Missing Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Copyright

  About the Book

  It’s an early autumn day like any other as Miles Avery drives his wife, Jacqueline, to the station. Nothing remarkable crops up in conversation, nor do either of them appear anything other than their normal selves. At the station, Jacqueline gets out, takes an overnight bag from the back seat, then turns towards the platforms. This is the last anyone sees of her.

  Three weeks later, Miles calls the police. Enquiries are made, but there is no evidence of her boarding a train, or even entering the station. Very soon the finger of suspicion starts to turn towards Miles, and as dark secrets from the past begin to merge with those of the present, the great love he has been trying to protect is not only revealed but thrown into terrible jeopardy…

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of twenty-nine novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. Having resided in France for many years she now lives in Gloucestershire. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com

  Susan is a supporter of the childhood bereavement charity, Winston’s Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk and of the breast cancer charity, BUST: www.bustbristol.co.uk

  Also by Susan Lewis

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  Cruel Venus

  Strange Allure

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten

  Stolen

  No Turning Back

  Losing You

  No Child of Mine

  Don’t Let Me Go

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  For James, with love

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost I would like to express my thanks to Sir John and Lady Linda Jennings for making the Devonshire location of this book such a pleasure to research. In throwing open the doors to their beautiful estate I found myself afloat in inspiration, from the magnificent house and its picture book gardens, to the surrounding woods and the horse sanctuary where many deserving beasts are peacefully living out their days. I also thank John and Linda for the very touching story of Henrietta the goose, who is still skimming happily about their lake with her adopted family.

  My sincere gratitude also goes to Jackie Bulley and her colleagues at the WI for their enthusiastic help with the book, and for the wicked game of skittles.

  An enormous thank you to PC Robert Tansleigh at Teignmouth Police Station for talking me through official procedure at the time someone goes missing, and for showing me around the CID offices in Exeter.

  My love and thanks to Ellie Gleave for so patiently exploring Chiswick, Richmond and Kew with me. Also to Jill Clarke for the quirky, but very valuable information about the clock at St Anne’s Church.

  A quick last note to Linda Jennings – the next time we don’t know what something is perhaps we’ll try asking instead of going looking!

  Prologue

  Everything seemed normal, so no reason to think something might change the course of the day, or of any days to come. The sky over Exeter was an infinite blanket of grey with no chinks to let through the sun, no planes to drop from their flights. The pavements were damp and puddled with reflections; the traffic was snarled, each driver guarding his space jealously, angry when forced to let someone in.

  Jacqueline Avery was in the passenger seat of her husband’s BMW. She was a slender, stylish woman with sleek blonde hair caught up in a velvet slide, pale brown eyes that saw much and spoke of little, and a mouth that might have been sensuous were it not for the lines left by tragedy, like debris after a storm. She was dressed with a sober smartness, her handbag and shoes the same black as her coat, and the two rings she wore were a slim gold wedding band, and a small amethyst that had once belonged to her mother. Miles, her husband, had bought her jewellery over the years, but she almost never wore it. She didn’t like to be flashy, though Miles’s taste was anything but. The truth was, she simply didn’t want to be noticed, not even to be admired. There was a time when she’d enjoyed it, but that was during another existence – one that had no connection to now.

  As usual Miles was listening to the news as he drove. She glanced at him, but only when she knew he’d turned to gaze absently out of the side window. He was a handsome man with dark, slightly greying hair, a Roman profile and an air of authority that had always been natural to him, even before he’d achieved his success. It was part of coming from an established family, where the men had always been in positions of power. The two homes they had now – one in Kensington, the other here in Devon – had both been inherited, as had the fortune that had been rapidly devoured by taxes.

  Jacqueline preferred to be in London, which was where she was going now. Miles would drop her at the station, then return to Moorlands, the small estate that bordered the savage plains of Dartmoor. The relief she felt at leaving was like the slow release of a bad dream. Nothing about Devon seemed to work for her. While it soothed and nourished Miles, it made her edgy and fearful. It was too far from London. The people were different. Though no one was ever unfriendly, she knew she’d never share the sense of belonging that was so natural to Miles and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Kelsey. They were here most of the time now, since Miles had resigned from his position as editor of a national broadsheet, and then moved Kelsey to a school close to Okehampton. She still boarded during the week, and occasionally went to friends for weekends, but usually she came home to Moorlands.

  Thinking of her daughter could easily make Jacqueline’s head spin, while her heart ached with the guilt and horror of what she’d done. Almost done, she reminded herself. She’d never meant her any harm, she simply hadn’t been in her right mind. Miles understood that, so did Kelsey, but they no longer trusted her and she didn’t blame them. She should never have been a mother. Time had proved how incapable she was, and it just went on and on proving it.

  Hearing her mobile phone bleep, she took it out of her bag and read the message.

  Still don’t know who’s picking me up. You or Dad.

  Jacqueline sent a text back.

  Dad.

  To Miles she said, ‘I’ve just told Kelsey you’ll collect her
on Friday.’

  He nodded, but was apparently too engrossed in some political story to enlarge on that.

  She was neither surprised nor disappointed. Conversation wasn’t something she wanted right now, so she wouldn’t bother to tell him that Kelsey had called the night before. It wasn’t particularly important, it had only been to ask the same thing. Jacqueline had told her she’d call back, because she and Miles had been in the middle of an argument at the time. They hadn’t made up before going to bed, nor had either of them mentioned it this morning.

  ‘That reminds me,’ she said, as they pulled up at the lights outside Sainsbury’s at Marsh Barton. ‘Mrs Davies gave me a list of things she needs, so perhaps you can pop into the supermarket on your way home.’

  ‘No problem,’ he responded.

  She put the list in the small well in front of the gearstick and rezipped her bag. She wondered if he was really as absorbed in the financial news as he seemed, or if it was an act to avoid speaking to her.

  Dry-eyed, she turned to look out of the window. She used to love him, when she was able to love, but not any more. She wondered why he’d stayed married to her, but since she knew the answer she discarded the sophistry and asked herself instead what right she had to hurt him this way. The answer was none, of course.

  He swore quietly under his breath as someone cut them up at the roundabout. She watched the other driver speed on towards the station, presumably late for his train. She wondered if Miles was already feeling the relief of her departure. After the tension of the past few days he must be, though she knew he’d rather have the issue resolved than let her go without getting what he wanted. But there was no point in discussing it further. It should be forgotten, swept away like dust. She was sorry that he loved another woman, but he’d been in love with her for three years or more, so it wasn’t new. She and Miles had to stay together and he knew it, so why was he suddenly so insistent on having his freedom now? The timing was curious, she thought, though perhaps not altogether surprising.

  As they drove alongside the River Exe she watched the water gushing wildly over rocks and roots, always moving forward, stopping for nothing, a purposeful frantic rush to the sea. She looked up at the railway bridge and her hands tightened on her bag. In less than five minutes he would pull up outside Exeter St David’s, wait for her to take her bag from the back seat, then after saying goodbye he’d drive away. Those were some of the things that might happen. She had no idea if he’d kiss her, or glance in the rear-view mirror before turning, or even wait for her to disappear inside the station. It all remained to be seen. All she knew for certain was that life could change in less time than it took a heart to beat, or a bird to take flight, or a person to go into a garage to pay a bill. And if Miles were being truthful, she suspected he would like to drive away and never see or speak to her again.

  Maybe she wouldn’t mind that so much either, never having to see or speak to herself again.

  She frowned slightly as he turned off before they reached the station approach. Then, realising he was taking the short cut, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the seat back.

  There really never was any way of telling what might happen next.

  Chapter One

  SINCE RECEIVING THE message, four days ago, Vivienne had been living on a knife edge. It had been so unexpected that it had taken her several moments to believe what she was hearing – not because of what was being said, but because of who was saying it. She knew the voice better than almost any other, but it was the first time she’d heard it for over two years and it was as though time had folded inwards, like a fan, bringing the past to the present, closing out both time and distance and even the heartache that had filled so many of the days between.

  There had been no contact since, but the woman he’d told her would be in touch had rung a few hours later. Alice, her closest friend and business partner, had dealt with the call, while Vivienne struggled with the dilemma of whether or not to ring him back.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he’d said at the end of the message. ‘Please get in touch as soon as you can.’

  She still hadn’t, but for the past four days she’d thought about nothing else. It was as though his voice had found its way to her memories, rousing them back to life, stealing through them like colour, warming them with feelings that were almost too powerful to bear. Her hopes were soaring out of control, while her heart tensed with remembered passion and her breath caught on the echoes of laughter. She wanted to capture it all again, go back to a time when they’d been so happy it didn’t seem possible it could end. After hearing him, the images of all they’d shared had become so clear in her mind that it might only have been yesterday that they’d been forced to say goodbye. A lot had happened since that he knew nothing about, but she guessed he could probably say the same. What had been going on in his life during the past two years?

  ‘Hello? Vivi, are you with us?’

  Vivienne looked up from her computer screen to find her assistant waving at her, a cheery grin lighting up her impish little face.

  ‘Alice for you, line one,’ Kayla told her.

  Vivienne reached for her extension and was about to say hello when Alice’s voice came down the line in an avalanche of excitement. ‘Brace yourself,’ she commanded, ‘because this is the news you’ve been waiting for. In fact, it’s going to knock your knickers off.’

  Considering where Alice had spent the past two days Vivienne’s heart gave an anxious jolt, but she was laughing as she said, ‘I never imagined the weekend was going to produce such results. In fact, I wasn’t expecting any at all.’

  ‘Weekend?’ Alice said blankly. ‘Oh, yes, that. We’ll come back to it. Right now I need to congratulate you, actually us, because Irwin’s project has just been given the green light. They’re all systems go from next Monday and we, my sizzling little superstar, are on board to handle the publicity.’

  Vivienne’s eyes lit up. This was indeed the news they’d been waiting for, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, for they were now so badly in debt to the bank that they’d lately been forced to discuss closing down the public relations agency they’d started together, a little over seven years ago. ‘When did you hear?’ she demanded eagerly.

  ‘I just got the call – from Irwin himself, bless his frilly little socks. I’ve told Kayla to go and splash out on some champagne. We’re celebrating when I get there.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Still on the train. Just left Reading, so about half an hour from Paddington.’ There was a shuffling of paperwork as she presumably rearranged her notes. ‘OK, back to the weekend,’ she declared. ‘I should begin by telling you that they were seriously disappointed it was me who showed up and not you.’

  Vivienne blinked. ‘Are we talking about the Kenleigh Women’s Institute?’ she asked, needing to make sure they were on the same page.

  ‘Of course. I did my best with the advice they wanted, but their confidence is entirely in you.’

  ‘But I’ve never met them. Have I?’

  ‘Not that they mentioned, but you do know – or at least knew – one of their husbands. Keith Goss.’

  Vivienne was taken aback. ‘You met Keith’s wife, Sharon?’

  ‘I did, and it seems her husband never stopped raving about how good you are at your job, getting him all that publicity and sponsorship when he was in training for the Olympics – which never earned us a bean, I might remind you, but I guess that’s not really the point.’

  Remembering those days only too vividly, and for many more reasons than the help she’d given Keith Goss, Vivienne forced her thoughts to remain with the gifted young swimmer who’d lost his life while trying to save one of his fire-fighting colleagues in a factory blaze. The tragedy hadn’t only rocked the local community to its core, the rest of the nation had felt it too, for Keith’s easy-going nature and cheeky grin had made him almost as popular with the sports-loving public as his athletic pro
wess. ‘How is Sharon?’ she asked. ‘And the children?’

  ‘Didn’t see the kids, but Sharon was at the meeting. It’s all about her, actually. I’ll explain more when I get back to the office, but the bottom line is, you did Keith a favour once, now the local WI are hoping you’ll do one again for his wife.’

  Curious, Vivienne said, ‘What kind of a favour?’

  Alice’s reply was drowned out by static, leaving Vivienne to recall the only occasion she’d ever met Sharon Goss, though it was doubtful Sharon had any memory of it herself, for it had been at Keith’s funeral.

  ‘Are you there?’ Alice said, coming back on the line.

  ‘Yes. Why didn’t the woman who rang last week tell me it was about Sharon? I’d have gone down myself if I’d known.’

  ‘Really? To Devon?’

  ‘Of course.’ Then, after a pause, ‘Actually yes, I would have.’

  ‘Well you might have to yet, but we’ll discuss it when I get back. Are you OK? How was your weekend?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Any more calls from you know who?’

  ‘No, but there was an email waiting for me this morning saying he still needs to talk to me. I emailed back asking what about.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘No answer yet.’ She looked up as Kayla came out of the kitchenette in her woolly hat and a parka jacket, saying, ‘Can you ask Alice if she’s got the Brennard file?’

  ‘Tell her yes, I have,’ Alice answered.

  ‘Why do you need it?’ Vivienne wanted to know.

  Before Kayla could answer Alice said, ‘We’ve had a similar enquiry, which Kayla and I have been drafting a proposal for.’

  Vivienne’s expression darkened as she looked at Kayla. ‘What do you mean, similar?’ she asked.

  ‘Her name’s Belinda Bellamy,’ Alice replied, ‘otherwise known as La Belle Amie. We didn’t tell you, because we knew how you’d react, so before you go off on one …’