137
“How did you two meet?”
Now that Naomie was talking, Helen was determined to get chapter and verse.
“I found him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was walking home and... I found him. He was lying facedown in the street. I saw a couple of other people walk round him, like he was a drunk. But he didn’t look that way to me.”
“He was having a fit?”
Naomie nodded. “He’d been out late, walking the streets. And he can feel these things when they come on—he gets a tingling in his hands and feet, his vision goes funny—but that doesn’t mean he can stop them. He’d fallen, hit his head. So I put his head in my lap and looked after him until an ambulance came. He felt he owed me, but I never felt like that.”
“And you became friends?”
“Didn’t have anyone else, did we? His parents liked to keep him inside, boss every second of his life, but he found his way out at night and we used to meet at the same time, same place—we used to joke that it was our ten o’clock shot. A kind of fuck-you to my mum and his folks, who thought we were tucked up in bed. Not that they ever bothered to check.”
“What did you get up to?”
“Talked, smoked, walked a bit. We just liked being together.”
It was said so sweetly that in other circumstances Helen would have smiled. It was hard to believe that Naomie and her lover were multiple murderers, with four deaths on their conscience. Even now that didn’t seem to faze Naomie as much as it should. She seemed more concerned about her boyfriend.
“Was it his idea? The fires?”
“I’m not saying anything about that. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”
“I’d very much like the opportunity, but I’m going to need specifics. Where did you go with him? Where would he go now when he needs time and space to think? Where does he go at night?”
Naomie looked at Helen. She could tell even now that Naomie was torn—she’d never thought she’d be in the position of having to betray her lover. So it was softly and with some regret that she finally said:
“Itchen Bridge—there’s a spot under that where we used to go. Sometimes to Pear Tree Garden. Mayfield Park. The pitch and putt by Weston Hard. Chamberlayne Leisure Centre. Millers Pond. He’ll be at one of those tonight.”
The fight had gone out of Naomie now and for a brief moment Helen felt relief. She was sure she had been the junior player in their deadly enterprise. “Thank you, Naomie. You’ve done the right thing.”
“Well, it’s all you’re going to get from me. I’ve done more than enough already,” she said, rising suddenly. “I want to go back to my cell now.”
“Sure.”
“I want some hot food and another blanket. It’s bloody freezing in there.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Naomie was staring at Helen with real hostility now—it was amazing how quickly her mood could change. Was she angry with Helen for making her give up her boyfriend? Or did her attitude mask her fear of what might happen next? Either way, Helen was glad she had pushed her. They had the information they needed and, at long last, the end was in sight.
138
“Let the others go. We need you here.”
Gardam said it gently, but firmly, leaving Helen no choice but to comply. Her first instinct as always had been to lead the search, but Gardam had argued that someone senior needed to stay at base to coordinate proceedings. The locations Naomie had listed covered a wide area of the city in Itchen, Woolston and Weston. They would throw all the resources they could at it and it was easy in these situations for the search to become diffuse and unfocused. They would need to do it square mile by square mile, guiding those on the ground from Southampton Central, ensuring that no stone was left unturned.
Privately Helen wondered why Gardam didn’t take point on this one—he seemed to be spending enough time in the incident room to do her job for her. He had a peculiar gift for becoming your shadow, monitoring your every move without ever actually intervening. Helen still couldn’t work him out. Perhaps he didn’t trust her instinct afterall, despite all his words to the contrary? Perhaps he was just uncomfortable being excluded from the heart of the action? Or perhaps he was just the wrong guy in the wrong job? Helen feared the last option the most. She had never needed or wanted a chaperone.
The hours flicked by—six p.m., seven, eight. The team on the ground had covered half of their allotted grid and still there was no sign of Ethan Harris. With each passing minute, Helen’s fears grew. Had Naomie told them the truth? Was she really prepared to collude in the capture of the guy who was her “family” now? How strong a stranglehold did he have on her?
Gardam was a calming influence, moving around the incident room with coffee and words of encouragement.
