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It is the week before Christmas and the cathedral city of St Albans is blanketed by snow. But beneath the festive lights, darkness is stirring. The frozen body of a young girl is discovered by the ice-covered lake.
The police scramble for clues. A local woman, Jenny, has had visions of what happened the night of the murder. But Jenny is an exhausted new mother, whose midnight wanderings pull her ever closer to the lake. Can Jenny be trusted? What does she really know?
Then another girl goes missing, and the community unravels. Neighbour turns against neighbour, and Jenny has no idea who to believe. As Christmas Eve approaches, Jenny discovers a secret about her past – and why she could be key to everything…
Welcome Page
About Under the Ice
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About Rachael Blok
The Scorched Earth: A Preview
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
For Rob
The frosted snowman stands in darkness as the young girl fights for her last breath. She loses, sinking deeper and deeper into the lake. The thin ice splinters with her last, feeble kick and the cracks run outwards, fracturing the frozen water. The moon watches with one eye open as the girl sinks into her final sleep.
Jenny wakes suddenly, uneasy. Has he stirred? She leans into the crib and the baby’s breath, warm and milk-scented, blows against her cheek.
What was the noise that woke her? It sounded like a voice, a whisper. And the rustle – was it the wind? And the sudden cold. The chill like a sharpened blade. Phantasms of the night so real she felt sure it was not a dream at all.
She is drenched. Her dreams have left her painted in a skim of sweat. Lying back on the pillow and watching Finn breathe in and out, his tiny chest rising rhythmically, reassuringly, she is finally led back to sleep.
Hope Cottage, standing minutes from the cathedral, is quiet in the final dark hours of the deep mid-winter night. Morning will arrive soon enough, with all its demons and knives.
‘Have we written Christmas cards for my family?’ Will asks, glancing at her before turning his attention back to the M25.
Jenny watches his brow furrow. The ground will be covered in a blink and will vanish, she thinks. The lanes stretching ahead of them are wet and black, visible only in the flashing instants following the ‘thwack, thwack’ of the wipers.
She turns to look out of her window before speaking. ‘Mmm.’
‘Have we brought a cake?’
‘Not this time.’
‘No?’ He sounds surprised. ‘You always make one. Won’t they think it a bit funny if we haven’t brought anything? Nothing at all?’
The car running alongside them has two young children in the back. They are making faces out of the window. Jenny smiles at them and they shrink back in their seats, turtle-like, giggling at having been seen.
‘No, your dad said he didn’t like it last time. He said he had never tried carrot cake and he never would.’ She rests her head back. Looking up and out through the window is making her feel sick. ‘Vegetables? In a cake?’ She can hear him now.
‘You’re not going to start on my dad, are you?’ Will sighs. ‘I could do without this today. We haven’t seen my family for ages and it’s a Christmas meal – just one afternoon. We’re spending Christmas Day with your father.’
Jenny looks out at the rushing vehicles.
‘No, not starting anything.’ The heavy exhaustion is setting in, just thinking about the afternoon ahead. Jenny can feel its familiar wave swelling up inside. Her in-laws seem to survive on endless cups of coffee served up in small, delicate cups with saucers. Their immobile precision awaits her like a straitjacket.
She had thought of her mother last night. Slivers of a memory had laced themselves before her lids as sleep fell: Jenny’s fingers knotted in her mother’s, resting on the bed, the feel of her black hair as Jenny brushed it out, sticking it with clips of all colours. Since having Finn, the loss is cavernous. She had been so young, the grief had been for a figure, a picture – for what she had not known. Memories for years had held themselves like postcards on a board, sepia, inflexible. The ache a faded bruise. But since becoming a mother, questions shaped themselves in her mouth before she remembered not to spit them out. When Finn was coming, deep in the birth pool, she was sure she had heard her mother’s voice call out, ‘Jenny.’ It had fallen in the pool with her, the sound landing lightly as she heaved up to clench against the surges, arriving slowly then quickly.
She is tired a lot. She knows Will thinks she has gone a bit mad. Maybe she has. She had been so capable before. Now, trying to do one thing a day takes all her will and might. Some days pass and she realises she has forgotten to clean her teeth until bedtime. Will is Will, but busier. She worries she has become someone else. Motherhood has taken her by surprise; it has taken root and possessed her.
The snow falls, and she loses herself in the rush of flakes, remembering: day, night, day… morning, and then Finn. The gift. She has been wholly changed.
It had begun with excitement. A throb. An ache below her stomach, and she had leant forward on the sofa, placing her hand across the band of her trousers, wondering.
Will had hurried in from the kitchen, nervous, laughing, asking her all the questions at once. This first stage might take a while: ‘Don’t call until they’re four minutes apart, until talking is tricky.’ So, they had watched a film and held hands. Jenny had looked at his fingers, interlaced with hers and felt thankful she had chosen him.
Later, the pain was so much more than an ache. It had taken her to a place where she had felt entirely alone, working in isolation on breathing, straining, pushing. She couldn’t remember the point at which she had taken her hand away from his and needed it for herself, or even if they had been pulled apart by other demands: calling the hospital, arranging a taxi. Later, she had not wanted his hands on her or near her, his touch peripheral. She hadn’t slept and couldn’t eat. She had sunk intermittently beneath the surface of the birthing pool, to disappear.
The murky, confused minutes ticked by. Will appeared, dressed in a surgical gown, topped with a blue hat, pulling his hair back from his forehead and leaving him shorn and strange. His chin was bristly and without his hair bouncing upwards he had looked younger, vulnerable. For a brief moment, she had not recognised him. His had been a familiar face, but she couldn’t place it amongst the many faces vanishing, reappearing.
It had been hot; time had not been linear. Things happened in waves and bursts. They had made her sign a consent form for a C-section. She had grasped the pen and moved it in circles, only partly aware of what was being asked, absolutely unable to construct anything resembling her name. She was writing in code: red, warm circles that had clenched her and held her, and wrapped her up with this tiny baby.
The movement towards the theatre seemed to have spurred Finn on and when he appeared she had been too tired to weep. When they placed him on her chest he had been so tiny, defenceless. She had navigated the birth and now she was in charge. Finn. She had been entrusted with something remarkable.
Some part of her had quietly left, and something else had crept in.
Jenny looks across at Will’s hands now, holding the steering wheel. They grip tightly as he tuts: another car pulls in front. Will brakes hard in response and Finn wakes in the back. A shrill, desperate wail goes up and Jenny can feel the familiar tightening in her chest.
At the mercy of his cries, the pounding inside will not stop until she can pick him up and soothe him. Like a kinetic watch, the engine beneath her chest feels as though it will fail her if she sits still.
The cries fill the car and she glances at Will. He says nothing, staring determinedly at the road ahead.
She turns and picks up a toy from her bag, then waves the animal face with a bell for a nose wildly in Finn’s direction and smiles brightly.
‘It’s OK, darling, nearly there,’ she sings out.
The crying continues for minutes, stretching like hours. His fragile face has become red and wet, he is squirmed up and hot. She can see him in the mirror they have positioned on the back of the seat. Reflected back at them, he seems so far away. One of the books (she has read many, many books) has said babies need to be picked up within two minutes of crying in order not to feel abandoned, and she believes it. Her body screams Climb in the back. She can’t continue like this. The bubble of panic is rising, and it will escape in a bang if she doesn’t let it out gently, bit by bit.
‘We’re going to have to stop,’ she says, tensed against his response.
‘Where? Where do we stop, Jenny?’ Will’s voice is tight.
He isn’t deliberately trying to obstruct her but it is no good. She can’t sit here for another twenty minutes, as a witness to the tears.
‘Please,’ she says.
She looks up at him. His jaw is set.
Minutes pass.
Without speaking, Will flicks the indicator and she exhales, unaware she has been holding her breath. The car slows in a lay-by.
Her seatbelt is undone before the car stops moving and she climbs in the back. Finn is latched and feeding as Will slams the door and climbs outside. She doesn’t know where he is going, but she doesn’t care. The warm of calm slowly softens her stiff frame. She watches his face, smooth and intent as he drinks.
Will’s voice floats through the car window.
‘… probably about twenty minutes late… Yes… No, Finn’s hungry. We thought he’d sleep… back on the road soon. God yes, traffic rubbish… No, not the A34… Yes, I know you said it might be better…’
Slipping her little finger in his mouth to break the latch after ten minutes, she straps him back into his car seat and watches his tiny body, fast asleep. His face her entire world.
Fastening her belt, she doesn’t immediately look at Will as he opens the door. The moment of quiet is loud with something.
‘It’s OK,’ he says, turning the key and looking at the road before looking at her. ‘It’s hard for me to listen to his cries too, but if we’re on a motorway we’ve got to be sensible. I don’t think it would hurt him to cry for a bit. For fuck’s sake, Jen, he’s four months now.’
‘I can’t let him cry. I just can’t. You know that. I told you it was the wrong time to travel, that he would be hungry.’
‘We can’t dictate every action around his feed pattern!’
Another pause.
It didn’t used to be like this.
Jenny adjusts her top, as Will checks his mirrors.
She knows Will loves him, but she also knows, every fibre of her body knows: Finn needs her. Not Will, not yet. Not grandparents, not yet. Just her. She is Finn’s mum, and that’s it; it is all she can manage.
*
‘They’re here!’
The call from behind the door disappears in the ice wind as Jenny waits outside the big stone house; Will follows behind carrying presents, crunching frosty gravel. The large wooden door, decorated with an elaborate wreath, swings open without Jenny needing to ring the bell.
‘My darling boy,’ Felicity announces, swooping in and picking Finn out of Jenny’s arms, kissing him loudly on the cheek. A waft of expensive perfume drifts out of the doorway.
Jenny first understood Felicity through scent: perfume, coffee, sherry, leather gloves, mints, talcum powder. She enters rooms smiling. Today the musk is warm and expensive, with undertones of mulled wine by the fire.
Finn squirms and writhes under the embrace. Felicity adjusts her hold so he is more comfortable, and he grasps her finger, staring upwards intently. His blue eyes are serious.
‘Hello, Felicity. Lovely to see you. Sorry we’re late,’ Jenny says, as she climbs in over the step, shivering involuntarily. ‘He woke and needed feeding. I know Will wanted us to push through but I couldn’t leave him to cry.’
‘Of course you couldn’t. I remember what it’s like. William used to scream like a wailing banshee whenever we went anywhere in the car.’
‘Really?’ Jenny is surprised. ‘How did you cope?’
‘We wound the windows down, dear, to let the noise out. Henry was determined we weren’t letting ourselves be ruled by a little one. That’s what one did back then. All different nowadays, I think. None of the “teach them disappointment” attitude we grew up with. There was lots of disappointment when we were young so I don’t think we knew how to do it any differently.’
Shoes and coats come off, and the clatter of disrobing and unpeeling fills the usual expectant pause by the shoe rack. Henry doesn’t like muddy footprints.
Floral stuffed sofas sit around a low coffee table, scattered with house interior magazines, tilted precisely.
Felicity lowers herself into a chair, and looking at Finn, not Jenny, asks, ‘Coffee, dear? How’s little Finn’s reflux doing?’
‘How is she? Coping any better?’ Jenny can hear the loud, shouted whispers from Henry coming in from the hall with Will.
‘Jenny. How lovely to see you,’ he says, entering the room, his large frame hiding Will from view.
‘Lovely to see you too, Henry. How are you?’
‘Oh well, struggling on. Now tell me about this terrible business…’
‘Henry, let them settle,’ interrupts Felicity with a frown.
‘Sorry, dear. Coffee?’ he says, picking up the pot from the tray and pouring it into the arranged coffee cups, waiting expectantly for their fill with an unblinking eye. The liquid splashes in obediently.
Felicity asks if her father caught his flight on time and Henry says, ‘Now what do you make of…’ and carries on uninterrupted.
Jenny allows the warmth of the room to relax her. Time ticks on. Will rolls into home mode, detailing work successes, nodding appropriately. She feels her eyes closing and her head lolling forward, and she jerks it upright, pulling herself awake. She catches the end of something.
‘… clear what’s going on, with this trouble up your neck of the woods.’
‘Sorry?’ Will asks. ‘The office?’
‘No, no, St Albans. They found a girl’s body in the lake this morning, I saw. Only a teenager. You haven’t heard?’
Jenny has been popped. The air whooshes out of her; she deflates, like a sagging balloon, suckered to the sofa.
‘Really, in St Albans?’ Will asks, sitting up straighter.
Henry picks up the iPad. ‘Let me get the story up.’ He flicks his fingers over the screen.
‘I can’t believe it! We were walking at the lake only yesterday,’ says Will.
‘Poor girl.’ Jenny tries to speak, but she has no voice.
‘Here, have a look,’ Henry says to Will.
Jenny leans forward, gripping her cup. The handle is hard and cold in her hands. She looks over at Finn and opens her mouth, fish-like.
‘How old was she?’ asks Felicity.
Will is reading. ‘Mmm, they don’t give her age. Either she’s not been identified, or they’re not saying yet.’
Jenny’s throat closes in, gripped by something, gently squeezing each breath. Trying to ask questions, to ask for help, nothing will come. Everything swims around her, and she feels herself begin to sink beneath the surface. Fluid, heavy, her head bobs down. Darkness closes in. The cold, like a knife.
Henry’s face contorts. His lips are moving, but she has sunk so far, she can’t hear him.
‘Your coffee!’ Henry half calls and half shouts.
With effort, she glances down. Warm liquid is seeping into her jumper. She feels a wetness against her chest. The brown stain on the soft cotton is bleeding into a formless wound.
‘For Christ’s sake, it’s dripping on the carpet!’
Will looks up and sees tears on Jenny’s face.
‘Dad, leave it. I’ll get a cloth. She’s upset. Jen, it’s OK. Fuck, it’s terrible. It’s really sad,’ he says, standing up and pulling her up into a hug.
She falls against his chest and gasps for air. The suddenness of her lungs filling makes her woozy.
‘Henry, get the cake and the cloth,’ Felicity begins. ‘No, not now,’ she says to him, silencing whatever he has been about to say. ‘I think we all need some cake and I can’t move because Finn has fallen asleep. I’ll sit right here until he wakes up and Jenny can have a rest. Would you like to go and have a little sleep, dear? The spare bed is all made up.’
Prising open her mouth, Jenny can’t think of what to say. She puts out her hand to Will, an anchor, unbalanced by a sudden gratitude. Felicity is usually welcoming, but this is kind.
‘Well…’
‘Go on. No one will mind. If he wakes I’ll come and get you,’ Will says and smiles at her. ‘He’s pretty much slept all day and all those books you read say you need to sleep when he does.’
His arm is still around her. It’s unusual – he isn’t demonstrative in the presence of his parents. It makes her feel like crying again; his sense of familiarity, missing for weeks, makes her giddy.
She tries hard not to look at Henry. She knows he will be watching to check for coffee on the furniture or the carpet. She doesn’t want to dislike him.
‘OK then,’ she says. And quickly, before she can allow herself to change her mind, she leaves the room and navigates the wide, elegant wooden staircase.
Dredging the lake is cold work. Bodies, bent and busy, fill the park: camera flashes, phones, police tape. The air vibrates.
The trees, covered in frost, hang jewelled in a shaft of sunlight ending in front of Maarten’s boots. Now the snow has arrived, this English winter finally feels real. Last year had been only damp and cold, and he had hankered after the frosty canals of home and stretches of white fields that lie out flat to the horizon, like a solid sea.
Pausing, he allows a brief reprieve. The sky has been grey so far, this morning. Taking a breath, he pulls his shoulders back and looks upwards, judging the likelihood of more snow, wondering if the search will make headway today.
The shaft disappears as a cloud passes overhead, and the colour of the morning darkens. The grey light erases the shine from the snow and frost. Shouts fill the air nearby as something is found and demands a crowd of detail seekers.
‘Here you go, sir.’
He takes gloves from a member of his team, and he nods thanks, pulling them on and flexing his stiff fingers.
‘And you’ll need this,’ says Imogen. She appears quietly to his left, passing a steamy coffee cup into his hands.
He smiles.
‘When did you get time for that?’ He takes a sip. ‘Kak, this one’s yours.’
They switch. ‘Always time for coffee. Seb drove me – I nipped out at the lights. First one for today, and looks like we might need it if we’re going to get anywhere here.’ Taking a last pull on a metal cigarette, she pockets it and reties her scarf.
‘Have you caught up?’ He notices the scarf is pale blue, like the blue of a baby’s room.
She nods.
Maarten scans the scene. Mud and ice make for a murky ground. The cold takes tiny bites out of his face as he unsticks his feet with effort and slides over frozen puddles, unbalanced.
The last few months here have been uneventful: drunks, domestics, pre-Christmas busyness. Today, adrenalin snakes the air.
Aching, his fingers warm through as feeling floods back in. Liv had been talking him through the Christmas timetable when the car had arrived. There are twelve days left before Christmas and the calendar on the wall at home is awash with nativity dates, in-law visits, drinks with friends and office parties. Christmas looms as a to-do list. He’d been scribbling in his diary and wondering quietly what to get her for Christmas. A kitchen mixer? It’s dangerous ground, buying kitchen items for Christmas. Does it constitute a present or a house thing? He wanted a new bike, and had considered getting her one too, so they could ride out together with the kids, but that would definitely be a gift more for him than her. She had mentioned that the boiler was playing up, and he made a note to check it; he had watched her cross things off the lists, and then he had left his gloves on the table, distracted.
The letter sat on the table. He doesn’t have long left to respond. She still won’t talk about it. ‘I’m leaving it to you. You decide what you want to do first and then we will discuss it. Don’t mention it to the girls yet.’
And he doesn’t know. Not yet. Rotterdam. The smell of the city, the trains: their efficiency, graffiti. The port with its open arms; its sea that leans outwards. The architecture: balls, curves, soaring towers. Its pull is physical. He can smell the city, even by this lake. But this is Liv’s home. And the girls have moved so much. English is their first language. Nic would manage, she’d lived there until she was three, but to Sanne it isn’t her home, just a place that is other.
Moving deftly around the edge of the lake, slightly hunched, listening to the crime scene breakdown from his staff, Maarten thinks again of the face of the girl. Young, her features bloated by water, her eyes told them nothing, except she had now vanished. He interrupts his staff with questions, and stores others to run through later. Like Liv, he relies on lists. The A–Z of procedure his map to the truth.
Imogen is beneath the trees on the far side, her red hair falling over her face, staring at something, not touching.
‘Anything?’ he shouts.
‘Not sure. It’s a wallet; it’s covered in snow. It’s been photographed, but hopefully some fingerprints are on there.’
The call had come that morning to say a body had been discovered. His first assumption had been that someone had fallen in. The ice made the pathways around the lake lethal. If someone toppled in, after a few drinks, then that would be that.
But then in came a report of a missing girl. Her parents had checked on her when she hadn’t come down to breakfast, venturing upstairs to discover her room hadn’t been slept in. She was too young to wander off without permission, and it was completely out of character. Moreover, when her mother had tried to contact her, the mobile phone had been switched off. She had never been known to turn her phone off, even when asked.
‘She would never stay at a friend’s without letting us know. Never,’ the mother had said, holding back the tears, when he’d phoned to ask for a photo.
It had been the father who had come down to the station to make a report. Her mother had wanted to stay at home, near the house phone. Just in case.
‘She’s a good girl,’ the dark-haired man had said. He had spoken clearly, making a visible effort to keep himself in check. A fading northern accent pulled at the edge of his vowels. Maarten made a study of the English accent, with all its connotations of education, wealth, class waiting to be decoded syllable by syllable.
He had made reassuring noises, without making any promises: the cars were already heading to the lake to look at a body.
It did indeed appear to be Leigh Hoarde. Aged fourteen, a pupil at one of the local comprehensives. Now drowned. The official identification yet to take place, but the picture her father had brought down that morning indicated it was merely a formality. Unlike the face he had seen that morning, the photo had burst out at him like many similar snaps: taken on a holiday somewhere, a smile, white teeth, guileless. The shards of broken youth, mourned by a nation the moment the photo is out, and Leigh Hoarde will be frozen for ever in the split-second frame.
In his boots and by this still lake, he is cold and nervous. Facts are his bible, not instinct; however, a sepulchral feeling sits heavily at the bottom of his stomach. He waits for evidence, but inevitably so. She didn’t simply slip on snowflakes.
‘Sir!’
A shout comes from further down the pathway, near an overhanging willow, standing winter bare.
He moves forwards, glancing around.
‘Imogen?’
She steps alongside. Her breath clouds before her.
There are three police officers in a cluster, around the ground. They are bent low and are moving carefully. The photographs have finished and the tape is in place.
‘Here,’ one calls out, and another moves over with a notepad, scribbling as the first one speaks.
‘What have we got?’ Maarten asks. He can taste the answer on his lips and closes his mouth. He will be told, rather than ask the question, no need to encourage such news.
‘Footprints, sir,’ the officer nearest to him says.
‘Yes.’ The second one stands up. Maarten struggles to remember her name, Adrika? She’s quite new.
‘They’re moving away from the lake,’ she continues. ‘They’re quite fresh and we’ve found some clothing too. It looks as though it’s been dropped. It’s marked with what looks like fresh blood.’
‘What is it?’
They look down. It looks a pale purple; drenched, it drips as it’s raised. Dark patches scatter the front.
‘A jacket. Looks like she put up a fight, if it’s hers. Not sure there’s enough blood to be the cause of death. I’ll let you know what comes back from Forensics.’
Footprints and blood. Moving away from the lake, past the bushes, where tiny icicles hang over the top of branches like jewelled tiaras.
‘Good job. Confirmation on a suspicious death, then.’ He thrusts his gloved hands back into his pocket, where he can feel the buzz of his mobile.
‘Imogen?’
‘Yes, sir, I’ll call in and get going.’ She turns and walks away, her phone rising to her mouth. ‘Can you let the CSM know we’ve looked at…’
He avoids looking at the body again. The post-mortem will come soon enough. Observing the treads, running away from the point where the girl has been found, he rocks with a brief flash of apprehension. Its force is fleeting, but it sinks within him, a curdled viscous drink.
His phone rumbles again in his hand and this time he pulls off a glove and turns back to the path. He answers without looking at the caller ID.
‘Yes?’
‘Maart? Are you busy?’
Liv.
Oh God, he thinks. He will be late tonight, and she’s got this dinner planned with the parents of their daughter’s best friend.
‘Maart? Can you hear me? I heard they found a body, a young girl. Is that right? Are you busy with it?’
‘Yes, love. I’m at the site now. There’s no real evidence to say what has happened, and we’ve not gone public with it yet. But yes, it’s a young girl, drowned in the lake.’
There is a moment’s pause.
‘Looks suspicious,’ he says. ‘Probably be quite busy today.’
‘Shall I tell the girls, in case they see the news? Nic’s got Becky Dorrington here – they’re making their party invitations and then Becky’s sleeping over. Remember her parents are here for dinner tonight – perhaps I should wait for them before I break the news to Becky? God, such horrible news,’ she says. Her voice is tight. He can imagine her fingernails tapping the table as she speaks, bold with the orange varnish she’d painted on in quick long stripes, for her design meeting tomorrow.
Fuck it. He doesn’t know. He needs to call Rotterdam later too, and he’d been hoping to talk to her. To balance out his thoughts.
‘I won’t say anything to them yet.’ Her voice is clear, cutting into the crime scene, taking him briefly back home.
Neither of them speak and he hears a shout from further down the riverbank.
‘Look, liefje, I’ve got to go. I’ll try not to be late. Kiss the girls for me. Don’t say anything. But keep the TV off. I’ll try and let you know about dinner.’
‘OK, Maart. Try your best though please. I really want to meet the Dorringtons before the girls share their party.’
He puts the phone away and moves heavily down the muddy track, skirting the roped off area, the flash of photographs and forensic collection. Each boot sinks deeper into the sodden ground. His large print is grey on the white snow.
‘Could’ve gone worse,’ Will had said, when getting into the car.
Jenny had not answered, instead, she had curled against her rolled up coat and closed her eyes, waking only as they entered the edges of the tiny city, the darkness folding them like a blanket, watching the blackness and the silence. They pass no more than a handful of cars, crawling back through the whitened, Sunday evening roads.
It is still so new, she thinks. Its criss-crossed streets, small and cobbled, are wrapped like a present waiting to be opened, if she can just find the right piece of string. The two months they’ve lived here have seemed longer. St Albans skirts the brow of Zone 6, a breath above London. Its train route pumps into the heart of the city, taking Will under an hour to his desk.
Fleeing their home in London, which burst like an over-packed suitcase after Finn arrived, Jenny remembers she had loved it immediately. She had been swept to a standstill with déjà vu – she had felt at home, a burst of the familiar and unfamiliar as she had stood at the heart of the park. The city, the lake, had felt like slipping on a forgotten coat, found buried in a wardrobe. She had caught her breath.
To move quickly, they had rented out their flat and signed a lease on Hope Cottage: a chocolate box three bed set back off a tiny, winding lane leading up from the park.
The narrow streets are slippery.
‘Bugger, I’m going to have to leave it,’ Will mutters, as the wheels whir beneath them. They are at the top of their narrow, cobbled lane.
‘Do you think you can walk from here?’ he says.
He vanishes out of the car into the dark carrying the bags and Jenny jumps out. The icy air is biting but still against her cheek; there is no wind. She doesn’t bother waiting for Will to return, and climbs out, slipping as she closes the door and Finn stirs. She steadies herself against the car, waiting for him to settle, and then opens his door carefully, releasing his seat belt through his travel sleeping bag. She counts to three in her head, lifting him on the third and pulling him to her chest. The change of air makes him squirm, but his eyes stay closed, and she picks her way carefully down the hill. Will has put the lights on in the front room and the bathroom, but left the stairs and bedroom dark. She can hear him unloading the bags in the kitchen.
Carrying her heart in her hands, his breath is warm against her neck. She places him gently in his crib, holding his hand, watching him settle.
A blast of cold air, tunnelling through the house, makes her shiver as she heads downstairs. The clock in the front room shows just after nine p.m. Sitting on their battered leather sofa, she opens a note found on the doormat. It’s from the police, asking them to call. Jenny thinks again of the girl in the lake and before going to turn on the kettle, she dials the number.
‘Hello? I’m Jenny Brennan, I live in Hope Cottage on Lake Lane. We’ve got a note asking us to call… Yes, of course I’ll hold.’
Will enters the room as she waits for the desk to connect her to the officer concerned. He raises his eyebrows and she passes him the note.
‘I’ll go and make coffee,’ he whispers. ‘And bring biscuits.’
As he leaves the room, she smiles, the frustration she felt with him earlier dissipates. She wishes she could call her dad, to let off steam about the day, but at sea there is a patchy signal at best and it will be even later over there; tomorrow will be better. She taps out a text anyway: Hope you’re having fun in the sun. Much to tell you. Love J xx
The line clicks and a male voice takes over.
‘Hello? Mrs Brennan? Thank you so much for calling us back. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jansen. We were down your way this afternoon interviewing everyone who lives on The Lanes. We’re anxious to make some headway quickly. Sorry, I’m just assuming you’ve heard…’
‘Yes, we heard,’ Jenny says, not wanting to be told again.
‘I know it’s late, but would you mind if we came out to run through a few things with you? It wouldn’t take long.’
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ Jenny says. ‘They want to come out now,’ she mouths at Will, as he enters with drinks.
He shrugs. ‘I don’t think we’ll be any help. It’s bloody late.’
She nods at Will as DCI Jansen explains the station is only a few minutes away. But what with the snow…
‘Yes, fine. Goodbye,’ Jenny says.
‘They said they should be done by ten,’ she says, taking a biscuit out of the tin.
‘Well, I might go and open some wine before they get here,’ Will says. ‘They probably won’t want a drink but I do after that journey. The car will need digging out tomorrow. I can’t see the trains running either, so I think it will be a working from home day.’
Jenny smiles. It is better with someone around. The snow has been bad recently and she’s struggled to get the buggy out. Aside from a few coffees, she’s spent too long inside. The house has felt tight. Ill-fitting.
Being in the house for too long is a challenge. Some moments, life’s jewels, she’s incapacitated with the love. But feeding Finn and changing nappies can swallow a day. It is wonderful and lonely. The rooms have shrunk. Having someone around, just to talk to, helps. Some mornings, when Will leaves for lunch hours and drinks after work, she hates him. Viscerally.
They each hold a glass of wine when the knock comes. Will answers the door.
A man and a woman enter the room, both in plain clothes.
‘Hello, no, please don’t get up,’ says the man to Jenny, as he follows Will in. ‘I was just saying to your husband, I’m DCI Jansen and this is Detective Inspector Deacon.’
The DI nods and smiles at Jenny and Will, shaking her head at the offer of coffee.
Standing anyway, Jenny observes the DCI is much younger than she would have expected. Roughly forty, his tall frame seems amplified in the cottage room. Wearing dark, thick-rimmed glasses, she can imagine him on an adult scooter, in pop-up restaurants, paying a fortune for a tiny plate and talking tech. His hand, extended to shake, isn’t calloused, but smooth like stone: desk hands. He doesn’t fit with murder. He seems untouched.
‘I believe you’ve heard the news?’ DCI Jansen begins. That accent, a soft lilt she can’t place.
They both nod.
‘Well, I’m not sure what you’ve heard, but the body of a young girl was pulled out of the lake at about nine thirty this morning, and we believe she was taken down Lake Lane at around two a.m. We are anxious to interview you because we’ve had a sighting of her in The Lanes.’
Jenny bites a sliver of frustration. It’s slick, this delivery. ‘Taken’ can’t be the right word. The girl must have been screaming for her life. Out loud she says, ‘Really? Outside our house?’
The DCI nods and smiles again. Will indicates to the sofa and they all sit, sinking into the nearest chair, holding themselves upright. A tea party.
‘We don’t really have a clear picture of what took place. It would help a great deal if you could just run through what you were doing yesterday, any details you can think of, no matter how insignificant.’
Jenny glances at Will, who catches her eye.
‘I don’t think we can be much help, I’m afraid. We were in bed by about ten. We watched something on TV and then Finn, our son, woke for a feed. Jenny looked after him and I cleared up; then we both went to bed.’
‘And earlier in the evening, sir?’ Imogen Deacon is speaking now, her legs cross, smoothly. ‘Did you happen to walk down to the lake at any point?’
Jenny watches her movements, controlled, elegant.
‘Not in the evening. We took a walk by the lake in the afternoon, then I went for a run, but back about four-ish?’ Will looks again at Jenny.
‘Yes,’ says Jenny. She speaks to the DI. ‘We had dinner. It was cold outside, and with a baby we don’t do much in the evenings.’
‘No, I can imagine not,’ says DCI Jansen. The smile again. Bland, slippy.
Jenny wonders if it is a real smile. It has a practised air. His accent is a mix of German and South African. She almost asks him, but holds back. The meeting feels awkward. The body could be in the room and someone may comment on the weather, or compliment the curtains.
‘Any chance you saw any vehicles driving down the lane yesterday at any point?’
‘Not that I know,’ Jenny says, eventually.
Will takes a minute longer, his brow furrows in earnest. ‘Actually, I might have done – I went to the car when we got back from the lake to put some blankets, shovel, et cetera, in there. We were planning to drive down to my parents first thing and I was worried about getting stuck with the snow. There was a black car. It was going quite fast for the icy road, and I jumped out of its way.’
‘Did you see who was driving?’ asks DCI Jansen.
Jenny catches his quick glance to the DI.
‘No, I don’t think so. I looked at the driver’s window, but I didn’t really see him.’
‘You say “him”?’ asks Imogen Deacon.
‘Yes, it was a man, I think… assumed,’ Will says. ‘Roughly our age? Maybe because of the car he was driving – it was a grown-up car – something driven by a professional, not a teenager. I think it was a BMW. But other than that, I really didn’t see much. The sun was quite bright and reflected off the windows.’
‘Was there anyone else in the car, sir?’ asks Jansen.
Will sits a little straighter. ‘You mean it might have been the girl? I’m not sure. I think there might have been someone in the passenger seat… I don’t know. It was only for a second.’
‘Any chance you remembered the number plate, sir?’ asks the DI.
‘Sorry. I didn’t even look. I jumped up onto the pavement, in case he slid into me, and then he was gone. Do you really think that might have been them?’
‘You say about four p.m.?’
Will nods. Like a boy scout. Pleasing the nice policemen, thinks Jenny.
‘Well, at this stage everything counts. We need to build a complete picture of events. It would be helpful if you could come down to the station to give us a statement? Either now, or in the morning?’
‘Now is fine, I think.’ Will looks at Jenny. ‘Jen?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She doesn’t want to sit in on her own and think of a murderer driving down the lane outside, but she wants to help. There is a tightness around her chest that hasn’t fully disappeared since she heard the news.
‘Can I leave you my card?’ DCI Jansen stands up. ‘If you think of anything, we’d really appreciate it if you could give us a call.’
Jenny looks at the card. Usually a card is a signal for a handshake. She hasn’t stood up and feels compelled to do so. She takes the card, but he’s already started moving away before she can pocket it. His poise wrong-foots her.
‘Thank you both so much for your time.’
‘Of course,’ Will says.
‘How old was she?’ Jenny asks, unable to help herself. It comes out in a blurt.
‘She was fourteen.’ DCI Jansen speaks. He stops to turn and meet her eye. This time there’s no smile. Her frustration turns cold. His dark eyes are unreadable. Her ears fill with the noise a seashell makes when held to the ear: the hollow sound of the swoosh of water, washing overhead.
The room blurs before her and she makes no move to follow the police to the hall. She hears Will say he’s forgotten something. He comes in and hugs her.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I won’t be long. Go to bed – I’ll clear up when I come in.’
Tears spill.
Will pulls away and gently helps her sit down, topping up her wine glass.
‘If anything like that… ever…’
‘Well it won’t,’ Will says. ‘We’re going to make sure it doesn’t. He’s upstairs, fast asleep. Come on… I’d better go.’
Later, fetching a glass of water, she glances through the window, looking out over the park. There are snowmen of all shapes scattered around the sloping hill. Someone has built a snowgirl: she wears a pink woolly hat and a necklace made out of twigs, pasta shells, pebbles. Instead of lumps of coal for a mouth, she’s decorated with a grin of red berries. A flower sits in her hand and she smiles glaringly through the falling snow, lit by the moonbeams. Just as the sky becomes heavy with clouds, the moon sends out a lighthouse beam. The berries dare to stand out, demanding to be noticed, bright scarlet in the soft light. Garish. Violent.
‘How long until you have post-mortem details?’
‘Any word on whether this is linked to Sunderland?’
‘Have there been other deaths in the lake?’
‘Over here, please, over here!’
Maarten leans forward into the microphone, catching the full glare of the media’s blinding, obliterating eye.
‘As I said, we will be taking questions later. I thank you for respecting the privacy and grief of the family at this time.’
‘Over here, over here!’
It doesn’t stop. He pushes out of the room quickly, disorientated, striding for firmer ground and the solidity of detail-seeking. He nods at the superintendent as he passes.
‘I need to speak to you, Maarten,’ the super says.
Maarten nods again, making his way upstairs, unwilling to stop. The paperwork requesting references will have arrived. He can’t avoid talking about it. He’s been dodging it at work, not wanting to start the process. He hasn’t spoken to Liv since last night.
Footsteps sound behind him and he turns.
‘I know you’re busy, Maarten.’ The super has followed him.
‘Yes, sir. I’m just on my way to speak with the parents before they go home.’
‘Yes, can’t imagine what they’re going through. Look…’ Standing a head shorter than Maarten and lower still now as he stands a few stairs down, Maarten fights the urge to step down to his level. It will only prolong the exchange.
‘Look, about this job offer you’ve had.’
‘I haven’t done anything about it yet, sir. It only came through a week or so ago and we’ve been busy.’
‘I know, but I just wanted to say that, obviously, I won’t stand in your way, but I do want you to know that we’d be sorry to see you leave. You’ve made a great start here.’
Nodding, Maarten thinks of how to say little, not to commit himself. The urge to reassure is pointless. He’s going to consider it. Is considering it. ‘Thank you.’
‘You go. Think about it, though. You’ve a very strong future here. Particularly if you can get this case cleared up. The chief super is here later; she is taking an interest… with all this press…’
‘I know, sir. The team are working hard.’
Watching him walk down the stairs, out of sight, Maarten hears the footsteps become lighter before disappearing. Slight, greying, it would be a mistake to dismiss him. Neither a kind nor an unkind man – Maarten knows kindness doesn’t come into it at all. It’s about the law, and how the law is perceived. The gentle warning, gentle incentive, was loud in the brief exchange.
Striding up the steel stairs, he pushes open the heavy door and takes out his phone. It has been ringing all morning. About sixty emails have come in since he stood outside in the cold, before heading into the conference room.
It is a crazed public event. The national news channels have picked it up and the press are crowded like ants over a rotten apple, swarming in their armies for nibbles. He glances out of the window and watches them, clustering outside. The British – reserved on so many occasions – have, at times, the capacity to dangerously overspill.
The public display over, he pauses before pushing the door to where the parents sit. The press ordeal has been bad for him. For them? He envisions the room: tea, biscuits, drenched tissues, waiting for him to enter. Coming to terms with the press conference, waiting to be told whoever has done this has been caught and that some sort of reckoning is just around the corner.
His eyes ache. He didn’t sleep well and the day stretches ahead like a marathon. The phone buzzes again in his hand: Liv. He doesn’t open the text, despite the urge to ground himself, to reach out to her. He needs to call Rotterdam by tonight, and he needs to speak with her, but first this.
There is nothing they have yet that will offer any sort of resolution for the parents. Not yet. Undigested rage tastes like bile. Tea and biscuits can do little to temper that. They wait for information he doesn’t yet have.
‘Hello,’ he says. The heavy door clicks closed behind him; the hush envelops.
It is bare and softly lit: the victim room. Imogen sits quietly at the corner of the table. Her expression of sympathy is fixed. She looks up at him and it doesn’t waver, just a flicker in her eyes, as his meet hers.
‘Is it true?’ Tessa, the mother asks. Her voice is quiet and high. Her throat sounds raw. Her pale face, lined with vivid pain. Her coat is pulled tightly around her, despite the close heat of the windowless room.
‘Which bit?’ he asks, forcing himself to smile gently when he speaks. He sits down opposite so that he can lean towards her, look directly at her.
‘You said you would catch whoever has done it. Whoever did it, to Leigh. Leigh,’ she cries quietly. ‘Our Leigh.’
John, the father, cloaks his arm around her and she turns her face to his shoulder. She melts against him, bending like warm candle wax. The intimacy in the gesture is compelling, and Maarten averts his gaze briefly: a very private grief.
‘You will, won’t you?’ John asks. ‘When I think of her… calling for us. Screaming, needing us… I can’t shake it from my head. Every time I close my eyes… our little girl…’ His voice, barely above a mutter. ‘Sorry, like.’ His gaze drops to the table. ‘She’s our little girl. I should’ve looked after her. When I think…’
Maarten shakes his head gently in response, and Tessa says, ‘John,’ only just audible, the effort of speaking exhausting her.
Nodding a reply to Tessa, Maarten says, ‘Yes, yes we will.’ But he’s irritated with himself for promising. ‘We’ll find them. I’m sorry we haven’t caught whoever did this yet. I wish that we had.’
‘That was pretty rough outside. Tessa, are you OK?’ Imogen asks. Maarten watches her exclude the father. She has a tendency to assume the worst of fathers. John hasn’t been ruled out yet, but looking at his face, the trembling – Maarten’s mind wends to other avenues, to further suspects.
Maarten leans forward to echo her words, speak to both of them. ‘Have you any questions about what happened, or about the media?’
She shakes her head.
‘John, how about you?’
The man is heavyset and tall, hair cropped close, and beneath his blue shirt he wears a chain. His wrist has some dates drawn in tattoo ink, with initials. Maarten doesn’t stare, but he guesses the dates and initials include Leigh’s.
‘I heard them ask something about Sunderland; what was that about, like? Is there something we should know? I’m from Newcastle.’
Maarten had guessed the north-east. The vowels are flat, more pronounced today than he heard yesterday.
‘No, nothing to do with you. There was a murder in Sunderland last August: another young girl, but older than Leigh, a student. A drowning.’
‘Might it be the same man?’ Tessa asks.