Anything for Her (10 page)

The windscreen has been shattered; the glass is riddled with small crystals and deep cracks. The windows have been smashed to smithereens and glass litters the inside of the car and the road. Snow drifts silently inside and rests on the seats. Both airbags have deployed and deflated, resting like empty pillowcases on the dashboard and the steering wheel.

She looks up and down the dark country lane. It is eerily quiet.

Too shocked to breathe, she peers inside the car. On the two back seats, surrounded by broken glass and fallen snowflakes, are two dead robins.

The soles of her slippers crunch on broken glass as she opens the door and reaches into the back. She grabs both birds in one hand and slams the door shut behind her, sending more glass onto the road below. Placing each bird in a separate pocket of her dressing gown, she walks cautiously around the car, sensing that someone is lurking in the shadows. She opens the passenger door and retrieves her insurance information and driver’s licence from the glove compartment.

Nothing has been stolen. This wasn’t a crime for profit. This was personal
.

She looks up and down the lane, observing the shadows of the surrounding woodland. She cannot
escape the sense of someone being out there in the darkness, watching her.

Panic swells in her chest, forcing her to rush towards the safety of the house, with the backs of her slippers flicking snow into the air. She rushes inside, slamming the door shut. She locks it, bolts it and attaches the chain.

Louise stands in the silent house, terrified that she isn’t alone. There are no indications that someone is inside: no snowy, foreign footprints; nothing missing or stolen; nothing out of place. She rushes for the phone on the sideboard.

She has to call the police, even if she can’t tell them everything.

Her mobile phone begins ringing upstairs. She kicks off her wet slippers and races up the stairs towards her bedroom. The ringing stops as she reaches the bedside table.

Three missed calls and texts from Michael. He had been trying to contact her while she was asleep, but none of his attempts had woken her.

Is Brooke with you?
22:50
(Missed Call) 22:58

Can you let me know if Brooke is with you, please?
You told me Brooke was coming home tonight
.

That was nearly four hours ago. She should be
home by now
. 23:20
(Missed Call) 23:37

He continued to text and call, even when she was outside surveying the damage to her car.

I know you hate me and you don’t want to talk to
me right now, but I really need to know if Brooke is
with you. She won’t answer her phone. Please,
Louise
. 00:02
(Missed Call) 00:06

Louise sits on the bed, her knees weak from the news. She stares in front of her, motionless, trying to digest the fact that Brooke hasn’t arrived home.

Did she stay with a friend?
She doesn’t have any friends
.

Are there train delays?
For five hours?

Did she lose her phone?
She never goes anywhere without her phone
.

Did her phone run out of charge?
She had charged it while we ate dinner
.

Is Brooke really missing?

Her heart is racing. She begins to sweat. Tears prick at her eyes.

Frantically, she calls Brooke’s phone.

It goes straight to answerphone.

Two tears fall from her eyes simultaneously. A terrified whimper escapes her lips.

With trembling hands, Louise calls 999.

Chapter Twenty-five

Detective Inspector Jessica Dean drives towards the country house in her peach bridesmaid’s dress. The dress rustles audibly whenever she changes gear, brakes or accelerates. She cannot wait to get out of it. It is approaching one in the morning, but she isn’t even tired.

DI Dean had been at the wedding of the Chief of Gloucestershire Constabulary earlier that evening. She had been at the police academy with his bride when they both started out their careers with London’s Metropolitan Police. When the chief’s pager alerted him to a call-out concerning a vandalised car, he scanned the room for the most sober face. Almost every cop in the area was at the wedding.

Jessica had come to the Cotswolds to watch her friend get married, but she had ultimately found herself sitting in a room surrounded by people she didn’t know, seemingly the only one who didn’t drink. She longed to return to London. Officers at the Metropolitan Police aren’t as incestuous as those in the west, where they are either related or went to the same school, dated the same people or got married to a friend of a friend; a great cesspool of relationships within one law enforcement agency.

Thankfully, Jessica had overheard the newly married chief trying to persuade one of his officers to check out the vandalised car incident at quarter past twelve. She jumped straight in and offered her assistance, despite being a detective inspector, not a uniformed officer – and despite the fact that she worked for the Metropolitan Police, not Gloucestershire Constabulary. She had to get out of there. The celebration was still going strong and showed no sign of dying down. The chief was unsure, but her sober face and stance trumped every one of his intoxicated officers. Her escape route from the party was secured because any sober officers on call in the area were being kept at bay by a fallen tree across the only lane in and out of Sinster.

Jessica pulls up outside the house, behind the smashed up car, at one a.m. on the dot. She gets out of her car and surveys the damage of the other.

Glass litters the ground like sparkling confetti. The windscreen is smashed and cracked. The windows are no longer there. Airbags have been deployed. No slashed tyres. No messages left of any kind. The paintwork isn’t keyed. The bodywork isn’t badly damaged with any dents or cracks – it isn’t a road traffic accident being disguised as vandalism.

She takes six photos of the vehicle with her phone: the front, the back, the exterior from each side and the interior from each side. The last photos taken on her
phone were of her friend in her wedding dress, enjoying her first dance with her husband. Now the latest photos are of a crime.

She pushes open the garden gate and walks down the path towards the front door. She decides that the house was once beautiful, but has become decrepit and unsightly due to neglect.

The cold air nips at her bare legs as she walks towards the front door. Her peach shoes are now wet and stained from kicking at the snow. She doesn’t care. She will never wear this awful outfit again. The next time Jessica Dean is asked if she will be a bridesmaid, she will reply,
I’d rather chew on glass
.

She rings the doorbell. She waits, ID badge in hand.

A pale face peers through the narrow window by the front door. Jessica shows her badge and smiles reassuringly. The face vanishes and Jessica hears the sound of the door being unlocked.

When the door opens, both women take in the sight of each other.

Louise is standing in bare feet, wrapped in a shabby dressing gown. Her hair is a wild mess and dark circles surround her eyes.

DI Dean is dressed head-to-toe in peach: her black jacket and her dark ebony skin contrasting against her bright dress. Her hair has been styled by a professional: it is decorated with diamantes that mimic twinkling stars; hairspray has frozen every strand of
hair into the wrapped plait bun that sits high on the back of her head. She feels like a fool.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Jessica Dean,’ she says, showing her badge again. ‘I’ve come about the car.’

‘Louise Leighton. Come in.’

Louise suddenly appears conscious of her unkempt appearance. Jessica believes she can smell alcohol on the woman’s breath.

‘I like the new uniform,’ Louise says, taking in the DI’s appearance.

‘Sorry, I was at a wedding. A cop’s wedding, actually, which is why you get me instead of a police officer in uniform.’

‘Would you like a drink or anything?’ Louise asks, looking wired with nerves.

‘I’m fine, thanks. Shall we sit down? I’ll need to ask some questions regarding the incident.’

‘Yes, of course.’

The two women sit down in the living room: Louise on the sofa, Jessica in the armchair. Jessica takes a small pad and black pen from her bag, before returning her gaze to Louise.

‘I’m awfully sorry about your car. It was a nice one.’

‘Thanks. I’ve always loved that car.’

‘So, let’s start at the beginning. When did you discover your car had been vandalised?’

‘Midnight. I woke up to the car alarm and flashing lights.’

‘Did you see anyone attacking the car?’

‘No, I didn’t see anyone.’

‘What did you do next?’

‘I went downstairs to turn off the alarm. I just thought it was playing up, I didn’t think the car was damaged. Then I saw the condition it was in. I took out my belongings and then I returned inside.’

Louise suddenly appears nervous and slips her hand inside the pocket of her dressing gown. She immediately snatches it back out again.

‘So nothing was stolen from the vehicle?’

‘No, not that I’m aware of. Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘Not at all.’

Jessica hates cigarette smoke.

Louise lights a cigarette.

‘Have you had any disagreements with anyone in the area? Do you know of anyone that might want to vandalise your car?’

‘No, certainly not in the village. I’m from London. I’m staying here for a little while.’

‘I’m from London, too. How long are you planning to stay here?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ve just separated from my husband, so I’ve come to the country for some space.’

‘I understand. The reason I ask about any disagreements with locals is because a fallen tree has blocked the road in and out of here. Whoever vandalised your car can’t have gone far, nor come far.’

Louise takes a drag on her cigarette, looking baffled. She suddenly looks out the windows at the rear of the property, as if the culprit might be outside looking in, even now.

‘Would your husband want to destroy your car?’

‘I doubt it. He’s made us bankrupt, so that car would have been used to pay off some of the debts he’s racked up. It wouldn’t make sense for him to lose money from wrecking it.’

‘I see.’

Jessica writes down:
Husband: possible culprit?

‘Any children?’

‘We have an eighteen-year-old daughter and a ten-year-old son.’

‘Are they in London?’

‘My son is.’

‘And your daughter?’

Louise puts out her cigarette and immediately lights another.

‘Mrs Leighton?’

‘She’s… missing.’

‘Pardon?’

Louise has Jessica’s complete attention.

‘I told the dispatcher when I called 999 just after midnight. She said my daughter isn’t considered missing unless she’s been gone for at least twenty-four hours – because she’s an adult now.’

Louise takes a drag on her cigarette that shakes
between her fingers, unable to look Jessica in the eye.

‘How long has she been gone for?’

‘I dropped her off at the station before seven p.m. My husband began texting me around ten p.m., telling me she hadn’t come home, but I slept right through. He was still trying to contact me after midnight – after I saw the car.’

‘So your daughter has been missing for six hours now? Since seven p.m. this evening?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has she done anything like this before? Just vanished without a word?’

‘She used to be reckless – drugs, partying, boys. But she has really calmed down now. She doesn’t go out at all. She doesn’t drink. She doesn’t see her friends any more.’

‘Was she addicted to drugs?’

‘No, just took them at the weekends. I didn’t agree with it, obviously. It broke my heart to think my daughter was putting herself in such a vulnerable position, and putting such harmful substances in her body. But I couldn’t stop her.’

‘Could she have returned to that lifestyle recently?’

‘She is such a recluse now. She goes to college and then comes home. She stays in her room or spends time with her younger brother.’

Doesn’t sound like any eighteen-year-old I know
.

Jessica writes down:
Daughter returned to her old
ways?

‘Might she have vandalised your car? Been angry with you and your husband for separating? Did you leave each other this evening on good terms?’

‘Yes, on good terms. We hugged; we told each other we loved one another. I watched her go into the station.’

That doesn’t mean she didn’t come back out again
, Jessica thinks to herself.

‘Might she have gone to another destination? Or gone to London but stayed elsewhere?’

‘Detective Inspector Dean, trust me when I say my daughter is a recluse. She doesn’t have any friends like she used to.’

Past behaviour influences one’s future behaviour
, Jessica thinks.

‘Do you think your daughter’s disappearance and the vandalism are connected?’ Jessica asks.

She waits patiently for Louise’s response, while suspicions about the woman before her begin to seep into her mind.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘How could the two be connected?’

‘I don’t know. It might be a coincidence,’ Louise says. ‘But both happened on the same night. That’s what makes me wonder if they’re connected, that’s all.’

Louise looks agitated. Jessica looks at her and can’t help but wonder whether she is hiding something.

Louise puts out her cigarette and immediately lights a third, exhaling smoke into the room. The smoke begins to give Jessica a headache. When she turns her head to cough, she notices a box: a clear plastic box.

‘Are those…’ She looks at the box, her brow furrowed. ‘Birds?’

Louise’s eyes widen and dart towards the box.

Jessica focuses on Louise. They stare at each other in silence. Jessica waits for an answer.

‘Something keeps happening,’ Louise says, finally. ‘Someone keeps leaving dead birds for me to find.’