Stolen (32 page)

Lotte’s cotton dress and cardigan wouldn’t have been warm enough at night on land. But once they were out on open water she was freezing. Lying there shivering, she strained her ears, hoping to hear other craft, but there was nothing close by.

She knew when they’d left the harbour for the swell increased dramatically. All she could see was a square of night sky though the glass panel on the cabin door, and now and again spray flicking up over the stern too. Howard was there, steering the boat, but he was to the right of her line of vision. She wondered how far he was going to go before he threw her overboard.

Time had ceased to have any meaning. It felt as though she’d been in the boat for hours, but she guessed it was probably little more than two, when he cut the engine.

The cabin door opened and in he came to drag her out by the shoulders.

‘Calm down,’ he snapped at her as she bucked and struggled. ‘There’s nothing to gain by doing that.’

He hoisted her up to sit her on the side of the boat, and to her amazement cut the rope at her ankles with a penknife.

‘I’m not going to drop you in tied up,’ he said, blasting brandy fumes in her face. ‘They’ll think you took your own life when they find your body. I’m putting the baby in with you too.’

Then he cut the rope on her wrists, and finally removed the gag.

‘I regret the day we rescued you from that man in South America,’ he said, grabbing hold of her chin and yanking it so she had to look at him. Dark as it was, she could see a maniacal gleam in his eyes, and his face was contorted with hatred. ‘We should have stood and watched him kill you. You destroyed everything I had with my Fern. We were sweethearts right from kids, there was never anyone else for either of us. Now you’ve killed her, and I’m all alone. I can’t even give her a Christian burial – I’ll have to weigh her down so she’s never found. You did that to me!’

‘I’m sorry she’s gone, but don’t do this, please,’ Lotte whimpered.

He didn’t answer, just let go of her chin, pushed her in the chest and suddenly she was in the sea. It was such a shock, and so cold she felt her heart might stop. But she managed to tread water and rub the water from her eyes, and she saw him standing on the boat grinning down at her, holding something in his hands.

‘You said you wanted to hold it!’ he said, and with a chilling laugh he pulled the covers from the bundle to reveal her baby, dressed in white. ‘Here you are, catch!’ he shouted, and hurled her at Lotte.

Lotte was too horrified to react for a minute. It was only when Howard started up the boat again and headed on further out to sea that she realized the baby was right in front of her. She looked perfect, just very pale, stiff and cold, dressed in a white babygro. Lotte caught her up in her arms as she trod water and held her tightly. She was so icy cold Fern must have put her in the freezer.

‘I’m so sorry, little one,’ she whispered, almost choking on her tears. ‘Forgive my part in this. I wish I could’ve protected you.’

The wash from the boat went right over her head and swept the baby from her arms. By the time she’d righted herself and spat out the salt water she’d swallowed, she could no longer see her. ‘God bless!’ she cried out into the inky darkness.

Chapter Sixteen

‘How far were you from the shore?’ Dale asked in awed tones. She was absolutely stunned by Lotte’s story. While she knew from the facts that Lotte had either been thrown into the sea, or had jumped of her own accord, she hadn’t actually considered what that might entail, or even how it had come about. But even more disturbing was that Lotte had killed Fern.

Dale couldn’t imagine anyone less likely than Lotte to stab another human being, she was far too docile and kind, and rarely moved to anger. It kind of proved that anyone could do anything if pushed hard enough. Yet awful as it was to think she had been forced to kill Fern, the image of her baby being thrown into the sea with her was heartbreaking and sickening. Dale thought she would be capable of killing Howard with her own bare hands for that appalling deed.

‘How far from the shore? I don’t know, distances are deceptive at night, especially at sea,’ Lotte replied. ‘I could see lights very clearly, I thought it was just a quick swim away, but the shore never seemed to get closer. I suppose I was being swept along sideways with the current.’

‘But you must’ve been in there for hours! How did you survive?’

‘Sheer determination, I presume.’ Lotte shrugged. ‘I can remember at the start I was so furious at Howard’s evilness that I felt I had to reach someone to tell them about it. But I couldn’t really swim, it was too rough. I was just bobbing around like a cork in the water, letting it take me where it pleased. But I think that anger kept me from giving up.’

‘You must have been terrified,’ Dale said in a small voice.

‘Not exactly. I was terrified in the house, the van and the boat, but that was because I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. But out there in the sea I felt I was in control. I made myself forget how cold I was, and keep moving towards the lights. I knew if I did start to think I was too tired to move then I would drown. So I kept my mind on what Howard and Fern had done to me and vowed I would expose them.’

Lotte shuddered as she recalled that cold which struck right through to her innards, making it hard to move her arms and legs. She wasn’t going to tell Dale, but much of the time she couldn’t see the lights on the shore because the waves were too big. As they kept rolling over her, she had to force herself to make a concerted effort to ride with them. The sea and the sky were both black as ink, there was no moon and scarcely any stars either. It was the loneliest she’d ever been, as though she was the only surviving person on the planet. Yet even worse was the knowledge that her baby was being sucked down into the depths. That was like a physical pain which was stronger even than the intense cold.

‘Do you remember getting to the beach?’ Dale asked.

Lotte shook her head. ‘I do remember seeing the first lights of dawn in the sky, which gave me hope that someone would spot me and rescue me. But I think I must have been slipping in and out of consciousness then, and the waves just washed me along. I do remember the scrape of shingle beneath me, but that was only fleeting.’

The two girls sat in silence on the bed for some time.

‘It will be different this time when the men come for us,’ Dale said at length, her voice shaking with fear. ‘They aren’t going to make us drinks like Fern did for you, and you can’t stab anyone with a Stanley knife, the blade isn’t long enough to do more than cut skin.’

‘But then they won’t want to kill us,’ Lotte said soothingly, putting her arms around her friend because she sensed she was about to go into a panic attack. She didn’t truly believe the men wouldn’t kill them, but she felt she had to be positive for Dale’s sake. ‘They might even refuse Howard if he tells them that’s what he wants. So he’ll have to come here himself. Between us we can handle him.’

‘You think so?’ Dale asked. ‘I wonder where he is right now? And what he did with Fern’s body.’

‘I’ve got a feeling he’s somewhere close by,’ Lotte replied. ‘Looking back, I think it was him who tried to strangle me in hospital. Funny that seeing him didn’t immediately jog my memory, but then I was still pretty out of it during those first few days in hospital.’

‘You seemed to rally round after meeting your rescuer,’ Dale pointed out.

‘Mmmm,’ Lotte murmured.

‘Do you like him?’

‘Yes, very much, in fact David’s a very good reason to get out of here alive,’ Lotte said. ‘But will he be put off me when he finds out I killed Fern?’

‘I think it will make him have more respect for you, babe,’ Dale said with a watery smile, the first one of the day. ‘I know I won’t be pushing you around any more, not now I know what you’re capable of!’

‘You never did push me around, just the odd nudge,’ Lotte laughed. ‘Now, shall we both do some shouting out the window?’

The sea and sky had turned a sullen grey in the rain and the footpath along the edge of the shore from Itchenor towards West Wittering was getting very muddy.

‘I don’t know why he sent us this way, there’s no one about,’ Peggy Wainwright said testily to Kim Moore. ‘And in this rain too!’

When the two sets of parents met up with the boys at Itchenor, David suggested the two women took the footpath, and talked to any dog walkers or hikers they met. It hadn’t been raining then, though it was overcast, but they both had raincoats and sturdy shoes. Carrina went with her father and Ted Wainwright.

‘A drop of rain won’t hurt us, and the whole point of sending us along here is because it’s a regular route for dog walkers and hikers,’ Kim pointed out. ‘They are the sort of people who would probably remember anything out of the ordinary.’

At that moment, a middle-aged couple walking their golden Labrador came along the path. Kim stopped them to show pictures of Lotte and Dale and explained what danger they were in.

Five minutes later the couple walked on. They hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual.

‘They didn’t even know what day of the week it was, much less remember anything they’d seen in the past,’ Peggy said waspishly. ‘And my feet are beginning to hurt.’

Kim stopped dead, put her hands on her hips and turned to Peggy. ‘You are a truly remarkable woman,’ she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I doubt there’s another mother in the whole of England with as little concern for her daughter. I would walk with bare feet on red-hot coals to find Dale, but you don’t even want to walk along a pleasant footpath.’

‘I think this kind of thing is better left to the police,’ Peggy responded, clutching her big navy-blue plastic handbag to her chest. ‘Why would anyone tell us anything?’

‘Because they feel for us?’ Kim suggested. ‘Because most people actually want to help with something like this? Has it even occurred to you that your daughter may already be dead? Do you care one way or the other?’

‘Now, look here!’ Peggy replied with indignation. ‘Of course I care.’

‘Well, damn well show you do then,’ Kim snapped. ‘And keep on walking till your feet bleed, without complaining.’

Kim knew David had put her with Peggy in the hope that she might defrost the woman, but she didn’t have an iced-up heart, it was made of granite. Everything Peggy had said today proved she actually felt she was right to have no time for Lotte. Kim might have understood such an attitude if Lotte had been responsible in some way for Fleur’s death, or indeed done something terrible later on, but there was absolutely no excuse for the woman’s behaviour. The most surprising thing in all this was that by all accounts Lotte had turned out to be such a good, kind person despite the lack of love shown to her. Kim thought she could very well have turned to drink or drugs or had children and ill-treated them the way she had been.

David and the other boys had been elated when they met up with them because at last the police really were pulling out all the stops to find the girls. On the drive from Brighton they’d been astounded by the huge number of police cars around, and it seemed reinforcements had been called in from all over Sussex and Hampshire. Right now they were crawling all over Selsey, Chichester and on both sides of the harbour. There had been another appeal for information on the television last night and today the story was front-page news in all the nationals. As David had pointed out, there couldn’t be anyone left in England who didn’t know about Lotte and Dale.

David had received a call from DI Bryan that morning to say the American police had drawn a blank in finding the Mr and Mrs Ramsden who had flown back to New York on 16 March 2002, immediately after the cruise ship docked at Southampton. The cruise company had given them the couple’s home address in Long Island, but it was a false one. A banker had lived there for twelve years with his wife and children. It seemed the Ramsdens had booked and paid for the cruise while in London some six months before embarking, and they had picked up their tickets from the cruise offices too, so no correspondence had to be sent to Long Island. Howard had settled his bar bill on the ship with cash, so they were unable to track him with his credit card either.

Bryan was now waiting on details of all passengers flying from New York to London during the week after 16 March, as it seemed likely the Ramsdens returned to England almost immediately under another name. Meanwhile, police officers with photographs of the Ramsdens were calling on sailing clubs, ship’s chandlers, supermarkets, chemists and even estate agents in the area in the hope that someone would recognize them and know the name they were using here and where they were living.

A police officer had brought some of these leaflets with pictures of the Ramsdens over to David for him and his party to show around. David just wished they could have had them with them on the previous day, as they might have had a better response from people they called on.

‘There is something far bigger behind this than just abducting Lotte,’ Bryan told David in a very grave manner. ‘I think we’ll find the identity of Ramsden is just a throwaway one for holidays and the like as they don’t appear to have a credit card in that name. In my experience people who live with dual and treble identities are almost always serial criminals. The identity they used to fly back here from the States is probably their main one, and we should be able to track them better once we know it. They might have bought property here in that name, maybe even run some sort of legitimate business. But I’ll ring you when I have more news.’

By seven that evening, when the group met back at the pub in Itchenor to compare notes, they were all disheartened and damp with the rain. Between them, including Peggy Wainwright who was grumbling about her sore feet, they had called at every house in the village and the surrounding area down to West Wittering, and every single person out walking had been spoken to. All without producing one lead.

Of course, there were dozens of houses where no one answered the door, and possibly some of the people they did talk to would remember something later. Five people thought they had seen Fern before, but couldn’t remember where. No one remembered Howard at all.