Behind Closed Doors (39 page)

Sam had completed the paperwork, taken it down the road to the Magistrate’s Court, and waited all of five minutes to see the magistrate who, possibly because he hadn’t started hearing cases yet, was in a benevolent mood. The warrant was duly signed and Sam headed back to Headquarters wondering if that was some sort of record. She had just logged back in to the computer when the email from Zoe Adams arrived.

Sam read through the email, then Zoe’s analysis document.

There was a moment when everything was all right, and then she felt her stomach drop.
No. No, that couldn’t be right
…

She reached in her bag for her phone, accessed the address book and scrolled through the numbers.

Spare phone. 07101 405441.
 

She looked back at the phone analysis document. There had to be a mistake…

…
441. This number is saved as ‘K’ in the address book of the handset
…
 

You said something about a
Reg
to me, on Friday. You said something like, you had friends,
you
could have been sitting on
Reg’s
sofa watching Sky TV
…
 

She scrolled back up through the addresses until she got to ‘Lou mobile’ and dialled. It rang, and rang, and clicked to voicemail.

‘Ma’am, it’s me. I’ve got the warrant here, I’ll leave it with Les. I need to go and meet Caro; I said I’d go with her to collect Scarlett and Juliette from the hotel this morning. Can you give me a call when you get this?’

She rang off, then scrolled back through the addresses. ‘Caro S mobile’. This time the call was answered after two rings.

‘Hello?’

‘Caro, it’s Sam Hollands. Whereabouts are you?’

‘I’m just on the way to the Travel Inn. I was going to call you when I got to the nick, wasn’t I? Everything okay?’

‘Um… no… I just… I don’t know.’

‘Sam? What’s the matter?’

‘I’m not sure. I need to think. Caro, can I meet you at the hotel? Is that okay? I’ll leave right now.’

‘Of course. I’ll see you there.’

Sam disconnected, reaching for the Airwaves radio unit which had been charging on her desk and scooping up the warrant. ‘Les! Les, can I leave this with you?’

Les Finnegan was on the phone to someone, his feet up on Jane Phelps’ swivel chair. He made no sign that he’d heard but he picked up the sheet of paper as it landed on his desk.

At the door, Sam grabbed her coat and ran.

The wind was strong, harsh enough to penetrate through her coat. She pulled it tighter round her, as if that might help keep it out.

What are you waiting for?
 

Funny, that it was going to end up here. She was thinking about it all, thinking of all the times she’d been afraid for her life: of being abused by her father, a man who was supposed to love and take care of her; of being in the back of a van, tied up, terrified, thirsty, in pain; of watching another girl’s head explode open in a cloud of red; of lying on a dirty bed while men she didn’t know raped her. Of a man who wanted to drink her blood; of another man who had pretended to be kind and had instead been sent to trick her; of the men in a warehouse who sold lives, destroyed lives, for profit. There was no scrubbing brush good or hard enough to clean all that away.

But then, there was the kindness of a Dutchwoman who had given her a coat and probably saved her life; the love of her sister, even though she had had her life destroyed by two indifferent, selfish parents. And Mark Braddock, who had had something to tell her after the holidays, and never got the chance; and Mrs Rowden-Knowles, who had always cared and always tried to do the right thing. And, at last, there was Sam. The last person who cared.

It wasn’t enough.

The wind buffeted her where she sat, threatening to topple her backwards.

Not yet. I’m not ready.
 

She hadn’t been afraid, since she met Sam. It was as if it didn’t really matter, everything she’d done. It was ironic, Scarlett thought, that at this most scary moment, when she really should be afraid, she felt unnaturally calm and at peace. There was nothing else for her to do, after all. She had done what she set out to do.

Annie was still in hospital, but the chances were that she wouldn’t recover. And she deserved punishment as much as Clive, after all, didn’t she?

On that night in August, the last night of Scarlett’s holiday in Rhodes, a Greek man she didn’t know yammering at her and seconds away from pushing her into the back of a van, Scarlett had looked back towards the Aktira Studios and seen her mother there, watching. Their eyes had met. Annie had obviously been confused by what she had seen – she had been expecting to see Scarlett meeting a boy, after all – and yet, when the van had driven off with her daughter in the back, she had done nothing about it.

Why?

Why had she not done something, stopped it, called the police there and then?

Scarlett had waited so long to ask that question. And then, when she’d seen her mother in the house in Kingswood Road, she’d known the answer anyway. Annie hadn’t realised what she’d witnessed. She had thought Scarlett had gone off with Nico. And the next morning, when Scarlett wasn’t back – when she didn’t come back, even though they were supposed to be going home – she couldn’t very well own up to having seen Scarlett being pushed into the back of a van the night before.

And so it had been easier to say nothing, to have seen nothing, to have no idea where Scarlett had gone.

Annie had said something that had summed it up so well.
Sometimes you make mistakes. And if you don’t own up to them, sooner or later they turn into bigger mistakes and bigger ones, and then you can’t admit to them at all, ever.

And she hadn’t owned up. Even after Scarlett came back, even after she had been brought face to face with the consequences of what she’d failed to do.

Technically Scarlett had survived. In reality she had been dead inside from the moment in the warehouse when the other girl, the one in her crate, the Dutch girl she’d never even seen, had been silenced with a shot. The bullet had taken Scarlett’s soul along with it. She was living, breathing, but not actually alive.

And so there was no point continuing, was there? Not any more. This was how she was going to end it. Making her own decision. This was hers, her life, what was left of it, anyway; and she was going to choose the leaving of it. Not them. Not even Juliette.

She leaned forward, slightly, the wind whistling up the side of the building and pushing her gently back. Holding her steady.

A few more minutes.
 

Caro Sumner’s car was parked at the front of the Travel Inn when Sam arrived. She had half-expected – hoped – to find Caro waiting outside for her.

The reception desk was deserted, as it always was. Sam went through to the bar, pulling her mobile phone out of her bag and getting ready to call Caro’s number.

‘Sam! Over here.’

Caro stood up and crossed the bar to where Sam stood. Juliette was sitting upright, her back to them.

‘Where’s Scarlett?’ Sam said.

‘Let’s just go out here a minute.’ Caro steered Sam back out towards the hotel reception, out of Juliette’s hearing.

‘What? Caro, just tell me. Where is she?’

‘Juliette told me Scarlett left this morning, about an hour ago. She’s been telling me all about it, Sam. We need to get her statement.’

Sam was feeling panic rising in her chest. ‘Where’s she gone?’

‘Juliette doesn’t know. Or if she does, she’s not telling me. But Juliette thinks Scarlett might have had something to do with Clive’s murder.’

Sam groaned. ‘I know, I know! We need to find her.’

‘I rang the office. There are patrols out now, looking for her. In the meantime I’m trying to get something useful out of Juliette. Maybe you’ll have more luck than me.’

Sam said, ‘I’ll be there in a minute. You go and sit with her. I just need to make a few calls.’

Sam went out to the car park, dialling Lou’s number first. Voicemail again, damn it!

‘It’s Sam again. I’m at the hotel; Scarlett has taken off again. Caro has put out a call for patrols to do a search. I’m going to see if I can get anything useful out of Juliette about where she might have gone. Then I’ll go and look, too. Ma’am, I think Scarlett got Paul Stark to attack her parents. We need to find her straight away.’

She rang off. There was something else she could try. She scrolled through the address book until she got to ‘Spare phone’.

It rang and rang. Just as Sam was about to give up, the call was answered.

‘Hello? Scarlett? Can you hear me?’

There were noises on the line. Wind, and something that might have been a sniff, a breath.

‘Scarlett. Talk to me.’

‘It’s okay, Sam,’ she said.

‘Where are you?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She laughed, a short bitter laugh. ‘I don’t even know.’

‘I’ll come and get you,’ Sam said. ‘It’ll be okay, I promise.’

‘It won’t. But it doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t.’

‘Scarlett, please, let me come and get you. We can talk about it…’

‘I left you a letter. It’s at the reception desk at the hotel.’

‘Wait, hold on…’

Scarlett rang off.

Fuck it!
 

Sam redialled, but this time there was no answer. She rang the office number, waited and waited. Eventually Les Finnegan answered. ‘Incident room, can you hold the line…’

‘Les! It’s Sam. Wait a minute, this is urgent.’

‘I’m on the other line, guv.’

‘Never mind that. I need you to get the Comms Unit to set up a live cellsite trace.’

‘What?’

‘This is the number: write it down. 07101 405441. Got that?’

‘Yep. What’s the rush on it?’

‘Scarlett Rainsford has gone missing. Talk to the boss, get authorisation. It’s really urgent – Scarlett’s got that phone on her. Please, Les, go find the boss
right now
and get her to set it up. And then get her to call me. Okay?’

‘Message received, skip. Doing it now.’

Sam stood still for a moment, thinking hard and fast and wishing she knew what to do, where to start. There was nobody behind reception. Sam rang the white doorbell on the counter, wondering if it even worked. A minute later a young man emerged from the back office, smiling as if it was his first day on the job.

‘Can I help you?’

‘There’s a letter for me. Sam Hollands.’

He had a root around on the desk, then went into a drawer, shuffling through papers and boxes of staples.
Come on,
Sam thought. Clearly they didn’t often have letters left for people. Eventually he found it, bringing it forth with triumph. It was a white envelope upon which was written a single word in black ballpoint pen. SAM
.

Sam went back into the bar. Juliette was still sitting bolt upright, Caro next to her, head cocked to one side, looking up at Juliette’s face searchingly, an encouraging smile on her lips. She was trying her hardest to get through to her, and by the look of it nothing was working.

‘Juliette,’ Sam said, sitting down on the other side of her. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Sam Hollands. I’ve been spending a bit of time with your sister in the past few days.’

Juliette had tears pouring down her cheeks, dripping from her chin on to her pink sweater. She wasn’t wiping them away. Wasn’t moving.

‘Did she mention me, at all, Juliette?’

Nothing. Just more tears. The silence from her was unnerving.

‘I really care about her. I want so much to help. I think I can help, Juliette, but I need to find her.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Juliette said, her voice just a whisper. ‘I let her down.’

‘How did you let her down, Juliette?’

‘I didn’t try to stop her.’

Sam breathed.
Take your time
,
don’t rush her
…
‘Try to stop her doing what?’

Juliette gave a deep, shuddering sigh. More tears fell. ‘She went out to meet that boy. I should have stopped her. I knew they’d be angry, they’d kill her.’

‘Who?’

‘Dad. He hit her when he knew she was seeing the boy. She went out to meet him and I didn’t stop her. And she… she never came back…’

‘She’s talking about the abduction,’ Caro said redundantly.

Sam shot her a look. ‘But Scarlett’s all right, Juliette. She did come back. It took her a long time, but she came back for you, didn’t she?’

‘She phoned up and they didn’t believe it was her…’

‘When?’

‘A year ago. Scarlett rang the house. I kept saying I knew she wasn’t dead, I knew it, but they didn’t want to help. They pretended that it wasn’t her, that it was a hoax, but they knew it was really. She needed money, she needed their help, and he just hung up on her.’

‘Your dad?’

Juliette nodded, slowly. ‘And then she came to find me, when they went out. And she was really alive.’

‘She is alive, Juliette. But I really need you to help me find her. Can you do that? What did she say to you this morning?’

‘She said… she said if she went away again I would be all right now. I’d be all right on my own.’

‘Because of your mum and dad, what’s happened to them?’

Juliette nodded. Her voice was hoarse. ‘She said she had got it all wrong. I don’t understand – I don’t understand why she had to go. I tried to get her to stay but she wouldn’t. I did everything I was supposed to. I don’t know why they ended up hurt; that wasn’t supposed to happen.’

‘Juliette, what do you mean? What was supposed to happen?’

‘We needed money. We were going to move away, me and Scarlett, get a flat together. But we didn’t have any money, so we were going to get Scarlett’s mate to pretend to break in. We were going to share the money with him. I had to leave the window unlocked downstairs. I told her where everything was. I wrote down Dad’s PIN. That was my job.’