S is for Stranger (14 page)

‘I need to ask you a few questions before the press conference,’ she said. ‘OK?’

‘Yes, fine. I’ve got something to show you too.’ I glanced at my laptop, at the USB stick.

CHAPTER 17

DI Ward sat me down. We were in her office this time.

She hovered, almost as if unsure how to start, and then said, ‘Tea? Coffee?’

‘Tea, please.’

She nodded. The kettle in the corner was already boiling, and I noted that she only made me one, not herself. We didn’t talk as she made me the drink and then she sat down. Her eyes were red, tired.

‘What do you think about the car, the man outside my house?’

She nodded, ignored me. ‘Your ex-husband, Sophie.’ She skimmed over some scribbles in her notebook. ‘He owns a security company? What do you know about it?’

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Not much. I mean what do you want to know?’ I studied her face. ‘Why aren’t you answering my question about the man?’

‘Has he owned it long?’ DI Ward pressed. Back to the subject of Paul.

‘He owned it long before we met, if that’s what you mean.’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘What’s this got to do with the investigation, Detective?’

She pressed her lips together. ‘Maybe nothing.’

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ I wasn’t trying to be smart; it just seemed strange to be asking me questions about
Paul’s career when he was just downstairs waiting for the conference to start.

‘I have,’ she replied simply. ‘I asked him what he did before he set up his own company. I’ve looked up the details. He started his company up in 1992.’

‘Right …’ I couldn’t see where this was headed.

‘He was twenty-five. Told me he hadn’t gone to college, left school at sixteen and travelled the world a bit. This all ringing a bell?’

I nodded, rubbing my hands together to try and warm them up. ‘Yeah, of course, why would he lie about something like that?’ I sighed. ‘What does this have to do with Amy?’

The DI skirted the issue. ‘I’ve had one of my officers do a bit of a background check on Paul. You know, phone up the various companies he quoted at us. See if they’ve got him on record. Most of them had but here’s the thing …’

‘Yes?’

She tapped her pen on the table. ‘Between 1988 and 1991, we can’t find any record of Paul’s employment, he’s not registered on any electoral role and yet s…’

‘Go on.’ I moved forward in my seat, waiting with bated breath.

‘His bank account was looking more than a little healthy.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand. What does that mean? What does “more than a little healthy” mean?’

‘He appeared to have gone from working as a night guard at the local supermarket, earning just above minimum wage, to the big bucks.’

‘So, what has he said? Surely, there’s some explanation.’

‘He says,’ she watched me carefully, ‘that there has to be some mistake.’

I stuck out my lower lip. ‘So, there you go.’

‘You’re suddenly on his side, Sophie?’ The DI cocked her head to one side. ‘Last Saturday, you wanted him charged with the abduction of your daughter and, now, you don’t find that sort of information incriminating or strange?’

‘I just don’t see what it’s got to do with Amy’s disappearance.’ I stuck my jaw out. ‘I want to know why you’re not answering my question about the man outside my house. I’d say you’re ignoring my safety at the moment, Detective.’

She nodded slowly, avoided eye contact. ‘Just thought you might be able to offer us some insight into Paul, that’s all.’

‘Well,’ I said, more defensively than I intended, ‘I can’t.’

‘Clearly.’ She looked at her watch. ‘When you met Paul, remind me when that was?’

‘My final year at university.’

‘Ah, yes, of course. Amy was born the same year?’

‘Uh-huh.’ I nodded, swallowing hard. My throat was dry and I slurped greedily at my tea. ‘That’s right.’

‘Paul was doing well when you met him?’ She blinked slowly. ‘His house is certainly very nice.’

A tickle in my throat made me cough. ‘Yes, we’ve always lived comfortably.’

She sucked air through her teeth. ‘Well, yes, he had a good amount of money to invest in his company. Especially for a start-up company. Very good indeed.’

‘What do you want me to say? You have to ask Paul these questions. I never asked him how he got the money to create his business.’ I shook my head. ‘I never thought to question it but, then, why would I? It’s who he was, you know? The company was who he was. I didn’t need to ask questions.’

DI Ward nodded briefly. ‘Fair enough. So he owned this company when you met him, in a club? So he’s the older man, were you attracted to the older man?’

‘I was told I met him in a club, but that was the night Bethany was murdered.’

‘Told you met him in a club?’

I clenched my jaw. ‘I’ve been over this. Yes. I woke up in my bed and Paul had brought me back. We hit it off but I don’t remember a club, I remember going out with Bethany.’

‘OK, so he’s the older man with a successful business that you don’t ask any questions about?’

‘If you’re going to go down some Freudian route of him being like a father figure I’ve never had,’ I said hotly, ‘you’ll find he’s about as far removed from my father as you can get.’

‘Sophie, you’re getting very edgy.’ She sat back.

‘What does Paul say about all this?’ I was almost afraid to ask but I needed to know. ‘He gave you consent to look at his accounts?’

‘Yes, he did.’ She shut her notebook. ‘He says he was doing odd jobs. Cash in hand type of thing and, as for the money in his account, we must have made a mistake.’

‘I guess that’s all there is to it.’

She smiled. ‘Maybe. Except it’s unlikely my officer would make a mistake. But, moreover, a bank couldn’t make up the kind of figures I’m talking about.’

She stood and I did the same.

‘You ready for the press conference?’

I nodded. ‘What about the man I told you about? Don’t you think it’s important? I mean you could put one of your guys outside the house and they could …’

I saw it then: the slightest flicker of something in her face. And then it dawned on me.

‘That was one of your guys, wasn’t it?’

‘It’s for your own safety.’

I looked at her. ‘Then why the secrecy? Surely, you’d want me to feel safe?’

She didn’t say anything. Clicked her pen twice. I willed her to do it again.

I got it. ‘You don’t trust me.’

‘I didn’t say that. We should get to the press conference.’

‘Why are we having another press conference so soon?’ I asked.

‘I want to press the public, put pressure on whoever has Amy.’ She looked at me. ‘Do you know what I mean? Let’s really hit close to home. Talk about the things that you, as her mother, understand about Amy better than anyone else.’

‘Like?’

‘Like talk about her favourite toy. Let’s try and highlight the maternal loss here. Not sure that message is getting out there.’

‘What is that meant to mean?’

‘You and Paul feel detached from the proceedings, if I’m being honest. I need more from you in particular.’ She looked at the door. ‘You only have to read what the press are saying, Sophie. It’s time we get the press focusing on Amy again.’

‘Opposed to?’

‘You,’ she said bluntly.

I was feeling slightly unnerved by her insinuating looks. I couldn’t let this go. ‘How are we ever going to find my daughter, if you’re not on my side?’

‘I am on your side.’ She paused, opened the door. ‘You have to understand my predicament. Paul and you can’t agree. I have more than one mystery to solve if you think about it. There are two sides to every story but only one of you is telling the truth.’

I held up the USB stick. ‘I have something to show you.’

She took it from me, frowned, and we sat again. She stuck it in the side of the laptop and I waited for the video to appear. I pressed play and paused it within moments of it starting.

‘That’s the woman, there.’

‘What?’ DI Ward squinted at the screen.

‘That’s the woman at the fair, who’s got my daughter.’

‘She looks different to the one on the CCTV footage, Sophie.’ DI Ward studied my face, I felt myself flush.

‘No, I’m sure it’s her.’ I looked again. ‘See the black coat, the shape of her shoulders.’

‘She looks different to me but I’ll keep it, show the officer who’s scanning the CCTV footage.’ She stood. ‘Thanks.’

‘Is that it?’ I stood too, wondering why the DI wasn’t taking this evidence more seriously.

‘Not much to go on really, Sophie. We don’t have an image of this woman’s front. As far as I’m concerned that’s just a woman, probably a parent, wearing a black coat.’

She walked out the door and I followed her out the room and back down the long corridor. Paul and Tom were waiting outside the pressroom. DI Ward opened the door, nodded at the both of us and we started to follow her in. I hung back: Paul could sit next to DI Ward. The room fell silent and the journalists readied their cameras, notebooks and Dictaphones.

The DI began. ‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get started then. OK, Ms Fraiser will speak first.’

I cleared my throat, gripping the note tightly. ‘I once told Amy a story.’ I found a camera lens and started again. ‘Darling, do you remember that story, the one about the princess whose family loved her so much? She was loved so much, just like you are.’ My voice cracked. ‘Please come home, darling.’ I let my head hang. ‘Please, let her go whoever you are.’

DI Ward nodded her silent approval.

‘We just want our daughter back. Back where she belongs,’ Paul said.

DI Ward warily asked if there were any questions.

A woman stood. ‘Is it true that your friend was murdered at university? That you think the person behind that might have kidnapped your daughter?’

I looked at her, blood roaring in my ears.

The same woman continued, unrelenting. ‘I spoke to an,’ she consulted her notepad, ‘Oliver Dyers. He says you’ve had a lot on your plate recently. That you’re trying to get custody of your daughter again? He says that you’ve been reacquainted recently.’ She was just reading her notes now, matter-of-fact, no emotion. She looked up from her pad, her eyebrows raised. ‘He says he’s always wanted to be with you, that you would make a great couple. Sounds like a happy scenario, Ms Fraiser, don’t you think? Just you and him, no children.’

I sat stock-still. Oliver. Oliver would speak to the press about me? About us? Make out we’re in some loved-up, honeymoon phase?

‘Please,’ DI Ward came in, I could feel her bristling, ‘this is not a time for personal attacks. Let’s be professional.’

‘I do not believe Oliver would talk to you,’ I said, my voice threatening to crack.

‘Well, I have ways of getting information out of people,’ she said, causing a small ripple of laughter.

They really were predators, I thought, my hands shaking.

Another lady at the front rose from her chair and smoothed her skirt. ‘I understand that you are due in front of the family courts in a few weeks? I imagine you would do anything to ensure you gain custody of your daughter.’

Her words were less a question and more a statement. As if she had already decided, along with the rest of
the pack of journalists in front of me, that I had done something to Amy. I didn’t move except for clasping my trembling hands together. Tears pooled in my eyes.

‘OK,’ DI Ward said quickly, ‘I’m afraid we are unable to comment. These questions are unhelpful, to say the least.’

The DI had risen from her seat, and she firmly placed her hand on my arm, guiding me forcefully from the room.

I felt my legs weakening and I stood in the hallway, numb with shock, questions racing through my head. Fiona told me she would just be a couple of minutes then she would drive me home. I just nodded and manufactured a smile but remained silent. Everybody’s faces loomed in and out of shot, their mouths appeared to move more slowly, their words came out like an actor’s on slow-speed.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Fiona shrugged on her biker jacket. ‘Come on. You look unwell. I’ll take you home and you can rest up.’

I followed: mute.

Fiona stopped to exchange a few words with a colleague. Stepping away from Fiona and the small group of people gathered outside the pressroom, I got out my mobile and rang Darren.

I was seething with anger just thinking about Oliver talking to the press. I wanted to believe that he had been conned, that he wouldn’t have let me down like that. Surely, she must have tricked him. I thought of the female journalist: she said she had ways of gaining information. What did that mean? I was torn between desperately wanting to trust Oliver and yet, on the other hand, wondering why he had come back into my life, out of the blue.

I recognised then that Oliver might remember something about me, about Bethany, from all those years ago and that it might help me remember something: he might hold the key to accessing my erased memories.

When Darren answered, I said, ‘Can you meet me at the house right away? I want you to talk to Oliver too. I think you’re right that he might help me remember something.’

He agreed to set off right away.

Fiona allowed me to sit in silence on the journey home.

‘Come on then, love,’ she said, hopping out her side and opening the car door. She held out her arm as if I was an invalid but I took it. We fought our way through the throng of journalists who had suddenly come to life like moths to a light. Guiding me to the house, Fiona hurriedly stuck the key in the lock but Oliver beat her to it and opened the door for us. His hair was dishevelled; he looked as if he had been napping.

‘All OK?’ he asked, as Fiona led me to the sitting room.

‘I think Sophie’s exhausted. She suddenly looked very unwell back at the station.’ She didn’t go into the details of the press conference; I expect she thought that conversation was my prerogative. Once she had settled me on the sofa with cushions behind me, she nodded for Oliver to follow her through to the kitchen. Minutes later, I heard the front door close quietly and Oliver reappeared.

‘Fiona says you’re not well. That something happened at the conference. She didn’t say what.’