Another long beat, then:
“No idea.”
“When did you last see her?” Helen countered quickly.
“A couple of days ago. She was heading out to the shops or something—”
“She disappeared on Friday night, hasn’t been seen since. Did you see her Friday night, Nathan?”
“No, I was off to a job in Bournemouth.”
“So you weren’t at Revolution, then? On Friday night?” Helen fired back.
Finally a flicker of fear in Nathan’s expression. Helen slid a photo across the table toward him.
“This is a CCTV still of you queuing up to enter Revolution, a club off Bedford Square. Look at the date and time code. Friday night. Ruby was there that night.”
“Piss off.”
“We see you going in, but we don’t see you coming out. A place like that must have emergency exits, somewhere you can slip out. Is that what you did? Before you followed Ruby home.”
“I never saw her.”
“Your van was parked in Ruby’s road. Traffic cameras pick you up entering the road just after six p.m. Same camera sees your van driving away at four a.m. But the club shut at two a.m. What were you doing in the intervening two hours, Nathan?”
“I want a lawyer.” His tone was angry now.
“Why won’t you talk to me, Nathan? What have you done?”
Nathan stared at the floor, saying nothing.
“This is your one chance to come clean. Any denials or lies will play very badly in court,” Helen continued. “We can’t do anything for Pippa now, but if you give up Ruby, then maybe I can help you. So please, Nathan, tell me where she is.”
A long pause. Helen shot a look at Lloyd, then back at Nathan. Slowly the suspect raised his head. All the attitude was gone now; he looked like a cornered animal.
But when he spoke, he simply said:
“No comment.”
32
The sharp pain had subsided, to be replaced by a dull ache. Ruby lay on the bed, cradling her defiled shoulder, wishing the whole thing would just go away. After he had finished tattooing her, he had seemed quite emotional. Tears hugged the corners of his eyes as he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the head. He left soon after, as if not trusting his composure to hold.
Ruby’s despair was total, her mood black—those early hopes that she might bargain with him, bribe him, were now in tatters. She had cried and cried, the pain of her recent tattoo amplified by her feelings of hopelessness. She realized now that she was his toy. She was his plaything in this doll’s house where everything that looked real was fake.
She had examined every inch of her surroundings now. There was little else to do in the long hours alone and she had spent thetime hunting for anything that could be used as a weapon, should the need arise. Though she tried to deny it, she had seen the intense emotion that gripped him when he looked at her, had felt his eyes crawl over her body. If he did force himself on her, how would she fight him off?
There was a kettle on the rickety sideboard, but that was made of plastic and would be cumbersome to wield. There were other strange additions to the room—framed pictures on the walls, a calendar from 2013 and hooks on the walls on which to hang a hat or coat—but nothing of any use. She had tried to rip the hooks off the wall, but they were sealed in concrete and impossible to budge. Why were they there in the first place? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to visit. So why? Why go to such trouble to create a picture-perfect room that was just for show? Ruby buried her face in the sheets, trying to stem a rising wave of nausea.
Try to stay calm. Don’t give in.Ruby forced herself to think of happier things once more. She had only been here a couple of days, but already her anxiety about going mad in this hole was real. Total despair would lead to insanity, Ruby felt sure of that, so she once more turned her thoughts to her family. It was Sunday—what would they be doing? The washing-up from Sunday lunch would have eventually been done by Conor and Cassie—begrudgingly, as always—and Mum and Dad would have taken Max out for a walk—
It hit Ruby like a train, suddenly and without mercy. Her mum. It was her mum’s birthday in two days. She would miss her mum’s birthday...
What would she go through this year? Ruby could picture the stifling mood of anxiety and distress, the total absence of presents or cards, the paralyzing awfulness of a birthday spent missing a daughter who wasn’t there to give her a birthday hug. The horror of it tookRuby’s breath away. This wasreal. This was happening. She had been ripped from the heart of a family who loved her far more than she deserved and would probably never see them again.
Swallowing down her tears, Ruby tried to conjure up their familiar faces again. To relive those moments of family happiness that already seemed a lifetime ago. It was desperate stuff—her family existing only in these pointless imaginings—but this was her lot now. Retreating inside her memory, Ruby felt empty but oddly comforted. This would be her cocoon now.
33
