Gone Astray (40 page)

Suzy was visibly relieved. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you myself. Mum to mum, if you like.’ She stood up. ‘I should go now. Tell Mack I’m sorry too.’
Lesley could see her eyes were shining with tears. ‘I really hope you find Rosie soon.’

Lesley couldn’t quite believe the words as they came out of her mouth, but as she got to her feet too she found herself saying, ‘Maybe, when this is all over, we should sit down and
talk again and try to work out something. For Faye, I mean. To see her right.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Rosie’s always said she wanted a sister.’

Suzy flashed a grateful smile. ‘Faye’s the same. Who knows, maybe they’d get on if they met.’

‘Yes, maybe they would.’

Umpire called Maggie just as the patrol officer waved her through the security gate at the mouth of Burr Way. He was back in Mansell, preparing to interview Eddie Sinclair, but
for once she managed to get the first word in and told him everything, from Steve seeing the suspect on the CCTV to her finding Lisa, who was now on her way to hospital with Rob at her side.

Umpire was staggered.

‘Lisa is certain Rosie’s still in Haxton?’

‘Yes, and I think I know where.’ She told him about Farley’s client records and Mrs Roberts. ‘I’m right outside Verma Lodge now.’

‘You’re
what
?’

‘I didn’t know what else to do, sir. You weren’t returning my calls and I left you a message at the incident room. I couldn’t sit around the hospital knowing there was a
chance Rosie’s here. I don’t know how Farley got her past Mrs Roberts but if Rosie’s inside I should get to her now,’ she said. The delay was making her jittery.

‘No, you don’t move a muscle. You wait until I get there with back-up. You hear me, Neville? That’s an order. You wait.’

She said yes but had no intention of obeying it. If Rosie was being held against her will inside Verma Lodge, she couldn’t just sit outside waiting. After seeing the state Farley had left
Lisa in, she couldn’t face Lesley and Mack knowing she’d waited. Finding their daughter was more important than whatever Umpire might do to her later.

‘Did you hear me, Neville? You stay where you are.’

‘Of course, sir.’

White stucco brick, with bright orange roof tiles and a veranda that ran along the front of the house, Verma Lodge seemed more suited to sunnier climes, like Greece or Spain
or even Florida, than it did a Home Counties village presently deluged by showers.

The front door was locked. Maggie went round the back and tried the door to the conservatory. The handle gave easily and she was inside in seconds. The conservatory led into a formal lounge with
salmon pink walls. Maggie skirted round the sofa and sped into the hallway. Instinct told her to head upstairs and as soon as she was on the landing she started throwing open doors and shouting
Rosie’s name. If Farley was there, she wanted him to hear her and fool him into thinking she wasn’t acting alone.

Yet the bedrooms were all empty and the bathrooms too. She felt a twinge of uncertainty. What if she was wrong about this? She ran back into the first bedroom, the master suite, where there was
an antique double wardrobe. Maggie yanked open the doors but it was empty save for a woman’s clothes and shoes. She went through all the other rooms, checking wardrobes and under beds in the
same way. By the time she reached the far end of the corridor from the stairs, her concern had dissolved into fear that she’d made a terrible mistake.

She retraced her steps until she found herself back where she’d started, in the conservatory. She gazed out across the garden, which was flush to the terrace with no steps down to
negotiate. It was a lot more overgrown than the one at Angel’s Reach, with enormous ferns and bamboo plants bending over a stone path that wound across the grass. Without a second thought,
she took off along the path, following its direction until, on her right, she came across a towering hedgerow. Maggie inhaled deeply. The air was laced with the bitter scent of chlorine. She
continued walking the length of the hedgerow until she came across a wrought-iron gate set within it. Through its rails she could see shimmering blue water and on the other side was a chalet-style
pool house with a floor-to-ceiling glass frontage. Despite being a distance away, Maggie still recognized the person lying on the day bed inside, a rose-patterned duvet tucked around their
chin.

Rosie.

Maggie sprinted round the swimming pool, almost losing her footing as she slid in a puddle of water spread across the tiled surround. The door to the pool house was unlocked
and she burst through it to get to Rosie. Kneeling down by the day bed, she quickly checked the teenager’s pulse – she was alive, but only just. Her breathing was shallow and her skin
so pale it was tinged blue, like she’d been exposed to the cold. Maggie gently peeled the duvet back and saw someone had removed Rosie’s clothing and dressed her in a nightgown. It was
old-fashioned, with a high, frilled collar, and Maggie guessed it belonged to Mrs Roberts.

The left-hand side of the nightgown was stained with spots of blood and further investigation revealed that a bandage had been applied to the side of Rosie’s ribcage. Maggie peeled back
the bandage to check the severity of the wound and was assailed by the putrid smell of pus. If blood loss hadn’t taken Rosie to the brink of death, blood poisoning almost certainly had.

Next to the day bed was a bottle of water, four packets of Nurofen Plus, more bandage dressings, antiseptic lotion and cotton wool. It looked as though Farley had, in the most rudimentary way,
tried to keep Rosie alive in the pool house, which was bitingly cold inside and stank of chlorine. Then Maggie noticed a bunch of battered-looking daffodils stuffed into a jar set down on the floor
by the foot of the bed. He brought her flowers? The sick bastard.

Maggie gently stroked Rosie’s forehead.

‘Rosie, you’re safe now. My name is Maggie and I’m a police officer. I’m going to get you out of here.’

‘No you’re not.’

Maggie twisted round in surprise. The man she now knew to be Adrian Farley was in the doorway – but he wasn’t alone.

Next to him was Lily.

‘Lily? What are you doing—’

Maggie faltered as she caught sight of the Stanley knife in Farley’s right hand. He lifted it to Lily’s throat and the fully extended silver blade seemed to glow in the dull
light.

‘Step back from the bed,’ he ordered.

‘I need to get Rosie to hospital,’ said Maggie. Staying on her knees, she pulled her mobile out of her pocket. ‘She’s in a bad way.’

‘No, she’s not, I’ve been taking care of her.’

‘With over-the-counter painkillers? She needs help from a doctor, not a branch of Boots.’

‘She’s not going anywhere until I get my money.’

‘Don’t be stupid. If she dies you won’t get a penny. Send her back alive and I’ll help you get the reward,’ she lied.

‘Like you have any sway over it,’ he scoffed. ‘I know who you are, you’re just the family liaison officer. You’re bottom of the heap.
You don’t
count.
’

Maggie knew she had to stay calm to get Rosie out of there. She ignored him and turned to Rosie’s friend.

‘Lily, are you okay? Has he hurt you?’

‘I’m okay,’ she whispered, trying to tilt her neck and head away from the blade.

‘You don’t fucking deserve to be,’ Farley snarled at her. ‘It’s all your fault everything’s gone wrong.’

‘No it’s not, it’s yours. If you’d just kept out of it . . .’ Lily tailed off.

‘Do you two know each other?’ said Maggie in amazement. Then it hit her. ‘Lily, is this your grandmother’s house? Is Mrs Roberts your nan?’

The teenager nodded balefully.

So the parties were Lily’s doing. The quiet little redhead none of them had given any thought to.

‘She’s just asleep, you know,’ said Farley, nodding at Rosie. ‘I gave her sleeping tablets.’

‘How many? She’s out cold.’

‘Enough to keep her dozing like Sleeping Beauty. I haven’t hurt her, if that’s what you think.’

‘Really? Because I’ve just seen Lisa and she told me exactly what you did to her.’

‘We were already fucking so I don’t know what her problem is,’ he huffed. ‘Do you actually think I’d have sex with a fifteen-year-old child? What do you take me
for? I was the one who stopped that moron security guard Eddie taking advantage of her. It’s down to him she’s in this state, not me. You should be
thanking
me for saving
her!’

‘I will if you let me get Rosie to hospital.’

‘Nice try, but that’s not going to happen. Not until I get my money.’

Maggie turned to Lily. ‘Did you know Rosie was here all this time?’

Farley’s laugh came out more like a bark. ‘Know about it? She’s been helping me keep her here. Who do you think brought her the flowers?’

As Maggie sat back, shocked, Lily implored her to listen.

‘It’s not what you think. Ouch!’ she shrieked.

The knife blade had nicked her throat.

‘Whoops, sorry, my bad,’ said Farley with a grin. ‘But really, Lily, don’t think you can put this all on me. Shall we tell the nice police lady what really
happened?’

When Lily refused to speak, Farley took over.

‘Lily has been a very, very naughty girl. She’s been inviting her friends to granny’s pool house for parties and they’ve been getting up to all sorts of naughtiness. Not
just drink and drugs, if you know what I mean. So late one afternoon I’m here treating Mrs Roberts and we hear glass breaking. She asks me to take a look and I find Lily and her friends out
here with Eddie Sinclair, all high as kites. You should see the pictures he took . . . not bad for an amateur.’ Farley gestured at Rosie. ‘In her defence though, she looked like she was
out of it and didn’t know what was going on.’

Maggie felt sick as she thought about the image of Rosie in the green shoes but she kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt Farley’s flow. He was talking in a singsong voice like he was
performing on stage and seemed alarmingly manic. She looked around to see if there was any way out other than the doorway he and Lily were blocking, but she couldn’t see any.

‘Now Lily here knew she was in a lot of trouble but I covered up for her with her granny, on the understanding she owed me a favour.’

‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Lily said, breaking down. ‘But I really didn’t mean to hurt Rosie.’

Farley rolled his eyes. ‘Jabbing her in the side with a knife hardly helped, did it?’

Maggie finally spoke. ‘You helped him abduct her?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. He –’ Lily jerked her head towards Farley – ‘bribed Eddie to give him the picture of Rosie because he wanted to use it to force her
to get money out of her parents. It was his idea to get Rosie to come over here on Tuesday morning when no one was around so he could tell her how much he wanted. But when I went round to her
house, she went mad at me for letting Eddie take her picture when she was drunk and told me to go away. I panicked because I knew he –’ she jerked her head at Farley again –
‘was waiting, so I threatened her with a knife to get her to come. I didn’t think she’d try to fight me. It was by accident she was stabbed.’

‘Where did you get the knife from?’

‘A drawer in her kitchen.’

‘Where is it now?’

‘I washed it and put it back.’

‘So it was you who turned off the alarm system?’

‘No, he made Eddie come with me,’ Lily said, glancing again at Farley. ‘He said if Eddie didn’t help he’d tell the police about the photographs.’ She looked
imploringly at Maggie. ‘They’re not a big deal though. We all did a couple of topless poses in return for Eddie getting us some weed and Molly.’

‘Molly is a drug, in case you didn’t know,’ said Farley with a grin. ‘Kids today, eh?’

‘We’re not kids,’ Lily snapped. ‘It was just like doing a fashion shoot. It was a laugh.’

‘Rosie didn’t look like she was having fun in the photograph I saw,’ said Maggie reproachfully. ‘You’re meant to be her friend. How could you exploit her like that?
I’m assuming they were your green shoes she’s wearing in the picture?’

Lily suddenly looked petrified, as though the implication of what she’d done had finally hit home. Her words spilled out as she tried to explain herself.

‘It’s just a bit of fun. Everyone takes topless pictures to send to guys they like. The only difference is Eddie uses a proper camera, not a phone.’

Maggie shook her head despairingly. Then a thought struck her. ‘What about Rosie’s skirt, the one we found in the meadow?’

‘Eddie put it there, not me.’

‘But you used it to try to stop the bleeding first?’ said Maggie.

‘Yes, it was the only thing to hand. Rosie let me borrow it last week to wear to a party and I asked if I could borrow it again. That was my excuse for going round to her house on
Tuesday,’ said Lily, shamefaced and shaking.

‘We haven’t found the shorts she was wearing yet.’

‘You’ll have to ask Eddie, he hid those too. He . . . he took the rest of her clothes after we brought her here,’ she said, glancing nervously at Farley, who shrugged.

‘They’re long gone,’ he said.

‘We found a trace of condom on the inside lining of Rosie’s skirt. I’m pretty certain she’s not had sex with anyone, so if you’ve borrowed the skirt last week, was
that something to do with you too?’

Maggie took the way Lily’s face flushed deep red as confirmation it was, while Farley laughed.

‘She’s no innocent, is our Lily. Just ask her ex-boyfriend Charlie.’

‘I still can’t believe you set Rosie up so Sinclair could take pictures of her. He’s a grown man, you’re still kids.’

‘He’s only twenty-one. He’s not that much older than us,’ Lily shot back.

‘And how could you let him keep her here all this time, knowing how worried her parents are?’

‘He said it would only be for a couple of days. He said he’d tell the police it was all down to me if I didn’t go along with it. I was scared.’

‘Ladies, ladies,’ Farley interrupted. ‘Can we please get back to what’s important – my money?’

‘You won’t get a penny out of the Kinnocks unless you let Rosie go,’ said Maggie firmly.