Page 88 of The Memory Wood

All week, Mairéad has used the press to keep Elissa Mirzoyan’s face on TV screens, newspapers and social media. Search parties, comprising hundreds of police and civilian volunteers, have combed acres of countryside, both inDorset, where the girl was snatched, and Wiltshire, her home county.

Thousands of hours of CCTV footage and ANPR data have been reviewed and cross-referenced. Hundreds of Bedford vans have been tracked and checked. Now, six days after the abduction, Mairéad stands in this rain-soaked wood and stares down into an abyss.

Of the building at the heart of the blaze, only the outer walls remain. Everything else – the roof and both floors – collapsed into the cellar, where, the ACFO informed her, it burned so fiercely that almost nothing remains.

Black water fills the cellar to a depth of two feet. A couple of enterprising Scenes of Crime Officers are moving about in the filth, rubberized waders pulled over their white suits. Earlier, one of them stubbed his toe on what he thinks is a metal hoop sunk into a bed of concrete. There’s no way of confirming that until the water level recedes, but Mairéad suspects it’s true.

There was this time, last summer. Mum promised to take me to London. I’d always wanted to ride on the Underground, take a Tube to all the famous stops – check out Madame Tussauds, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, 221B Baker Street.

Elissa had been smart enough to code a message into the YouTube broadcast, had even managed to embed information into the letter sent to Lasse Haagensen. She hadn’t deserved this.

All around the site, blackened tree trunks rise like grave markers from the sodden earth. A female SOCO trudges over, boots squelching in sludge. ‘Nothing,’ she says, raising her mask and casting around in disgust. ‘Fire burned most of it, then the fire brigade flooded what was left.’

‘Can’t blame them.’

‘I don’t,’ the SOCO replies. ‘I blame the animal that snatched her.’

Nodding, Mairéad turns away. The crime scene in thewoods might be a lost cause, but at least the cottage where they arrested their suspect remains intact. Upstairs, they found a video camera, a lighting rig and a portable power pack. Scattered across the floor was a magpie’s nest of plunder, among which they identified a pair of glasses belonging to Bryony Taylor and a rosewood chess piece. In a cupboard downstairs they discovered a laptop and a stack of homemade DVDs. Some of the discs bore the names of missing children long presumed dead.

The twin cottages, one burnt-out and one intact, aren’t the only crime scenes on the estate. Inside Rufus Hall, officers found Leon Meunier hanging from a beam. His death can’t be a coincidence, but so far they haven’t established a connection.

Picking her way through the mud, Mairéad puts that awful scar in the earth behind her and follows a trail of limp firehoses back to DS Halley’s car.

Her thoughts turn to Kyle North. Immediately after his arrest, the man retreated into himself, refusing to answer even the most basic of questions. Losing patience, she asked her West Mercia counterparts to transport him by van to Shrewsbury.

It’s her next destination.

II

The station’s custody block is a modern facility comprising sixteen cells. Kyle North is housed in number three. Scowling, Mairéad peers through the viewing window. ‘What happened to his face?’

Beside her, Halley glances at DS Roebuck from the West Mercia force.

The other officer lifts his chin. ‘Bit of a scuffle getting him into the van.’

Mairéad fixes him with a stare.

‘Just a black eye,’ he adds, his expression flat. ‘It’ll heal.’

‘I’m counting on you to ensure he receives no other injuries.’

She’d like nothing more than to see Kyle North taken outside and beaten with bats and poles, but if she can’t return Elissa Mirzoyan to her family, at the very least she needs to secure a conviction. This case has affected all who’ve worked on it; she won’t allow a few hot tempers and quick fists to derail what comes next.

Inside the cell, North sits on his bunk and stares at the wall. He’s a slothful-looking giant, but when required he moves with a sly grace. His skin, greasy and yellow, reminds her of pork-belly rind. There’s even a score line in the flesh, an ugly scar that connects his left temple to his chin. His sloping breasts push against his paper suit. Two circular sweat marks make it appear that he’s lactating. There’s no stubble on his cheeks, no curl of hair at his wrists. As Mairéad considers him, she can’t help recalling his awful falsetto voice.

‘How old, do you reckon?’

‘Thirty?’ Halley ventures. ‘Thirty-five? Difficult call – he could be older or younger by a decade.’

It’s an exaggeration, but not by much. ‘Let’s get him to an interview room,’ Mairéad says, and then she bends double, unable to suppress a groan.

‘Boss?’ Halley asks. ‘What’s wrong?’

The pain hits again, worse this time. It cleaves a path straight through her abdomen. She pivots and lurches up the corridor. Halley calls out behind her. With a shake of her head, she dismisses him.

Hold on, please hold on, stay with me, please don’t go.

But her plea is worthless, and she knows it. Somehow, during this week-long investigation, the destiny of the life she’s been carrying has become inextricably entangled with Elissa Mirzoyan’s. Mairéad failed one of them, and now she’ll fail the other.

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