Missing (27 page)

She was sorry about breaking her word to Miles, but since she’d never really intended to keep it, the regret was minimal. Besides, he’d be the first to understand that with all that was happening, no journalist in their right mind could be expected to keep this kind of exclusive to themselves, particularly not one who was in such dire need of career rescue. And this would do it in spades, because it wasn’t only going to secure her future with the
Mail
, it was going to make that smarmy, loud-mouthed philistine of an editor she had now apoplectic with rage when he realised she’d double-crossed him and delivered to another of his great rivals.

It took no more than thirty minutes to write the piece. It was a pity Figgis hadn’t managed to get any shots of the boy yet, but hey, she couldn’t have everything, and there were bound to be some library pictures of Sam they could dig out for baby appeal.

After checking her story through, making it as
sensational
as she could, she sat back for a moment, savouring the triumph. While everyone else ran with the discovery of a body and possible murder, she was going to splash the most powerful motive of all, right across the front page.

Only after she’d clicked to send, and received confirmation that the email and its attachment had gone, did she feel a twinge of trepidation for what it was going to mean having both Miles Avery and Gareth Critchley as lifelong enemies. It wasn’t a prospect that thrilled her, especially considering how powerful both men were. However, it was too late to go back now, and picking up the TV remote she tuned to the latest news.

A few minutes later she was still sitting in her chair, staring in disbelief at the screen. The body belonged to a man, not a woman. Everyone had assumed … She spun back to her computer, but the email had long gone.

It’s OK, she told herself, taking deep breaths. A corpse turning up right next to the Avery land when Jacqueline was still missing was good enough grounds to run with the motive for her murder. Hell, for all she knew there could be half a dozen bodies out there, and even if none of them turned out to be Jacqueline, it still didn’t change the fact that the exclusive of Miles and Vivienne’s love child was going to be snapped up by someone else if she didn’t act now.

Nevertheless, it was with a sick feeling inside that she began to contemplate exactly how Miles might respond to her betrayal, not to mention how badly it was going to go down with the Critch.

‘
Nooooo!
’ Kelsey screamed, clasping her hands to her head as she shook it from side to side. ‘No! No! No!’

White-faced, Miles tried to go to her but she pushed him away, tears of confusion streaming down her cheeks.

‘Leave me alone!’ she yelled, saliva spraying from her lips. ‘I don’t want you near me.’

‘Darling, it’s all right,’ he said, keeping his voice gentle.

‘You’re lying to me. Everyone’s lying all the time,’ she sobbed. ‘Why did you say …?
No!
’ she shrieked as he tried to approach her again. ‘You have to stop this, all of you,’ she raged, turning her stricken face to Sadler and Joy. ‘You said it was a woman …’

‘Kelsey, no one—’ Sadler began.

‘I can’t take any more. Do you hear me? I hate her. I hate you all. Just leave me alone …’ Rushing past them, she tore open the door and ran out into the bleak afternoon.

Miles was close behind, running across the courtyard to try to stop her, but she was too fast. The kitchen door slammed and locked behind her before she charged up the back stairs to her room.

Feeling the same turmoil of emotions that was tearing her apart, he returned to the sitting room where Sadler and Joy were still waiting. His dark eyes were cold as they took in Sadler’s solemn expression. Next to Sadler DC Joy was nervously clutching her mobile, while her pale, anxious face turned repeatedly to the door. He wasn’t going to speak. He was only going to fix Sadler with all the contempt the man deserved, and let him damned well squirm in it.

With a gruff clearing of his throat Sadler said, ‘We’ll be in touch in the morning,’ and nodding to Joy he started out of the room.

The instant they’d gone Miles went upstairs to try
and
talk to Kelsey. There was no reply when he knocked, but she was clearly in there, because the door was locked and when he called out, her music went on to drown him out.

Sighing heavily, he took himself back downstairs and dialled her mobile number. As he’d feared he went straight through to voicemail. ‘Kelsey,’ he said quietly, but firmly. ‘I know today has been hard for you, but it’s going to be all right, darling. I promise. Of course it wasn’t Mum they found, we knew that even before they told us it was a man …’ Hearing the emptiness of his reassurance, his eyes closed in despair. How the hell was he going to get her through this when the police weren’t bothering to stop false rumours hitting the news, and the press themselves were so keen to make this into a murder, most likely committed by him?

Thunderclouds were drawing a veil over the sun and a sharp wind bowed the trees over the drive as Sadler and Joy walked away from the house. Neither of them spoke, they merely stared grimly ahead, still sobered by Kelsey’s understandable explosion.

Feeling the chill in the air, Joy pocketed her mobile and zipped up her coat. She’d like to think she hadn’t been a part of what had happened in this valley today, allowing a child to believe her mother was dead and then retracting it, but she had, and now somehow she had to live with it.

Not until they were next to a golden cascade of angel’s trumpets where Sadler had left his car did he finally turn to Joy and say with a sigh, ‘Well, Detective Constable, that body belongs to someone, so now we need to find out who.’

Joy’s eyes were slightly glazed as she turned in the direction of the lower woods where the body had been found. The image of it was staying with her, forlorn and huddled, as though for warmth, in a bed of damp leaves, the exposed skin of its skeletal hands and its sodden clothes smeared with a slimy green sphagnum. As the pathologist had wiped moss and insects from the face she’d looked away, switching her mind from the sad indignity to the rippling song of a hidden curlew. She was a nature lover, so could name many of the grasses and birds around, which was what she’d done, in her mind, to prevent herself from throwing up. ‘Whoever he is,’ she said, ‘do you think he could be connected to Mrs Avery in some way?’

Sadler’s weariness showed in the heaviness of his eyes. ‘You mean apart from turning up dead right next to her land? Who knows, Elaine? Who knows?’

Looking back at him she gave a small smile and opened the passenger door. She was aware that Sadler had let the rumour float that it was a female body in an effort to wrongfoot Avery, maybe rattle him into making some kind of confession. As a tactic it had spectacularly backfired, and as a decision it stank as badly as the corpse. It just went to prove, she thought dully as they began driving away, that even smart men didn’t always get it right.

Miles was sitting in the semi-darkness, his head resting on the back of the sofa, his hands lying loosely beside him. He’d tried several times now to coax Kelsey out of her room, but she still wouldn’t come down, in spite of him telling her that they’d identified the body on the moor. It belonged to a forty-eight-year old man by the name of Timothy Grainger, whose alcohol abuse,
vagrancy
and petty crimes were well known to the police. No one could say yet how he’d come to be in the woods, much less how he’d ended up the way he had.

‘Might he be someone your wife knew?’ DC Joy had asked doubtfully when she’d called to tell him the news.

‘It seems unlikely,’ he’d answered, keeping it polite. ‘It’s not a name I’ve ever heard her mention.’

‘OK, thank you. I’ll be back in touch once we’ve established the cause of death, or if any new information comes to light.’

In a sane world he knew he’d make Sadler pay for the games he’d played today, but with Jacqueline still missing, and a stranger’s corpse turning up on the far side of their woods, the world was anything but sane.

Sighing, he glanced at his watch, then closed his eyes as his thoughts drifted out across the stark, misted plains of the moor, down into the clefts, over the harsh granite tors to the rugged uplands, so remote and forbidding. Jacqueline had never been able to feel the romance of the moor, had always failed to see the beauty in its rivers and waterfalls, wooded valleys and colourful heathland. She found everything about it sinister and threatening, detested its folklore and was afraid of its wildlife. To think of her out there on a night like this, alone, lost, maybe even …

Sitting forward, he put his head in his hands. Why was he tormenting himself like this when she was no more out there on the moor than she was here in this house? He had to let go of such madness or he’d be no good to himself, never mind anyone else.

Inhaling deeply, he drew his hands down over his unshaven face and let the breath go slowly. Somewhere in the distance thunder was rumbling through
the
heavens, while rain pattered against the windows of the room. The garden lights were on now, and as far as he could make out everyone had gone home. Whether they were planning to continue the search tomorrow he had no idea, nor, at this moment, did he particularly care. He only wanted to go on sitting in this silence, trying to work out what he was going to do about Kelsey. She had to be his priority, he was in no doubt about that, but knowing he had a son who needed him, and whose first fifteen months of life had already been lost to him … He didn’t want to waste any more time. Even now he was longing to see the boy, hold him in his arms, and feel the energy of his young life.

It couldn’t happen yet, though, so at some point he would call Vivienne to tell her that in spite of the way he’d reacted, she was right to protect their son the way she had, and that she should continue to until all this was over. He wouldn’t do it tonight. He’d endured enough attacks on his father’s conscience for one day, and had neither the energy, nor the will right now, to try dealing with any more.

Chapter Twelve

‘VIVI, HI, ARE
you OK?’ Alice said, sounding oddly tentative.

Instantly tensing, Vivienne said, ‘I’m fine. Just giving Rufus his breakfast.’

‘OK. I don’t suppose you’ve seen the
Mail
yet today?’

Vivienne’s heart immediately contracted. ‘No, Mum takes the
Express
. Why? What’s in it?’

‘You’d better brace yourself. I’m afraid Rufus – or Miles’s love child as they’re calling him – has made the front page.’

‘Oh my God,’ Vivienne murmured, putting down the spoon she was holding.

‘The byline belongs to Justine James.’

Vivienne almost reeled. ‘But how does she know? She can’t …’ Her eyes closed. ‘Miles wouldn’t have told her. He just wouldn’t.’

‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Alice agreed.

More dismay sank into Vivienne’s heart. ‘There’s only one other person I can think of,’ she said flatly. ‘My sister, Caroline.’

Alice didn’t comment, showing that her suspicions had already moved in that direction.

‘Or her husband,’ Vivienne continued. ‘One of them has to be the source.’

‘But why now, when they’ve always known?’

‘The payout, I imagine. It would have shot up the day Jacqueline disappeared.’ A surge of fury tightened her voice. ‘To think that my own family could—’ She turned round as her mother came into the kitchen. ‘Can you pop out and get the
Mail
?’ she said. ‘Apparently they’ve found out about Rufus.’ Then to Alice, ‘Please tell me it’s not giving away where we live.’

‘Not exactly. It just says that you’ve got him tucked away in the depths of Berkshire, clearly hoping to protect him from, I quote, “the deranged grief of his father’s wife, the tragically bereaved Jacqueline Avery who has been missing from her home—”’

‘Stop,’ Vivienne interrupted. ‘This is exactly what I was afraid of.’

Linda was putting on her coat, her face as ashen as Vivienne’s. ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ she called from the front door, and let herself out into the rain.

‘The innuendo is brutal,’ Alice said. ‘It’s worse for Miles, but you’re not coming out of it too well either.’

‘Give me the gist,’ Vivienne said, stooping to pick up the spoon that had flown from Rufus’s hand.

‘You can probably guess at most of it. It’s insinuating that you and Miles have conspired to get rid of Jacqueline in order to protect Rufus from any violent reaction she might have to finding out Miles has a son. It’s couched in softer terms than that, obviously, to avoid a lawsuit, but the suggestion is, you – and Miles in particular – have a very good reason for wanting his wife out of the way.’

‘That woman is
sick
,’ Vivienne spat in disgust. ‘There’s not even anything to say Jacqueline’s dead.’

‘Sic, sic, sic,’ Rufus echoed, bouncing up and down in his high chair.

Vivienne put a hand on his head. ‘Doesn’t she have any sense of responsibility?’ she seethed. ‘Or a conscience? I don’t even know why I’m asking, when we already know she’s devoid of anything approaching human decency.’

‘Are you going to call Miles?’

‘I’ve been trying for the past twenty-four hours, but so far he hasn’t called back.’

‘He’s bound to have seen the paper by now.’

‘Of course. He has them all delivered first thing, which means he’ll be having to deal with Kelsey. Is there any more about the body they found? Does anyone know who it belonged to yet?’

‘Yes, apparently it’s some homeless guy by the name of, hang on, Timothy Grainger. No one knows how he got there yet, but you can imagine how the clever dicks are trying to concoct some sort of relationship with Jacqueline. It’s more thrilling if there is a connection, I suppose, it satisfies the salacious brain cell, which is next door to the other one they have that lets them know when they need food.’

Vivienne’s smile was weak. ‘I guess it’s quite an offering when you’re in the business of peddling scandal,’ she said.

‘I guess it is,’ Alice agreed. ‘Anyway, I’m afraid I have to love you and leave you now, I’ve got a meeting in Soho at eleven, but before I go, I think this new turn of events is going to make it extremely difficult for you to continue in Devon, don’t you? So let’s talk later and discuss a complete swap for you and Pete.’