Death Comes First (27 page)

‘This is it, Mum,’ said Molly, gesturing with one hand. ‘Dad spotted the stag over there, by the blackthorn bush at the water’s edge. He signalled for us to be quiet and we crouched here in the bracken and watched. He had huge antlers. He was having a drink, so it took him a while to notice us. Then he suddenly raised his head, looked all around him sniffing the air, waded off through the river and trotted up the hill over there.’

She waved a hand again.

‘We saw him silhouetted against the sky up at the top. It was wonderful.’

‘And you didn’t even tell me. Did you not tell anyone?’

Molly shook her head. ‘It was our secret.’

Secrets again, thought Joyce. This may have been a magical secret, but it was somehow typical of her family that even special moments were cloaked in secrecy.

Joyce told herself off for being small-minded. She led the way out into the clearing. Molly followed. There was nobody else about, no one visible. Certainly no Fred.

‘He’s not here, Mum,’ said Molly, stating the obvious. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

Her mother took her hand. ‘Perhaps he’s making sure we are alone, that we haven’t brought the police or anyone else with us.

‘Or somebody is,’ she muttered, adding the remark under her breath.

But Molly heard her.

‘What do you mean by that, Mum?’

Joyce squeezed the hand she was holding.

‘Darling, Fred can’t be on his own,’ she told her daughter. ‘There’s no way he could have got hold of a phone, let alone come all the way out here by himself. And we still don’t know where he’s been since Wednesday night.’

‘So who’s been helping him? And why?’

‘I don’t know, darling.’

Joyce looked up at the sky for the umpteenth time. The cloud formations overhead had become blacker and lower. Denser too, she thought. She shivered. The weather had turned even colder, but it wasn’t only the chill in the air that made her shiver; it was a sudden sense of dread. Throughout the long drive she’d been wondering whether she was doing the
right thing, bringing her daughter to this remote place, putting her in danger. But then, what choice did she have? She could never have found the place on her own.

She pulled Molly close. ‘Look, I’m not sure it was a good idea for us to come out here like this, without telling anyone,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we should go back to the car.’

‘We’ve only just got here,’ said Molly. ‘We have to wait. At least for a bit.’

‘Look, Molly, there’s a possibility that someone has been keeping Fred against his will. So it is also possible that this is some kind of trap.’

‘But why? Why would anyone want to do that to us?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Joyce.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she suspected Molly’s grandfather might have a pretty good idea, but she stopped herself. She didn’t want to cause her daughter further distress.

‘Please, Molly, let’s go. I was as excited as you to think we had a message from Fred, but it doesn’t make sense that he would ask us to come all the way out here alone. I think we should go back to the car, sweetheart.’

Molly shook her head determinedly.

‘The message has to be from Fred – no one else knows about this place. And no one else knows about the tattoo. Only Janie Mitchell, and those messages definitely weren’t from her. We can’t go yet, Mum.’

Joyce sighed. ‘All right. Why don’t you try to call that number again, or at least send another text.’

Molly attempted to do both, with equal lack of success.

‘I can’t get a signal,’ she said.

‘Then perhaps we should go somewhere where we can.’

‘If Fred’s anywhere around here, he won’t be able to get a
signal either,’ said Molly stubbornly. ‘We have to wait.’

Joyce marvelled that her daughter was so strong-willed. More like a Tanner man than a Tanner woman. Before this awful string of events had engulfed the family, Joyce had sometimes amused herself by wondering how much control anyone, even her powerful grandfather, would have over a grown-up Molly.

Mother and daughter waited, half sitting, half leaning against a sandstone boulder on the riverbank. Joyce kept checking her watch. Molly barely moved a muscle, just stared into the middle distance, perhaps watching for movement in the undergrowth, or anything that might indicate the presence of her brother.

The rain that had threatened ever since they arrived finally began to fall. Neither mother nor daughter were dressed for a wet day on the moors.

‘We’ve been here nearly an hour,’ said Joyce.

Molly remained silent.

‘C’mon, darling,’ urged Joyce. ‘We can’t stay out here. We’re both getting wet through and there’s no one in sight. Let’s go back to the car, drive somewhere where we can get a signal and try the phone again.’

‘No,’ said Molly. ‘No. We have to wait. We must. I know Fred’s here somewhere.’

Joyce put an arm around her daughter’s damp shoulders.

‘Sweetheart, you have to accept that this whole thing might be a cruel hoax. We both have to.’

Molly shook her head vehemently. ‘Only Fred knew about the stag. Only Fred knew about the tattoo.’

‘You can’t be sure,’ said her mother gently. ‘Not absolutely sure, anyway. Fred could have told a friend at school, more than one. They could have told their parents—’

‘No,’ Molly interrupted. ‘Fred wouldn’t have.’

Joyce conceded defeat and they waited another half hour. With no protection against the wind and rain, both mother and daughter were wet through and chilled to the bone. Molly’s teeth were chattering; neither her face nor lips had any colour left in them, except around her eyes, which were rimmed with red.

‘That’s it,’ said Joyce. ‘We’re leaving. We’re going back to the car park even if I have to carry you there.’

This time Molly didn’t protest. Joyce wasn’t surprised. If her daughter felt anything like the way she looked then she would not have the strength to protest.

The rain was even heavier now, driven horizontal by the wind.

Mother and daughter clung to each other, half holding each other up as they hurried to the car.

Joyce unlocked it with her bleeper and helped Molly into the passenger seat before scurrying around the vehicle to climb in behind the wheel.

She switched on the engine and simultaneously turned the heater on full.

‘I think there’s a rug on the back seat. Why don’t you reach over and get it,’ Joyce suggested as she switched on the engine.

‘Don’t turn round,’ commanded a muffled male voice from the back.

Molly did so at once, of course, but could see only a huddled grey form crouched down behind the driver’s seat.

‘Keep facing the front,’ said the voice again. ‘Someone could be watching.’

‘Do as he says, Molly,’ said Joyce.

Her heart had sunk to the soles of her inadequate shoes.

For once, and to her mother’s relief, Molly did as she was told.

‘Pass me your phones,’ instructed the man.

Both mother and daughter did so immediately. Even Molly knew better than to argue.

There were some small scraping noises from the back seat, metal rubbing against metal. Then the sound of one of the rear windows being opened.

‘Right, let’s go,’ said the voice. ‘Turn left when you get on the road, over the bridge. I’m taking you to Fred.’

Joyce, too, did as she was told. Although she had no idea whether or not this man was really taking her to her son. What choice did she have? She was not only frightened by what was happening, she was also bewildered. She had left the car locked, hadn’t she? She always locked her car. It was like a reflex action. She’d unlocked it with the remote before getting in, and there hadn’t been any sign that the Range Rover had been tampered with, yet there was someone crouched in the back.

She could only think of one explanation. But it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible. She felt a knot form in her stomach. It felt as if she might be sick. But from the moment the man in the back of her car had first spoken, she’d known.

She glanced at her daughter. Molly was staring at her, jaw slack. Joyce felt sure that Molly was thinking the same thing. Even so, Joyce was not yet ready to put it into words. She reached out with her left hand to enclose her daughter’s freezing cold right hand. Molly just looked at her, eyes wide with amazement. Joyce shook her head, almost imperceptibly.

She couldn’t be sure who was in the back of the car. Not entirely, could she?

As she steered the big four-wheel drive over Landacre
Bridge, through the corner of her eye she spotted two tiny objects flying through the air towards the river below: the SIM cards from her and Molly’s phones. Mobile phones could be tracked nowadays, even when you weren’t using them – except when the SIM cards were removed.

The voice began to give her directions, speaking only in monosyllables. It sounded familiar, even though muffled and distorted, as if their unwanted passenger was speaking through a wad of material, maybe a scarf. Joyce continued on the main road towards Exford until she was told to turn off and then directed along a succession of tracks, which the heavy rain had already made impassable for anything other than a powerful four-wheel drive.

Finally they came to a derelict stone-built barn in a patch of dense woodland. It looked like there might once have been a crofter’s cottage next to it, but the foundations were all that remained of it now.

Joyce was told to drive around to the far side of the barn and pull up in front of a set of double doors. She registered that these looked to be in comparatively good order.

The grey-clad figure climbed swiftly out of the Range Rover, hooded head down, keeping his back to the vehicle.

He removed an iron bar, which formed a kind of improvised bolting device across the barn doors, then beckoned Joyce to drive in.

She hesitated, uncertain what was waiting inside. Wondering whether she should swing the car around and take off at speed with her daughter. At least that way she could convey one of her children to safety.

She glanced at Molly again. Her daughter was still shivering.

‘Drive in, Mum. Do it,’ ordered Molly, her voice shaky and high-pitched.

Joyce opened her mouth to explain her fears. But Fred might be in that barn. He might still be in danger. Considerable danger. She couldn’t drive away, abandon him there.

And the hooded creature now standing alongside the car, head bowed and shoulders hunched, had obviously known that full well.

Slowly Joyce drove forward through the big wooden doors, which were immediately closed behind her, then switched off the engine.

She glanced quickly around her, taking Molly’s hand in hers and squeezing it tightly. It was light inside the barn. Most of the roof was missing and the rain was falling as heavily within its crumbling walls as without. The barn offered little protection from the elements, but it did, of course, effectively conceal those inside its walls, which were almost entirely still standing. Just about.

There was another vehicle parked to one side. An old blue Honda Accord. Several large Calor gas canisters were lined up along one wall, next to a tarpaulin-covered lump. She looked at it in alarm, then became aware of the large military-style tent which had been erected in another corner.

The middle panel was being unzipped.

A familiar small figure in unfamiliar clothes – military-style heavy-duty wear, too big for him – stepped through the gap. Joyce involuntarily let go of Molly’s hand.

It was Fred.

‘Mum! Molly!’ he cried, his face lighting up with joy.

Oblivious to anything except the appearance of their
beloved Fred, mother and daughter both opened their car doors and jumped out to greet the boy.

Fred ran towards them. Joyce reached out and grabbed him. Then she wrapped both her children in her arms.

Eighteen

Vogel was in his office, reflecting on another disturbing day in the Tanner/Mildmay case. By the time Joyce Mildmay was being reunited with her younger son, he had known for four hours that Joyce and her daughter Molly were missing. Or, at least, their whereabouts was unknown.

Joyce’s mother, Felicity, had called the DI when Joyce and Molly had failed to turn up at the hospital. Felicity had, it seemed, plumbed the policeman’s mobile number into her phone when he’d given her his card on the day that Fred had been reported missing.

‘I’m calling you direct, Mr Vogel, because I know you will understand my concern,’ she told him. ‘They should have been here an hour ago. Joyce called to tell me she was coming to see her father, and that she was bringing Molly with her. She was determined. Aggressive, even. And I’ve been trying to call them ever since. Neither of them are answering their phones.’

‘An hour isn’t long, Mrs Tanner,’ Vogel had said, trying to sound reassuring.

He doubted he was convincing. Under the circumstances, he was inclined to agree that the woman was right to be alarmed.

‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything ominous. Perhaps they’ve stopped off to do some shopping, or they could have had a puncture.’

As he spoke he realized he had made a pretty stupid remark. Felicity picked him up on it straight away.

‘Mr Vogel, my grandson is missing and my husband has been shot. Do you seriously think my daughter would stop off to do some shopping on her way to the hospital?’ Felicity responded sharply. ‘And if they’d had a puncture or been delayed, Joyce or Molly would have called or texted. Or at least answered their phones when I called them. No. Something is wrong. Something has happened to them.’

Vogel gave up trying to allay her fears. Clearly he wasn’t making a very good job of it.

All he said was: ‘I’ll check out what you’ve told me and get back to you.’

Nobby Clarke had returned to Kenneth Steele House as soon as it became clear that Henry Tanner would not be able to speak to her. Vogel found her in the incident room and informed her that they could now have two more missing people on their hands.

The DCI was edgier than Vogel had ever known her to be, but still reluctant to launch another missing persons enquiry.

‘Joyce Mildmay is an adult and her daughter is fifteen,’ she said. ‘They could have gone anywhere.’