Ready or Not (25 page)

             
‘She lost her mother, you know,’ Mrs Evans told her, lowering her voice in case Sophie was within earshot. ‘Awfully sad business. Car accident. Whole family were in the car at the time, but her mother wasn’t wearing a seatbelt you see. Tragic, really.’

             
‘What about her father?’ Kate asked. ‘Does she see him often?’

             
‘Her father? Lord, no. Now, it’s not for me to cast judgement, but the authorities have said he’s unfit, you see. Didn’t cope very well after the death of his wife.’ She glanced towards the living room door and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Alcoholic. Lost his mind, by all accounts. Children were left to fend for themselves, more or less. Hit poor Sophie, bless her soul.’

             
Kate felt sick. The room was suddenly very warm and she felt claustrophobic.

             
‘Are you OK?’ asked Mrs Evans. ‘You look white as a sheet.’

*

Kate stood at the open back door, breathing some much needed fresh air and wishing that she was anywhere but this claustrophobic kitchen with this sullen teenager. Sophie sat quietly.

             
‘Tell me about what happened to you, Sophie,’ she said. ‘After the accident.’

             
Sophie paused before she responded. ‘What’s there to say? Dad hated us – me and Ben. Blamed us for Mum’s death, but especially me. I don’t blame him. It was my fault.’

             
Kate sat back at the table. ‘From what I’ve heard, Sophie, it was neither you nor Ben’s fault. Your mother wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. It was an accident.’

             
Sophie laughed bitterly and threw her head back, looking to the ceiling. ‘An accident? Nothing happens by accident,’ she said. ‘That’s just what they tell you to make you feel better. Only it doesn’t, does it?’ She lowered her face again and looked at Kate. ‘I was arguing with Ben because he’d taken one of my pens and chewed the end of it, just because I’d told him not to. I killed my mother over a gel pen.’

             
Kate studied the girl’s sad eyes at she stared down at the table top in front of her and felt guilty at having thought badly of her at their first meeting. The girl was just a child – not as tough or headstrong as she liked to think herself – and she had already been through more than most people endured during a lifetime. No wonder she was so defensive and so uptight. She blamed herself for her mother’s death, and she would probably blame herself all her life.

             
The girl shook her head, as if to snap herself from her daydream. ‘What do you need to know?’ she asked. ‘Look, you came about Ben, not me. I can tell you where Ben is. My father, the lying bastard, could have told you where Ben is.’

             
For the briefest moment, Kate could have sworn she felt her heart falter. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, leaning forward on the table. ‘What do you mean?’

             
‘Whenever Ben goes ‘missing’ there’s only one place he’ll ever be,’ she said, rolling her eyes cynically. ‘Auntie Claire’s house. Mum’s sister. She lives in Newport now, been there a couple of years. I can’t remember her phone number, but it’s saved in my email inbox somewhere.’

             
Claire had already been contacted and had denied seeing or hearing from Ben.

             
Why would she lie to the police?

             
Perhaps Sophie had got it wrong.

             
‘Why wouldn’t your father have told me this?’ Kate asked, hearing her own voice falter.

             
Sophie laughed bitterly. ‘He’s a bloody liar,’ she said, angry now. ‘Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie.’

             
Kate sat back in her chair and thought of the lunch she had shared with Neil days before; the evening she had spent with him last night, the way in which she had confided in him and the things she had told him, things she told hardly anyone; the way he had kissed her cheek when they said goodbye.

             
Another man who had knowingly misled her. Christ, Kate, she scorned herself. You can pick them.

             
But surely he couldn’t know where Ben had been all week? Why would he let her head an investigation into the disappearance of a boy who wasn’t actually missing?

             
Sophie was wrong. She had to be.

             
‘Is Ben close to your Aunt, Sophie?’

             
She nodded. ‘Always has been. He’s always loved her to bits for some reason. If only he knew what she was really like.’

             
Kate shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie, I’m not following. If only he knew what?’

             
Sophie looked Kate in the eye. ‘My dad doesn’t hate me because I caused the argument in the car that day,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s just easier for him that way. He’s so busy hating me he hasn’t got time to think about what a bastard he is.’

             
She stopped and bit her bottom lip, anger rising in her voice.

             
‘He hates me because I know what he is. Ask Claire. Her own sister. How could you do that to your own sister? She must have been the reason we moved here – all that crap about his job, I always knew it was bullshit. He was never working - he was always sneaking off somewhere. All that time on the computer, all those secretive phone calls. He used to make me feel like shit when I was younger – made me feel as though I’d killed my own mother and it was my fault that everything had gone tits up. Only, it wasn’t my fault, not all of it. It was shit even before she’d died.’

             
Sophie turned her head away, trying to hide her tears from Kate. When she looked back again her mascara was streaked down her cheeks in black rivers.

             
‘My mother should have stayed around to find out the truth,’ choking back tears. ‘If the crash hadn’t killed her, finding out her husband was sleeping with her sister would have done the trick.’

Thirty Four

Chris couldn’t wait to see how Matthew would react to this.

             
He rang the buzzer outside the club and waited for a voice on the intercom.

             
‘Chris Jones,’ he introduced himself, recognising the voice belonging to the woman he’d called less than an hour before. ‘We spoke earlier.’

             
The intercom clicked off and they waited as the manager made her way to the door. She was smartly dressed in fitted trousers and tailored jacket and as the two men followed her into the club she walked with the air of someone who was too busy to be disturbed and didn’t really have the time to waste on them. It seemed they were inconveniencing everyone today, Chris thought.

             
She led them through the main bar area and took them both to the office. The main floor of the club was deserted except for a woman who was cleaning the bar ready for this evening’s opening. Chris was disappointed that their visit hadn’t taken place later in the evening when Candy’s was opened for business. He would have loved to have watched Matthew’s reaction; the gangly, misplaced awkwardness that seemed to characterise him.

             
‘I’m new,’ the manager said brusquely. ‘I’ve only been running the place since just before Christmas. Some of these cameras don’t actually have any film in them, so it’ll be luck if you get what you want.’

             
She spoke in a business-like manner and moved about the office briskly, as though her time should be spent more productively. She took a set of keys from the top drawer of the desk and opened the store cupboard in the corner of the office.

             
‘Why are some of them without film?’ Chris asked.

             
‘Expense,’ the manager said bluntly. ‘Seeing them there is usually enough of a deterrent, so there’s no need for all of them to be running.’

             
Matthew caught Chris’ attention by kicking him in the ankle. He was staring at a pile of flyers on the desk, adorned with the image of an almost nude female wrapped provocatively around a pole. Chris gave him a look that said ‘so what?’

             
‘Is this a members-only club?’ Chris asked, ignoring Matthew.

             
‘Yes,’ she answered.

             
‘Could you check, see if you’ve got a member called Neil Davies?’ he asked. ‘No rush,’ he added, trying to keep her sweet. He smiled and turned to Matthew who grimaced in response. He couldn’t wait to get out of there.

             
‘Will do,’ she replied.

             
Minutes later she emerged from the store cupboard with a disc in hand. She passed two discs to Chris. ‘One’s just above the bar and the other is by the side of the dance floor,’ she explained. ‘Anything outside those areas I can’t help you with.’

             
She sat down at the desk and logged herself onto the computer system.

             
‘Who am I looking for?’

             
‘Neil Davies,’ Chris reminded her.

             
She typed the name and searched the database. She shook her head. ‘No, nothing,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

             
‘What about a Joseph Ryan?’ Matthew asked.

             
She repeated the process. ‘Got him,’ she said. She raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Quite a regular member by the looks of it,’ she commented, seeing the extensive list of visits Joseph Ryan had made during the past twelve months.

             
‘And he was here last night?’ Chris said.

             
The manageress pressed a few keys and waited for a result. ‘Certainly was,’ she confirmed.

             
Chris tapped the discs on his lap. ‘Thanks. I’ll hold onto these,’ he said. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

*

Matthew couldn’t leave the place quickly enough. He even avoided eye contact with the cleaner, who smiled at him as he made his way back through the club. Chris couldn’t help but laugh.

             
‘Alright?’ he asked, overly cheerily.

             
‘Fine,’ Matthew replied. He grimaced and stepped outside the club, exhaling loudly.

             
Chris handed Matthew the disc when they got outside.

             
‘There we are,’ he announced. ‘A present. The pleasure can be all yours.’

             
Matthew groaned and looked at the discs in his hand as though they might explode at any moment. ‘Thanks, boss,’ he mumbled. And then, ‘What are we actually looking for?’

T
hirty Five

It took a moment for the information to register in Kate’s brain. She sat unnaturally still in the kitchen chair, a thousand thoughts colliding. From the thousand, one was prominent. Sophie watched her carefully; suddenly eager to make eye contact with Kate now she was the one holding all the cards. She realised she knew more than the detective did, and the thought seemed to empower her.

             
‘You see?’ she said to Kate, as if everything now made sense. Although her tone was still aggressive, there was a certain amount of regret in her words, as though pleased she’d got one up on the detective, but at the time, sorry she’d had to do so. ‘This is what my father does. He lies to people. He twists everything.’

             
The thought that she had allowed Neil to get so close the night before made Kate shudder and she turned away from Sophie, trying to erase the memory of his lips touching her skin. She crossed the kitchen to the back door and leaned a hand against the doorframe, steadying herself. She stepped outside, breathing in the cold air; trying to get her thoughts in some kind of order.

             
‘You have to tell me everything, Sophie.’

             
‘Have to?’ Sophie repeated, twisting her mouth into an expression of distaste. ‘Why? We know where Ben is. I’ll go and check my emails now – get you Claire’s number.’

             
Sophie got up and left the room. Kate sat down again and put her head in her hands. She was hot and confused and felt a headache coming on; just one of many that week. She suddenly felt extremely exposed and vulnerable. She had told Neil so many things about herself and her family: her missing brother, her father’s sudden death; her mother’s suicide. She had told him things that she had never told anyone; things that she had kept hidden in the back of her mind for years. Things that should have stayed there.