AT: [silence]
AF: Ms Toms?
* * *
23 December 1997, 2.45 p.m.
Birmingham and Solihull General Hospital
She’d popped down to the shops to buy a sandwich and stopped off to collect her dry cleaning on the way. There was a queue – four women ahead of her collecting party dresses they probably hadn’t worn since last Christmas – so she ended up being ten minutes late getting back. She thought a lot about that, afterwards. Those ten minutes. Because if she hadn’t had to wait, she’d never have seen. Nothing would have happened. Not to her, at any rate. It might have been months before the news broke. Years even. And by then she’d have forgotten – by then it would have been nothing to do with her.
But it didn’t happen that way. Alison was late, and she saw, and her life was never the same again.
Though it took her a while to realize what exactly it was that she was seeing.
When she first pulled up in the car park she didn’t even notice her. It was only when she released the seat belt and turned for the door handle that she realized Camilla Rowan was walking towards her, a handbag over one shoulder, the baby held against the other, wrapped in a hospital blanket. She was confused for a moment, wondering if the girl was heading in her direction, but then she stopped by a black VW Golf two cars over. But that didn’t make any sense – Rowan couldn’t be actually leaving – it was way too soon. OK, Rowan was young and healthy, but as far as Alison knew, the baby hadn’t even had its heel-prick test, and Rowan still hadn’t managed to breastfeed him, wasn’t even holding him properly – you only had to look at her now –
Alison was about to get out of the car, but hesitated – she wasn’t exactly sure what authority she had, and perhaps she was being a bit too judgemental. Maybe Rowan was meeting someone – her parents or her boyfriend: none of them had been in yet. Perhaps they’d come to see her and brought some things for the baby.
But when the young woman unlocked the car door and yanked it open it was obvious there was no one else there. She was alone, and she was leaving.
Alison watched as she threw her handbag on to the passenger seat and then opened the back and bent over the rear seat. It was impossible to see exactly what she was doing but it didn’t take long – a mere two or three seconds later she straightened up again and swung the door shut. Alison grabbed at her own car door and started to get out of her car – she couldn’t possibly have strapped the baby in correctly in that time – was there even a proper car seat in there? But it was too late – the Golf had already started and was beginning to reverse.
She had no choice.
That’s what she told herself, afterwards.
She had no choice.
* * *
AF: You followed her.
AT: Yes.
AF: You didn’t think to alert someone? Flag her down?
AT: How could I alert anyone? I didn’t have a mobile phone – no one did, back then. And she was driving fast – it was all I could do not to lose her.
AF: So you followed her – where to exactly?
AT: She got on to the M5, going south.
AF: And then?
AT: She came off at Brockworth and headed towards Cirencester. On the A417.
* * *
As far as Puttergill is concerned, Barnetson should be looking pretty chuffed right now, seeing as it looks like he’s cracked it. But he just looks grim.
‘I should have thought of this before,’ he mutters, staring down into the open manhole. ‘It was odds-on they weren’t on the mains, not all the way out here.’
‘Well, to be fair, this one ain’t that easy to find,’ says the lorry driver. ‘Not if you don’t already know. Most of the time I come it’s covered in leaves and crap.’
As for Puttergill, he didn’t know people even had septic tanks in this day and age, especially this close to a town. He’s certainly never seen one before. He wrinkles his nose. ‘So is it, you know, actual shit down there?’
The driver glances up from the other side of the hole. ‘It’s a tad more sophisticated than that, son, but yeah, there’ll be plenty of faecal sludge at the bottom if you get down far enough.’
Puttergill looks alarmed. He can’t seriously be suggesting –
Barnetson gives a hard laugh. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not looking for a volunteer. I’m sure Mr –’
‘Tull,’ says the driver. ‘Dennis Tull.’
‘I’m sure Mr Tull knows exactly what to do.’
But Puttergill doesn’t reply. He’s staring up towards the house. Barnetson turns to look and sees at once what’s distracted him. There’s a figure at the upstairs window. A pale face, a hand pressed against the glass.
Richard Swann.
Barnetson’s mouth sets in a grim line. ‘They must have thought they’d got away with it.’
* * *
23 December 1997, 3.50 p.m.
A417, Gloucestershire
She remembers thinking that Rowan knew where she was going – that she must have been there before. But she didn’t realize what that meant. Not then.
At the time, it was all she could do to keep up with the car in front, which barely slows, even after they leave the main road. It’s as if there’s a task to do and not much time to do it in. That’s something else she remembers, later.
Alison had only been to Cirencester once before, and that was the quaintsy tea-shop chocolate-box bit, certainly not this colourless every-town-has-one area of warehouses and industrial buildings. She couldn’t think of a single good reason why a woman who’d only just given birth could possibly want to come here. There were bad ones, yes – desperately bad ones – but at the time her mind simply didn’t allow those to gather into words. Not yet.
A left turn, a right, another left. They’d passed two cars on the way in, but now, nothing. It was starting to get dark and there was no one around; the day before Christmas Eve, of course there was no one around.
When the car in front finally slowed, turned into a car park and disappeared out of sight, Alison pulled over and switched off her engine. She never could explain why she held back – it must have been pure instinct, nothing more. Because everything would have been different if she’d followed her in there – if there’d been a confrontation, if she’d demanded an explanation, offered help –
But she didn’t. She just sat in her cold car, her hands sweating against the steering wheel, until the Golf appeared again, picking up speed, passing her –
Gone.
* * *
AF: Do you know where this place was? Would you remember it again?
AT: It’s hard to forget.
AF: All the same, such a long time ago –
AT: That’s not what I meant. The road was called Love Lane. Love Lane. You don’t forget something like that. Not in those circumstances.
TH: So what did you do next?
AT: I got out of the car. I wasn’t sure what to think – I just couldn’t work out what she was doing there –
TH: And then?
AT: I walked over to the car park.
TH: What did you see?
AT: Nothing. It was completely deserted. Just a cat somewhere. Yowling.
[silence]
* * *
23 December 1997, 4.05 p.m.
Love Lane industrial estate, Cirencester
It wasn’t a cat.