Behind Closed Doors Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  When fourteen-year-old Sophie Monroe suddenly vanishes one night it looks at first as though she’s run away from home.

  Her computer and mobile phone have gone, and she’s taken a bag full of clothes.

  As the police investigation unfolds a wealth of secrets from the surrounding community start coming to light. And it seems everyone has something to hide.

  For Detective Sergeant Andrea Lawrence, the case is a painful reminder of the tragedy that tore her family apart over twenty years ago. She is convinced there is more to Sophie’s disappearance than teenage rebellion.

  But is the past clouding her judgment, preventing her from seeing a truth that neither she, nor Sophie’s family, would ever want to face?

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of thirty-two 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. She lives in Gloucestershire. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Fiction

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Cruel Venus

  Strange Allure

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten

  Stolen

  No Turning Back

  Losing You

  The Truth About You

  Never Say Goodbye

  Books that run in sequence

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  No Child of Mine

  Don’t Let Me Go

  Series featuring Laurie Forbes and Elliott Russell

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  Behind Closed Doors

  Susan Lewis

  To James,

  with love

  Prologue

  ‘WHERE ARE YOU going?’

  ‘Out. All right?’

  ‘Not before you’ve cleared this table, you aren’t, and there’s plenty to do round here.’

  ‘I’m not your bloody slave.’

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that, and stop arguing all the time. Now, there are the dishes . . .’

  ‘No way!’

  Heidi Monroe’s normally soft brown eyes sparked anger out of their tiredness, while her milky caramel skin flushed into the crinkled halo of her chaotic dark hair. ‘Sophie, I’ve had about as much as I can take of you today,’ she sighed. ‘I’m shattered, I’ve got a headache, Archie’ll be awake any minute . . .’

  ‘So? You’re the one who decided to have a baby, not me. You take care of him . . .’

  ‘I intend to, but I need your help. I’ve got a stack of work to get through tonight . . .’

  ‘It’s Sunday, for God’s sake. Normal people take Sundays off, but not you. Or me, thanks to you and this bloody place. I’m not the one who took the job, so I don’t see why I have to work as well . . .’

  ‘Most girls your age would love to earn some pocket money, so why don’t you think yourself lucky instead of bitching about everything?’

  ‘I’m fourteen for God’s sake. I want to have a life like . . .’

  ‘From what I hear you have more of a life, and you know what I mean by that. Have you heard what people are saying about you?’

  ‘I don’t care what they say. They’re a bunch of losers . . .’

  ‘I hope it’s not true, Sophie, that’s all I can say, because if your father ever hears about it . . .’

  ‘Shut up! Just shut up.’ Sophie’s pretty, stricken face was a fiery red oval inside her purple-streaked hair; her lavender-blue eyes were darkened by confusion and anger. Nothing was ever going right in her life, nothing, and it just wasn’t fair.

  ‘Stop shouting, or you’ll wake Archie.’

  ‘You’re the one shouting, and I don’t care if I wake him up. I’m going out.’

  ‘No you’re not . . .’

  ‘I worked all day, for God’s sake, I deserve to have some time off.’

  ‘You can go when you’ve cleared the table and tidied up that tip of a bedroom.’

  ‘I’m going now!’

  ‘Sophie, get back here.’

  ‘I said, I’m going now.’

  They stood staring at one another, months of bitterness and bewilderment ticking like a time bomb between them. It was as though they’d stopped knowing one another, were challenging the monsters each had become to strike first or back down.

  Sophie’s lip trembled as she glared at Heidi. ‘You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to,’ she choked angrily.

  ‘Do you want me to tell your father about the way you speak to me?’

  ‘Tell him what you like, he couldn’t give a damn anyway.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Sophie spat in disgust as thirteen-month-old Archie started screeching, ‘I’m getting out of here right now,’ but as she tore open the kitchen door she walked straight into her father.

  ‘What the heck’s going on in here?’ Gavin Monroe demanded. ‘I can hear you two halfway down . . .’

  ‘It’s not me, it’s her,’ Sophie yelled over him. ‘She’s picking on me again. Always picking, picking, picking . . .’ She was thrusting her face towards Heidi as though daring her to come and slap it. ‘Why don’t you go and shut your stupid child up!’

  ‘Sophie!’ her father barked, shocked and angered.

  She wasn’t listening; she was already storming along the hall.

  ‘If you leave now you don’t need to bother coming back,’ Heidi shouted after her.

  ‘Thanks for making me want to kill myself,’ Sophie yelled out, and flouncing through her bedroom door she slammed it so hard behind her that a poster fell off the wall.

  She hated them! Really, really hated them and it would serve them bloody right if she did leave home, or better still if she killed herself. In fact she might just do that, at least then she’d be out of this house and would never have to put up with them again. Why were they always so mean to her, making her feel useless or stupid, or like she was a waste of space that was always in the way?

  Grabbing her iPod she jammed it into a speaker and turned up the volume. She didn’t want them to hear her sobbing, no way was she going to give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d got to her, even though they had, because she could hardly catch her breath.

  Throwing herself down on the bed she grabbed her old rag doll and squeezed it tightly to her chest. Sometimes this doll felt li
ke her only friend in the world. She’d had her since she was a baby, and she’d never let her go, not ever. It had been a present from her mum, and for a long time after she had died Sophie had cried into the doll’s corn-coloured hair, sure she could still smell her mum’s perfume and even sometimes hear her voice.

  ‘It’s all right, my darling,’ her mum would whisper, ‘I’m still here. You just can’t see me, that’s all.’

  ‘I want you to come back,’ ten-year-old Sophie would sob.

  ‘I know you do, sweetie, and I would if I could, but you’re my big, brave girl . . .’

  ‘No, I’m not brave. I want to be with you, please Mummy, please let me be with you.’

  ‘But what would Daddy do without you? He’d be so lonely, and you know how much he loves you.’

  Her dad used to love her, she was sure about that, but he was much more interested in Archie now. So was Heidi. Everyone was fixated on Archie, and in truth Sophie wanted to love him too because it felt really terrible not to when he was just a baby. The trouble was all he ever did was cry and eat and poo. He never laughed, like other babies, or did cute stuff, and he even looked a bit weird, though she’d never said that to anyone. She didn’t even like admitting it to herself, it felt so bad. One thing was certain though, he definitely didn’t like her. If she went anywhere near him he started howling the place down, and it made her feel like howling too.

  The really upsetting part of it all was that she and Heidi had been like best mates before Archie had come along. It hadn’t been as good as having her mum again, nothing would ever be as lovely as that, but she and Heidi used to go places together, do each other’s hair, and practise their make-up. Sophie hadn’t even minded when her dad had said he was going to marry her, because it was definitely better having Heidi around than when she used to lie in her bedroom at night listening to her dad crying and not knowing what to do to make him feel better. Heidi changed all that. Right from the off she’d made him laugh and suddenly he wanted to do things again. Sometimes he’d say it was like having two daughters instead of one, since Heidi was only thirty, sixteen years younger than him, but she’d never really acted that old. She did now, since Archie, and the way she’d changed, withdrawing from Sophie and stressing out all the time, had made Sophie start longing for her mother all over again.

  If only it could still be just the three of them the way it used to be, her, Mummy and Daddy, living in Devon, singing in holiday camps and at children’s parties and in church. She’d still have her lessons at home, although her mother had always said she’d have to go to proper school when she was eleven, so perhaps she wouldn’t.

  The thought of school swelled another painful misery in her heart. In less than three weeks the summer holidays would be over and she’d have to go and face those horrible girls again. They were forever picking on her, calling her names, pulling her hair and even punching her when she went past. At the end of last term they’d started telling everyone she had an STD so they ought to steer clear. It wasn’t safe to be near her, they warned, and it seemed everyone had listened, because she’d ended up more or less isolated, with only Estelle as her friend.

  ‘They’re just jealous because you’re much prettier than them,’ Estelle had insisted, ‘and the boys like you better.’

  Sophie didn’t think she was prettier, and as for the boys . . .

  Tears were streaming even faster down her face now. She didn’t care about boys, or school, or anything else; all she cared about was how it wasn’t fair that she didn’t have her mother any more, when everyone else had one. It made her feel like a freak, as if she wasn’t worth staying around for; even though she knew that was nonsense, it was just how it felt.

  ‘You have to be brave, sweetheart,’ her mother had whispered the day she’d told Sophie she couldn’t hold on for much longer. ‘I know it won’t be easy at first, but you’re a big girl now, and Daddy’s going to need you to help him.’

  ‘But I don’t want you to go,’ Sophie had wept. ‘Please, please don’t go.’

  ‘I promise you, my love, I’d stay if I could, just for you, but there’s no more they can do for me.’

  ‘What about if we say our prayers?’

  ‘We’ve said them, my darling, but I’m afraid they haven’t done any good. So what we’re going to do, you and me, we’re going to start filling this book with all our memories, and after I’ve gone you can carry on putting things into it, anything you like, flowers, words, postcards, photographs, locks of hair, wishes, dreams, and it will be as though we’re still sharing it.’

  The book was next to Sophie’s bed now, but it wasn’t like they were sharing it at all. Even though she’d carried on sticking things in and writing about her feelings and her days, a bit like she was talking to her mum, she could tell she was on her own. Her mum hadn’t even come when Sophie had started to write things to shock her. It was like she didn’t care any more.

  Suddenly jumping to her feet Sophie yanked up her mattress and stuffed the book underneath, as if she were burying it, like her mother. She didn’t want to see it again, ever. It was just stupid and childish filling it in all the time, like she still believed in Father Christmas or the tooth fairy. She was a grown-up now; she knew very well that when people were dead they were dead. Her mother wasn’t coming back, and her father wasn’t interested in her any more, so she might as well be dead too.

  Grabbing her phone, she turned the music up even louder and went to push open the window. The salty scent of warm sea air engulfed her, along with the flashing lights of the funfair across the street and a cacophony of screams and laughter that wafted and whipped down from the rides. Since they lived in a bungalow at the edge of a holiday park sneaking out was easy; she simply had to climb on to the ledge and jump down on to the grass below.

  Minutes later she was running through the caravans, heading for the beach. She wasn’t sure how long she’d stay there, or if her dad would come to find her. He usually did, sooner or later, but he was going away tonight, so he might not bother. He’d just knock on her bedroom door on his way out, shout cheerio and when she didn’t answer he’d assume she was inside sulking.

  ‘Give me a ring when you’re in a better mood,’ he’d call out, or something along those lines, and off he would go. He wouldn’t realise she wasn’t there. No one would until morning and by then . . .

  ‘Hey! Sophie! What’re you doing?’

  Her heart suddenly lit up. Was that . . .? It had to be. She was sure she recognised the voice.

  She turned round quickly, breaking into a smile. God was on her side after all. He was going to make everything just the way she wanted it . . .

  Chapter One

  ANDREA LAWRENCE HAD taken a wrong turn in life. She’d known it for a long time now – it was impossible not to know it when it kept her company like a shadow, or stepped out of nowhere to trip her up with a reminder. It could even make her feel like a stranger when she looked in the mirror, or force her to ask herself what she was doing when right in the middle of something serious. The trouble was, it was too late to turn back. All she could do was keep following the road she’d chosen at a time when she really hadn’t been thinking straight at all, and hope it would all come right in the end.

  How was it going to do that when so much had already gone so horribly wrong? She wasn’t in proper control, was taking decisions that even she didn’t agree with, and pride – yes, she had to admit it – pride was making it impossible to back down. And professionalism was playing its part, she mustn’t forget that, since she wasn’t bad at what she did, some even said she was made for it, but she knew that wasn’t true.

  This was what was going round in her mind when a tentative voice said, ‘Hi, I don’t suppose you’ve got a minute?’

  Looking up from the case notes she was supposed to be reading on her laptop, Andee’s aqua-green eyes, behind the frames of her varifocals, showed impatience, wariness, reserve, until she saw who was asking the favour. Barry Brit
ten, one of her oldest friends and, as of a year ago, a colleague. She liked him, a lot. He was honest, funny, direct when he needed to be, and sensitively discreet. He was also one of the world’s best dads to his adorable year-old twins.

  ‘As it’s you, I’ll make it two,’ she replied, removing her feet from the chair they were resting on and putting the laptop aside. Though she was a woman who rarely turned heads at first glance, a second look might arrest attention, in spite of her efforts to blend into the world unnoticed for anything beyond her presence. Each morning she strained her shoulder-length ebony hair into a brutal ponytail, unadorned by anything more than a plain elastic, wore thick-rimmed glasses instead of contacts, and, to her teenage daughter’s dismay, almost never used make-up. The way she dressed, at least for work, in a plain white shirt and loose black pants, invited no one to admire her slender legs or to try stealing a glimpse of tempting cleavage. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate male attention, in the right place and the right way it was welcome; it was simply that she had no time for those who seemed to think looks counted more than personality.

  ‘I’ve just been over to Paradise Cove,’ Barry told her, sinking into the easy chair her feet had freed for him. His normally merry brown eyes were showing concern; his mole-dotted cheeks seemed pale. Unusually they were the only ones in the Stress & Mess, aka the old canteen, which these days had no kitchen, merely a microwave, two-ring burner, sink, fridge and temperamental coffee-maker.

  ‘And?’ Andee prompted, glancing at her watch. The thought of the workload waiting upstairs on her desk, and all it entailed, made her groan inwardly.

  ‘A girl’s gone missing,’ Barry replied, his eyes coming directly to hers. ‘Stepdaughter of the caravan-park manageress. Aged fourteen.’

  Feeling the immediate rise of demons stilling her breath, Andee waited for him to continue.

  ‘I wanted to tell you before all the fuss kicks off,’ he said. ‘Assuming it does. Obviously it won’t if she turns up.’

  Andee nodded, and encouraged him to go on.

  ‘Her name’s Sophie Monroe,’ he elaborated. ‘On the face of it it’s looking like she’s a runaway. Her computer’s gone, so’s her mobile phone, a few clothes, toiletries, that sort of thing.’