Missing Page 14

  ‘Hi,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Bad time?’

  Ignoring her, he turned down the hall towards the kitchen.

  ‘Miles, for heaven’s sake, what difference does it make?’ she implored, going after him. ‘It was bound to come out …’

  He looked up, pale with anger. ‘How did the Mail find out the police had spoken to Vivienne?’ he demanded.

  Shocked, Justine shrank from the accusation in his eyes. ‘For God’s sake Miles, so the police have questioned Vivienne Kane and Colleen Peterson found out. She’s a journalist. It’s her job …’

  ‘Why are you defending her?’

  ‘I’m not. I’m just pointing out what you already know, that the press is bound to be all over this because of who you are.’

  ‘So this morning we have Colleen Peterson running a ludicrously ill-informed spread in the Mail, and now this evening we have the same damned woman being interviewed on the BBC like she’s some goddamned expert on the case, telling the world that Vivienne’s a part of the investigation …’

  ‘Miles, try to be rational. Everyone knew about you and Vivienne when you were together, and why you broke up, so it stands to reason someone’s going to call the police to ask if they’ve spoken to her.’

  ‘Was it you?’

  Her face flushed with anger. ‘I don’t give my stories away to other reporters, or other papers,’ she retorted, ‘and I sure as hell don’t do their donkey work for them either.’

  ‘But you have called the police to find out?’

  ‘You asked me to work with you on this, so yes, of course I contacted the police. You must have known I would, so don’t give me a hard time over it now.’

  Seeming grudgingly to accept that, he turned and tugged open an overhead cupboard. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, taking out a full bottle of Scotch, ‘I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for you to get involved in this.’

  Her eyes rounded with alarm. He couldn’t back out now, she’d staked virtually everything on it. ‘Miles, the Critch is going to take you to the cleaners, given half a chance …’

  ‘The Mail’s doing it for him.’

  ‘Which is not what he wants. Christ, he hates them almost as much as he hates you, so no way does he want them walking off with your head on a platter.’

  ‘Justine …’

  ‘You did the right thing in asking for my help,’ she persisted, ‘and here’s why. Between us we can feed the real story to the Mail, you know, everything that’s happening with the search and what went on during the time leading up to it, whilst we give the Critch all the dirt he can deal with, and let him bury himself in it.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘This isn’t a time to play games.’

  ‘It’s not games, it’s a strategy,’ she cried. Seeing he was about to protest again, she cut him off with, ‘I thought you were trying to protect Kelsey, so please tell me how you’re going to do that if you’ve got no one working with you.’

  Though his face remained pale, as he glanced at her she could see she was starting to get through.

  ‘Have you spoken to Kelsey?’ she asked.

  ‘She won’t have heard about PM.’

  ‘Yet. How did she take the spread in the Mail? Has she seen it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She’s back at school now, so I’ve only spoken to her briefly today. She didn’t mention it.’

  ‘Whatever, you have to try and gain control of this,’ she pressed. ‘Don’t let scum like the Critch have a field day …’

  ‘Colleen Peterson’s on the Mail,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Yes, and she hasn’t said anything that isn’t true. OK, you might not like Vivienne’s name being out there and attached to yours right now, but you knew very well it was going to happen. It had to.’

  He nodded gravely, and seemed almost to withdraw into his thoughts as he said, ‘Where the hell is she? She’s not answering her mobile. Kayla says she’s out of town, not due back until Thursday.’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to speak to you.’

  His eyes immediately sharpened. ‘Do you want a drink?’ he said sourly.

  ‘Since you ask so nicely, I’ll have one of those on the rocks.’

  He began breaking ice into the glasses, then suddenly looked up. ‘How did you get in?’ he demanded.

  Her freshly plucked eyebrows made a slow rise. ‘The door was open,’ she informed him, ‘and it’s Monday evening, which, I’m still hoping, means we’re driving to Devon.’

  After fixing her with a slightly less virulent look he thrust a glass at her, and picked up the phone to try Vivienne’s mobile again. ‘Damn!’ he muttered, cutting the line as he was diverted through to voicemail. ‘I need to speak to her.’

  Justine watched him snatch up his glass and down the Scotch in one go, before pouring another. ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting so worked up about,’ she said, perching on one of the bar stools. ‘It’s not as though anyone’s accused her of anything, or that it’s going to come as any great shock to the world to find out your friends and neighbours are being questioned. At the risk of sounding like a plod, it’s routine.’

  His eyes flashed again. ‘We both know what’s happening here,’ he snapped. ‘Colleen Peterson is setting up a story for the Mail that she’s going to make run and run, based on nothing more than fragments of fact held together by salacious speculation and crass innuendo. Hell, you know how it works, you’ve done it often enough yourself. It sells papers, and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Fuck the truth, it’s got no place on the bottom line.’

  Her expression was sardonic, but she wasn’t going to remind him of his own days on the redtops, or point out what a salutary experience it was being on the receiving end. Instead she said, ‘I have a question for you. Try not to bite my head off, but why are you so concerned about Vivienne over this mild exposé, and not about the effect it might be having on Jacqueline?’

  He stiffened, as his eyes came angrily to hers. ‘In case it’s slipped your memory,’ he said tightly, ‘I have no idea how to get hold of Jacqueline.’

  ‘But you’re worried about how this might be going down with her,’ she insisted. ‘I mean, if she’s heard the news, which she might well have.’

  ’I’d have thought it went without saying that I’m concerned about her,’ he snarled.

  She smiled and shrugged. ‘Sorry. It just wasn’t looking that way.’

  His eyes stayed on hers. ‘What are you driving at, Justine?’ His voice was dangerously low.

  ‘Well, I’m just wondering,’ she began tentatively. ‘Are you sure you don’t know where Jacqueline is?’ she blurted courageously.

  His glass hit the counter top so hard it was a miracle it didn’t break. ‘You know the way out,’ he told her furiously.

  She didn’t move. ‘What are you so afraid of, Miles?’ she challenged. ‘OK, I know this is a tough time, and you’re obviously at your wits’ end, but the way you’re behaving—’ She stopped suddenly.

  ‘Go on,’ he prompted. ‘The way I’m behaving …’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help thinking you’re hiding something. So I’m asking – are you?’

  There was such a horrible silence then that she started to remember, for the first time in years, what it was to feel real fear in front of this man. Then, quite suddenly, it was as though she’d just been cut free from a noose. His temper deflated and he picked up his empty glass. ‘As it happens, I’m not,’ he said, swirling the melting ice, ‘unless you think wanting to keep my private life just that, is hiding something.’

  Her eyes went to the phone as it rang.

  Miles picked it up, and hearing the voice at the other end he immediately turned away. ‘Thank God,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Have you heard the news?’

  Justine couldn’t hear the reply, but she didn’t need to to know who was calling. It was evident not only from his words, but from the softness of his tone as he spoke t
hem.

  She watched him walk into the conservatory and close the door behind him. Just these past few minutes had shown her that getting her old friend Colleen Peterson to run a story in the Mail, then drop Vivienne’s name into the five o’clock bulletin, had been the right call. She couldn’t put anything in her own name right now, but if everything went to plan this story was going to earn her a first-class ticket out of Critch hell and onto the Mail, because that was the deal she and Colleen had struck with the Mail’s editor this past weekend.

  She didn’t like to think of it as a betrayal of Miles; after all, she’d more or less told him five minutes ago that it was what she was intending to do, and no way would she file anything to anyone that wasn’t true. No, this was more a saving of her own skin, because if she’d learned anything during her years as a journalist, it was to take care of herself first, and never to trust an editor. Not even Miles. And if he thought he was going to pull out of their agreement now, then he needed to think again, because she was going nowhere until she’d found out for certain if that child really did exist – and if it did, what part was it playing in Jacqueline Avery’s disappearance?

  Chapter Seven

  ‘NO, I DIDN’T hear the news myself,’ Vivienne was saying into the phone. ‘I just called Alice at the office and she told me. She said you were trying to reach me.’

  ‘I was,’ Miles confirmed. ‘Where are you?’

  She looked around the converted cider press that Susie Blake’s housekeeper had unlocked for her a few minutes ago. Quaint and cosy, it consisted of no more than a small kitchen-cum-sitting room, and a staircase leading to a vaulted mezzanine bedroom with en suite bath. ‘I’m out of town seeing new clients,’ she answered briefly.

  There was a pause before he said, ‘I’m sorry this is happening. Your name shouldn’t have been dragged into it.’

  As aware as he was of what had happened the last time their names had been linked in the press, she tried to downplay it by saying, ‘It was bound to happen, and after today there shouldn’t be any reason to mention me again.’

  With no little irony he said, ‘They don’t need reasons, the past is enough. Has anyone tried to contact you?’

  ‘From the press? Apparently Kayla’s fielded a few calls, and my email’s looking pretty full, but don’t worry, I’ll go the no-comment route. I take it there’s been no word from Jacqueline?’

  ‘No.’ He paused. ‘It’s looking as though she didn’t get on the train.’

  Vivienne’s heart gave an unsteady beat, even though she’d already heard the rumour. ‘So she could still be in Devon?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Again he paused. ‘A lot of money’s gone from one of our joint accounts.’

  She frowned. ‘What are you reading into that?’

  ‘It was withdrawn about a month before she left, so it doesn’t seem as though her decision to go was impulsive, and if she’s using cash, I can only presume it’s because she doesn’t want to be traced.’

  Able to picture the strain on his face, she said, ‘Are the police actively looking for her now, or just making enquiries?’

  ‘I’m not sure. The missing money won’t encourage them to set up a search. She’s an adult. She has the right to disappear, if that’s what she wants.’

  But not to do this to you, she wanted to say. ‘How’s Kelsey?’ she asked.

  ‘Getting more worried by the day. I don’t know if talking to her headmistress will help, or just make things worse.’ He sighed wearily. ‘I dread to think of the long-term effects this is going to have on her, as if she hasn’t suffered enough already. She needs some kind of stability in her life.’

  ‘She has it with you,’ Vivienne reminded him gently. ‘You’re there for her, and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘I wish it was, but seeing the way … This is nothing short of a nightmare for her. How can it be anything else? Her mother’s walked out on her again, and she doesn’t know whether to feel afraid of her coming back after what happened the last time, or if she should want it as much as she seems to. She’s all over the damned place. And what’s going to happen if Jacqueline does decide to show up, which she presumably will, at some point? Do we carry on with the same farce we’ve been living for the past fifteen years? Pretending Sam’s going to turn up at any moment. Maintaining a united front so both Mummy and Daddy will be there when he knocks on the door? Shopping for all the latest gadgetry and fashions a boy could want, so she can show him when he comes back that she’s never forgotten him? It’s got to end. Somehow, someone has to find a way of making her understand that she deserves a life too. For Christ’s sake, we all do.’

  ‘Especially Kelsey,’ Vivienne murmured – and Rufus, she added in her mind, her heart stirring with the need to unite him with his father. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she told him, wishing she felt as confident as she sounded. ‘Somehow, we’ll work this out.’

  There was a long silence before he said, ‘You don’t know how much it means to hear you say “we”, but I can’t involve you in this.’

  ‘The press have already done that.’

  ‘You don’t need to speak to them, and as long as we don’t see one another there’ll be no reason for the police to be in touch with you again, either. I just hope to God she’s not …’ He stopped, and she knew why. Words were almost impossible when there was such a cruel mix of emotions in his heart.

  ‘I should go now,’ she said softly. ‘Please don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. So will Jacqueline. Just focus on Kelsey.’

  As she put the phone down her eyes drifted to the small terrace outside the kitchenette, where a regal-looking peacock was gazing quizzically in through the open door. It seemed to be asking what right she had to be there, and if she had to give an answer, it might be to ask the same thing. She was too close to Moorlands, too far into Jacqueline’s world to feel either secure or right about being there, particularly if Jacqueline was still in Devon.

  Getting up from the table where she’d dropped her laptop and BlackBerry on arriving, she went outside and watched the peacock. It strutted off past the pond that was scooped like an oyster shell into the lawn beyond the small terrace before soaring, honking and fluttering, into the branches of a nearby oak. She looked around, feeling the cool dampness of the air, and cocooned by nature in a way that was vaguely unnerving. It was as though she was being watched by a hundred hidden eyes. The country sounds were sibilant and persistent, scratching, rustling, croaking, and blending with the gush of the stream that bubbled and raced alongside the press. A sharp cracking noise made her turn quickly, but there was nothing to be seen amongst the mossy barks and golden branches of the surrounding trees.

  With a growing anxiety she started across the stone bridge that linked the terrace to a gravelled clearing where her car was parked, and currently a family of pheasants was pecking about in the dirt. She was intending to fetch her overnight bag, but instead she found herself walking on through the small wood that cloistered the press, taking long, firm strides as though there were some purpose to where she was going.

  The big old manor house, with its pale grey stone walls and elegantly turreted towers, was nestling grandly, emptily, in the weakening sunlight as she passed, while down at the gates the Lodge, home to Laura the housekeeper and her gamekeeper husband, would only become visible once the foliage had fallen.

  Taking a path she’d occasionally followed with Susie, or Miles, she walked on to the stables, digging her hands into the pockets of her jeans and hunching her shoulders. She was heading towards an open field that sloped steeply down from the woods where local landowners often held their shoots, though she knew Miles had given up his gun some time ago after watching too many birds being shot for sport and then buried because they were never going to be eaten.

  As she strode up over the field a mix of defiance and fear was powering her legs, and making her strangely light-headed. It wasn’t that she really believed Jacqueline was somewhere close by, in fact it was a
bsurd even to think it, yet she was aware that this gesture was somehow challenging, as though she needed to prove to herself, or anyone watching, that she wasn’t intimidated, or at all afraid.

  When finally she reached the gate that connected the Blakes’ land to the game-infested territory beyond, she stopped and leaned against it, taking a moment to catch her breath before going through. When she did she turned away from the woods that climbed on up to the moor, and went to stand on the crest that marked the boundary between Moorlands and the Blakes’ much more sizeable estate. As she gazed down into the spectacular valley she felt her heart filling with its beauty. The evening sun was burnishing the fields in shades of amber and gold, glinting and sparkling, and spreading like honey down to the house itself. A blood-red creeper clung to the walls and framed the windows, while the grey tiled roof and rising chimneys shone like molten alloy. She remembered the times she and Miles had stood on this very spot gazing down at the home they were making their own – how close they had become during that one short year. Being in touch with him now she was aware of that closeness reasserting itself, as though no time had passed at all.

  She looked on to the woods that dipped away from the far side of Moorlands’ lake, spreading out like an enormous hand to the distant road beyond. They were quite separate from the woods behind her, where the shoots took place and the gamekeepers kept an avid lookout for intruders, though these woods too straggled over to the hill behind Moorlands to form its boundary with the moor.

  As she gazed down at the house again she was trying to imagine Jacqueline inside, or crossing the courtyard to stroll down to the lake. Though it had been her home for the past two years, and for a while before she’d gone to the States, Vivienne knew she’d never had any fondness for it, so perhaps that was why her presence, at least in Vivienne’s mind, seemed strangely ephemeral, almost ghostlike. Yet at the same time it was as though her disappearance had created an energy that was stealing through the trees like a wind, and drifting down from the moor like a mist. Even the scent of grass and earth seemed to be hers, while the sough of the air was the plaintive cry of a woman searching for her lost child; the anguished beat of a broken heart.