Acid Row (5 page)

Something in the woman's eyes persuaded Kimberley to take another step backwards, closer to her brother, who was watching from the sitting-room doorway. “I've spent it.”

"Then we'll go to the nearest cash point and you can take it out of your savings."

“Oh, yeah? What if I refuse?”

Laura gave an indifferent shrug. "We'll sit on our cases and wait for your father to come home."

Kimberley's thought-processes were slow, particularly when there was no linkage of ideas. “What's cases?” she asked stupidly.

“Luggage?” suggested Laura sarcastically. "Things you pack clothes in?" She lowered her hands to her sides, pretending to lift heavy objects. "What people carry when they wipe the dust of a house off their feet?"

“Oh, that kind of case.” Her eyes gleamed suddenly. "Does that mean you're leaving?"

“As soon as I have my money.”

Kimberley snapped her fingers at her brother. "Where's that fifty quid Dad gave you for food?“ she demanded peremptorily. ”I know you've still got it, so give it here."

Barry looked nervously towards Laura. “No.”

The girl took an angry swipe at him. "Do you want your fucking arm broken?"

He moved out into the corridor, bunching his fists and preparing to defend himself. "I don't want her to go ... not till Dad gets home anyway. I don't reckon it's my fault, so I shouldn't have to take the blame for it. Dad went ape shit when Mum left .. . and you just made it worse by saying you were glad she was gone. You're so fucking stupid you'll probably do the same again .. . and I wouldn't blame Dad if he lammed into you .. ."cept he'll lam into me, too, and that's not fair.“ For a normally taciturn child, the words tumbled out of him. ”I told you to look after Amy properly but you wouldn't listen 'cos you're lazy and you're a bully. Do this ... do that .. . lick my fucking arse, Amy .. . but if you tell your mum I'll give you a walloping. The kid's frightened of you. OK, she's a bit of a pain, but the way you carry on it's not surprising she cried a lot. Your trouble is no one likes you. You should try being nicer .. . then you'd have a few friends and you'd feel different about stuff."

“Shut up, creep!”

He inched along the corridor. “I'm going to look for Amy,” he said pulling open the front door. "And I sodding well hope I see Dad in the road because I'll tell him it's your fault."

“Cunt! Prick!” shouted Kimberley after him, giving the wall a violent kick. “Fucking little coward!” She turned a red, angry face towards Laura, shoulders hunched like a boxer's. But there were tears in her eyes, as if she knew she'd just lost the only person who had ever been loyal to her.

Police Message to all stations >27.07.01 >18.53 IMMEDIATE ACTION Missing Person Laura Biddulph/Rogerson of 14 Allenby Road, Portisfield, reports 10-yr-old daughter missing Child's name: Amy Rogerson (answers to: Biddulph) Height: 4' 10"

approx. Weight: 60 Ib approx. Description: slim, long brown hair dressed in blue T-shirt and black leggings Last seen by neighbour leaving 14 Allenby Road at 10.00 May be making for father's house in Sandbanks Road, Bournemouth Father's name: Martin Rogerson Nottfy all vehicles beat personnel Further information to follow ... Police Message to all stations >27.07.01 >21.00 UPDATE Missing Person Amy Rogerson/Biddulph May be making for The Larches, Hayes Avenue, Southampton Resident there with mother for six months until April Owner occupier Edward Townsend temporarily absent on holiday Notify all vehicles beat personnel Further information to follow ...

Saturday 28 July 2001 - 14 Allenby Road, Portisfield Estate 01.15 a.m.

RELATIONSHIPS INSIDE 14 Allenby Road had broken down completely, and the policewoman in charge of support and counselling suggested moving Laura Biddulph to a vacant 'safe' house to prevent war breaking out.

Irrationally, in view of the emerging evidence that Amy had been vanishing every day during the past two weeks, only to return home at night, Laura had clung to the hope that she was with her father. But when she was informed that a search of Martin Rogerson's house had produced nothing and the police were satisfied he had been at his office in Bournemouth all day, hope gave way to fear and she turned on Gregory and his children.

She lashed them viciously with her tongue, and police curiosity about what she was doing there grew. Even the least critical among them could see there was a glaring disparity in age, class, education and physical attraction between her and Gregory Logan and, while there was no accounting for chemistry, her openly expressed revulsion for him and his family gave the lie to any close feeling between them. As the night passed she became more and more distant, sitting huddled against the kitchen door and denying admittance to anyone except police personnel. Red-eyed with exhaustion, she cradled a radio in her lap and lifted her head with a jerk every time Amy's name was mentioned.

When the counsellor suggested she go upstairs for some much-needed rest, she gave a small laugh and said it wouldn't be wise. Unless the police wanted Kimberley Logan dead, of course.

The girl's noise was getting on everyone's nerves. With apparently limitless energy, she had bawled on and off for hours to a second WPC about how no one loved her, how miserable her life was and how she had never meant to hurt anyone. She refused to leave her room, refused to be sedated and could not, or would not, give any information about where Amy had been during the last two weeks, saying it wasn't her fault if the girl had lied about being with Patsy Trew.

Her brother sat morosely in front of the television, stuffing his face with imported police sandwiches and claiming it was Kimberley who was lying. According to him, she had known since Wednesday that Amy wasn't with her friend. Patsy had come to the door a fact borne out by Patsy herself saying she hadn't seen Amy for days and wanted to know where she was. Kimberley had told her to 'fuck off' because it was none of her business. “Amy doesn't like you any more,” she'd told the child giggling when Patsy burst into tears and ran away. "Jesus, Amy's a sad little bitch,“ she'd told Barry on her return to the sitting-room. ”I bet she's skulking in a hole somewhere so she can pretend she's got friends. No wonder she's so bloody skinny. She only gets fed when the tart gets back."

A detective sergeant had asked Barry why he hadn't mentioned any of this to Amy's mother. Kimberley would have given him a dead arm, he said, or, worse, kept him out of the kitchen. Did Kimberley give Amy dead arms? He shrugged. Only once. After that, Amy took herself off every day. Why did Kimberley do it? Guiltily, he wriggled his massive shoulders. “Because Amy cried when we called her mother a cunt,” he admitted. “It got on Kimberley's nerves.”

Their father, a fifty-year-old bus driver with a beer gut and a bad complexion, did his poor best to mend fences. Every so often he called to Laura through the kitchen door to say the police had brought more sandwiches as if food were the language of love. He seemed incapable of demonstrating any real affection, and the counsellor wondered when he had last taken any of them in his arms and given them a hug. He asked few questions about Amy more out of fear of the answers, she thought, than because he wasn't interested and preferred to rant about police wasting their time on speeding drivers when they ought to be tracking down paedophiles. If he had his way the bastards would be 'castrated and strung up with their dicks in their mouths' - a medieval punishment for heresy 'because perverts ought to feel pain when they die'. She asked him to keep his voice down, fearing the impact such statements would have on Laura Biddulph, but like his daughter he needed to make a noise in order to feel brave.

A search of Amy's room compounded the problem for the police, as nothing appeared to be missing apart from the blue T-shirt and black leggings she was thought to be wearing. She was a tidy child who had a place for everything, and it was doubtful she had run away because everything she valued -teddy bear, favourite bracelet, velvet hair ribbons had been left behind. Even her money box, containing five pounds, and the little store of books hidden under her mattress. Why did she keep them there? the police asked her mother. To stop Kimberley trashing them out of spite, said Laura.

Gregory had been interviewed very thoroughly. How long had Laura been living there? “Two months.” Where had he met her? "She travelled on his bus a, few times? Who made the first move? "Not him. He didn't think she'd, give him a, second glance? Who suggested she move in? "He couldn't remember. It cropped up in conversation one day? Was he surprised when she said yes? "Not really. They'd got to know each other pretty well by that time?

How would he describe his relationship with Amy? "OK? How would he describe his relationship with his own children? “The same.” Had Amy ever travelled on his bus? "Once or twice with her mother? Who did he meet first, Laura or Amy? “Laura? Did he know Amy's father? ”No."

Had Laura told him how and where she and Amy were living before? "Only that she'd been in an abusive relationship? Was he aware that Kimberley was bullying Amy? "No? Had he ever tried to comfort Amy?

"He might have put his arm round her a couple of times? Did she like it? "She didn't say she didn't? Would he describe her as an attractive child? "She was a good little dancer? Did she dance for him often? "She danced for everyone ... She liked showing off? Had he ever made excuses to be alone with her? What the hell sort of question was that?

Laura's answers confirmed Gregory's except in regard to his relationship with his children. “He can't stand them,” she replied.

"He's afraid of Kimberley and he despises Barry for being a coward .. .

but he's a coward himself, so I suppose it makes sense. He's always been very sweet to Amy. I think he feels sorry for her."

She was being interviewed in the kitchen by the same inspector, DCI Tyler, who had questioned her six hours previously to elicit information about Amy's father. Now, better informed, he sat beside the counsellor at the table and asked rather more testing questions about her relationship with her husband. Perhaps Laura knew what was coming, because she refused to get off the floor or move away from the kitchen door, and her almost permanently lowered head with its curtain of dark hair made it impossible to read her expression. It gave a sense of indifference, or, worse, deceit.

“Why does he feel sorry for Amy?”

“I told him her father abused her.”

“Was that true?”

She gave a small shrug. “It depends how you define abuse.”

“How do you define it, Laura?”

“Exercising power without love.”

“As in bullying?”

“Yes.”

“Which is what you've accused Kimberley of doing.”

She hesitated before she answered, as if fearing a trap. “Yes,” she agreed. “She and Martin are two of a kind.”

“In what way?”

“Inadequate people need to dominate.”

Tyler recalled his first impressions of Martin Rogerson when the man opened the door in his shirtsleeves and extended a friendly hand.

Policemen were used to shock or evasion when they produced their cards everyone had something to fear or feel guilty about but Rogerson showed none of these. He was twenty-five years older than his wife in his late fifties a bluff, confident solicitor with an easy manner and a firm handshake. Certainly he gave no impression of being the inadequate bully his wife was describing. "How did Martin bully Amy?"

“You wouldn't understand.”

“Try me.”

Another hesitation. “He made her beg for affection,” she said, 'so she thought his love was worth more than mine."

It was such an unlikely answer that Tyler believed it. He remembered seeing an ill-treated dog that had crawled on its belly towards the boy who was whipping it; remembered, too, how when he had intervened the dog had bitten him. “And yours was rejected?” he suggested.

She didn't answer.

He sprang the trap half-heartedly. "If you knew Kimberley was a bully then why did you leave Amy with her?" he asked.

Laura used the point of a finger to sketch circles on the floor. Each one apart. Each one contained. Tyler wondered what they represented.

Martin? Herself? Amy? Distance?

“I've been saving for a deposit on a flat,” she said shakily.

“It's our only way out .. . Amy wants it as much as I do.” She opened her other fist to reveal a sodden tissue which she pressed against her eyes. "She kept promising me Kimberley was different when they were on their own. I knew she was lying .. . but I truly believed the worst that was happening was that she was sitting on her own in her room all day. And that didn't seem so bad .. . not after .. ." She broke off vanishing the tissue inside her fingers again as if it were a piece of dirty laundry that needed hiding.

“Not after what?”

She took time to answer and he had the feeling she was inventing an explanation. “Just life,” she said tiredly. "It hasn't been easy for either of us."

Tyler studied her bent head for a moment, before consulting some notes on the table. "According to your husband, you and Amy haven't lived with him for nine months. He said you left him for a man called Edward Townsend, and as far as he knew you were still with him."

“He's lying,” she said bluntly. “He knows Eddy and I split up.”

“Why would he lie about it?”

“He's a lawyer.”

“That's hardly an answer, Laura.”

She waved his remark away. "I was supposed to inform him if our situation changed .. . but I didn't. It's a technical point. Martin can argue that, because he didn't hear it from me, I acted against Amy's best interests by withholding information."

“Who would have told him?”

"Eddy. Martin's still his solicitor. He talks to Eddy more than he ever talked to me.“ She gave a bitter little laugh. ”He's legal adviser to Eddy's company. They're always on the phone to each other."

Tyler let that go for the moment. The vagaries of human nature had long since ceased to surprise him. In Rogerson's shoes, he'd have punched the other man's lights out, assuming of course there was any passion left in the relationship. "Why didn't you inform Martin you'd left Eddy?"