The Widow (10 page)

Mike Doonan was marking his race card in the
Daily Star
when he heard his doorbell.

Swinging his bulk forward to rise out of his armchair, he groaned. The pain shot down his left leg and he had to stand for a moment to catch his breath.

‘Hang on, I'm coming,' he shouted.

When he cracked open the door on to the walkway, it was not his Good Samaritan neighbour with his Saturday shop of lager and sliced bread, but two men in suits.

‘If you're Mormons, I've already got enough ex-wives,' he said and made to close the door.

‘Mr Michael Doonan?' Sparkes said. ‘We're police officers and we'd like to talk to you for a moment.'

‘Bloody hell, it isn't about a parking ticket, is it? I thought I'd cleared them all. Come in, then.'

In the tiny sitting room of his council flat, he slowly lowered himself back into his chair. ‘Back's buggered,' he said, gasping from a spasm of pain.

At the mention of Bella Elliott, he stopped wincing.

‘Poor little thing. I was in Portsmouth that lunchtime on a job. Is that why you're here? I told the boss he ought to ring in when the papers said about the dark-blue van – you know I drove one that colour – but he said he didn't want coppers sniffing around his business. Not sure why – you'll have to ask him. Anyway, I was nowhere near where the little girl lived. Just did my job and came back.'

Doonan continued to be helpful to a fault, offering his thoughts on the case and what should happen to ‘the bastard who took her'.

‘I'd do anything to get my hands on him. Mind you, couldn't do much if I did, not in the state I'm in.'

‘How long have you been in this state, Mr Doonan?' Sergeant Matthews asked.

‘Years. I'll be in a wheelchair soon.'

The officers listened patiently, then broached his alleged interest in internet child pornography. He laughed when they talked about Operation Gold.

‘I haven't even got a computer. Not my kind of thing. Bit of a technophobe, if I'm honest. Anyway, all these investigations are bollocks, aren't they? Clever blokes in Russia stealing credit-card numbers and selling them on to paedos, it says in the papers. Don't take my word for it. Have a look round, officers.'

Sparkes and Matthews took up his offer, pushing through clothes jammed into a wardrobe and lifting the mattress on Doonan's bed to look in the storage bags underneath. ‘Lot of women's clothes, Mr Doonan,' Matthews observed.

‘Yes, bit of a cross-dresser when the mood takes me,' Doonan laughed easily. Too easily, Sparkes thought. ‘Nah, the clothes belonged to my latest ex-wife. Haven't got round to chucking them out.'

There was no sign of a child.

‘Do you have kids, Mr Doonan?'

‘Grown-ups now. Don't really see much of them. They sided with their mothers.'

‘Right. We'll take a quick look in the bathroom.'

Sparkes looked across at his sergeant, digging through the laundry basket and trying not to breathe.

‘Well, she's not here, but I don't like him,' Matthews hissed through his teeth. ‘Over-friendly. Creepy.'

‘We need to talk to the Operation Gold boys again,' Sparkes said, closing the bathroom cabinet. ‘And get his van in for Forensics to go over.'

When they filed back into the sitting room, Doonan smiled. ‘All done? Sorry about the washing. Expect you'll be off to see Glen Taylor now?'

‘Who?' Sparkes asked.

‘Taylor. One of the other drivers. He did a drop in the area the same day. Didn't you know?'

Sparkes stopped putting on his coat and moved closer to Doonan. ‘No. Mr Johnstone didn't mention a second driver when he called in. Are you sure there were two of you?'

‘Yeah, I was going to do both jobs but I had a doctor's appointment and had to get back to town by four thirty. Glen said he'd do the second drop. Maybe he didn't put it on the log. You should ask him.'

‘We will, Mr Doonan.'

Sparkes signalled to Matthews to go and call Johnstone to confirm the new information.

As the sergeant closed the front door behind him, Sparkes looked hard at Doonan. ‘Is this other driver a friend of yours?'

Doonan sniffed. ‘Not really. Bit of a mystery, if I'm honest. Clever boy. Deep, I'd say.'

Sparkes wrote it down. ‘Deep, how?'

‘Acted all friendly but you never knew what he was thinking. The blokes would be talking in the canteen and he'd just be listening in. Secretive, I suppose.'

Matthews knocked on the window, startling them both, and Sparkes put his notebook away and said goodbye without shaking hands.

‘We'll see you again, Mr Doonan.'

The driver excused himself from getting up to let him out.

‘Slam the door behind you and come back any time,' he called after him.

The officers got into the stinking lift and looked at each other as the doors closed.

‘Mr Johnstone says there's nothing in the log about Glen Taylor doing any jobs that afternoon,' said Matthews. ‘He's looking for the delivery receipt to see whose signature is on it. I've got Taylor's address.'

‘Let's go there now,' Sparkes said, reaching for his keys. ‘And check if Doonan turned up for his doctor's appointment.'

In the flat, Mike Doonan waited for an hour and then staggered to the coat hooks in the hall and fished out a padlock key from his jacket pocket. He shook two of his special painkillers from a white plastic container and swallowed them with a gulp of cold coffee. He stood while they kicked in and then shuffled out to remove the pictures and magazines from his locker in the neighbour's garage.

‘Fucking police,' he grumbled as he braced himself against the lift wall. He'd burn the photos later. He'd been stupid to keep them really, but they were all that was left of his little hobby. The computer stuff had come to an end months ago when his spine had started to collapse and he couldn't get to his special internet café any more.

‘Too crippled for porn,' he laughed to himself – his painkillers making him lightheaded and giddy. ‘That's tragic.'

He opened the door of the grey metal cabinet and pulled the battered-looking blue folder off the top shelf. The corners of the photocopies had become dog-eared with use and the colours were beginning to fade. He'd bought them from another driver, a bloke who drove cabs down on the coast and sold his stuff from the boot of his car. Doonan knew his pictures off by heart. The faces, the poses, the domesticity of the backgrounds – living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms.

He hoped the detectives were giving Glen Taylor a good going-over. Serve him right, jumped-up little prick.

The older one had looked interested when he said Taylor was ‘deep'. He smiled.

S
PARKES' HEART WAS
going like a steam hammer as he walked up the Taylors' path, all senses heightened. He'd done this walk a hundred times but his reactions never seemed blunted by repetition.

The house was a semi, painted and well cared for, with double-glazed windows and clean net curtains.

Are you here, Bella?
he repeated in his head as he raised a hand to knock on the door. Softly, softly, he reminded himself. Let's not panic anyone.

And then, there he was. Glen Taylor.

He looks like the bloke next door, was Sparkes' first thought. But then monsters rarely look the part. You hope you'll be able to see the evil shining out of them – it would make police work a damned sight easier, he often said. But evil was a slippery substance, only glimpsed occasionally and all the more horrifying for that, he knew.

The detective made a quick visual sweep behind Taylor for any signs of a child, but the hall and stairs were spotless, nothing out of place.

‘Normal to the point of abnormal,' he told Eileen later. ‘Looked like a show house.' Eileen had taken offence, seeing the remark as a judgement on her own housekeeping skills, and hissed her discontent at him.

‘Bloody hell, Eileen, what's the matter with you? No one is talking about you, about our house. I'm talking about a suspect. I thought you'd be interested.' But the damage was done. Eileen retreated to the kitchen and some loud cleaning. Another quiet week, he thought and turned the telly up.

‘Mr Glen Taylor?' Sparkes asked quietly and courteously.

‘Yes, that's me,' Taylor replied. ‘What can I do for you? Are you selling something?'

The officer stepped closer, Ian Matthews at his heels.

‘Mr Taylor, I'm Detective Inspector Bob Sparkes from the Hampshire Police Force. Can I come in?'

‘Police? What is this about?' Taylor asked.

‘I would like to talk to you about the case of a missing child I'm investigating. It's about the disappearance of Bella Elliott,' he said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. The colour drained from Glen Taylor's face and he stepped back as if recoiling from a punch.

Taylor's wife came out of the kitchen and was wiping her hands on a tea towel when the words ‘Bella Elliott' were spoken. A nice, decent-looking woman, Sparkes thought. She gasped and her hands flew up to her face. Strange how people react. That gesture, to cover your face, must be hardwired into people. Is it shame? Or an unwillingness to look at something? he wondered, waiting to be shown through to the sitting room.

Odd really, he thought. He hasn't looked at his wife once the whole time. It's as if she isn't there. Poor woman, she looks like she's going to collapse.

Taylor quickly pulled himself together and answered their questions.

‘We understand you were making a delivery in the area where Bella was taken, Mr Taylor.'

‘Well, I think so.'

‘Your friend, Mr Doonan, said you were.'

‘Doonan?' Glen Taylor's mouth tightened. ‘Not a friend of mine, but – hang on a minute. Yes, I think I was.'

‘Try to be sure, Mr Taylor. It was the day Bella Elliott was abducted,' Sparkes insisted.

‘Right, yes. Of course. I think I had one drop early afternoon and then came home. About four, as I remember.'

‘Home at four, Mr Taylor? You made very good time. Are you sure it was four?'

Taylor nodded, forehead creased as if miming thinking hard. ‘Yes, definitely four. Jean will bear me out.'

Jean Taylor said nothing. It was as if she hadn't heard and Sparkes had to repeat the question before she made eye contact with him and nodded.

‘Yes,' she said, as if on automatic pilot.

Sparkes turned back to Glen Taylor. ‘The thing is, Mr Taylor, your van matches the description of a vehicle that was noticed by a neighbour just before Bella vanished. You probably read about it – it was in all the papers – and we're checking all blue vans.'

‘I thought you were looking for a man with a ponytail. I've got short hair, and anyway, I wasn't in Southampton. It was Winchester,' Taylor said.

‘Yes, but are you sure you didn't take a little drive after the delivery?'

Taylor laughed off the suggestion.

‘I don't do any more driving than I have to – not my idea of relaxation. Look, this is all a terrible mistake.'

Sparkes nodded to himself thoughtfully. ‘I'm sure you understand how serious this matter is, Mr Taylor, and won't mind if we have a look around.'

An immediate search of the house began with the officers moving quickly through the rooms, calling Bella's name and looking in cupboards, under beds, behind sofas. There was nothing.

But there was something about the way Taylor had told his story. Something rehearsed about it. Sparkes decided to take him in for further questioning, to go over the details once more. He owed it to Bella.

Jean Taylor was left weeping on the stairs, while the officers finished their work.

T
HEY LET ME REST
for a bit and then we have dinner by the big windows in Kate's room, overlooking the gardens. The waiter wheels in a table with a white tablecloth and a vase of flowers in the middle. The plates have those fancy silver domes on them. Kate and Mick have ordered starters, mains and puds and they're stacked on a shelf under the table.

‘Let's push the boat out,' Kate says.

‘Yeah,' Mick says. ‘We deserve it.'

Kate tells him to shut up but I can see they're really pleased with themselves. They've won the big prize – an interview with the widow.

I have chicken and play with it for a bit. Not hungry for it or their celebrations. They pile into the wine and order a second bottle, but I make sure I don't drink more than a glass. Must stay in control.

When I feel tired, I pretend to cry and say I need some time alone. Kate and Mick exchange a look. Obviously this isn't going to plan. But I stand and say, ‘Good night. See you in the morning.'

They scrape their chairs back and stumble to their feet. Kate walks me to my door and makes sure I'm safely inside.

‘Don't answer the phone,' she tells me. ‘If I need to talk to you, I'll knock on the door.'

I nod.

It's boiling hot in my room so I lie on the enormous bed with the windows open to let out the heat of the radiators. Today is playing over and over in my head on a loop and I feel dizzy and out of control, like I'm a bit drunk.

I sit up, to stop the room spinning, and see myself reflected in the window.

It looks like someone else. Some other woman who's let herself be taken away by strangers. Strangers who, until today, were probably banging on my door and writing lies about me. I rub my face and so does the woman in the window. Because it is me.

I stare back at myself.

I can't believe I'm here.

I can't believe I let myself agree to come. After everything the press have done to us. After all the warnings Glen gave.