‘Thank you for your time. I’ll keep you updated.’
Where could Susan have run to back in her teens and where was she now? History of running away and returning. The husband’s alleged affair. Dale Blair, the client she’d been arguing with. Where was Dale and who was Ryan seeing?
When she left the house and the door had closed behind her, she stood on the drive in the rain and dialled Detective Chief Inspector Briggs. She knew he was still scheduled to be at the station. Her fingers tingled as she pressed the button, wanting to keep her distance from him yet needing to hear his voice.
‘Gina?’ His voice made her shiver in a pleasant way. That brief fling would remain theirs and theirs only, forever. With more rainwater filling her already sodden shoes, she swiftly relayed all that she knew.
‘Can we arrange a regular overnight drive-by of Dale Blair’s house? I know it seems like a waste of resources but I need to know when he returns home. I need to speak to him.’
‘Just because he hasn’t contacted us today?’
‘No, because he and Susan argued on Tuesday and neither have been seen since.’
‘Gina, you know the budgets are tight and we haven’t given him ample time to respond to the card that you left. I’m poring over the finances now. This department is existing on thin air. You know what I’m up against.’
‘You know something’s not right.’ She needed him on board. She knew it was a big ask but she didn’t want to let Mary down. If she had vanished and her mother was still alive then, like Mary, she’d be hoping that the police would do all they could. ‘Fine, I will head straight over there myself and spend the night watching his house, in the rain, alone!’
‘Don’t do this to me,’ he said as he sighed.
‘Don’t do this to me! You know I can’t leave it and go home. I’ll pay the bloody bill myself if I have to. Take it out of my salary. That should balance the books.’ She imagined him sitting at his desk running his fingers through his brown hair with grey speckles peppering it, the hair she’d once loved running her fingers through.
‘Okay, okay. I’ll authorise a patrol car to pass every hour or so. Good enough?’
‘Good enough, sir. Oh, and one other thing.’
‘Shoot.’
‘I’d like her image to be released to the local media. As you’re at the station, can you please arrange for a release to hit the morning news?’
‘Of course, Harte. I’ll head over to Corporate Communications in five and get that sorted with Annie. I don’t think it will hurt to put her image out there.’
‘Thanks, sir.’ She ended the call and hurried to the car, oblivious as to how soaked she’d become. A cough came from the cut through at the side of Mary’s house and Gina trembled. Had someone just heard that whole conversation? As the rain bucketed down, she crept along the kerb, keeping well back from the little cut through, ankle-deep in murky water that was gurgling up from the overflowing gutters. Whoever was behind the wall was now running. She picked up the pace. As she splashed along the path at the side of the house, she saw a white trainer making its way behind the garden. She darted after the figure in the shadows, barely able to see what was ahead as rain drizzled into her eyes. As she reached the end of the garden she came to a halt and stared ahead through the falling sheet of water. Whoever had been watching had escaped.
‘Clare, Clare,’ she could just about hear Mary shouting. There was no reply.
Twenty-Two
A loud scream came from behind the door. Harrison began to yell and Rory cried. Mary tapped on Clare’s bedroom door but there was no answer. The music stopped. She pushed open the door and heard the shower running in the en suite. ‘Boys, boys – keep it down.’
Rory ran over and hugged his nan’s legs and Harrison continued jumping on the bed while continually singing ‘Baby Shark’ and ignoring her. A pillow narrowly missed her head as it flew from Harrison’s hands. She walked over and held him tightly to his dismay. He kicked and screamed. The whole street would probably wonder what was going on. She gripped the boy under her arm and held Rory’s hand then met Howard at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Clare’s in the shower. Could you take these two for ten minutes?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll put something on the box, keep them occupied for a bit. You go and have a rest, love.’ He kissed her on the cheek and took Harrison from her. As she let go, he tried to wiggle out of their grip to escape back up the stairs, but Howard already had him under his arm. ‘No you don’t. Mummy needs to have a shower in peace and Nanny needs a rest. You can go back up in a minute. Come and watch TV with Pops.’
Howard smiled and closed the door, a favourite programme already distracting them both.
Mary ran up the stairs and shut her bedroom door at the other side of the house. While the children were being quiet and Clare was in the shower, she could have a further look through Susan’s blue box.
Lying on the bed, she flicked through the pieces of paper by lamplight. The box was full of little poems, snippets of prose and drawings. She never realised her daughter had been so dark-minded. Why had she left, or what had she left? Mary was relying all too heavily on the contents of this little box for answers.
She recognised one of the drawings. She’d walked in on teenage Susan while she was creating that particular piece of art. A pencil sketch of a gate with a thick round handle. If Mary could turn it, she wondered which part of Susan’s imagination it would lead her to. The shading was done to perfection, accentuating light and dark, each grain in the wood precise. On the second half of the door was a smaller door that was open. Susan was letting her in. She held the page closer to her, capturing it clearer in the lamplight. Amongst the swirls and shadows was a familiar shape. Maybe Mary was reading too much into it. It looked like an eye, possibly a sinister-looking eye, angled down towards the tear duct like it was angry. It may not have been an eye, it may have been nothing more than a few pencil strokes that she was looking too deeply into. No, it was an eye.
She flicked through the box and stopped at another sketch. A smudge of charcoal rubbed off onto her fingers. Susan had tried to copy a painting Mary knew to be calledThe Nightmareby Henry Fuseli. A woman spread across the bed, deep in slumber, lay still as a small demonic-looking incubus mischievously stared directly at its audience – her. She dropped the picture. No wonder her daughter had suffered with night terrors, drawing things like that. Occasionally Susan would wake up, swearing that she was surrounded by little monsters and she couldn’t scream, she couldn’t move and she couldn’t breathe. All Mary could do was comfort her. She lifted the picture up one more time and almost fell off the bed as a flash of hail hit the windows. She hoped that Susan wasn’t out there alone and scared, living a very real nightmare.
Shivering, she got into bed fully dressed and pulled the quilt over her chest and read the poem one more time.
The Secret Door
