Silent Playgrounds. Danuta Reah

open. They needed to complete the searches of the scene quickly. They needed to get the yard checked, and the wheel. They still needed to find the place where the woman had been killed.

      At first, McCarthy’s money had been on the yard behind the mill, secluded and shielded from observers by trees. But there was no evidence of anything on those mossy stones. One of the SOCOs had found traces of blood on the wall of the mill, the wall that ran straight down into the water, forming one side of the wheel pit. There was a small, dark window in that wall, a few feet above the water. Brooke thought they’d find the evidence they wanted inside the locked-up mill. That scene was secure, and he was content to wait until they had more daylight to work by.

      They’d had trouble contacting a key-holder. They’d had to break open the padlock on the yard gate, but the workshop itself could wait. That reminded McCarthy of something else he needed to do. He went back to the old bridge to talk to the woman who’d found the dead girl. He’d recognized her as soon as he’d arrived. It was the woman with the wary eyes, who had watched him from her seat beside Jane Fielding, as though she was defending her friend from him. She’d said very little apart from giving him a vivid thumbnail sketch of Lucy’s father that McCarthy would have found entertaining under other circumstances.

      She had been sitting on the ground by the old workshop, her knees drawn up, her head resting on her arms. He had gone up to her, and she’d lifted her head and looked at him with shocked, blank eyes, her face drained so that the wash of colour from the sun looked almost yellow. She hadn’t seemed to take it in when he’d said to her, ‘It isn’t Lucy. Lucy’s safe. It isn’t a child.’ He’d knelt down beside her to make sure she’d understood him, and she’d stiffened as though she found his presence threatening. She’d muttered something about responsible or responsibility, and tried to stand up, weaving a little as the shock took her. He’d held her arm, and waved one of the WPCs over. ‘Look after …’ He paused.

      ‘Milner,’ she’d said. ‘Suzanne Milner. I’m fine. I just stood up too quickly. I’m fine.’

      ‘OK, Mrs Milner, but I’ll need to talk to you before you go.’ He’d given the officer some instructions, and then gone to where Brooke was waiting, watching the men working in the wheel yard. Now, as he headed back to the woman, he wondered who to get to interview her. He ran his mind over the things she might have seen and not seen, the things he needed to get her to remember. He thought about her story of the wheel slowing and stopping as she watched it. Who had stopped it?

      What did he know about her? Nothing, except she had some connection with the Fielding woman. It had all seemed like a rather arty, new-age setup – not McCarthy’s kind of thing at all. Her story puzzled him. She’d apparently climbed the gate to look in the wheel yard – a climb that McCarthy wouldn’t have liked to tackle, not with those spikes threatening vulnerable bits. He wondered what she’d expected to find.

      It was midnight. Suzanne sat at her desk, her head in her hands. She couldn’t sleep. She kept seeing that face in the water, and it kept being Lucy. There was something unreal, dreamlike, about the whole thing. The detective – what was his name? McCarthy, that was it – had told her: It isn’t Lucy. Lucy’s safe. It isn’t a child, but she couldn’t get that picture of Lucy’s face out of her mind. She’d gone round to Jane’s as soon as they told her she could go but the house was locked up and empty. She’d come back home and wandered listlessly round, picking up discarded books, shoes, cups and putting them down again. The shards of her weekend lay around her. She bit her thumbnail until a sudden pain warned her that she’d bitten it below the quick. She wondered about phoning Dave, but that would give him a chance to say those things again: Can’t you even …? He’s not a bloody pet, Suze … !

      She sorted through some of the papers that were in her Monday’s to-do pile, ordering them by size, large on the top, small on the bottom, then reversing the order. They wouldn’t make a neat pyramid either way, because they were different shapes and sizes. She went and stood by the window, looking out into the now dark street.

       Q. But, you haven’t told me. Where do you go in the evenings? You know, going out, seeing your friends, things like that.

       A. Simon’s got somewhere.

       Q. Simon? Is that your brother?

       A. Er … not … I can’t … (Pause 5 seconds.)

       Q. In the evenings, Ashley. You said that Simon’s got somewhere. Is that where you go?

       A. Yes.

       Q. Where is it?

       A. It’s … I can’t … em … It’s … you go down by the garage, where Lee’s name is.

       Q. Lee? Do you see Lee in the evenings?

       A. Not … It’s so and … em … they said it was all going to be different. I don’t know, I didn’t know …

       Q. What? I’m sorry, Ashley, I don’t follow you.

       A. Doesn’t matter.

      The tape ran on. Her mind, in the way that it did when she was tired, drifted away from her. She was in the office at the Alpha Project, talking to Richard Kean, the Alpha psychologist. He’d made the rules clear. ‘You can’t have access to the confidential records,’ he’d said. ‘And that includes their police records, I’m afraid. Not at this stage. They all have the kinds of profile you were looking for: persistent, destructive criminal behaviour.’ She’d nodded in agreement. She wasn’t about to argue after the weeks of careful negotiation it had taken her to get through the door of the centre. She’d … The machine clicked, and she realized that the tape had run on to its end. Maybe she ought to go to bed. She wasn’t concentrating. She pressed the REWIND button and watched as the numbers on the counter reversed themselves. Then she pressed PLAY.

       Q. Tell me about your family, Ashley.

       A. Er … It’s not …

       Q. Sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not.

       A. Yes.

       Q. You want to tell me?

       A. Brothers and sisters?

       Q. If …

       A. (Laughs.) Brothers and sisters.

       Q. Sorry, Ashley, I don’t understand.

       A. Er … So … em … loose …

       Q. What?

       A. Simon.

       Q. Simon is your brother?

       A. Yes.

      She’d asked Richard about that, after she’d taped Ashley. ‘Ashley says he has a brother. I’d got the impression he was an only child.’

      Richard had pulled at his lip, thinking. ‘Well, if he’s been talking to you … It isn’t confidential as such. Ashley’s background is very disrupted. He has a brother who went into care years ago. He was autistic; the family couldn’t cope. Then when they found out Ashley had problems, that was when he went into care as well.’ He was more forthcoming these days, more inclined to treat her like another professional. ‘That’s the root of Ashley’s problem, I think. No one wanted him. He’s never had anyone who really cared about him. That’s hard to cope with.’

      The tape ran on. Never had anyone who loved him. Suzanne had loved Adam, but that hadn’t been enough. Her mind was too tired to resist the images. The wet stone had sprouted weeds and ferns, a lush growth that flourished away from the light. The stones were green with lichen. Far down, the water was racing, smooth and strong. Someone was looking up at her from under the water, but she couldn’t make out the features, the current was too fast. Then it cleared, and the eyes opened and looked at her with fear and panic and pleading. Adam’s face, looking up at her from under the water.

      Lucy lay in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin. It was late. She was tired, but she didn’t want