Daisy in Chains (20 page)

He stops, takes a breath, swallows. ‘There shouldn’t have been any problem at all. Except she’d picked up the wrong rope. An easy mistake, it was very similar to hers, but it was twenty feet shorter.’

Maggie has no real experience of climbing. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning it didn’t reach the bottom of the pitch. And there was no knot in it. She went spinning off the end. I was at the top, watching.’

The image he’s conjured is vivid and horrible, but it is too late to apologize. ‘Did she fall far?’

‘Less than fifteen feet but she landed badly. She broke her neck.’

‘I’m sorry. Your poor parents.’

‘They’ve lost both their children. Dad has just about given up and Mum is . . . well, you’ve seen how Mum is. She was very different when we were kids.’ He gives himself a shake. ‘My turn. What made you change your mind and come visit me?’

Hesitation is against the rules. Hesitation allows time for invention. ‘I came as soon as you asked me to,’ she says.

His eyes narrow. ‘Explain.’

She smiles at the memory of the half-dozen, clearly fake letters that arrived before his. She’d known, the day she met his mother, that the grieving, unbalanced woman was their most likely author. ‘I’ve received lots of letters from inmates in prison,’ she says. ‘I can tell when they aren’t genuine. I knew you hadn’t written those early ones. They were decent fakes, I don’t imagine most people would have spotted the difference, but I did.’

Now the smile looks real. ‘So all I had to do was ask. Not a question, by the way.’

‘As you said yourself, I wanted to meet you. Thousands of women secretly want to meet you. The charismatic killer fascinates us. Don’t
over-rely on its effect, though. Curiosity got me here first time. Then you appealed to my better nature. You’ll have to work hard for a third visit. Is it my turn again?’

He nods.

‘What do you miss most?’ she asks him.

His eyes fall. She is about to remind him of the immediacy rule when he answers. ‘My dog.’ He looks up and his eyes are a little brighter. ‘Just about everything else I can replicate to some extent. I still see my parents. I have company, of sorts. I can read. I can shut my eyes and go to all sorts of places in my head. I can dream that I’m climbing, running, flying my plane, but I will probably never see my dog again.’

‘Why is she called Daisy?’

He doesn’t hesitate. ‘Because she’s sweet, and faithful and beautiful. And because she adores me. And you’ve jumped your turn. Where did you do your law degree?’

So far he is being easy on her. ‘I didn’t. My first degree was in a science subject. I did a Graduate Diploma in Law and then my Bar Professional Training Course at City University. Pupillage with Gray’s Inn.’

‘But you never appear in court?’

‘Is that your third question?’ she asks.

‘No. My third question is why don’t you appear in court? Why do you avoid the limelight?’

Another prisoner passes close by their table, forcing her to lift her bag from the floor, giving her a few extra seconds. ‘Bestselling authors are anonymous celebrities,’ she says. ‘That’s how I like it. My privacy is important and appearing in high-profile court cases would jeopardize that.’

He leans forward. ‘What are you trying to hide?’

She mirrors him. ‘Do you really believe the only people who value privacy have something to hide?’

‘Is that your fifth question?’

‘No, nor is it my fourth.’ She glances down and finds the folded sheet of paper she’d brought with her. It is a copy. The original magazine article is in her files at home. She puts it on the table and turns it to face him. ‘My fourth is, how do you feel when you see this?’

Hello!
magazine, September 2015 issue

CLAIRE AND TOM CELEBRATE THEIR HAPPY NEWS

Claire Cole was beaming with health and happiness as she showed off the Chelsea home she shares with her fiancé Tom Flannigan. Just days after announcing Claire’s pregnancy, they welcome
Hello!
staff to their stylish penthouse apartment on Chelsea Embankment, with its stunning views over the river.

The baby (the couple are keeping mum about the sex) is due in March, and the parents-to-be are hoping for a straightforward, uneventful delivery at the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, ideally not on a match day.

‘March is mid season for Tom,’ Claire says, one hand holding tight to the man she clearly adores, the other resting lightly on her barely discernible bump. ‘So we just have to keep our fingers crossed the baby doesn’t arrive during a big game. I’m not sure how José will feel about losing his star striker at a moment’s notice.’

The supermodel’s new-found happiness is in marked contrast to the difficult time that surrounded the break-up of her previous engagement, to eminent surgeon Hamish Wolfe. ‘Hamish’s betrayal nearly broke me,’ she has previously admitted. ‘After two years together, it was heartbreaking to find out I had no idea who he really was.’

Those dark days are behind her now. Tom’s eyes seldom leave his beautiful fiancée. The future of this young family looks assured.

(
Maggie Rose: case file 062/118 Hamish Wolfe
)

MAGGIE ESTIMATES IT
will take Hamish two minutes to read the article. He looks up after several seconds.

‘Fourteen women and two gay blokes sent me this cutting,’ he says. ‘One woman sends me every clip on Claire and Flannigan that she can find.’

‘So how do you feel about it?’

He shrugs. ‘Glad she’s OK. Not sure about the
future being assured
business. I met that twat. He must have had a fistful of coke up his nose.’

‘Explain. Not about Tom Flannigan taking cocaine. About why you can be so relaxed about the woman you planned to marry moving on. About her not standing by you.’

His eyebrows almost meet in an incredulous frown. ‘It never occurred to me that she would. She came to visit me once, on remand. You’d have thought she was being asked to walk through Belsen. Back when it was open for business.’

‘Her fiancé was in prison. Of course she found it hard.’

He actually laughs. ‘Oh, trust me, the wrongly accused fiancé she could have dealt with. Just as long as she had fast-track through the queues, her own personal security and a private lounge to meet me in. It was mingling with the great unwashed that Claire couldn’t handle.’

‘And this was the woman you were going to spend your life with?’

He sighs, as though having to explain something to a difficult child. ‘Maggie, men get married for all sorts of reasons, not always good ones. Claire was the one pushing. And my mum was desperate for grandkids. Granddaughters in particular.’

‘You got engaged to please your mother?’

The laughter is gone now. ‘It really didn’t matter how many people told me Sophie’s death wasn’t my fault. I was there. I was at the top when she
fell. Maybe I felt grandkids were my way of making amends. Possibly they would have been. A little Sophie? Yeah, that would have been nice.’

She pauses to take stock. Five questions left. He has the same.

‘Could you kill someone?’ she asks him.

His face clouds, as though a grim memory is passing through his head. ‘I probably will if I spend much longer in this place. So, yes.’

There is something very dark behind his eyes now, but whether memory or prediction, it is impossible to tell.

‘What’s your favourite colour?’ he asks her.

‘White,’ she says, then backtracks. ‘No, I mean blue. Of course I mean blue. What else would it be, I mean, look at me.’ She lifts the ends of her hair.

The corner of his mouth twitches. ‘White isn’t even a colour.’

‘No, it isn’t. Where is Zoe Sykes?’

‘I have no idea. Are your parents still alive?’

‘I lost my mother over a decade ago,’ she says. ‘My father five years after that.’

‘Any close family? Siblings? Secret husband?’

‘No, to all three. What happened to Daisy Baron?’

She sees a start of surprise in his face, but he recovers quickly. ‘I don’t know. She vanished towards the end of the Trinity term.’

‘What was she to you?’

‘Fellow student. Friend. Girlfriend, for much of that first year.’

‘Was her leaving something to do with you?’

His eyes narrow. ‘I never got a chance to ask her.’

Around them, people are getting up and saying goodbye. She waits for Hamish to say something more. He doesn’t.

She is the only visitor still seated. The rest are heading for the door. ‘People believe Daisy is dead. That she was your first victim. Was she?’

‘You’ve had your ten questions, Maggie. More than.’

She waits. He takes a moment before replying. ‘She wasn’t. And I really hope she isn’t. Something warm will slip out of my world if I lose the possibility of ever seeing Daisy again.’

‘Time please, miss. Come on, Hamish, you know the rules.’

They ignore the guard. ‘What do you regret most?’ she asks him.

He grins as she gets to her feet. ‘Getting caught,’ he tells her.

IN ONE OF
the poorer estates in the Bristol area, the Sykes’s family home is neat and orderly. The single row of paving stones leading to the front door has been kept clean of winter slime. The patch of brown lawn is short. The bins stand to attention on one side of the door. Just behind the still-white net curtains, Maggie can see a row of china ornaments: female figures, in period costume; six of them, each perfectly spaced, each facing at exactly the same angle into the room within.

The sound of her knocking has barely time to fade before the front door opens. Brenda stands facing her. ‘When’s it going to be? When’s he going to show us where Zoe is?’

‘Brenda, I really don’t think you should get your hopes up. Hamish is still claiming he didn’t kill Zoe.’

She follows the older woman to the kitchen. It is a small room, dated, but immaculately tidy.

‘He said, though. He said if you went to see him, he’d show us. Kimberly, make Miss Rose a cup of tea.’

‘I’m afraid he didn’t. That letter was from his mother.’

The muscles around Brenda’s mouth twitch. ‘Effing cow. Kim, use the PG Tips, not that cheap stuff from Lidl. And make sure the cups are clean.’

Maggie looks in a corner of the room to see a thin girl intent upon her mobile phone. Her long fair hair hides her face.

Maggie turns back to the mother. ‘Brenda, do you think Zoe could have had another boyfriend?’

When Brenda shakes her head, she purses up her mouth and chin and the lines of a habitual smoker fan out from her lips like a child’s drawing of a sun. ‘I’d have known. We didn’t have no secrets. Did he tell you anything? About what he did to her? Where he took her? Kim! I won’t tell you again.’

Making no sound, moving so slowly that Maggie can almost imagine
the air doesn’t move around her, Kimberly gets up from her chair and crosses to the sink. Her shape is still the skinny, angular one of a child. Her clothes are childish too: plain jeans, a fleece sweatshirt.

‘Zoe’s actions on that last night suggest she was planning to meet someone,’ says Maggie.

‘Do you think they might let me have her boot back? Kim, sniff that milk before you use it, make sure it’s fresh.’

‘I’m sorry, what did you just say?’

‘Her boot. The red cowboy boot, what she were wearing when she was taken. They’ve never let me have it back.’

The cowboy boot, found on the roadside in the gorge, with bloodstains that were matched to Zoe. Her mother wants it back, as though her pain isn’t sharp enough without a tangible reminder of what her daughter went through.

‘I imagine it will be classed as evidence. The police probably need to keep it.’

‘She loved them boots. They were her favourites. She always wore them. They were a present from me. Cost a bloody fortune. I’d really like it back.’

A once expensive, now worthless, item. It is odd, the things that grieving people obsess over. On the kitchen counter, a mobile phone starts ringing. Brenda turns away and reaches for it.

‘Yeah, oh, hiya, Mand, all right?’ As though she’s forgotten Maggie, she wanders out into the hallway just as the teenager turns round, a mug in each hand. She has the trace of an old bruise on her right cheek, just below her eye. Her hands are shaking.

‘I put sugar in.’ She stares at Maggie with wide, pale grey eyes.

‘Thank you.’

‘Not everyone takes sugar. Mum and me both do. It’s habit. I can make you another cup.’

‘It’s fine, thank you. I can drink it with or without sugar.’

Kimberly reaches out, spilling some of the tea on her hand. She puts both mugs down clumsily and turns back to the sink.

‘Cold water,’ says Maggie, unnecessarily. The girl is already holding her scalded hand beneath the tap. ‘It would be really useful for me to see Zoe’s bedroom. Would you mind showing me?’

The girl’s shoulders stiffen. ‘You want to see Zoe’s room,’ she says to the kitchen window.

In the hallway, conversation stops. The door bursts open again and Kimberly flinches.