At Your Door

Anna cleared her throat and was still searching for the right words when Rebecca said, ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? You were the lead on the nursery kidnapping case. And it was your daughter who …’ Her voice trailed off and she drew a sharp breath. ‘Oh, my God, we met once. I remember.’

‘We did indeed,’ Anna said.

Rebecca swallowed hard and took another deep breath. ‘You’ve got bad news for us, haven’t you? So what is it, detective?’

Anna leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. The look on Rebecca’s face froze the blood in her veins.

‘A young woman’s body has been found,’ she said. ‘And there’s convincing evidence to indicate that it’s Holly.’

A choking sound rushed out of Rebecca and she started to shake her head.

‘No, that’s not possible,’ she screamed. ‘It must be a mistake. It has to be.’

‘We don’t think it’s a mistake,’ Anna said. ‘The description fits Holly and the dead woman has the same tattoo in the same place on her back. We will, of course, need one or both of you to carry out a formal identification. I’m so very sorry.’

Rebecca’s whole body convulsed and she let out an anguished cry. Her husband enveloped her in his arms and scrunched up his face as he fought back his own tears.

Anna looked on helplessly, aware that there was nothing she could say or do to ease their pain and suffering. She knew from her own bitter experience that elements of the big bad world can turn up at your door when you least expect it, shattering your life and redirecting your future towards an emotional abyss.

She threw a glance over her shoulder at Walker and saw that he had picked up a framed photograph from the sideboard. It was one of several on display and they were all of Holly.

‘How sure are you that it’s our daughter?’ Theo said suddenly, his voice a hollow rasp.

Anna turned back to them. ‘I’m positive. If I wasn’t I’d be offering you a crumb of hope. But that wouldn’t be fair in the circumstances.’

She took out her phone, pulled up the photo she’d taken of the ring on the dead woman’s finger.

‘Do you recognise this?’ she said, showing it to both of them.

Rebecca flinched and nodded. ‘It’s Holly’s. I’m sure of it because I bought it for her myself on her twenty-first birthday. Oh, Jesus, when can we see her?’

‘Tomorrow morning, Mrs Blake. I’ll make the arrangements.’

‘So why can’t we see her now?’ Theo asked.

‘It’s too early, I’m afraid. The body was discovered only a few hours ago and it may still be in situ.’

‘And where is that?’

‘Barnes Common in South West London,’ Anna said.

Sobs had continued to rack his wife’s body while this exchange was taking place. Now she straightened herself, wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, and said, ‘Since you’re here, Detective Chief Inspector, I’m assuming that foul play is suspected.’

Anna nodded. ‘That’s right, Mrs Blake. We’ve launched a murder investigation.’

Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut for a couple of seconds and when she opened them again, she said, ‘I want the details and I don’t want you to hold anything back from us.’

Anna’s stomach tightened and her mouth dried up.

‘The victim suffered a stab wound to the throat,’ she said. ‘She was naked and her body had been covered with ferns and branches. However, we’re not sure at this stage if she was sexually assaulted, but it doesn’t appear so. She was discovered by a woman walking her dog. The pathologist believes she was killed several days ago, perhaps on Tuesday evening, and left on the common soon afterwards. We found out that you’d reported your daughter missing. So we downloaded Holly’s photos from Facebook and realised that her description was a match for the victim.’

Rebecca bit into her bottom lip and her husband started patting the back of her hand.

‘I therefore need to ask you some questions,’ Anna said. ‘I know it’s going to be difficult for you to answer them but please try to.’

Rebecca gave a slow nod and tears slid down her cheeks. ‘I know the routine, Detective Tate. And I fully appreciate that it has to be done.’

She pushed her shoulders back and tried to compose herself. It seemed to Anna that she suddenly looked smaller, as though she’d been crushed by the weight of shock and grief.

‘So let’s get this over with,’ Rebecca said.

Anna nodded. ‘I’ll start with the most obvious questions. Do either of you have any idea who might have done this, assuming it wasn’t a random attack by a person or persons unknown to Holly? Has she upset anyone recently or is there someone you know who has a grudge against her?’

Rebecca clenched her jaw and pursed her lips. When she spoke her voice cracked with emotion.

‘There’s only one person I know who would want to take my daughter’s life,’ she said. ‘I can give you his name and I can tell you where you can find him. And I’m convinced that he’s the bastard who either killed her or got someone to do it for him.’

CHAPTER TEN

Sophie had picked up a copy of the Evening Standard after leaving the dental clinic. And she’d been so anxious to read it that she’d considered popping into a café or pub rather than wait until she got home. But the feeling that she was being watched had returned as soon as she’d hit the High Street, so she’d decided to get back to the flat as quickly as she could.

From the moment she stepped through her front door she was battered by a perfect storm of panic and paranoia. She was even grappling with the chilling thought that if she was indeed being stalked then it might have something to do with the revelations in the paper. If so, then perhaps it was already too late to prevent her world from falling apart.

Alice had still been up, of course, so Sophie had made every effort to pretend that nothing was wrong.

‘Has the film finished, sweetheart?’ she’d asked as she’d walked into the living room with a fake smile on her face.

Alice had jumped up from the sofa, her tablet in one hand, a bag of crisps in the other.

‘Ages ago,’ she’d said. ‘And it was really good. I’m going to watch it again tomorrow.’

‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’

Alice had crossed the room and Sophie had wrapped her in her arms.

‘And thank you for looking after the flat while I was at work,’ she’d said. ‘I take it nobody rang the bell.’

‘No one ever does, Mum. You know that. And even if someone did, I would never answer it. You know that as well.’

‘Of course I do. And that’s why I trust you.’

Alice was a mature twelve-year-old and Sophie was glad of it because it made things so much easier. She rarely answered back or threw a tantrum, and she had such a pleasant, sensitive nature that it was hard to ever be cross with her.

That didn’t mean that she was a goody-two-shoes, though. She often demonstrated to Sophie that she had a mind of her own and a stubborn streak that she’d no doubt inherited from her late father.

‘It’s time for bed now, sweetheart,’ Sophie had told her. ‘Finish your crisps, clean your teeth and get yourself ready.’

‘Remember I’m going to Ruth’s house tomorrow.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. I told Ruth’s mum that I would drop you off between ten and eleven.’

Alice was in bed and asleep before eight o’clock and by nine-thirty Sophie was half way through her second bottle of wine. Getting drunk was her way of dealing with the despair that now engulfed her. The alcohol dulled her senses and took the edge off the pain that she’d inflicted on herself by reading the second instalment of the Anna Tate story in the Evening Standard. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes as she tried through a boozy haze to process what she had learned along with the wretched implications.

She was sitting at the kitchen table in the downdraught of the ceiling fan. In front of her she’d spread out the centre pages of that day’s Standard. There were more photographs, and every time Sophie looked at them her heart lurched in her chest.

Detective Anna Tate featured in two of them. One showed her speaking at a press conference during the nursery kidnap case two weeks ago. In the other – taken ten years ago – she was holding her two-year-old daughter in her arms while smiling broadly at the camera. The caption beneath it read: Anna and Chloe just weeks before her ex-husband Matthew Dobson abducted the child and fled abroad with her.

Next to it was what the paper described as an age progression photo of Chloe. Beneath it were the words: This is a computer-generated impression of what Chloe might look like now at the age of twelve.

The image had taken Sophie’s breath away when she’d first laid eyes on it. And even now it was causing a riot of emotions to run through her.

‘I just can’t believe this is happening,’ she said aloud to herself before losing control for the second time that evening. She buried her face in her hands as the tears flowed. Her body shook, and bile burned furiously at the back of her throat.

It was at least a minute before she managed to stop crying. She wiped her eyes and poured herself another glass of wine. She told herself it’d be the last before she sloped off to bed, where she would no doubt lie awake trying to come to terms with the revelation that her life had been filled with so many lies.

As she drank, her eyes were drawn back to the newspaper and she found herself re-reading the second part of the Anna Tate story. And once again the words stirred up bitter memories that sadly had not been subdued by the passage of time.

A MOTHER’S TEN YEAR NIGHTMARE

Part two of this Evening Standard exclusive

DCI Anna Tate is currently one of the most high-profile detectives in the Metropolitan Police. She was in the headlines recently as the officer in charge of the hunt for the gang who kidnapped nine children from a South London nursery school and murdered one of their teachers.

Yesterday we explained why that case was so close to her heart. Her own daughter Chloe was abducted ten years ago by her ex-husband and she hasn’t seen either of them since.

But Anna has never given up searching for Chloe, who was two when she was taken.

Sophie skimmed over the next few paragraphs which repeated the information contained in part one – how during the nursery investigation Anna discovered that Matthew had obtained fake passports in the names of James and Alice Miller before disappearing, and how she learned that Matthew had actually returned to the UK with his daughter three years ago but weeks later was murdered in a park close to where they’d set up home in Southampton.

Today’s article picked the story up where the first instalment ended – with Anna meeting the detective who investigated Matthew’s murder and asking him: ‘So where is my baby? Where’s Chloe?’

The answer Anna was given came as another devastating blow.

‘We simply don’t know,’ the detective informed her. ‘The child disappeared along with the woman who had been living with her and her father.’

It transpired that Anna’s ex-husband and daughter had been sharing a rented house with a mystery woman for three weeks. But on the night Matthew was murdered the woman was seen leaving the house with Chloe and several suitcases. They drove away from Southampton in a car that Matthew had hired in the name of James Miller. The car was later found abandoned in London.

Mystery

The murder of Matthew Dobson (aka James Miller) is as intriguing as the mystery surrounding the sudden disappearance of the woman he had described to their landlord as his partner.

He was stabbed to death one evening while walking through a park in Southampton city centre. It was dark and there were no witnesses, but there were signs he’d been involved in a struggle.

‘Police found a mobile phone in his pocket and it seems he made one last call before he died,’ Anna told the Standard. ‘The call was to a number that was still transmitting a signal later that night. That was how the police found out where he’d been living.’

But when officers later called at the house they found it had been cleared of all personal possessions except for the unregistered phone that Matthew had called. And there was no way of knowing who it belonged to. The log only showed calls to and from Matthew’s own phone.

Buried

The murder investigation is still open three years on but the police have no idea why he was stabbed or by whom. It’s now believed that Matthew probably called the woman to tell her to flee the house with his daughter.

Before leaving Southampton, Anna learned that her ex-husband had been buried in a city cemetery, so she visited his grave.

His headstone, paid for by the council, carried the simple inscription:

Here lies James Miller. May he rest in peace.

The real name of the man in the grave is now known to be Matthew Dobson. But to Anna Tate’s immense frustration his secrets died with him. She’s left with questions that she’s desperate to know the answers to.

Who killed her ex-husband and why?

Was his death linked in any way to his return to the UK?

Why did he return from wherever he’d been living for seven years?

Why did he settle in Southampton of all places?

How long had he been with the mystery woman?

And where did she take Chloe?

Nightmare

‘The fact that the woman left the house in such a hurry after Matthew was killed suggests to me that she was scared,’ Anna said. ‘But the police don’t know who she was running from.’

Anna has told her story in the hope that someone somewhere has information that might bring her ten year nightmare to an end.

‘I live in hope,’ the detective said. ‘And I’ll search for my daughter until I find her, no matter how long that takes.’

Sophie’s mind was ranging in all directions as she finished reading the article, and more tears were welling up in her eyes.

It was too much for her to take in, too much to get her head around with a bottle and a half of wine sloshing around inside her.

She pushed her chair back and stood up, which made her feel dizzy.

She drained her glass, but as she placed it on the table her legs gave way beneath her. She collapsed onto the floor like a bag of cement and passed out.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘The name of the man who murdered my daughter is Nathan Wolf,’ Rebecca told Anna. ‘You must have heard of him.’

‘But you can’t be sure he did it, Becs,’ her husband chipped in before Anna could respond. ‘You shouldn’t accuse the man without proof.’

Rebecca shook her head. ‘I was a police officer long enough to be certain that I’m right. Wolf knew that Holly was about to destroy him. He was desperate to stop her. And the only way he could do it was to kill her or arrange for someone to do it on his behalf.’

A deep frown scored Anna’s forehead as she listened to Rebecca’s extraordinary claim.

‘These are strong allegations, Mrs Blake, and I need to know why you’re making them,’ Anna said. ‘But I also want to be sure who you’re talking about. I know of only one individual named Nathan Wolf and he happens to be a Member of Parliament.’

‘He also happens to be the bastard who you need to go and arrest,’ Rebecca said.

Anna stared at her in disbelief and behind her Walker whistled through his teeth.

‘I’m deadly serious,’ Rebecca insisted, her voice punctuated by sobs. ‘And when we tell you what we know I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion.’

Anna shivered with anticipation as she fished out her notebook and pen.

‘I’m listening, Mrs Blake,’ she said. ‘So please tell me everything.’

But at that point the woman succumbed to another blast of emotion and broke down in a paroxysm of tears.

Anna could do nothing other than wait for her to regain her composure. Her husband wrapped her in his arms again and this time rested his chin against the top of her head, his eyes closed.

Their distress brought a lump to Anna’s throat, and she struggled to keep her expression neutral. At the same time the fact that the finger of blame was being pointed at yet another politician was sending a tremor of anxiety through her.

An MP no less, and a prominent one at that. Nathan Wolf was considered a rising star in the Tory Party, and was even being tipped as a future government minister. Was it really conceivable that he had murdered Holly Blake?

Anna didn’t want to believe it because if it was true then this case was going to be elevated from sensitive to sensational. And that would bring with it a whole bunch of problems.

It took several minutes for Rebecca to pull herself together, during which Walker fetched her a glass of water from the kitchen. Her husband got her to sip at it while he held it to her mouth and gently massaged her back.

‘Is there someone you would like us to contact?’ Anna asked. ‘Perhaps a relative or friend.’

‘My wife’s sister Freya needs to know,’ Theo said. ‘They’re close and she’ll want to be here.’

‘Then let me have her number and I’ll phone her for you.’

Rebecca pushed the glass away from her face. ‘That can wait until after I’ve told you about Nathan Wolf,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I lost it just then. I’m all right now so bear with me.’

‘Of course, Mrs Blake,’ Anna said. ‘I quite understand. Take your time.’

Rebecca breathed in deep through her nostrils as she took a moment to gather her thoughts. Her face was flushed and her eyes shone with unshed tears. When she finally spoke her voice was much sharper, stronger.

‘The last time we saw Holly was on Tuesday evening,’ she said. ‘She arrived here unexpectedly because she wanted to tell us something. She was anxious and tearful, and the news she imparted came as a massive shock to us.’

Rebecca paused as her breath faltered. She blinked away the tears and swallowed hard before continuing.

‘She told us that she was selling her story to a Sunday newspaper and she felt it only fair to forewarn us because of the explosive nature of what would be in it.’

Anna and Walker shared a glance, and Anna was pretty sure they were thinking the same thing – that this case was becoming more interesting by the minute.

‘All I know about your daughter is that she was single and had a career in modelling,’ Anna said. ‘I’m not aware of anything in her life that would be likely to cause a stir.’

‘And neither were we until she ’fessed up,’ Rebecca replied. ‘That’s why I was so taken aback. And so furious with her because by revealing her shameful secret to the world she was going to make life unbearable for all of us.’

‘So what exactly was Holly planning to disclose in the newspaper?’ Anna asked.

‘She was going to make it known that she had been Nathan Wolf’s secret mistress for over a year. That he paid the rent on her flat in Camden after he persuaded her to move into it. And that he gave her spending money so that he could have her on tap for regular sex sessions.’

Rebecca paused, wiped her eyes and wet her lips. Anna wasn’t sure that she had it in her to continue, but after a couple of seconds she did.

‘It started while he was married to his wife, who died of a stroke ten months ago,’ she said. ‘And we had no bloody idea. We thought she was earning good money from modelling, which was how she could afford the flat and the lavish lifestyle. But we were wrong. That pervert was supplementing her income so he could have his way with her.’

‘But it must have been a consensual arrangement,’ Walker pointed out.

Rebecca shot him a look. ‘That’s not the point. Wolf was married and Holly is – was – over twenty years younger than him. She also had issues that made her vulnerable. That man seduced her and she succumbed to his charms. As if that wasn’t bad enough she even went and fell in love with him.’

Rebecca heaved a breath and closed her eyes. Anna could tell that she was on the brink of losing it again. Theo sensed it too and picked up the thread.

‘Wolf apparently strung her along after his wife died,’ he said. ‘He assured her that after a suitable period of mourning they would be able to move their relationship onto a different footing and make it known that they were a couple. But then last week he dumped her and revealed that he had fallen for another woman he wanted to be with. He told Holly she would have to move out of the flat and he offered to pay her a sum of money to go quietly.’

‘But I take it she decided not to accept it,’ Anna said.

Theo nodded. ‘She was heartbroken and felt that he’d betrayed her. She told him she was going to ruin him and that’s what she set out to do. She approached the Sunday Mirror and they jumped at the chance to run her story after she whetted their appetite with some sordid details which she refused to reveal to us.

‘The paper agreed a fee and arrangements were being made to set up a proper interview. It was due to take place this week. That’s why she came here. She wanted us to know before the shit hit the fan.’

‘And did you try to talk her out of it?’ Anna asked.

It was Rebecca who answered. ‘Damn right we did. But she wouldn’t listen. As always it was hard to get through to her when she’d decided to do something, even if she knew that her actions would probably end in tears.’

‘Are you alluding to the issues that you just mentioned?’ Anna asked.

Rebecca sniffed back tears. ‘My daughter never found it easy to cope with life, detective. As a teenager she suffered from depression and went through a phase where she self-harmed. She was also terribly insecure and was never happy with the way she looked. It didn’t help that she was addicted to social media and took every criticism personally.’

‘So how did you try to persuade her not to go public with her story?’

‘I told her it would serve no useful purpose and that she should be grateful that Nathan Wolf would no longer be a part of her life. But she was adamant that she wanted to get her own back on him. She wanted revenge.’

‘And then what?’

‘It turned into a big row and I got so worked up that I said she had been a fool to let him treat her like a whore. That was when she screamed at me and stormed out of the house. It was the last I saw of her.’

‘And what time was that?’ Anna asked.

‘About nine.’

‘Was she driving a car?’

‘She doesn’t – didn’t – own one. She had a Fiat but sold it a few months ago because it never got used. I assumed she either walked until she got a cab or headed for the tube station, which isn’t far from here.’

‘Do you know where she went?’

‘I thought she’d go straight home, but she didn’t.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because after I tried to ring her and realised she’d turned her phone off, Theo offered to go to her flat in the hope he could persuade her to come back so that we could talk some more.’

Anna looked at Theo, who responded with a shake of his head. ‘I went by taxi because our car was at the garage having some repairs done. I got there about an hour after she left here. I rang the bell several times but there was no answer. And there were no lights on inside. I waited around for about fifteen minutes but she didn’t turn up.’

‘Couldn’t you have let yourself in?’

Another shake of the head. ‘Holly wouldn’t let us have a key. We asked a few times but she refused, and now we know why.’

‘So what did you do then, Mr Blake?’ Anna said.