The Hidden Child: A completely unputdownable mystery thriller inspired by a true crime Read online

  THE HIDDEN CHILD

  A COMPLETELY UNPUTDOWNABLE MYSTERY THRILLER INSPIRED BY A TRUE CRIME

  REBECCA GRIFFITHS

  BOOKS BY REBECCA GRIFFITHS

  The Hidden Child

  The Girl at My Door

  Sweet Sacrifice

  Cry Baby

  A Place to Lie

  The Primrose Path

  AVAILABLE IN AUDIO

  The Girl at My Door (available in the UK and the US)

  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  HUNT FOR VICTIMS ON SADDLEWORTH MOOR

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  The Girl at My Door

  Hear More from Rebecca

  Books by Rebecca Griffiths

  A Letter from Rebecca

  Acknowledgements

  For Beverley Hale… wherever you may be.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction, and while it refers to actual people, places and controversial events in history, the story and characters woven around them have been invented for the purpose of the narrative.

  Hell is empty… all the devils are here.

  Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2

  HUNT FOR VICTIMS ON SADDLEWORTH MOOR

  Further murder victims are expected to be found buried on the desolate Pennine moors where the body of a young girl was discovered two days ago. Police chiefs are to re-examine their files on eight people – four of them children – who have disappeared from the Manchester area over the past three years.

  Manchester Evening News, October 18, 1965

  PROLOGUE

  Friday, 18 July 1941

  Black Fell Farm, Saddleworth Moor, West Riding of Yorkshire

  It had gone midnight, and the oil lamp Ronald lit in the barn cast soft, leaping shadows against the walls. The farmhouse on the opposite side of the yard was in darkness. His mother had retired to bed some time before. The clanking of the cattle grid galvanised him into action, and he unlocked the gun cabinet and took out his father’s prized Purdey. Stared at the cartridges in his hand. The same panic that had assaulted him when his mother’s cancer was diagnosed assaulted him now, and he knew he would remember this moment for the rest of his life: the smell of the hay gathered in from the fields that morning; the tightening skin on his sunburnt cheeks; the shire horses breathing in the dark… the pair of black-and-white sheepdogs who did not move, even when they heard the dry crackle of tyres hit the grit in the yard. They feared his father, Jacob Cappleman, as much as he did.

  Then his father was there. Drunk and swaying on the threshold. Lit by the moon and looking for trouble, he wiped his wet mouth with a meaty fist. Dressed in his usual garb for a night down the Bull, his tweed waistcoat stretched over his impressive girth, the gold links of his precious fob watch hanging like a mayoral chain. The watch, inscribed with his name and awarded to him by the Lancashire Farming Union for services to king and country during the Great War, was worth more to Jacob Cappleman than the lives of his wife and sons.

  ‘Been drinking profits away as usual?’ Ronald said, emboldened by the loaded shotgun he held behind his back.

  ‘What? Who are you to criticise me? Carryin’ on with the woman your brother’s betrothed to.’ His father, thumbs jammed into his waistcoat pockets, stood like a QC at the Old Bailey. ‘You should’ve been the one to go to war, not Tommy. Wouldn’t have lost no sleep about you bein’ blasted to kingdom come.’

  ‘He hates you; you do know that?’

  ‘What you bletherin’ about?’ His father leant against the barn door to steady himself.

  ‘Tom. He hates you. Ever since you sold his dog.’

  ‘Ach. Give over, you big jessie.’ A fierce shake of the head. But Ronald could tell he’d rattled him, that the claim was not easily dismissed, and this pleased him. ‘You’re talkin’ rot. And if that’s all you’ve got for me to keep me mouth shut, then you’re wastin’ your breath. If your mother’s happy to keep your filthy secret then shame on her, but you’ll not silence me.’ He dispensed the threat with a slow, self-righteous grin. ‘Our Tommy’s comin’ home on leave tomorrow, so rest assured I’ll be fillin’ him in on what you and that jezebel have bin up to while he’s bin fightin’ Germans.’

  Ronald refused to respond. Half-hidden in shadow, the gun at his back – if his father came for him, he’d have him. God help him, he would.

  ‘What’s up with you? Cat got your tongue?’ His father stood as if at the end of a long tunnel, a tiny figure with arms outstretched. The breeze ruffling his thick grey hair.

  ‘Nowt up with me.’ It felt good to confuse this man. Jacob Cappleman, always the one in control, had been brutalising Ronald and his brother since they could crawl. It was a miracle they hadn’t died at his hands as children.

  ‘Then why so calm all of a sudden?’ His father lurched towards him and grabbed the flesh of Ronald’s sunburnt cheek. Close to the scar that resulted from a violent thrashing he’d given him when he was nine. ‘Tell me, go on.’ His father squeezed. ‘What you cookin’ up?’

  ‘Nowt to tell.’ Ronald shook him off, the gun still clasped behind him. ‘I don’t care no more. You can say what you bloody well want.’

  ‘Don’t care? You don’t fool me.’ A sneer. ‘Anyway, I’m off to me bed,’ he announced after a quick squint at his fob watch.

  Ronald didn’t know when he decided not to shoot him, that the mess it would make would be too much. But when he swung the Purdey by the barrel and hit him with the full force of the buttstock, his father let go of a groan and clutched his head, wobbled, but didn’t fall. Ronald struck him again with desperation and boldness because he could not see his face. This time, Jacob Cappleman crumpled softly to his knees and fell forward, face-down into the darkness.

  Ronald couldn’t move, not even to lower his gun-holding arm. He felt the night air travel down from the moor and sweep over him, cooling his face. An upstairs lamp went on in the farmhouse. Shone out from its round window and spilled its feeble light into the moonlit yard. It brought him back to the present with a jolt. He would not have his mother involved in this. It didn’t matter that he’d done this for her, too. The poor woman had suffered this man’s cruelty all her married life. No one would argue that Jacob Cappleman was a brute. As a man with the strength of two, the knowledge of his potential to harm had spread its tendrils far into the community.

  Once Ronald had returned the shotgun to its place of safety, he lifted Bramble’s halter from its hook, slipped it on over her head and fastened the buckle.

  ‘Come on, lass,’ his whispered encouragement. Remembering in time to take a spade as he led the young mare out of the barn and into the yard.

  Ronald couldn’t believe how calm he was. Not a tremor betrayed him. Not even when he heaved his father’s lifeless body up and onto the shire’s back and set off under a pitiless seam of moonlight for the moor and the lightning tree. His thoughts full of those big black rocks above Hollin Brown Knoll and the grave he would dig there.

  1

  TWENTY-FOUR YEARS LATER

  Saturday, 4 September 1965

  Underwood Court, Hattersley, North-East Cheshire

  The child sensed something was different about this Saturday morning, even before Fred arrived in his maroon Cortina. The flat smelled different. Of shampoo and nail polish. Her mother smelled different too; like the honeysuckle that grew by her gran’s front door, except artificial. Radio Luxembourg was on and her mother was singing along with Elvis, who was telling the world he couldn’t help falling in love. What the child would love would be to tell her to be quiet, but she wouldn’t. If her mother was singing, it meant she was in a good mood, and good moods were rare.

  Sunlight was something else that was rare. But there it was, falling in through the passageway window like a solid gold bar. She sh
owed it to her Tiny Tears doll, then hopped over it and into the kitchen, glancing at Elvis’ face in a poster fixed to the wall. He was usually the first to greet her, but not today. Today, along with her mother, there was someone else. A woman she’d been told to call Aunty Myra.

  ‘Bloomin’ ’eck!’ The woman with the puffed-up white hair pulled on her cigarette. ‘It looks like she’s been dipped in blood.’

  Flinching under the unwanted attention, the child peered down on herself. At her shabby red coat, red tights and scuffed shoes.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Maggot?’ Her mother had stopped singing. ‘Fred’ll be here soon.’

  ‘My, she’s grown, Connie.’ Aunty Myra took another drag of her fag while her black-rimmed eyes roamed over the child. ‘Quite the little lady.’

  Her mouth went dry. Something in the woman’s expression made her want to run and hide.

  ‘How’s me little buggerlugs?’

  The child shrugged. She might have known Myra Hindley since her cradle, but it didn’t mean she trusted her.

  ‘Oi! Answer your Aunty Myra.’ Her mother cuffed her around the head. ‘Have some respect, you little sod.’

  ‘Quiet, ain’t she?’ The observation, along with a string of smoke, was exhaled from the red-painted mouth.

  ‘Oh, leave her be. Here—’ Tea was poured from the pot with its blue wool cosy, the mad chinking of a spoon against china. ‘I’ve done us a brew.’

  The child looked past them to a box of cornflakes on the worktop and took a bowl from the rack on the drainer, her ear buzzing from the smack.

  ‘That’s it, Maggot. Get some cereal down your neck.’ Her mother squinted at herself in the mirror. ‘God knows when you’ll be eating again.’

  The statement, with its ominous ring, had the child wondering where Fred was taking them. But she didn’t ask because it wouldn’t be down the park for a go on the swings or to Belle Vue to see the new baby elephant or any of the fun places her gran used to take her. Her mother and Fred liked coffee bars and pubs, and she was just in the way. She put Tiny Tears down on the side with a clunk, arranged the frilly white bonnet and matching dress her gran had made to hide the doll’s modesty, then tipped some cornflakes into the bowl. Since moving from her grandparents’ house, there was never enough milk – never much of anything, really – and she needed to top her breakfast up from the tap.

  ‘I know I’ve said, but I love your hair.’

  ‘Ta, Connie.’ Her mother’s compliment triggered a satisfied wiggle from Aunty Myra, and the child watched her smooth the leopard-print dress over her broad hips. ‘Ian likes it.’ A smile that showed lipstick had come off on her teeth.

  ‘D’you reckon I should bleach mine?’ Her mother was brushing her long dark hair. Making it gleam like glass.

  A shake of the blonde head as the cigarette was screwed out in the ashtray. ‘It wouldn’t suit, Connie.’

  The child lifted a hand to the matted clump of curls she couldn’t pull her fingers through and wondered why her hair never warranted the attention her mother gave her own. She supposed her mother’s hair must be very special. Why else was Fred always burying his nose in it? Snuffling and grunting like Johnny Morris on Animal Magic when he was pretending to be a pig; only Fred wasn’t pretending and wasn’t the least funny. Fred did other things, too. Things that forced the child to clamp her hands over her ears when she lay in bed. Nights she could swear he was killing her mother from the pitch of her screams.

  To rid herself of the unsettling thoughts, she looked out of the window that offered views of the estate beyond their fifth-floor tenement flat. The sky was a spooky cartoon blue. A colour that could have come straight out of her box of crayons. She smiled at this, but the smile vanished when she shifted her gaze to the purpose-built blocks, then down to where a gang of rough boys kicked a football between two parked cars. The child didn’t like boys. She wasn’t like her mother, who enjoyed the attention; enjoyed being whistled at.

  ‘Can’t you do owt quietly?’ her mother snapped when the child scraped out what was left of her cereal. ‘I always have to know you’re there.’

  Eyes downcast, she rinsed her empty bowl over the pile of dirty crockery. Then there was a movement beside her and with it, the whiff of a different perfume. Aunty Myra finished with her tea, placed her cup on the drainer. The child gawped at the blood-red lipstick left behind on its rim.

  ‘Come here, buggerlugs.’ The woman flung her arms out to her sides and wriggled her fingers. ‘Give your Aunty Myra a cuddle.’

  The hug was as unexpected as it was unwanted, and the child held her breath and waited for it to finish.

  ‘How are you liking living here?’

  The child didn’t answer; the question wasn’t for her.

  ‘It’s great.’ Her mother was now applying lipstick. Digging it out with the handle of a teaspoon. ‘Loads better away from Mam and Dad.’

  ‘Bet you’re missing having a babysitter on tap?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ Her mother gave the child a black look. ‘Can’t pretend it’s not a pain having to drag Maggot around with us.’

  ‘Can’t Fred run her over to Glossop?’

  ‘No. Mam’s a lot on, with Dad being so poorly.’

  ‘Little buggerlugs would cheer her up. You’d like to see your gran, wouldn’t you?’

  The child responded with a vigorous nod.

  ‘Leave it, Myra. Truth is, Mam and me had a bit of a falling-out. She were dead set against me moving here. I’ve not seen owt of them in ages.’

  The child stared at the tide of grease on the sink. She missed her gran. Missed her cuddles and kindness. There was no kindness here. No one bothered with her unless it was to tell her off.

  ‘Moby and Dave are moving here soon.’ Aunty Myra bashed out another cigarette and lit up again.

  ‘Maureen? Your sister? I thought they were coming to Wardle Brook to be near you.’ Her mother was plucking her eyebrows: she was going to a lot of effort for Fred today.

  ‘I tried sorting things, but nowt came of it. Ian’s happy. He reckons it’s bad enough sharing space with me gran.’

  ‘How is Maureen? After what happened to the baby?’ The radio was turned down, and the room went strangely quiet. Crowding with shadows.

  ‘Oh, Connie, it’s been hell. Poor wee mite.’ Aunty Myra dabbed away sudden tears. ‘Shit, me make-up’s all smudged.’ She fanned her face with her hand. ‘You won’t tell Ian?’ The backcombed head drooped to rootle through her handbag for her compact. ‘He hates any kind of emotion. Sees it as a weakness.’

  ‘But Maureen’s your sister; baby Angela were your niece?’

  ‘Just don’t let on. For me, yeah?’ A glance at the clock. ‘Is that the time? I’d better dash. Ian’ll be waiting.’

  ‘Off anywhere nice?’

  ‘That’ll be up to Neddy.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Ian. I meant, Ian.’ A brittle laugh, the death of her baby niece forgotten. ‘But hazarding a guess, I’d say the moors. He loves it up there.’