Missing Page 22

  Thunderclouds were drawing a veil over the sun and a sharp wind bowed the trees over the drive as Sadler and Joy walked away from the house. Neither of them spoke, they merely stared grimly ahead, still sobered by Kelsey’s understandable explosion.

  Feeling the chill in the air, Joy pocketed her mobile and zipped up her coat. She’d like to think she hadn’t been a part of what had happened in this valley today, allowing a child to believe her mother was dead and then retracting it, but she had, and now somehow she had to live with it.

  Not until they were next to a golden cascade of angel’s trumpets where Sadler had left his car did he finally turn to Joy and say with a sigh, ‘Well, Detective Constable, that body belongs to someone, so now we need to find out who.’

  Joy’s eyes were slightly glazed as she turned in the direction of the lower woods where the body had been found. The image of it was staying with her, forlorn and huddled, as though for warmth, in a bed of damp leaves, the exposed skin of its skeletal hands and its sodden clothes smeared with a slimy green sphagnum. As the pathologist had wiped moss and insects from the face she’d looked away, switching her mind from the sad indignity to the rippling song of a hidden curlew. She was a nature lover, so could name many of the grasses and birds around, which was what she’d done, in her mind, to prevent herself from throwing up. ‘Whoever he is,’ she said, ‘do you think he could be connected to Mrs Avery in some way?’

  Sadler’s weariness showed in the heaviness of his eyes. ‘You mean apart from turning up dead right next to her land? Who knows, Elaine? Who knows?’

  Looking back at him she gave a small smile and opened the passenger door. She was aware that Sadler had let the rumour float that it was a female body in an effort to wrongfoot Avery, maybe rattle him into making some kind of confession. As a tactic it had spectacularly backfired, and as a decision it stank as badly as the corpse. It just went to prove, she thought dully as they began driving away, that even smart men didn’t always get it right.

  Miles was sitting in the semi-darkness, his head resting on the back of the sofa, his hands lying loosely beside him. He’d tried several times now to coax Kelsey out of her room, but she still wouldn’t come down, in spite of him telling her that they’d identified the body on the moor. It belonged to a forty-eight-year old man by the name of Timothy Grainger, whose alcohol abuse, vagrancy and petty crimes were well known to the police. No one could say yet how he’d come to be in the woods, much less how he’d ended up the way he had.

  ‘Might he be someone your wife knew?’ DC Joy had asked doubtfully when she’d called to tell him the news.

  ‘It seems unlikely,’ he’d answered, keeping it polite. ‘It’s not a name I’ve ever heard her mention.’

  ‘OK, thank you. I’ll be back in touch once we’ve established the cause of death, or if any new information comes to light.’

  In a sane world he knew he’d make Sadler pay for the games he’d played today, but with Jacqueline still missing, and a stranger’s corpse turning up on the far side of their woods, the world was anything but sane.

  Sighing, he glanced at his watch, then closed his eyes as his thoughts drifted out across the stark, misted plains of the moor, down into the clefts, over the harsh granite tors to the rugged uplands, so remote and forbidding. Jacqueline had never been able to feel the romance of the moor, had always failed to see the beauty in its rivers and waterfalls, wooded valleys and colourful heathland. She found everything about it sinister and threatening, detested its folklore and was afraid of its wildlife. To think of her out there on a night like this, alone, lost, maybe even …

  Sitting forward, he put his head in his hands. Why was he tormenting himself like this when she was no more out there on the moor than she was here in this house? He had to let go of such madness or he’d be no good to himself, never mind anyone else.

  Inhaling deeply, he drew his hands down over his unshaven face and let the breath go slowly. Somewhere in the distance thunder was rumbling through the heavens, while rain pattered against the windows of the room. The garden lights were on now, and as far as he could make out everyone had gone home. Whether they were planning to continue the search tomorrow he had no idea, nor, at this moment, did he particularly care. He only wanted to go on sitting in this silence, trying to work out what he was going to do about Kelsey. She had to be his priority, he was in no doubt about that, but knowing he had a son who needed him, and whose first fifteen months of life had already been lost to him … He didn’t want to waste any more time. Even now he was longing to see the boy, hold him in his arms, and feel the energy of his young life.

  It couldn’t happen yet, though, so at some point he would call Vivienne to tell her that in spite of the way he’d reacted, she was right to protect their son the way she had, and that she should continue to until all this was over. He wouldn’t do it tonight. He’d endured enough attacks on his father’s conscience for one day, and had neither the energy, nor the will right now, to try dealing with any more.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘VIVI, HI, ARE you OK?’ Alice said, sounding oddly tentative.

  Instantly tensing, Vivienne said, ‘I’m fine. Just giving Rufus his breakfast.’

  ‘OK. I don’t suppose you’ve seen the Mail yet today?’

  Vivienne’s heart immediately contracted. ‘No, Mum takes the Express. Why? What’s in it?’

  ‘You’d better brace yourself. I’m afraid Rufus – or Miles’s love child as they’re calling him – has made the front page.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Vivienne murmured, putting down the spoon she was holding.

  ‘The byline belongs to Justine James.’

  Vivienne almost reeled. ‘But how does she know? She can’t …’ Her eyes closed. ‘Miles wouldn’t have told her. He just wouldn’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Alice agreed.

  More dismay sank into Vivienne’s heart. ‘There’s only one other person I can think of,’ she said flatly. ‘My sister, Caroline.’

  Alice didn’t comment, showing that her suspicions had already moved in that direction.

  ‘Or her husband,’ Vivienne continued. ‘One of them has to be the source.’

  ‘But why now, when they’ve always known?’

  ‘The payout, I imagine. It would have shot up the day Jacqueline disappeared.’ A surge of fury tightened her voice. ‘To think that my own family could—’ She turned round as her mother came into the kitchen. ‘Can you pop out and get the Mail?’ she said. ‘Apparently they’ve found out about Rufus.’ Then to Alice, ‘Please tell me it’s not giving away where we live.’

  ‘Not exactly. It just says that you’ve got him tucked away in the depths of Berkshire, clearly hoping to protect him from, I quote, “the deranged grief of his father’s wife, the tragically bereaved Jacqueline Avery who has been missing from her home—”’

  ‘Stop,’ Vivienne interrupted. ‘This is exactly what I was afraid of.’

  Linda was putting on her coat, her face as ashen as Vivienne’s. ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ she called from the front door, and let herself out into the rain.

  ‘The innuendo is brutal,’ Alice said. ‘It’s worse for Miles, but you’re not coming out of it too well either.’

  ‘Give me the gist,’ Vivienne said, stooping to pick up the spoon that had flown from Rufus’s hand.

  ‘You can probably guess at most of it. It’s insinuating that you and Miles have conspired to get rid of Jacqueline in order to protect Rufus from any violent reaction she might have to finding out Miles has a son. It’s couched in softer terms than that, obviously, to avoid a lawsuit, but the suggestion is, you – and Miles in particular – have a very good reason for wanting his wife out of the way.’

  ‘That woman is sick,’ Vivienne spat in disgust. ‘There’s not even anything to say Jacqueline’s dead.’

  ‘Sic, sic, sic,’ Rufus echoed, bouncing up and down in his high chair.

  Vivienne put a hand on his head. ‘Doesn’
t she have any sense of responsibility?’ she seethed. ‘Or a conscience? I don’t even know why I’m asking, when we already know she’s devoid of anything approaching human decency.’

  ‘Are you going to call Miles?’

  ‘I’ve been trying for the past twenty-four hours, but so far he hasn’t called back.’

  ‘He’s bound to have seen the paper by now.’

  ‘Of course. He has them all delivered first thing, which means he’ll be having to deal with Kelsey. Is there any more about the body they found? Does anyone know who it belonged to yet?’

  ‘Yes, apparently it’s some homeless guy by the name of, hang on, Timothy Grainger. No one knows how he got there yet, but you can imagine how the clever dicks are trying to concoct some sort of relationship with Jacqueline. It’s more thrilling if there is a connection, I suppose, it satisfies the salacious brain cell, which is next door to the other one they have that lets them know when they need food.’

  Vivienne’s smile was weak. ‘I guess it’s quite an offering when you’re in the business of peddling scandal,’ she said.

  ‘I guess it is,’ Alice agreed. ‘Anyway, I’m afraid I have to love you and leave you now, I’ve got a meeting in Soho at eleven, but before I go, I think this new turn of events is going to make it extremely difficult for you to continue in Devon, don’t you? So let’s talk later and discuss a complete swap for you and Pete.’

  Vivienne grimaced. ‘I’ve got an added complication now,’ she confessed. ‘It turns out my mother has a boyfriend who wants her to go to Italy with him, so I have to take care of Rufus. I can’t trawl him round the TV circuit that Belle Amie’s going to be on, and anyway, I’m not going to let Sharon down.’

  ‘Oh blimey,’ Alice murmured. ‘Does your mother have to go now?’

  ‘She probably wouldn’t if I asked her not to, but there was a bit of a scene here yesterday, which I’ll tell you about another time. To be honest, now that witch, Justine James, has splashed Rufus’s existence all over the paper, I’d feel better if he was with me. My mother’s nervous enough about the police coming this morning, if a bunch of reporters turned up at the door she really wouldn’t know how to handle it.’

  ‘Worse still would be if Jacqueline turned up,’ Alice murmured.

  Vivienne’s insides recoiled from the thought. ‘At least we’d know she’s still alive,’ she said, glancing down the hall as her mother came in the front door. ‘OK, I’ll let you go now. The paper’s just arrived, so I can read Justine James’s self-serving little exclusive for myself.’

  Miles’s face was haggard as he stared down at a three-year-old photograph of him and Vivienne, looking light-hearted and very much in love. At any other time the image, and memories it conjured, might have softened him. Today he could only feel fury at finding it emblazoned on a front page under the headline Avery’s Love Child. Thank God there were no shots of Rufus – or Sam – for which he already knew he had the Mail’s editor to thank, since the man himself had called late last night to warn him what to expect from the morning edition.

  From the way the article was slanted both boys were clearly meant to be featured, and there was no doubt in Miles’s mind that by tomorrow they’d be splashed all over the other papers. Should Jacqueline see them, he hardly dared think about how hard she would find it.

  Tossing the paper aside, he reached for the phone. It was no surprise that Justine had run the story; he’d been expecting it ever since she’d told him she knew about Rufus. Nevertheless, the way she’d slanted it was sickening in the extreme. Clearly, she’d presumed the body was Jacqueline’s, so hadn’t wasted a minute in getting her exclusive to print. After all, if Miles Avery was about to be charged with murder, it was going to be open season for the press. So the fiercely ambitious girl he’d plucked from the ranks of young wannabes and launched on a glittering career, the woman he’d once considered a friend, the colleague who knew how fragile his wife and daughter were, had decided to exact some revenge for being left at The News by convicting him before any evidence of a crime even existed.

  Having made his connection he spent less than five minutes talking to the Mail’s proprietor, by which time the tightrope Justine was walking had been cut. She was on her way down now, and fast would she fall since her only chance of rescue lay with the Critch, and somehow he couldn’t see that happening.

  Picking up his mobile he pressed in Kelsey’s number. Ignoring the absurdity that they were communicating by phone in the same house, he said, ‘Darling, it’s Dad again. I’m afraid the press has got hold of … Well, there’s a front-page story about Rufus. I wanted to let you know …’ He pressed his fingers into the sockets of his eyes, hearing how different he was when speaking to her than when he spoke to his colleagues. Sometimes he felt like two people inside the same skin, and he wasn’t always entirely sure which of them was real.

  Registering a knock on his study door, he rang off and looked up as Mrs Davies put her head round. ‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked, worriedly. ‘More coffee? I brought some Cornish pasties with me this morning.’

  ‘Nothing, thank you,’ he answered, his smile as strained as his eyes.

  She continued to look at him, her ageing face creased with concern. ‘Kelsey’s all right,’ she told him. ‘She just let me in to give her some breakfast.’

  Feeling a loosening inside at how relieved that made him, he said, ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘Only that she wants to go back to school.’

  Sighing, he drew his hands over his face, then after thanking her again he waited until she’d left the room before walking over to the window.

  A fine drizzle was spreading like a feathery mist over the lake and trees, making their grey existence seem almost ethereal. However, there was nothing ethereal about the search that had evidently resumed. Not that there was much activity in the garden today, the big effort seeming focused around the ditch where the body had been found.

  Sadler had dropped in about an hour ago, for once without Joy, who’d gone to Berkshire to interview Vivienne’s mother. Miles hadn’t been expecting an apology for what had happened yesterday, but to his surprise he’d received one, grudging though it had been. Clearly, Sadler remained convinced that Mrs Avery’s husband knew a great deal more about her disappearance than he was telling, but it seemed that didn’t make it any less necessary for the inspector to acknowledge his bad handling of events the day before.

  The sudden roar of a chopper engine swooping down over the eastern side of the moor made him look up. The press would be out there again, of course, probably increasing in their numbers and their efforts to reach him. The landlines were switched off, however, so he had no idea how fiercely Moorlands was being bombarded with calls. The only line still open was the one he’d had connected a few months ago for private use, which he assumed hadn’t yet been discovered since it hadn’t rung. Kelsey knew it, so did Jacqueline, and he guessed at some point he should give it to Vivienne too.

  With a sigh that seemed to draw from the very depths of him he returned his gaze to the lake and watched the handful of searchers who were still combing the banks, some up to their thighs in water, others squatting amongst the reeds. The lake’s usual residents were grouped in a watchful, nervous mass on the far shore, keeping a safe distance from the invaders.

  After a while his eyes glazed as his thoughts began running disjointedly into one another, from Jacqueline, to Kelsey, to the body, to Sadler whose car was still outside, to Joy who might be in Berkshire by now. Evidently Vivienne’s mother had moved, because she’d lived in Surrey when he and Vivienne were together. He knew, of course, why she’d uprooted, but he still had no idea of the address, which meant that he didn’t actually know where his son might be now.

  Feeling those words echoing up from the past, he closed his eyes as though to block the unholy mantra. Where was his son? Who had taken him? What had they done to him? At least in Rufus’s case Miles knew he was safe and loved – and alive. Wh
at he had no way of knowing, though, was whether any of this was reaching Jacqueline.

  Taking a sharp breath he turned back to his desk and was about to pick up his mobile when it started to ring. Seeing it was Justine he clicked on. ‘Nothing you have to say is of any interest to me,’ he told her. ‘If you—’

  ‘Miles, listen! There’s—’

  ‘… don’t already know what your actions have cost you, you will very soon. In the meantime, if you go anywhere near any member of my family – and that includes Vivienne and Rufus – it won’t only be your career that’s over.’

  After ending the call he dialled Vivienne’s number, knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer, and finding that actually he didn’t want to.

  ‘At last,’ she said, when she answered. ‘I’ve been so worried about you. Are you OK? What’s happening down there?’

  ‘The search goes on,’ he told her. ‘Has anyone from the press found you yet?’

  ‘There was a photographer hanging around earlier. No sign of him now, but he’s probably bribed one of the neighbours to let him in out of the rain.’

  ‘It can only be a matter of time before Justine, or someone else, turns up,’ he said. ‘They’re going to be after pictures of Rufus. Can you cope? Is there something I can do?’

  ‘I don’t think so. To be frank, I’m more worried about Jacqueline. Do you think she knows what’s going on?’

  ‘I wish I could answer that. If she does, well …’ Sighing, he shook his head, not wanting to go any further than that.

  ‘You sound exhausted,’ she told him. ‘How’s Kelsey?’