Gone Astray (41 page)

‘That bitch pushed in front of me!’ he shouted. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like, knowing I came so close to winning and knowing it was almost certainly my only
chance because no one’s ever that lucky twice – and it was just taken from me?’ For a second he brandished the knife at Maggie. ‘You think I’m stupid for trying to get
my money back, I can see it on your face. But if you knew the pain I had to live with every day, you’d understand.’

‘Pain? What pain?’ Maggie scoffed.

Farley spun round and pulled his T-shirt up. She winced at the livid scar running the length of his spine.

‘Nine operations I’ve had, and still it’s no better.’ He choked on his words. ‘I just want it put right but they wouldn’t help me, wouldn’t give me a
penny. I never meant for the girl to get hurt. All I was going to do was tell her I’d send Eddie’s picture to her mum and dad unless she paid me.’ His face clouded over.
‘Then this stupid cow and Sinclair fucked it up. Once she was injured there was no way they could leave her at her house so Eddie called me and I carried her round here.’

‘You’ve been caught together on CCTV, by the security gate.’

Farley smirked. ‘Took you a while to put two and two together, did it? Yes, I drove here but I parked in the next street. I went along the back pathway on foot to get to Verma Lodge and
the Kinnocks’ garden.’

‘How did you get Rosie past Mrs Roberts?’

‘I told Nana I wanted to go shopping and she drove me into Mansell,’ said Lily morosely.

‘But you must’ve had blood on you from Rosie?’

‘I didn’t, Eddie did. He was the one who used the skirt to stop it.’

‘Where is your grandmother now?’

‘I don’t know. She wasn’t in when I arrived earlier.’

‘Actually,’ said Farley, ‘she’s in the compost heap. I’m afraid we had a disagreement.’

Lily burst into tears. ‘No, not Nana!’

Maggie’s heart hammered wildly against her ribcage. She needed to get Rosie and Lily out of there.

‘Look, this is your chance to put it all right,’ she told Farley. ‘Let me get Rosie to hospital and I know her parents will be grateful.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not fucking stupid.’

‘Listen to her,’ Lily begged him. ‘Let us go.’

Farley turned to address Lily, giving Maggie the split second she needed to act. But as she dived across the floor to kick his legs out from under him, he spun round and swooped his hand down
and she cried out as the knife blade sliced into her forearm. As blood bubbled from the wound, she dropped her mobile in shock.

Lily screamed and ran for the door but Farley was too quick for her. The knife went into the back of her shoulder up to the hilt and the teenager jerked horribly as blood gushed through the hole
it made in her T-shirt.

‘Leave her alone!’ Maggie yelled.

As she tried to crawl across to Lily, who’d pitched forward onto the floor, Farley grabbed her hair and pulled her off. From the corner of her eye she saw Rosie stir and she panicked. She
had to stop Farley before he noticed too. Ignoring the searing white-hot pain from the wound in her arm, Maggie groped her hand across the floorboards until her fingers made contact with the jar
holding the daffodils. Clenching her hand around it, she swung her arm as hard as she could and smashed the glass into the side of Farley’s head. Bits of glass, petals and water went flying
across the room as he keeled over, blood pouring from his temple. He lost his grip on the knife and Maggie kicked it out of his reach before managing to cuff him. Then, almost crying with relief,
she staggered across the pool house to the day bed, where Rosie had slipped back into unconsciousness.

‘It’s okay,’ whispered Maggie, squeezing her hand. ‘You’re safe now, Rosie. You’re safe.’

Mack was awake when Lesley returned to his room. He smiled wanly as she entered and his lips felt dry and cracked against hers as she kissed him hello. He was wearing his
glasses again.

‘You gave me such a scare,’ she chided him. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

‘I’m sorry, love. Is there any news?’

She shook her head, desperate to block out the image that popped into her mind of their daughter’s cold, lifeless body on a metal gurney in a bleak, sterile mortuary. She had tried so hard
in the past few days not to think about Rosie being found dead, her body battered and destroyed as it lay in a ditch or shallow grave or some other desolate and lonely final resting place, and had
clung to the belief that, as her mum, she would know if Rosie had been killed because she’d feel it. But with Sinclair’s arrest seemingly bringing them no closer to finding her, she was
suddenly tortured by images of them cradling Rosie’s body and being at her funeral surrounded by teenagers sobbing as her favourite pop songs were piped through tinny speakers.

‘They’ll find her soon,’ said Mack. ‘They have to.’

Lesley stared down at her husband. She loved him so much that sometimes the feeling overwhelmed her.

‘Mack, I know about Faye.’

He was visibly stunned. ‘How?’ he croaked.

‘Suzy came to the hospital. She told me everything.’

‘I’m so sorry, love,’ he said as tears spilled down his cheeks. ‘I should never have said she was blackmailing me. I thought you’d go mad if you knew I’d
slept with her again.’

‘Maybe if I’d found out at the time I would’ve done, but that’s in the past now. What’s important is that you do the right thing by Faye.’

‘You mean you don’t mind me giving her money?’

‘No, I don’t. She’s your child – of course you must support her. Suzy showed me a picture.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘She looks like Rosie.’

Mack leaned back against his pillow and exhaled deeply. ‘You are an incredible woman, Lesley Kinnock. I don’t deserve you.’

She smiled. ‘I’ll remind you of that—’

The door suddenly opened and in walked Maggie, face solemn, clothes dishevelled, her right forearm bandaged. Terrified, Lesley clutched Mack’s hand, ready to hear the worst. Then Maggie
surprised them both by breaking into a wide smile.

‘We’ve found her. She’s alive.’

Lesley stared at her in disbelief. Then she staggered forward and fell into Mack’s arms.

‘Oh God, oh God, our baby, I thought, I thought . . .’

She clung to her husband for a moment then turned to Maggie. ‘Where is she? We want to see her.’

‘She’s here at the hospital, down on the first floor. We can take you there now.’ Maggie held the door open to let a nurse and a porter pushing a wheelchair into the room. Both
of them looked emotional as they said hello to Mack and Lesley.

‘We’re so pleased your daughter is safe,’ the nurse told them.

Lesley fidgeted impatiently as the porter eased Mack out of bed and into the wheelchair. The nurse wheeled his IV drip alongside him as the group headed to the lifts, where Belmar waited.
Smiling, he gave Mack and Lesley each a hug and told them how happy he was.

‘How is she?’ Mack asked him.

‘She’s got a stab wound to her abdomen that’s become infected and she needs surgery to clean it up because she’s at risk from blood poisoning. She’s very poorly
right now, but she should be okay,’ he said.

‘Where did you find her?’ asked Lesley. ‘What happened to her?’

‘Let’s get you to Rosie, then we’ll talk,’ said Maggie.

Lesley’s insides turned to ice. ‘Was she, well . . . hurt?’

‘We don’t think so but I’m afraid we won’t know for sure until she’s been fully examined,’ Maggie replied.

Tears sluiced down Lesley’s cheeks. ‘My poor baby. I should’ve been there to protect her.’

Mack held her hand as they both cried.

Maggie spoke gently to them. ‘I know this is hard, but try not to let Rosie see you so upset. She’s been through a terrible ordeal and is a long way from the end of it. She’s
going to need a lot of love and support to deal with everything that’s happened to her. So you need to stay as strong as you’ve been all this week and let Rosie know she can count on
you both, okay?’

They nodded fervently and Lesley wiped her eyes. The hurricane had hit – now was not the time to let it break them.

When the lift reached the first floor, Maggie led the group through a set of doors marked
PRE-OPERATIVE SUITE
. ‘The nurses are just getting her ready through
there.’ She let go of Lesley’s hand and pushed the door ajar so the porter could wheel Mack through. As the nurse positioned the drip, the porter pushed Mack up to the side of the
bed.

‘We’ll wait out here,’ said Maggie, letting the door swing shut behind them.

As Lesley approached the bed she gave a strangled cry. It was just as she had imagined in her nightmare. There was Rosie, lying on a gurney, her dark hair fanned across the pillow. Except that
while her eyelids were closed, she could see a tiny flicker of movement beneath them. It was the most beautiful sight Lesley had ever seen. Across the bed, Mack wept.

‘What did they do to our little girl?’ he cried.

Lesley kissed Rosie’s cheek. Her heart soared as she felt the warmth of her skin against her lips.

‘Baby, it’s me, Mum. You’re in the hospital. Dad’s here too.’

Despite his frailty, Mack managed to raise himself out of the wheelchair and lean against the bed just as Rosie’s eyes fluttered open. Her gaze locked first on him, then on Lesley. Despite
Maggie’s warning, Lesley couldn’t hold back her tears and they splashed onto the pillow, wetting her daughter’s hair.

‘Oh, Rosie, I thought we’d lost you,’ she cried.

Tears trickled from the corners of Rosie’s eyes.

‘Mum . . .’ she whispered.

‘Sssh, don’t talk, save your energy.’

She gently wiped Rosie’s damp cheeks with her fingertips.

‘I love you, sweetheart. I love you so much.’

‘So do I, honey,’ said Mack. ‘We both do.’

Rosie’s mouth lifted at the corners as she finally managed a smile.

Saturday

The operation went well. Afterwards Rosie was moved to the intensive care unit where antibiotics were administered intravenously to fight the infection. If she had a good
night, the consultant told Lesley, she’d be moved to a general ward in the morning and the police could then begin the long, delicate process of interviewing her to find out exactly what had
happened while she was kept captive by Adrian Farley.

Lesley yawned as she stretched her legs out in front of her. Mack was back in his room on the third floor and the nurses had drawn a recliner chair up to Rosie’s bedside so she could sleep
alongside her. Yet even though she was shattered, Lesley knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She daren’t close her eyes for a second, scared that if she did she might wake up and it
would all be a dream and Rosie would be gone again. She doubted she would ever sleep properly again.

As the hours ticked past midnight, her emotions lurched back and forth on a sliding scale with joy at one end and sadness at the other. As overwhelmed with happiness as she was at her
daughter’s return, she also knew that the Rosie lying in the bed next to her was not the same Rosie she had waved goodbye to four days ago. How could she be? The trauma of her experience
would see to that. Lesley had no idea if she and Mack had it in them to help Rosie come to terms with what she’d gone through. How did any parent prepare for something like that? There was no
manual for it on the bookshelves alongside the ones dealing with weaning, potty training and puberty. But she resolved they’d get through it, one way or another.

She yawned again before deciding a cup of tea might help keep her awake. Her footsteps echoed up the corridor but the only other sound was the steady beeping of machines as they monitored and
aided the hospital’s most gravely ill patients through another night. The noise acted as a salutary reminder that she should be thankful Rosie wasn’t more seriously hurt.

After the vending machine swallowed four pound coins in a row, Lesley managed to extract a cup of the most insipid tea she’d ever tasted. She sipped the scalding, mud-coloured liquid as
she walked slowly to the relatives’ room, where she was surprised to find Maggie watching the BBC’s twenty-four-hour news channel on a wall-mounted TV screen with the sound down and
subtitles on. Rosie being found topped the bulletin.

‘I didn’t realize you were still here,’ she said, taking the seat next to Maggie, who was sitting cross-legged in her chair, her shoes kicked off on the floor in front of
her.

‘I thought I’d stick around for a while, just in case you needed me.’

‘You should go home. How’s your arm?’

‘Sore, but it’s fine.’

‘Will it scar?’

‘I didn’t ask. Probably. It doesn’t matter though.’

Lesley set the cup of tea down on the low table in front of them, next to a pile of leaflets on how to quit smoking. She couldn’t face another sip.

‘I know I’ve said it already, but thank you for what you did today.’

Maggie smiled. ‘I’m just glad she’s safe.’

‘I spoke to Belmar earlier, before he went home, and he seemed to think you might be in trouble for going into the house on your own.’

Maggie shrugged. ‘DCI Umpire wanted me to stay outside until he and the back-up team arrived. He was pretty angry with me when he got there, but I think it’ll be okay. There’s
a debriefing in the morning and we’ll talk about it then.’

‘If he gives you any grief, let me know and I’ll have something to say about it. You did a very brave thing today, Maggie, and Mack and I will never forget it. We owe you our
daughter’s life.’

Maggie looked choked for a moment as she nodded.

‘You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?’ Lesley added.

‘Belmar and I will both be around for a while yet. We’ll continue to be your family liaison throughout the criminal proceedings.’

‘You mean if there’s a trial?’

‘Yes. There’s still a long road ahead, I’m afraid.’

Lesley exhaled. She felt tired now, ready for sleep.

‘I still can’t believe Lily knew where she was all this time. How bad did you say her injury was?’

‘She was lucky. The blade missed the artery in her shoulder and she should be fine.’