hovers in front of Dee sometimes when I’m around.
They don’t entirely trust me not to fall back into my bad old ways. That’s what their behavior says. Dee is trying to protect me from anything bad, in case I instantly turn to drink and drugs and debauchery because I can’t handle it. And Seb—hovering, wary Seb—is always waiting for me to turn back into old Hanna and hurt Dee.
I hold out my hand to take the paper. “What is it?”
“I did some more research—into the hit-and-run, like I said, remember? And I found this. It’s an article in one of the local magazines. Written by the sister of the hit-and-run victim.”
Katie Bentley. A stranger, but I won’t ever forget her name now. I look at the date on the article: it was written just before Christmas. Only a couple of months before she also died.
“She says—she insists—that her sister’s death wasn’t an accident. That it wasn’t even a spur-of-the-moment deliberate hit-and-run.”
I stare at the paper but I can’t take the words in.
“She says she knows who did it and that the police know who did it. She doesn’t name them, but says the police had someone in for questioning and they let him go…”
I shake my head. “Whoever it is—they can’t be a real suspect, can they? They would have brought them back in straight away.”
Dee bites her lip. “Maybe they did. Maybe that’s what they want to talk to you about today.”
“Thanks for coming in, Miss Carter.” DC Norton smiles as he leads me through the police station, but he looks tired and I wonder if he’s been working all night. I doubt I look much better. I was okay when I was talking to Dee and Seb, but the demons came back with a vengeance after they went to bed and I don’t feel like I’ve slept at all.
