Behind Closed Doors Read online

  Scarlett answered this with a shrug.

  “You mentioned you’d been brought here in a lorry—” she consulted her notes “—and that someone in Briarstone was responsible for bringing you here.”

  “You want me to give you names,” Scarlett said, “and I’m not going to do that. It wouldn’t help you anyway. I don’t know who you think I am. I’m a nobody. I cook them oven chips and beans and wash their sheets. I don’t know anything about anything.” The sweatshirt had ridden up her arms, revealing pale skin, scratches.

  Sam and Lou exchanged glances. These things took time, there was no doubt about it, but time wasn’t something they had in abundance. If Waterhouse didn’t get what he wanted out of Scarlett, then it wouldn’t be long before the press found her. Tempting as it was to threaten her with this potential scenario, in all probability it would make her leave the house and disappear. Free pizza—or whatever it was keeping her here—was good as long as it did the trick.

  Lou had one more question to ask. “Scarlett, can you tell us about Nico?”

  The reaction was immediate. The hooded head snapped up and the eyes that fixed on Lou were cold. “Who?”

  Lou risked continuing. “A couple of days before you disappeared, you were looking for a boy called Nico. I just wondered who he was.”

  Scarlett smiled, then hid her mouth behind the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She chewed the cuff. Still watching. “He was just a lad I met in Greece. I thought he was all right but he turned out to be an arsehole. Like all men.”

  “How was he an arsehole?” Sam asked.

  But, to this, Scarlett shrugged and shook her head. “What time’s my mother turning up?”

  Lou said, “I think the flight was this morning.”

  “Some of your lot are bringing her from the airport, apparently,” Scarlett said. “I’d like something to drink.”

  “What? Tea? Coffee?” Lou asked.

  “I can make it,” Sam said.

  “No, don’t worry, I’ll go.”

  “Tea,” said Scarlett.

  The living room door shut behind Lou. Scarlett’s eye contact was unwavering. “You gay?” she asked, out of nowhere.

  Sam had been asked this in interviews before; often it was a diversionary tactic, reasonably easily squashed, worth doing to establish who was in charge of the interview. This was different. She thought for a moment how to respond.

  But Scarlett wasn’t waiting. “In a relationship? Got a girlfriend?”

  “Not currently.”

  There was a pause. Sam defused the rising tension in the room as best she could, maintaining her own relaxed posture, keeping her breathing steady. “How about you?” she asked.

  “Don’t do relationships,” Scarlett said. “I don’t think I ever will. Why are you here? What’s your name again?”

  “My name’s Sam.”

  “Are you, like, the last resort or something?”

  “You’re wasting everyone’s time, Scarlett. I think you’re desperate to get out of this whole situation but you don’t know how to do it because you don’t trust anyone. I can’t tell you to trust me, or Lou, or anyone else. You have to decide that for yourself.”

  “You have no idea. You have absolutely no idea.”

  “So tell me.”

  There was another silence. Sam watched Scarlett’s chest rise and fall, her breathing quickening.

  “You ever had a boyfriend? No, you’re not going to answer, are you? You ever been fucked by a bloke, Sam, or have you always liked girls?”

  Another pause. “Tell me,” Sam said, gently. “I’m listening.”

  “My first time,” Scarlett said, “was on a damp mattress, in a room in the back of a flat in Prague. There were three of them, three men. Later on I found out they all paid top rates because they knew I was a virgin. Two and a half hours, it took, with them taking it in turns. They held me down and when I kept fighting and struggling they punched me in the face until I was out of it, until I was too hurt to fight back anymore. Once they’d finished I got to have a shower and wash the blood off, even though I could barely stand up. They gave me something to eat and drink, and then the bastard who was minding me had a go, too. He was grinning the whole time while I was crying with pain, because the woman who’d taken me to the flat was filming it for him on his mobile phone. I was fifteen years old. Before that night I’d only ever kissed one boy. A Greek boy called Nico.”

  Outside, a car door slammed, then another. Voices, and then, moments later, the doorbell went.

  “I’m guessing that’s your mother,” Sam said.

  LOU

  Friday 1 November 2013, 14:10

  Caro went to answer the door. Lou strained to hear the conversation on the doorstep.

  Annie Rainsford had arrived in the back of an unmarked Škoda Octavia, collected from the airport at significant cost to the taxpayer by Terry Cartwright and Dave Porter. Police officers were used to traveling in twos, but even so it seemed a bit of an unnecessary extravagance to Lou, to have two Special Branch detectives providing a taxi service all the way from Gatwick. Clive was driving Juliette home separately. The family car had been in one of the long-stay car parks.

  A few moments later Caro brought Annie into the kitchen. Lou had a brief moment to size her up. Ten years had passed since the last time they’d seen each other, but Lou would have recognized her in an instant. Dark, straight hair, big blue eyes rimmed with silky, wet-looking lashes. The tiny lines around her eyes were the only indication of the time that had passed. She was fifty-two, but she looked much, much younger. From a distance you might have thought she was a teenager herself: she was small and slight, with a girlish physique almost, an illusion completed by the tanned feet in plastic flip-flops, bitten fingernails, chipped bubblegum-pink nail polish. During the investigation, Lou remembered thinking that she and Clive made an unlikely couple: she was attractive, bright, pretty in fact—and Clive was much older, pale, clever but without any accompanying humor or wit. And yet they were married, and still married and holidaying together ten years down the line, despite everything their family had endured.

  There was a flicker of recognition in Annie’s eyes, a look that said, I know you from somewhere.

  “Lou Smith,” she said, holding out her hand with a warm smile. “It’s been a long time, I know. I was a DC on the investigation when Scarlett went missing.”

  “Oh! That’s right. I remember. How are you?”

  All very polite and friendly, despite the peculiar circumstances. But how did she expect her to be? Lou thought. There was no frame of reference for how you were supposed to behave after ten years without your daughter. Losing her as a child, finding her again as an adult.

  And then Annie said something that took Lou’s breath away.

  “I told you she didn’t run away. You didn’t believe me, did you?”

  Lou knocked on the door of the sitting room. Sam opened it; Scarlett didn’t even look up, concentrating on the wet sleeve of the hoodie.

  “Scarlett,” Lou said gently, “your mum’s here.”

  “I’ll be next door,” Sam said. “Just call if you need anything.”

  Lou had time to register Annie’s face, the shock on it, something else there, too—fear? Confusion?—before she withdrew.

  And as the door was closing, she heard something—Scarlett’s hushed, urgent whisper, “I haven’t forgotten, you know. I saw you. I saw you.”

  14:45

  The conversation between the two women in the front room had been punctuated by long periods of silence. More than once Caro had got to her feet, ready to go in there and see if they needed a break from each other, ask if they wanted tea or food or some other sustenance, and then, before she had made it to the door, one or other of them had started speaking again.

  Annie had been by turns cold, dry-eyed and then sobbing like a child, hands over her face. Scarlett had remained on the sofa with her knees drawn up, seemingly immune to the emotional charge in the room.r />
  Once they’d been left alone together, and the door had closed, Annie had taken a step toward Scarlett, her arms spread ready for an embrace. Scarlett had flinched, shrunk back into the sofa away from her, and then the strange thing Scarlett said: I saw you.

  Annie had not reacted to that at all. She’d lowered herself gently down onto one of the armchairs, her gaze fixed on her daughter.

  From the kitchen, Lou, Sam and Caro had watched the scene play out on the monitor with all the greedy fascination of fans watching the final of a Sunday night drama serial, but, from that opening, things quickly drew to an uncomfortable halt.

  “Where have you been?” Annie asked at last.

  Scarlett had shrugged in reply. “All over the place.”

  “How long have you been here? In Briarstone?”

  There was silence in reply, and as they were both sitting motionless staring at each other Lou actually wondered if the camera had stopped working and had frozen on the last image.

  And then, minutes later, Scarlett stretched out an arm, scratched the back of her wrist, and answered the question with another. “When did you stop looking for me?”

  And then it was Annie’s turn to be silent.

  “Did you even start?”

  Annie responded, “Sometimes you make mistakes. And if you don’t own up to them, sooner or later they turn into bigger mistakes and bigger ones, and then you can’t admit to them at all, ever.”

  They could see her face, just about, but the features looked impassive. What on earth was that about? Lou thought. Why didn’t she grab Scarlett in a crushing hug, swear that they’d never stopped looking, never given up hope, not for a moment . . . say how her life had been crippled by losing her and how overjoyed she was to see her here, alive and breathing. . .

  There was no accounting for people. That was one thing Lou had learned over the years—that people behaved in entirely unexpected ways. And that it didn’t necessarily make them criminals, or guilty of anything—it just meant they were individuals. Who knew how you were supposed to react to a situation such as this one? It was unprecedented. Yesterday Annie had been relaxing by the pool; today she was back in the English drizzle, suffering another emotional turmoil and dealing with it as best she could.

  “Your father and Juliette would like to see you,” Annie said then. She hadn’t moved.

  Your father, Lou noticed. Not Dad or Daddy.

  “She’s missed you,” Annie ventured. “Don’t you want to know how she is?”

  Silence, in reply, and this time it went on for much longer. Ten minutes together and they had already run out of things to say.

  “Awkward,” said Lou eventually.

  “Something tells me it’s going to be a long day,” Caro replied.

  Lou looked at her watch. Early afternoon already, and that hockey game to go to tonight. She would have to go home first, because there was no way she was going to spend a couple of hours sitting rinkside without some serious winter clothing to keep her warm.

  She wasn’t looking forward to it. Most of the other hockey games she’d been to (hockey, not ice hockey, because in Canada the distinction made was the reverse of the traditional one in the U.K.—in other words, “hockey” was played on the ice, and “field hockey” was what Lou had been tortured with at school) had been with Jason by her side as a fellow spectator. When he had been playing, she’d usually taken the opportunity to be elsewhere.

  This time he’d insisted—something about it being a crucial league match and how he really wanted her there. And, since they both had the day off the next day, they could spend some time together.

  She had asked in reply if she couldn’t just meet up with him after the match, maybe even cook dinner for him and have it ready for when he came back, but his response to that had been clear. “Yeah, right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He’d raised an eyebrow. “You know what’s going to happen, Lou. You’re going to work late and you won’t make it to the match, you’ll make it just in time for something to eat from the takeaway if I’m lucky, or maybe not even make it at all. So what’s the point?”

  He was right, of course. The chances were high that she would stay here listening to Annie and Scarlett, and would miss the match entirely.

  In the living room, Annie and Scarlett stared each other out. Lou looked at her watch again.

  15:40

  Annie Rainsford emerged from the living room of the VVS after an hour and a half of stilted conversation with Scarlett.

  She headed for the kitchen, but Lou got up from the monitor quickly and intercepted her in the hallway. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but her complexion was clear. She brushed her hair away from her face and it fell in a glossy wave. Freshly washed this morning, before leaving for the airport.

  “I need to get back home,” she said. “Get some washing on, check that Juliette is okay.”

  “How did you get on?” Sam asked.

  Annie wiped her eye with the back of her index finger, as though to prevent her eye makeup from running down her cheek, even though it didn’t look as if she was wearing any. “Not good,” she said.

  Lou thought about it for a second, glancing back toward the kitchen door where Caro was waiting. “I’ll run you home, shall I?”

  “That would be great. Thank you. I have no idea where this place even is.”

  “Mind if I stay for a bit?” Sam asked.

  “Sure,” Lou said. “Ring me later?”

  It had started to rain properly, great heavy drops that splashed up from the pavement and soaked through Lou’s suit jacket within minutes. Lou led the way to her car, Annie dashing behind her. They were both drenched. Doors slammed, clunk-clunk, and almost immediately the car started to steam up. Lou started the engine and turned up the fan.

  “Bit of a change from Spain,” she said.

  “Yes,” Annie said. And actually laughed. “It was hot when I left this morning.”

  “It must have come as a huge shock,” Lou said. “After all this time.”

  Annie clicked her seatbelt into place. “Yes and no. I knew I would get a call sooner or later.”

  Lou let this hang in the air between them for a few moments while the windscreen cleared. Her mind raced through the interviews, the transcripts, all the information and intelligence she had handled ten years ago and whether Annie and Clive had seemed to give any idea, at all, that Scarlett’s disappearance had been somehow expected, or her whereabouts known. She’d been fifteen. That had been the only thing. She’d been fifteen, and if Clive and Annie had known about Nico—the Greek boy that Scarlett had met in Rhodes—they had not shared that information with the police.

  “What makes you say that?” Lou asked, pulling out of the parking space.

  “I just knew,” Annie said. She had her face turned away, toward the rain-spattered window, so Lou could not see her expression. “Are you a mum?”

  “No,” Lou said.

  “Well. A mother knows these things. I always knew she was alive.”

  It felt as if Annie was backtracking now, that she realized she’d said something out of place and was playing the old “mother’s instinct” card, the one non-mothers had no right to argue with.

  Lou changed the subject. “I’m glad you managed to get a flight back.”

  Annie didn’t answer immediately. Her light summer skirt was wet from the rain, clinging to her legs. Lou noticed she was shivering, so she turned up the heater.

  “They were going to charge us for a full-price ticket to come back, you know. We couldn’t really do that for all three of us—you wouldn’t believe how much it cost. Clive got onto the management and then they caved in. Still charged us an admin fee to change the tickets, though. Juliette’s struggling with everything. She can’t deal with changes to her routine.”

  “What’s the issue with Juliette?” It was like tugging at a fraying cloth, trying to get Annie to unravel.

  “She has
behavioral problems. We still can’t get a firm diagnosis. She falls through all the cracks.”

  “I’m sorry. That must be incredibly difficult.” Behavioral problems? Lou thought. She must be twenty-three by now . . .

  Annie nodded. “She’s fine most of the time. I mean, we all have our quirks, don’t we? But it takes so long to get her used to an idea . . . so to change things around without notice is, um, catastrophic.”

  “Did you tell her that Scarlett has come back?”

  “No. Not yet. Maybe tonight, when she’s had a chance to settle.”

  “Has she ever talked about Scarlett?”

  Another long pause, so long that Lou wondered if Annie had even heard. She was on the verge of repeating the question when Annie came back with an answer. Wistful, as though the thought of it had taken her back across the years to the time when they had all, possibly, been in a happier place. “All the time.”

  “She must have found it very, very difficult to deal with.”

  “She wasn’t quite so bad then. I mean, she was . . . unusual. But it’s like Scarlett’s disappearance set her off. When we came back . . .” She trailed off. Something on the road had distracted her. They were at the traffic lights by the bridge, waiting to join the interminable queues around the one-way system. “I didn’t realize they’d closed down.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The pub on the corner. I used to drink in there when I was a student.”

  “Oh,” Lou said. “Yes. It closed about a month ago. You were saying? About Juliette?”

  “Mm? Oh . . .” Annie seemed lost in thought again. “Yes. When we came back—she kept talking about Scarlett as though she wasn’t missing at all. As though she’d gone to visit someone. She kept asking when she was coming back. I mean, she was thirteen, not a baby. She just didn’t seem to understand.”

  “What about the school?”

  “She didn’t go back for months. She was self-harming, tried suicide—you probably know about that. She got counseling, but it didn’t seem to help. She just wouldn’t talk, not to us, not to anyone.”