Evil Angels Among Them (37 page)

As if summoned by Becca's words, the phone rang in the hall; they could hear its insistent chirp through the open front door. ‘I'll get it,' Stephen said. ‘I'll just be a minute, I'm sure – don't go until I'm back.'

By the time he returned, David and Lucy were in the car. ‘Thanks again for your hospitality,' David said, winding down the window for a final farewell and turning the key in the ignition. Then he saw the look on Stephen's face. ‘What's the matter? Who was it on the phone?'

‘It was Gill. Enid is dead,' Stephen blurted. ‘Lou found her body. And Bryony is missing.'

David switched the ignition off. ‘Good Lord,' he said.

It was quickly decided that Lucy should accompany Stephen and Becca to Foxglove Cottage while David went to the police station to see what he could discover about Enid.

They found the road between Foxglove Cottage and The Pines choked with police cars and a mortuary van. Not unexpectedly, they also found Lou in a flat spin, on the edge of hysteria, fluctuating between the twin themes of Bryony's disappearance and the discovery of Enid's lifeless body. ‘Where could she be?' she wailed one minute. ‘I just don't understand how a little girl could vanish like that!' The next minute she shuddered, ‘It was horrible. Her face was all contorted. She looked so awful.'

Gill had managed to maintain, so far, an appearance of tranquillity, if only to keep Lou from going completely out of control. ‘Well, she was no oil painting when she was alive,' she said in an attempt at gallows humour.

Lou was horrified. ‘That's not funny, angelface! You didn't see her – the way her eyes were staring, and her mouth . . .' She gulped. ‘I mean, I loathed the old bag, but I wouldn't have wished that on her. Not on anybody.'

While Becca and Stephen tried to deal with Lou's incipient hysteria, Lucy made herself useful by brewing a pot of strong tea. She added sugar in liberal quantities to two of the cups, for Gill and Lou.

‘Thanks,' said Gill. ‘My mother always said that there was nothing like a cup of strong, sweet tea to help you deal with shock. The best medicine going, she always said. And I must confess that it hits the spot – though I've always found cowslip tea to be very efficacious as a tranquilliser.'

Lou gulped hers gratefully, unconcerned that she was burning her tongue. ‘Don't you try to come near me with any of that cowslip muck,' she warned. ‘I wouldn't drink it for a bet.' She began pacing. ‘When are the bloody police going to get here, then?' she fretted. ‘It's been ages since I rang them. I suppose they're all over across the road. You'd think that a missing little girl would be more urgent than a dead old lady, wouldn't you?' She grinned suddenly, more like herself for just a moment. ‘Though I
did
tell them not to bother to send that dickhead Sergeant Spring. What a bloody waste of space – he's worse than useless.'

A short while later, WPC Karen Stimpson arrived; if she was surprised to find so many people there, she didn't betray it. Recognising Lucy, Becca and Stephen, she greeted them and eliminated them as candidates for mother of the missing girl, but that still left two possibilities. ‘Mrs English?' she said, looking impartially between the two and trusting in them to sort it out.

‘Yes,' Gill acknowledged. ‘I'm Mrs English.'

With Karen Stimpson's arrival, the atmosphere underwent an immediate change; she managed, with her matter-of-fact air of efficiency, to exercise a calming influence. Lou took an instant liking to her, which was a great help. ‘Thank God they've had sense enough to send a woman,' Lou declared. ‘We've got at least a reasonable chance of success. I hate to think what would happen with some cack-handed man in charge.'

The WPC acknowledged the implied compliment with a smile. ‘I'll try not to be too cack-handed.'

‘What are you going to do to find Bryony, then?' asked Stephen, the only male present.

‘You're sure she's not in the house,' Karen Stimpson addressed Gill.

Lou took it upon herself to answer. ‘She's not in the house, and she's not in the garden. We thought she might have wandered off somewhere in the village, but I've done a quick recce and haven't found her. And Gill has rung round to a few of her school friends, but no one has seen her.'

‘Well, then.' Karen Stimpson pushed her fingers through her mop of curls. ‘If you've exhausted all the immediate possibilities, we'll have to start thinking in terms of – something else.'

‘And what exactly does that mean?' Lou asked sharply.

The WPC tried to phrase it to cause as little alarm as possible. ‘Well, if Bryony hasn't wandered off under her own steam, we'll have to assume that she's gone off with someone else.'

Lou's expressive hands flew up in the air. ‘Kidnapped! Oh, God! You think she's been kidnapped!'

‘I didn't say that.' Karen's tone was reassuringly matter-of-fact. ‘She might have seen someone she knew and gone with them – a school friend, for instance, or someone else from the village.' She paused. ‘But just in case, we'll be putting a tracer on the phone line straightaway.'

‘Ransom demands,' Lou wailed. ‘Oh, my God!'

‘And of course we'll be instituting house-to-house enquiries in the village immediately. Someone in Walston is sure to know something. Don't worry, Mrs English,' she said in her most confident voice. ‘We'll find your little girl for you.'

‘Thank you,' Gill responded, still calm in spite of, or perhaps because of, Lou's histrionics; the only indication of her inner turmoil was the manner in which she clutched Bryony's discarded skipping rope, hanging on to it like a talisman.

WPC Stimpson found an opportunity to speak to Lucy alone in the kitchen, under the guise of helping to make more tea; in her previous experience with Lucy she had been impressed with the other woman's ability to stay cool under pressure, and decided to take advantage of that quality by enlisting her as an ally. ‘I don't want to alarm Mrs English or her friend,' she confided quietly, ‘but under the circumstances we have to be prepared for the worst scenario here. In nine cases out of ten these things sort themselves out quickly – the child turns out to have wandered off to see a friend or just loses track of the time. But I don't get the feeling that Bryony is that sort of child.' She paused. ‘And as I'm sure you know, Mrs Bletsoe, across the road, has died in – suspicious circumstances. If she's been murdered – well, it occurs to me that it's possible that Bryony was playing outside and saw someone coming or going, and was kidnapped by the murderer to keep her from talking.' She made a rueful face, shaking her head. ‘It's not a nice thought – I'd never say it to the little girl's mother. Because if that's what happened, our chances of finding her alive and well are . . . not so good. I'm sorry to burden you with this, but I wanted to tell you just in case, so that you'll be able to help them through it if need be. You're staying around, are you?'

‘Oh, yes,' Lucy promised, alarmed. ‘I won't be going anywhere as long as I can be of some use to Gill and Lou. But you don't really think . . .'

Karen gave her a little pat on the arm and a reassuring smile. ‘It's just a possibility, and a remote one at that. But I'll feel better about everything if you're around.'

Not long after that, they all migrated to the kitchen to keep vigil round the silent telephone. Eventually the phone rang; Lou pounced upon it. It was David, wanting a word with Lucy, and she gave him short shrift. ‘We can't have you tying up the line,' she said irritably. ‘Bryony's kidnapper might be trying to get through with a ransom demand.'

‘Kidnapper?' he echoed, startled.

Karen Stimpson stepped in, catching Lucy's eye. ‘Tell him to ring through on my mobile,' she instructed, supplying the number.

Lucy took the mobile phone through to the sitting room for privacy. ‘Things here are dreadful,' she told David when he rang again. ‘Lou is practically bouncing off the walls, she's so wound up.'

‘How is Gill, then?'

‘Calm.
Too
calm by half,' Lucy confided. ‘I mean, it's her child who's missing and she's sitting around as though Bryony were in the other room watching television. It's worrying.'

‘Stress affects people in different ways,' David reminded her. ‘Anyway, love, I've got some news.' He paused for effect. ‘It looks as though Enid Bletsoe killed herself.'

‘Suicide!'

‘Exactly. But guess how she did it?'

‘Digoxin,' Lucy said slowly.

‘You've got it in one, clever girl. Digoxin,' he amplified, ‘dissolved in bitter lemon. Much the same idea as putting it in a gin and tonic, as suggested by my friend Chloe – the quinine in the bitter lemon would hasten the effects of the poison. Would potentiate it, in medical terms. A very efficient way to kill oneself, if not a very pleasant one.'

‘Ah.' Lucy exhaled on a long breath, thinking through the implications. ‘We were right, then?'

‘Oh, yes.' David paused. ‘But credit where credit is due, Lucy love.
You
were right. She's left a suicide note,' he added, ‘admitting everything. She doesn't say why she did it, of course, but she admits poisoning Flora, and says that she's now ending it all because she's suffering remorse, and because people are beginning to talk about her and suspect her. It would be only a matter of time, she said, before she was caught, and she preferred to end it herself.'

Time ceased to have much meaning for those who waited at Foxglove Cottage, as the minutes stretched into hours and still there was no word of Bryony. WPC Stimpson left to supervise the house-to-house enquiries; her quiet strength was missed. And David joined them, having learned as much as he could about Enid's death. He managed to distract the others, to a certain extent, by imparting what he had found out: that Enid had killed herself, and had also been responsible for Flora's death. But what would ordinarily have been a matter of great interest seemed secondary in the light of Bryony's continued absence. Through it all there was a great deal of tea-drinking, though at one point David said wistfully, ‘I don't suppose there's a chance of a whisky, is there?'

Gill got up to go for the bottle, but Lou stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. ‘Not now,' she said in a voice that would brook no argument. ‘We all need our wits about us.'

It was nearly ten when Karen Stimpson returned, going through to the kitchen to find Gill. ‘I have some news,' she said, smiling.

Gill's face lit up. ‘You've found Bryony.'

‘Well, not exactly. But we do have a lead.'

‘Tell us!' Lou demanded, on her feet.

‘I've spoken to a Mr Gaze, who lives near the church.'

Lou waved her hand in rapid circles to speed the narrative up. ‘Yes, we know who he is. What did he say?'

‘He saw a strange car in Walston this afternoon.' Karen watched Gill's face as she spoke. ‘It was a red sports car, though he wasn't sure of the make. But he did give us a good description of the driver: a man in his thirties, well dressed in a light grey suit, with short fair hair and a moustache. He thought,' she added, ‘that there was a little girl in the passenger seat, but he couldn't swear to it.'

‘Adrian,' Gill said softly, moistening her lips with her tongue. ‘My ex-husband. Bryony's father. It must be.'

‘Adrian!' Lou exploded in a savage shout. ‘I told the bastard I would break every bone in his body if he came near Bryony!'

Karen Stimpson smiled, ignoring Lou's outburst. ‘We're almost there, then, Mrs English. If your ex-husband has got Bryony, we'll have her back in no time. If you can just give me his address . . .'

‘But what if he hasn't taken her there?' Lou interrupted. ‘What if he's scarpered? Left the country or something?'

‘We'll find him,' Karen said with reassuring certainty. ‘If he's not at home, we'll circulate his description, and Bryony's, and the car's, to every port and airport in the country. Take my word for it, Mrs English. You'll have your little girl home with you by tomorrow morning.'

‘Thank you,' Gill breathed, closing her eyes. It was only then that the effects of the shock caught up with her: she began trembling violently, wracked with gasping sobs. ‘Oh, Bryony!' she wept. ‘Oh, my little girl!'

And it was only later, when she'd calmed down sufficiently to talk, that she said to Lou, ‘When did you speak to Adrian, then? To tell him that you'd break every bone in his body if he tried to see Bryony?'

Lou had the grace to look shamefaced. ‘I didn't tell you,' she muttered defensively. ‘But it was the day Flora died. Adrian had rung up to talk to you not long before that – remember? So I went to London to see him, to tell him to piss off and stay out of our lives. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd be upset. After all, we agreed never to mention the bastard's name in this house.'

‘The day Flora died?' Gill looked at her in wonder. ‘But oh – I wish you'd told me! You don't have any idea what terrible things I've imagined about where you were that day, and why you wouldn't tell me!'

Lou's hands fluttered and went to her face. ‘I think it's time to get out the whisky,' she said in a very small voice.

CHAPTER 27

    
Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies: that thou mightest still the enemy, and the avenger.

Psalm 8.2

Karen Stimpson was as good as her word: she delivered Bryony back to Foxglove Cottage the next morning. Bryony, though, was withdrawn and subdued, a far cry from her usual sunny self; she endured the tears and fussing, avoided the questions, and at the earliest opportunity slipped upstairs to her room.