Kill Me Twice: Rosie Gilmour 7 (23 page)

*

Rosie’s first phone call at six thirty that morning had been to McGuire, who was immediately on edge when he answered.

‘This
can only be bad news, Gilmour. I’m barely out of bed.’

‘It is, Mick. It’s Millie Chambers. She’s gone.’

‘What? She did a runner?’

‘No. She was kidnapped from her hotel room. Middle of the night. Chambers must have organized it.’

‘Fucking Christ almighty! What happened?’

Rosie described the scene as he listened, and she could hear him almost breathless with disbelief.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’ve got a cracked rib. Bertie got one of his doc pals to call over and that’s what he said. Oh, and my good looks are a bit on the swollen side,’ she joked.

‘Jesus, Rosie! This is fucking serious!’

‘Yeah, well, I think Millie Chambers will know that, wherever she is.’

‘Where do you think they took her? Back to the laughing academy?’

‘I suppose so, but I don’t know how the hell we’re ever going to find out now.’

‘What about the nurse? . . . What’s her name? Bridget? Is she okay?’

‘Yeah. She slept through it. But we need to get out of here now, so we’re heading up the road. Bridget isn’t coming. She says she’s going home in case Millie gets in touch. She doesn’t want to be too far away from her if she can help in some way. She’s a lovely, caring woman, Mick, and right now
she’s the only friend Millie’s got. But Christ knows where they’ve taken her.’

‘Do you think they’d take her to another clinic?’

‘No idea. Depends on how Chambers wants to play it. If it gets out that she went walkabout, he’ll be able to say she’s back safe and sound now. If he puts her somewhere more secure, he’s going to look dodgy, considering he’s said she went in voluntarily. He won’t want people to know she’s been sectioned.’

McGuire was silent, and Rosie could almost hear him think.

‘You know what, Gilmour? I think we need to lean on this Chambers fucker. He can’t have it all his own way. We need to put some heat on him. We should think about fronting him up and telling him what we’ve got. Actually, kidnapping Millie might have been his biggest mistake.’

‘I agree, but it’s proving he was behind the kidnapping that’s the problem.’

‘Well, who the fuck else would kidnap her? It’s up to him to explain that. He’s in the shit and he must be feeling it now. All we’ve done in the paper is reveal that she was in the Madrid hotel on the night of the murder, but he’ll be suspicious that we have more. And he’ll be right. That’s why he’s gone to such lengths to track her down. How did it go last night?’

‘Great. It’ll make a terrific piece, Millie and Dan together.
He was really upset when I told him how Bella died, but he’s more determined than ever to help us.’

‘Good. I need you up here as soon as, Gilmour, so we can work out where we go next. Can you write that piece from last night on the way up?’

‘Sure,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll have it half done by the time I get to Glasgow.’

She was struggling with the pain in her ribs, but when McGuire was fired up like this she wanted to keep it that way. The lawyers would have a fight on their hands if they tried to stand in his way.

‘And what about Dan?’

‘I’m going to have to take him back to the flat. Bertie has suggested coming along with us as a minder. He’s driving my car up. He can stay with Dan while I’m working and getting things sorted. I don’t know if Chambers has any idea that Millie is talking to us, but given that he’s already tracked her down, he must have some sharp people working for him so I think it’s good to have Bertie on our side.’

‘Is this cop-turned-hotel-owner a bit mental? By that, I mean is he like that big Bosnian ghost?’

‘You mean like Adrian? No. Bertie’s all right. He was brave enough to take on these guys this morning, but he had to back down or Millie would have been shot. I think we should bring him with us.’

‘Okay.
Fair enough. Maybe he can come into the office and rustle me up a full English breakfast.’ McGuire chuckled.

*

Rosie was waiting for Bridget when she came out of the hotel and walked towards them. The car Bertie had arranged to drive her back to Eastbourne was already waiting.

‘Are you sure you want to go home, Bridget?’ Rosie said, as she approached. ‘It might be a good idea for you to disappear for a couple of days and come to Scotland with us. I can get you put up in a hotel.’

‘Not at all,’ Bridget said, folding her coat over her arm. ‘I’ll be fine. Those animals got what they came for. Poor Millie. I can’t help thinking of her back in some hospital. I’m going to my house and back to work, as if everything is fine. Maybe Millie will find a way to get in touch.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘These people haven’t won yet, and if I’ve got anything to do with it, they won’t. I hope you can do your story, Rosie. Expose the lot of them.’

‘We will, Bridget,’ Rosie said. ‘And thanks so much for getting in touch. We wouldn’t be anywhere with this investigation if it wasn’t for you.’

‘No, Rosie. You wouldn’t be anywhere with it if it wasn’t for Millie and her courage. She’s the one who was brave enough to stand up and be counted. I was only the messenger.’

‘Nevertheless,’
Rosie said, ‘I’m very grateful you came to me and nobody else.’

‘I’m confident I’ve done the right thing. I know you’ll bust a gut to get something done.’ She stepped forward and gave Rosie a motherly hug.

‘You take care, Bridget. Call me when you get home.’

‘I will, and I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything from Millie – I hope she’ll find a way to call me.’

Rosie went to the car where Dan was in the back seat, staring out of the window. ‘You okay, Dan?’

He nodded.

‘Right.’ She turned to Bertie, pain stabbing her ribs. ‘You ready to roll?’

‘I was born ready, Rosie.’

They drove off with Matt behind them.

*

Millie hadn’t screamed or struggled when they’d pushed her into the back seat of the car. She hadn’t even cried. Not as much as a whimper or a sob came out of her, even when they roughly peeled off the tape from her mouth. She vowed to show them nothing: no emotion, no anger. She just sat there, gazing out of the side window as they’d driven out of the back roads leading to the A74 South. She assumed she would be taken to London or to Sussex, back to the Dawson Institute, but she never asked. The only time she nodded was when they stopped at a motorway service area so she could use the toilet. They had warned her not
to do anything stupid, and they stood outside the entrance waiting for her. She could have run there and then in front of everyone, she could have kicked up a fuss that would have brought some kind of reaction, but she’d made up her mind to be passive. If she had caused a scene and the police were called, they’d have been told she was a patient who had been sectioned, so it wouldn’t have made any difference.

All she could do now was to hope that Rosie Gilmour and the newspaper would take up the fight on her behalf. She would be calm and co-operative, and she continued to be so even when she saw, after eight hours, that they were heading in the direction of the clinic. No doubt they would move quickly now to begin the ECT. Inside, she was terrified and lonely, on the edge of screaming. But she wouldn’t. She wondered if Colin would visit, but it was now seven in the evening. She was glad, and she made herself put any thoughts of him out of her mind. She owed it to that poor young man, Dan, to be strong and to do everything she could to keep it together. And she owed it to Bella who, even though she knew it was irrational, she still felt she had failed. Of course it was a ridiculous notion that she should step in and risk her life to save a total stranger, but it didn’t make her feel any less guilty.

When the nurses came and went with, they did so with quiet organization and few words. They gave her medication, which she assured them she had taken, but when they
left, she had taken it from the inside of her jaw where she’d lodged it and flushed it down the toilet. She would escape again. She would find a way. But, first, she had to let Bridget know where she was so that she could relay the information to Rosie. She was one gutsy woman – especially when she’d kicked out at the kidnapper.

They brought Millie her evening meal, and she sat at the little table by the window in her room, picking at the fish pie. It was decent enough but it was a prison meal, even if it was for a well-heeled prisoner. She would have loved a glass of white wine, and a bottle would have been even more welcome, but Millie managed to keep a lid on her cravings. She knew she wasn’t an alcoholic, despite the drunken benders she frequently went on: they were all about escaping from what her life had become. Now she had to be firing on all cylinders. She glimpsed out into the corridor, the polished floors and the quiet activity of nurses and staff going about their business. She ate her meal and gazed out of the window at the blaze of daffodils in the fading evening light.

Then she became aware of a figure in the doorway. The woman with the snowy hair whom she’d met in the grounds the morning she escaped stood watching her, a roguish smile playing on her thin lips. Millie said nothing but smiled and blinked in acknowledgement, hoping she would go away. But she stood staring. Then she took a step inside the room, and Millie began to feel a little uneasy.
She wondered who had locked her up in here, and how long ago.

‘I see they brought you back,’ she whispered, coming a little closer to Millie. ‘I knew they’d get you. But at least you lasted longer than me. Good on you. I heard you climbed the gate.’ She grinned.

Millie didn’t know what to say. But the woman wasn’t threatening, so she smiled back.

‘They found me in four hours,’ the woman said. ‘I was just sitting in a cafe and in they came. The bastards.’

‘Really? I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Yep. You must have had help, though. I had no help. I just climbed the gate and ran like blazes. Stupid, when I think of it.’ She came even closer so that she was standing over Millie. ‘I heard one of the nurses whispering that you were away up north or something.’

Millie said nothing, but the woman looked lonely. She motioned her to sit down. ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.

The woman folded her arms and crossed her legs, her linen trousers creeping up to expose wrinkled shins. ‘Lost count. But it’s a very long time. Years. I’m not even sure what age I am now. All the medication they give me made me a bit of a loony. I forget a lot of things.’

‘Years?’ Millie raised her eyebrows. ‘It’s supposed to be a clinic for people to rest. People who’ve had a breakdown come here for some therapy.’

The
woman nodded.

‘Yes, that too. But it depends on who you are. If you’ve got enough money, you can stick anyone in here for keeps. And they can do what they like with you once you’ve been sectioned – like me.’ She gave Millie a whimsical look. ‘That’s what’s happened to you, I’d say. I know who you are. I watched the news. You’re the Tory wife. They were all talking about you when you came in. And when you did a runner . . .’ she cackled and broke into a chesty cough ‘. . . the place was in uproar. It was brilliant!’ Then her face became serious. ‘I’m sorry they caught you. But that’s it now. It’s not like the movies, you know. You’re not Papillon. You can’t keep escaping. Eventually you’ll realize you’re stuck here.’

Millie sighed. ‘I know. Do you have any family?’

She shook her head. ‘None that will admit to it.’

‘Why are you here?’

She shrugged. ‘I kept trying to do myself in.’

‘Oh.’

‘But I wasn’t very good at it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?’ she said, with a slightly mad glint in her eye.

‘Why? I mean, I don’t want to pry, but why did you want to kill yourself? Sorry. If it’s too difficult, please forgive me – forget I asked.’

The woman looked through her, the grey eyes a little glazed. ‘They took my baby away. A very long time ago. That’s
what caused it. The shrinks in here told me that, as if I didn’t bloody know.’

‘My God, how awful! What happened?’

The woman pinched the thin skin on the back of her hands. ‘Scandal. I was only fifteen. My parents were stinking rich, respected upper middle-class and all that stuff. Like your Tory toff husband. But I was the rebel daughter. All the schools and the money they spent on me, the life they had planned for me – probably the husband they’d find for me – I ruined it for them. Fell for a local boy at the fairground one summer.’ She shook her head. ‘Thought it was true love. But of course it was just for that one summer. I never saw him again, but he left a baby in my belly.’

‘Oh,’ Millie said.

‘Yes. Bit of a shock. Anyway, that was swiftly covered up and the baby was snatched away from me the moment the little thing popped its head out.’ She swallowed and her face tightened. ‘I screamed so much for so long that I couldn’t speak for days. Then I just stopped speaking. That was it. They shut me away. I was damaged, stained. Soiled goods. Nobody would want me.’

‘But where are your family?’

‘My parents are dead now, obviously, but they just kept putting me in various institutions. You see, the problem is, I stole a baby. Only for half an hour. I was fifteen. I just wanted a baby to hold. Christ! My heart was broken, and nobody could see that.’ Suddenly tears rolled down her cheeks.

Millie
could do nothing but sit and watch and fight back her own tears, the longing for her own child, the memory coming back of how her body wouldn’t allow her to carry a baby longer than three months. She reached across and touched the woman’s thin arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She nodded and wiped her tears with hands.

‘Are they not able to help you here? I mean with counselling and the things you need?’

‘They tried. They gave me a lot of that ECT, and maybe it helped for a while, but I don’t think so. My head’s a bit frazzled with it. They do nothing now, just give me food, lock my door at night and put up with me. It’s like a posh prison. It
is
a posh prison, actually. I’ll never get out. All my family money is in trust, and they just fork out the fees every month, probably by standing order. That’s what I am. A standing order. Nobody comes to see me. They’ve forgotten about me.’