It’s an online news story from the Daily Mail.
The family of a desperately ill young woman hopes to raise ?200,000 to help get her alternative treatment abroad. Jolene Rennie, from Nottingham, was just thirty-three when she was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer.
Doctors advised her to start palliative care, but Jolene underwent twenty cycles of chemotherapy over the next four years. The disease went into remission but last October she received the devastating news that her cancer had returned and spread to the lining of her abdomen, her pelvis and her ovaries.
Specialist surgeons at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London decided that Jolene was unsuitable for surgery, but the family say there are multiple different treatment options abroad, which are not covered by the NHS.
Jolene’s husband Patrice, a chef, has already sold the family’s home in Lenton and hopes to raise the rest of the money by donations.
‘In America, they are twenty years ahead when it comes to stopping this cancer,’ he said. ‘We’re going to make every penny count and make Jolene well again.’
I look at the date on the article. It was published on 8 February.
‘When did they leave the country?’ I ask.
‘In April.’
‘Look for a death notice.’
Prime Time taps in a search. The single result is dated three weeks ago.
Jolene Phillipa Rennie （nee Wright）， the much-loved wife of Patrice, daughter of Noel and Elizabeth, sister of Cassandra, sadly left us on Friday October 25, aged thirty-eight. She battled in every possible way, but now her suffering is over.
I call Lenny, but her line is busy. I’m about to try again when I get an incoming call from Dr Baillie at Rampton Secure Hospital.
‘Is Elias with you?’ he asks.
‘No. Why?’
‘The electronic monitoring service just sent me an alert. The GPS tracker shows that Elias left your address more than an hour ago. Can you confirm his whereabouts?’
‘No.’
65
Cyrus
There should be a Murphy’s Law or some corollary that relates to traffic – the more urgently you need to be somewhere, the slower the journey. The more roadworks, stop signs and red lights. The more little old lady drivers and men wearing lawn-bowling hats, and Sunday-school teachers, or any of those hackneyed clichés that nowadays seem to cause offence.
Evie still isn’t answering her phone. I try Lenny. This time I get through, but she tells me to hold. I hear voices behind her – officers are being briefed. They have reached the cottage and found Thompson’s car parked outside. An armed response unit is twelve minutes away.
Lenny comes back to me. ‘Make it quick.’
‘Patrice Rennie has a food truck. There was one spotted outside Maya Kirk’s house on the night she disappeared. And Mitchell Coates remembers seeing a food truck on the evening that Lilah Hooper was attacked.’
‘I thought Rennie took his wife to America?’
‘Jolene Rennie died of cancer four weeks ago. It could have tipped him over the edge.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Prime Time has the task force looking, but I think I know someone who can find him.’
In the background, I hear a shout, ‘Suspect identified.’
‘That’s him,’ says Lenny, who is moving. Thompson must have emerged from the cottage. Someone else yells, ‘Police! Hands in the air. Get down! Get down! On your knees.’
Lenny to me. ‘Wait for me at Radford Road.’
‘I can’t. Elias has gone AWOL. His ankle monitor triggered an alarm an hour ago.’
‘Where would he go?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m almost home now.’
‘What about Lilah Hooper?’
‘She’s in the wind.’
Lenny curses and hangs up.
I’ve reached Parkside. The front door is wide open. I sprint up the path, yelling for Evie rather than Elias. What does that say? There are spilled boxes and ripped bin bags in the hallway. The contents are spread across the floor. Cast-off clothes. Magazines. Schoolbooks. Trophies. Sun-faded curtains. Ageing bedspreads. I can’t work out if someone was robbing me or moving me out.
Poppy is barking from the garden. She’s with another dog. Trevor. Lilah must have been here. Running up the stairs, I find more boxes and bags with their contents scattered across the floor. They’ve come from the attic. This was Elias, not Evie.
I try her phone again and hear her ringtone – a song from some Korean boyband with initials instead of a name. The sound is coming from the front hallway. I find the handset beneath a pile of magazines. My texts and missed messages are on the screen. I’m kneeling on the floor, staring at the phone, when I notice something shine from the pages of an open magazine. National Geographic. A droplet. I touch it with a fingertip. Smear it against my thumb. Oily. Dark. Blood.
Evie’s car is gone. I try to tell myself that she and Lilah have gone shopping or to lunch, but Evie isn’t a shopper, and she doesn’t make friends easily and she wouldn’t leave her phone behind.
I have an incoming call from Dr Baillie.
‘Have you found him?’ he asks. ‘No.’
‘Do you have any idea where he is?’
‘None.’
‘I am obligated to call the police.’
‘I understand, but you said someone was tracking him.’
‘The ankle bracelet sends GPS and radio signals. We use an electronic monitoring company in Manchester.’
‘If I can get to Elias and bring him back to Rampton, will that count in his favour?’
‘My advice is to leave it to the police.’
‘I understand that, but he’s my brother and I don’t want him hurt.’
Baillie seems to take a moment to consider the request. ‘I’ll call the company and ask, but I warn you not to approach Elias on your own. If he has suffered a psychotic episode, he may not recognise you.’
He hangs up and I look again at the droplets of blood on the magazine. There are more on the rug. I notice dark scuff marks on the skirting boards. Someone small was held against the wall with her feet off the ground. Kicking. Fighting.
Family is a bond of blood and shared history, but how can two people who share the same genes be so different? There is supposed to be an eternal unbreakable bond between brothers. Family is family no matter what happens. Not any more. Not now.
I call Lenny. She’s on her way back to Radford Road.
‘Thompson is a drunk,’ she says. ‘We’ll have to sober him up before we get any sense out of him.’
I interrupt her. ‘Lilah Hooper and Evie aren’t at the house. The front door was wide open and there were traces of blood in the hallway.’
‘Where’s Elias?’
‘No sign of him.’
‘Shit!’
My phone is ringing. I don’t recognise the number. I put Lenny on hold.
Cassie’s voice, ‘Don’t let the police kill him.’
66
Evie
The cold is leaking into my chest. It began at my fingertips and my toes and has slowly moved along my arms and legs, until I cannot stop my teeth from chattering. I tell myself I have been in colder places, darker places. I’ve been hungry and frightened and have listened to a man, my friend, being tortured to death. But I was always hiding, never held.