The Sting of Death (14 page)

‘None, sir. It’s just …’

‘People almost never react as you expect,’ Hemsley told him. ‘It won’t really have hit them yet. They’ve been pinning all their hopes on the Justine girl. Any minute now they’ll have to start
thinking paedophiles, opportunists, all that, if my gut’s anything to go by.’

‘Let’s hope it’s wrong then, sir,’ said Den gloomily.

Hemsley hummed a wordless reply. ‘Come back here first and collect Timms,’ he instructed. ‘Sounds as if you might need her.’

Roma’s jaw was clamped so hard she felt one of her molars protest under the strain.
Bloody hell,
she thought.
Can’t even have a good rage these days
without getting toothache.
It wasn’t exactly rage, though – more a fit of frustration at the way everything seemed to be crowding in on her. Less than a week ago, she’d been minding her own business with her bees and dog and husband for company. And not a care in the world. Now there wasn’t any escape from a whole string of worries.

The reappearance of Justine was at the heart of it all, of course. Trailing anguishing memories and accusations, the girl showed no sign of having matured or mellowed over the past five years. If anything, she was even more impossible than before. Laurie didn’t help, either, with his heavy reproachful sighs and clumsy attempts at diplomacy. All he succeeded in doing was aggravating Roma’s already fragile temper.

‘You don’t
know
her,’ she’d said several times. ‘You’ve never even met her until now. Believe me, I’ve got good reason to regret that she ever discovered where we live.’

He’d refused to listen. ‘She’s a perfectly nice girl,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t know what you can possibly have against her.’ And Roma hadn’t even tried to enlighten him.

Since Drew’s phone call about the Rentons’ missing child, everything had become infinitely worse. Without even pausing to think, Roma had flown to Justine’s sanctuary in the spare room, and confronted her. ‘What’s all this about a little girl?’ she demanded. ‘The police think she’s with you. What the hell have you done with her?’

Justine had been convincingly bewildered. ‘What?’ she stammered. ‘Are you talking about Georgia? Isn’t she at the farm?’ And then, after a moment’s thought. ‘Jesus Christ. Has Penn abducted
her
as well?’

Roma hadn’t known what to make of the horrified expression on her daughter’s face, but she swept on anyway. ‘Penn wouldn’t hurt a child,’ she protested. ‘Wake up, for God’s sake, and stop this insane behaviour. You’ll be ending up in a mental ward at this rate.’

‘Oh yeah? You’re thinking of having me sectioned, are you? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’ It was a palpable hit, sending
them both spinning back through the years, reliving similar hysterical scenes between the two of them. Roma’s hands had dropped to her sides.

‘Of course not,’ she said wearily. ‘But we can’t go on like this, can we?’

‘We’re not going to,’ Justine told her. ‘I’ll be out of your way in a couple of days. I only need time to think what I should do. But Georgia  …’ she returned to the subject worriedly. ‘We’ll have to find her, Mum. She’s only a little thing and she won’t be able to cope if she’s somewhere strange, with people she doesn’t know. Why aren’t the police searching for her?’ She turned her large dark eyes on her mother.

‘Because they think she’s with you. Or they did until now. Drew Slocombe’s telling them that you’re here, as we speak, and we’ll probably get a visitation within the hour.’

Justine groaned, before gathering herself together. One hand over her mouth, eyes closed, she took several deep breaths. ‘Good,’ she said, after a minute or two. ‘I’ll tell them everything.’

‘They won’t believe you,’ Roma warned her.

‘My goodness, Mother, you almost sound worried about me,’ the girl taunted.

Now, an hour or two later, with the police due any moment, Roma was unable to suppress her
mounting concern for her daughter. Laurie had had another go at her, full of reproach at her heartlessness, and the image of the missing child, of whom Justine seemed inordinately fond, refused to go away. Try as she might, Roma couldn’t think of a reassuring explanation as to what had happened to the child.

‘What are her parents like?’ she asked Justine. ‘They sound awfully irresponsible.’

‘Busy,’ was the brief reply. ‘They should never have had her. Neither of them spends any time with her. Sheena probably hadn’t even noticed she’d gone.’

‘Irresponsible,’ Roma repeated. ‘But they must have thought she was all right, surely?’

‘I don’t know, Mum,’ Justine sighed. ‘I have no idea what’s been happening there over the past week.’ She glanced down at her damaged wrists. ‘I was otherwise engaged.’

‘It has to be Penn,’ Roma concluded. ‘If your story’s true.’

‘Careful!’ warned Justine. ‘You don’t want to start believing me, surely?’

The conversation languished before it got to the same old track again. The eventual arrival of a car containing two plain clothes officers came as a relief to them both.

Roma let them in, cocking an amused eyebrow at the mismatched couple. A very tall young
man accompanied by a short, stout middle-aged woman. They introduced themselves as Detective Sergeant Den Cooper and Detective Constable Bennie Timms. ‘We’ve been expecting you,’ Roma said, with a subtle hint that they might have been a bit quicker.

There was no doubt that they were seriously interested in whatever Justine might have to tell them. They sat in the big kitchen, facing Justine across the table, leaving Roma to take a seat on the outer edge of the group. The tall man checked her name, address, date of birth and car registration number, filling in a pre-printed sheet, which seemed ominous to Roma.

‘You’re aware that the police received a report of you as a possible missing person, early this week, are you?’ he asked her daughter.

Justine nodded, with a faint smile. ‘I wasn’t missing, exactly. I’d been abducted. By the person who reported it, strange as that may sound.’

Den’s eyebrows jerked up. ‘Drew Slocombe abducted you? Is that what you’re saying?’

Justine made an impatient sound and smacked the table lightly in irritation. ‘No, of course not. Penn. My cousin, Penn Strabinski. All this is her doing. She’s probably got Georgia hidden away somewhere. Christ knows why, though. She must have gone barmy.’

‘You know the little girl’s missing?’

She nodded. ‘Drew phoned my mother a little while ago. You told him, apparently.’

Roma was impressed by her daughter’s composure, in spite of herself. She showed no sign of apprehension, no guilt or prevarication. From the police point of view, she must be coming over as a very good witness.

The woman leant forward. ‘Miss Pereira – do you have any reason to be concerned for little Georgia’s welfare?’

Justine smacked the table again. ‘Of
course
I do. I’m horrified that she’s been gone all this time. I knew her parents were useless, but not this bad. What did they tell you? Why aren’t you combing the countryside for her?’

Den spread his hands and looked her full in the face. ‘They told us you’d got Georgia, that you’d taken her camping. Her father says he waved you off last Thursday morning. But he told her mother the child was with her grandma on the Isle of Wight, because he didn’t want her to think you were having such close contact. He says he’s been having an affair with you.’

Roma had a good view of her daughter’s reaction. Disbelief, amusement and finally horror were all clearly to be seen. ‘He lied to you,’ she said furiously, breathless with repressed emotion. ‘The man’s a slimeball.’

‘You didn’t take Georgia camping?’ Bennie
Timms kept to the point that most interested her. ‘Not even for a night or two?’

‘I did not.’ Justine’s calm was almost painful to witness. ‘On Thursday morning I was chloroformed and forcibly imprisoned in a derelict house somewhere near Glastonbury. I spent four days there without food and almost no water, until I managed to escape. The first thing I did was drink some foul green stuff from an old water trough. I was so thirsty.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘My cousin Penn was responsible,’ she said firmly.

Den Cooper’s eyebrows took on a life of their own as he tried to digest this story. ‘Er …’ he began. ‘Well. Hmm. So why didn’t you report this abduction when you got free? If it’s true, it’s a very serious charge to make against someone. I mean …’

‘You don’t believe me,’ Justine supplied. ‘I didn’t think you would.’ She proffered her wrists, turning them to show the abrasions and bruises encircling them. ‘How do you think this happened, then?’

‘Why don’t you tell us?’

‘She tied my hands tightly behind my back. I’ve got bruises across my shoulders, ribs and hips as well, where I forced my way through a small hole I made in the wall. And before you ask, I really have no idea why she did it.’ A look
of painful doubt crossed her face. ‘She said it was for my own good.’

‘She says you and she have always been good friends. Like sisters. She asked Drew Slocombe to try and find you. He went to your cottage and thought there was enough evidence of disturbance to cause concern, so he and his partner reported your disappearance.’

‘There you are then!’ she triumphed. ‘He was right. There
was
cause for concern.’

‘So where’s little Georgia?’ put in DC Timms, slightly desperately. ‘Is she in the derelict house as well?’

‘Jesus, I hope not!’ Justine exploded, before quickly calming down. ‘No, she can’t be. That wouldn’t make any sense.’

‘None of this makes any sense,’ Cooper muttered irritably. ‘All we know for sure is that there’s a little girl lost in the middle of it somehow.’

‘It’s got to be Penn,’ Justine repeated thoughtfully. ‘It couldn’t be anybody else.’

‘Workers on the farm?’ Timms suggested. ‘Suspicious local characters? People do snatch small girls, you know. How well was she supervised? Could she have wandered off somewhere?’

‘Didn’t you ask her parents all that?’

‘Of course, and they told us the child was with you.’

‘And you believed them?’ Justine grunted. ‘Well, she’s not. And I’m as worried about her as you are. There could be paedophiles living inconspicuously in one of the villages close by, but I doubt it. She wouldn’t have wandered off on her own. She’s a timid little thing, small for her age. I’ve got some good photos of her at the cottage. I suppose we could go and get them.’

‘Can you show us this derelict house?’ Cooper suddenly demanded. ‘We should check it out, even though you don’t think she’s likely to be there. It would help to confirm your story at the same time.’

Justine grimaced. ‘I doubt if I could find it again,’ she admitted. ‘It was dark when I got out and I just scrambled down tracks and country lanes until I reached a proper road.’

‘Where’s your car?’ Den asked, watching her reactions closely.

‘Tucked away in the woods near my cottage, I presume,’ she said readily. ‘I worked out that Penn must have hidden it there; her own was parked a few miles from where I live and she must have manhandled me from mine to hers while I was out cold.’

‘But
why
?’ Drew almost pleaded. ‘Why would she do all that?’

Justine fingered her bruised ribs gingerly. ‘She must have wanted it to look as if I’d driven off
in my own car, like Philip said.’ She frowned at them suddenly. ‘That’s funny, isn’t it. As if he might have known what she was up to. That hadn’t occurred to me until now.’

Den shook his head impatiently. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But let’s try and keep it simple for now. You’ll understand that we’ll have to search this house thoroughly, now we’ve found you here, in the light of what Mr Renton told us.’ He looked at Roma. ‘I take it you won’t have any objection?’

She shrugged. ‘No search warrant I presume?’

‘It wouldn’t take long to get one.’

‘Go on,’ she said. ‘The little girl isn’t here. Justine might have a wild story to tell, but she isn’t a child abductor. At least I can vouch for her on that.’

‘Thanks, Mother. I love you too,’ Justine muttered.

Twenty minutes later Cooper and Timms conceded that Georgia Renton was not anywhere on the premises. At Roma’s suggestion Laurie had taken refuge in the garden when the police first arrived, but he insisted on going with them on their search. ‘Just to make sure they don’t break anything,’ he said stiffly. Roma shot him a penetrating glance.
Don’t you crack up on me too,
she silently begged. Laurie had been increasingly withdrawn over the past twenty-four hours, apparently shocked and upset by the skirmishing
between mother and daughter. When the police had finally gone, he found Roma in the kitchen.

‘I’m sorry, dear,’ he said softly. ‘But I don’t think I can take much more of this. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take myself off in the morning for a few days. I’ve been making one or two phone calls and have a place to go to. Don’t worry about me.’

He looked grey and suddenly old. She reached out a shaking hand to him. ‘But you can’t just disappear,’ she said.

‘No, no, I’ll keep in touch. Just humour me, Roma. Please. I know it’s pathetic, and you can’t abide weakness. I know I’m letting you down.’ He put a thin hand on his chest, pressing hard for a moment. ‘But I think it’s the best thing to do. It won’t be for long, I promise. Just until all this business is settled.’

The wave of fear that washed over her was disabling. She struggled for breath. ‘All right, dear,’ she managed. ‘I won’t try to stop you. It’ll all be sorted out in a few days, you know.’ She forced a shaky smile. ‘Everything does always come right in the end.’

A strange expression crossed his face. ‘Of course it does,’ he agreed. ‘In the end we all die.’

Roma turned away from him sharply, making no reply.

Den had always enjoyed the company of Bennie Timms. At an unusually late stage in her career she had applied to transfer to CID and had been received with enthusiasm by her superiors. Female detectives were in short supply and her special talents of empathy and insight rendered her invaluable in cases involving children. It had come as no surprise to Den when the DI assigned her to the investigation into the whereabouts of little Georgia Renton.