Behind Closed Doors (18 page)

‘Why not Sikora?’

‘Because we simply don’t have enough grounds to implicate him at this stage. Perkins, on the other hand, has already broken the law simply by being at the campsite . . .’

Rage broke through his grief. ‘If he’s hurt her, if he’s . . . I swear I’ll kill him.’

‘The press are all over this,’ Andee reminded him, ‘so there’s a chance we’ll have him by the end of the day.’

‘Provided he’s in this country?’

‘Of course, but there’s nothing to say at this stage that he’s left.’

‘This is a nightmare,’ he shouted angrily. ‘I can’t go on just sitting here, doing nothing . . .’

‘Actually, there is something you can do,’ she broke in quietly. ‘I was wondering how you’d feel about broadcasting an appeal? I’m sure you’ve seen the kind of . . .’

‘Yes, yes, I have, and we were going to ask if we could do something like that. I said to Heidi, it might make a difference if she sees me asking her to come back, but if she’s in Poland . . .’

‘We really don’t know that she is.’

‘Will it go out over there?’

‘If we have good reason to suspect she’s there, I’m sure the local TV stations will run it.’

‘It
will
make a difference, won’t it?’ he gasped. ‘I mean, if she sees me . . .’

‘I’m sure it will,’ Andee assured him, remembering how desperately her father had wanted to believe that when he had made his televised appeals to Penny, or to someone who might have been holding her. She’d never forget the endless, torturous hours of nothing that had followed.
Please don’t let that happen to the Monroes. It’s too cruel a fate, for anyone
. ‘We can talk about it more later,’ she told him, ‘or you can discuss it with Lauren. Is she there?’

‘Yes, she’s here.’

‘Good.’ Then, after a beat, ‘I know how difficult all this is, especially now the press are so involved, but Lauren will stay with you and there’ll be officers outside at all times. You have my number if you want to be in touch?’

‘Thank you. Yes, I have it.’

‘I’m as determined to find her as you are,’ she told him with feeling, and after assuring him she’d be in touch again as soon as she had more news, she rang off.

‘Mum, for God’s sake,’ Suzi was urging down the phone, ‘if you know where Gary is you have to turn him in.’

‘Who said I know where he is?’ her mother snapped.

‘You always know where he is, and you’ve seen the news. He’s all over it. Everyone’s looking for him, and if you’re hiding him it’s only going to make it worse for you.’

‘Not if they don’t find him.’

‘But they
will
. Mum, you can’t protect him from this. He was with Sophie the night she disappeared, they’ve got it on camera . . .’

‘She’s another one who was throwing herself at him,’ her mother came in tartly. ‘They’re all the same, these little tramps . . .’

‘Just listen, will you! You know as well as I do that he’s not supposed to go anywhere near a girl who’s under eighteen. So the very fact he even has this job could end him up back in prison. Oh God, I should never have helped him get it. This is all going to end up rebounding on me. Already people are giving me a wide berth, like I’m the one who’s on the bloody register . . . And now they’re saying they’ve found a hydroponics machine in his flat. What the hell’s the matter with him? Does he want to go back to jail or something?’

‘You have to stop getting yourself in a state over this,’ her mother told her firmly. ‘Whatever he’s done has got nothing to do with you.’

‘It doesn’t have anything to do with you either, but that doesn’t stop people throwing bricks through your windows and damaging your car.’

‘They’re just morons who don’t have anything better to do. You’ve got yourself a good position down there, Suzi, so you just hang on to it.’

Suzi felt like screaming. ‘How am I going to do that when his bloody face is all over the news with a fourteen-year-old girl who I
know
he’s had some sort of relationship with? You’ve got to tell me if she’s with him, Mum, and if she is, you have to make him send her back.’

‘Suzi, I swear to you, I don’t know where he is.’

‘Hasn’t he been in touch with you at all?’ She gasped as the salon door suddenly opened and a small plastic bag landed softly in the middle of reception.

‘What is it?’ her mother cried.

‘I don’t know,’ Suzi wailed, shaking with fear. ‘Someone just threw something in . . . Oh Mum, what if it’s a bomb?’

‘Don’t be silly. Tell me what it looks like.’

‘It’s a plastic bag that’s got something in . . . I don’t want to look . . .’

‘It’s probably dog poo. Did you see who it was? If you did, you just go and chuck it back.’

‘What good’s that going to do? They’re trying to tell me they don’t want me here, so hurling dog poo at them is hardly going to change their minds, is it? Mum, please, tell me where he is.’

‘For the last time, I don’t know, but I can tell you this, if he was with that girl the night she disappeared he’s better off hiding, because until she turns up everyone’s going to think he’s done away with her and next thing we know he’ll be up on a bloody murder rap when he hasn’t even done anything wrong.’

‘But what if he
has
done something to her? She’s
fourteen
, Mum. Nearly half his age . . .’

‘This is your brother we’re talking about, of course he hasn’t done anything to her. Now you just calm down and go on about your business knowing you’ve got nothing to feel ashamed of.’

‘Mum! Don’t hang up.
Mum!
’

Realising the line had gone dead, Suzi clicked off her end and covered her face with her hands. She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve such a terrible life. Why hadn’t she realised it would all go wrong as soon as she brought her liability of a brother here? The truth was her mother had always been able to talk her into doing things she didn’t want to do – and slipping Gary into this job for the summer had been their mother’s idea.

‘You have to do something to help him,’ she’d been told. ‘He deserves a fresh start as much as you do after what he’s been through.’

‘But you know he’s not supposed to be around kids,’ Suzi had protested.

‘And you know what a load of nonsense that is. He’s no more a threat to them than you or me. So you do what you can to get him in there.’

‘But they run checks on people who are working with children, so they’ll know straight away he has a record, and once it gets out, which it will . . .’

‘All you have to do is say it’s just for the summer. He’s got a good record from when he was working at the pool in Dagenham. I’ll have a chat with someone I know there to get him a reference, which you can give to your employer. If she starts talking about CRB checks then we’ll say he’s found something else. All right? This isn’t a big ask, Suzi. This is what families do for one another.’

So she’d done it, and neither Heidi nor Jackie Poynter had mentioned anything about running the usual criminal record checks, so Suzi had to presume they’d never happened.

Thinking of Jackie Poynter, and what she would have to say about all this when she got back, was enough to make Suzi want to run away and hide. If she knew where to go she wouldn’t even hesitate, but there was nowhere, and in her heart, in spite of how scared she was, she didn’t want to be a coward. Much better to stay and face the music, and if Jackie did end up firing her . . . Well, she’d have to cross that bridge when she came to it, because right now she had absolutely no idea what she’d do if it happened.

MUCH LATER IN
the day Andee was finally driving towards home when Graeme rang. Seeing his number was so pleasing that she felt the frown leave her face like a bird taking flight. ‘Hi, are you home yet?’ she asked cheerily.

‘At the shop,’ he replied. ‘And you?’

‘On my way to check on my mother, change after a long day at work and hopefully to make myself presentable in time to see you at eight. Are we still on for that?’

‘Indeed we are, if you’re sure you can make it. I’ve just been watching the news. I take it you’re involved in the missing girl case?’

‘I am, so I’m afraid my evening might not turn out to be my own. But for as much of it as I can control, I’d like to spend it with you.’

‘Now that’s what I want to hear. So I thought I’d prepare a frittata rather than the more exotic fare I had in mind, and I’ll go easy on the wine just in case you have to desert me.’

‘I’m sorry I’ve had to spoil the original plan.’

‘Don’t be. I know what your world is like, I watch
Midsomer Murders
.’

Laughing, she said, ‘I have some other news, but it can wait till I get there.’

‘Really? I’m intrigued. Actually, I also have news, but that too can wait. Call me when you get to the gate. Apparently the buzzer’s still not working.’

She was still smiling as she ended the call, her mind flying off in all sorts of romantic directions, until the phone rang again and she saw it was Martin.

Why on earth should she suddenly feel guilty about talking to another man, and why was she feeling in the least bit bothered about seeing him with another woman?

Knee-jerk reactions, both, nothing to do with reality.

‘Hi, how are you?’ she asked, realising too late that her breezy tone was unsuited to someone who’d just lost his father.

‘Yeah, I’m OK,’ he replied, the low timbre of his voice stirring up feelings she’d tried so hard to defeat. Why wasn’t it possible to erase them like chalk from a board, or dead flowers from a garden, when they were no longer required?

‘I know you saw me with Brigitte,’ he told her, coming straight to the point and pronouncing the name Bridge-eet. Much more exotic than plain old Bridge-it.

‘She’s very pretty, from what I saw of her,’ she responded, finding it easy to speak the truth in spite of not liking it much. Except what difference did it make to her how the woman looked? She’d moved on, she had someone else in her life now . . .

‘I was hoping we could get together,’ he said.

Her eyebrows arched. ‘What, the three of us? I can’t imagine why . . .’

‘Actually, I meant you and me.’

Swallowing the rest of her protest, she asked, ‘And what would Brig-
eet
think of that?’

‘She’s fine with it.’

Childishly detesting her, Andee said, ‘Oh, well then there’s no reason for me not to be, is there? Unless, actually, I’m not sure why you want to get together. Is there any point? It’ll only be awkward for both of us, and I don’t think you need to be dealing with any more right now.’
His father’s dead, Andee, you really don’t have to be this hostile
.

‘I’d like to see you. That’s all.’

She’d already taken breath to answer before realising she wasn’t sure what to say.

‘I miss you,’ he told her. ‘I miss us.’

Thrown, and almost, for an instant, drawn into it, she quickly reminded herself of how skewed a person’s perspective could be after suffering a loss, especially one as close as a parent.

Before she could stop herself, she said, ‘So that would be why you brought Brigitte here, to show her how much you miss me?’ What the hell was she saying?

Sighing, he replied, ‘I didn’t
bring
her, as you put it. She came because she wanted to show she cares.’

How nice of her. ‘And what about you? Do you care? I mean, about her.’ Had she really just asked that? What the heck was the matter with her? ‘Of course you do,’ she ran on before he could reply. ‘She wouldn’t be here otherwise. How are the children getting along with her?’

‘They’ve only met her briefly, but I’m not expecting . . .’

‘Hang on, hang on, I’m following this now,’ she interrupted. ‘What you’re asking is for me to give your relationship my blessing so the children will feel all right about making friends with her.’

‘Andrea, I was hoping you might . . .’

‘Don’t patronise me.’

He actually laughed. ‘How was that patronising?’

‘You called me Andrea.’

‘And I don’t always?’

As a matter of fact he did. ‘It was the way you said it. Anyway, when, where would you like to meet?’

‘I’m happy to fit in with you.’

A typical response from him, casting the net too wide for her to get out of. ‘It’s hard to set a date while I’m involved in this case,’ she reminded him.

‘The missing girl? I just saw it on the news.’

‘I’m sure we’ll end up getting her back. In fact, I won’t let it go until we do.’

‘So you reckon she’s with this Perkins guy?’

‘Let’s just say we definitely need to speak to him.’

‘What about the other guy, the Pole, they’re talking about online?’

‘They are?’ Of course, how could she have imagined that wouldn’t happen when so many questions had been asked around the camp about Sikora? ‘We’re not sure about him,’ she said. ‘What sort of things are they saying?’

‘That he’s part of a gang specialising in trafficking women.’

She groaned inwardly. ‘Based on what evidence?’

‘I’ve no idea. There are other girls being mentioned with foreign-sounding names. It’s all about procurement, apparently.’

‘Well, it’s good to know the cyber detectives have a proper handle on things,’ she retorted. ‘I thought you, at least, wouldn’t be so easily taken in.’

‘I’m just asking,’ he protested. ‘No need to bite my head off.’

No, no need. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to. We don’t know anything about those girls at the moment, and as they’re not British nationals, and no one from their own countries has reported them missing our main focus has to be Sophie.’

‘Of course.’ Then, after a beat, ‘Will you let me know when we can meet? The funeral’s been set for next Monday, by the way, it would be great if you could make time between now and then.’

How could she not? How could she be so cruel as to make him doubt it? ‘Of course I can,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll – I’ll call when things are a bit clearer.’

After ringing off she called through for an update on the online rumours and was told that they were still being closely monitored, but nothing substantive had presented itself yet. However, they were staying on it, and would report immediately if anything changed. So now she was free to carry on feeling wretched and upset on too many levels over Martin. She remembered how he used to remind her of how important it was for her, the family, even the investigation, that she take time away from it once in a while. She’d fought him about it sometimes, but had always ended up loving him for understanding when a fix of her home life and her real priorities had become vital.