Gone Astray (23 page)

‘This is incredible, Lesley,’ said Maggie in awe. ‘Does Rosie know about them?’

Lesley’s voice cracked. ‘No, and nor does Mack. He hates hoarding things and I didn’t want him to chuck them out. At our old house I used to keep the boxes hidden in the loft
and managed to sneak them out during the move. I don’t think either of them come in here and even if they do, I keep the wardrobe locked. My plan is to give the boxes to Rosie on her
eighteenth birthday.’ She dropped to the carpet and wailed. ‘What if I never get to give them to her?’

Maggie knelt down beside her and hugged her as she cried, close to tears herself. Even though she knew it wasn’t wise to get emotional around the family, she defied anyone not to be moved
by the sight of all those boxes.

When Lesley finished crying she looked wrung out and Maggie had to help her to her feet.

‘Why did you bring me up here to show me these?’

‘Rosie’s old laptop is in box fourteen,’ said Lesley, wiping her eyes with a grubby, balled-up tissue she pulled from her skirt pocket. ‘She had it for a couple of years
before she got her iPad for her birthday last year. It’s the only computer I can think of that she might’ve used to send that email on Sunday.’

‘I thought you said she didn’t know about the boxes?’

‘I honestly didn’t think she did.’

Maggie reached for box fourteen, which was on the top of the second stack. She pulled it towards her and laid it on the carpet. The tape sealing the box had been torn off. Opening it up, she saw
a pink Sony Vaio laptop inside.

‘She must’ve come in, wondered why the wardrobe was locked and gone looking for the key,’ said Lesley. ‘I can’t believe she’s never said anything.’

‘Perhaps she realized you were keeping the boxes as a surprise and didn’t want to spoil it for you.’

‘Or she didn’t care,’ said Lesley sorrowfully.

Maggie fetched a pair of protective latex gloves from her bag before removing the laptop from the box and booting it up. The browsing history confirmed Rosie had indeed used it on Sunday to log
on to her AOL account: the email she wrote to Cassie was in the account’s Sent box. As confirmed by the High Tech Crime Unit, it was the only email Rosie had sent in almost eighteen months
and Cassie hadn’t replied.

Maggie closed the browser and checked the desktop. There was only one folder on it, untitled. Clicking it open, she saw it contained a dozen or so Word documents.

‘What are those?’ said Lesley.

Maggie opened the first one, named ‘Nov8’, which she assumed was the date it was written. A quick glance at the first line told her Lesley couldn’t be privy to its contents
just yet and she lowered the laptop’s lid.

‘I’m sorry, Lesley, but I can’t let you read this.’

‘Why not? If Rosie wrote that, I want to read it.’

‘I need to see what it says first, in case it ends up being evidence. We can’t risk prejudicing a future court case. Please understand.’

‘Let me see it,’ Lesley demanded, her fingers furling and unfurling like she wanted to snatch the laptop out of Maggie’s hands.

‘I’m sorry, but no,’ said Maggie firmly.

Lesley stared at her defiantly for a moment, then her shoulders sagged like the fight had gone out of her.

‘Fine,’ she said wearily.

She slammed the door behind her as she left. The noise must’ve echoed around the house.

Maggie opened the laptop again. By the time she’d read through the fifth Word document she could see there was a theme to them. Rosie – she was certain it was her – was using
her old laptop like a diary, typing out her misery and fears in each document then stashing them away in the belief no one but her would ever read them.

Rosie had laid out the details of her bullying in graphic detail. She was being targeted for still being a virgin. It sounded like some girls she knew – she didn’t name any names
this time – wore their promiscuity like a badge of honour and were putting pressure on her to dish out sexual favours to the boys they hung around with, just as they did. To them it was no
big deal but clearly to Rosie it was and she wrote of her extreme distress at being told she was pathetic and a loser for not wanting to take part.

Maggie sat back on her haunches. She wasn’t easily shocked – she’d been a police officer far too long for that. But this . . . this was something else. She scrolled through the
documents again to see if there were any clues as to who the boys might be. Nationally there had been a number of high-profile court cases involving groups of Asian men grooming vulnerable young
girls for sex, but there was no mention of ethnicity here. The only specific reference she found was someone who went by the initials GS.

Maggie closed down that entry and opened the last Word document Rosie had saved. It was dated Monday, the day after she’d emailed Cassie and the day before she went missing. It was the
shortest entry of all, only three sentences long, but the few words made Maggie’s blood run cold.

Maggie scrabbled for her mobile and rang Umpire. When he didn’t pick up, she tried the incident room. One of the admin support staff answered and she asked to be put through to him.

‘Tell him it’s DC Neville and I need to speak to him urgently.’

After a few moments, the same person came back on the line.

‘I’m sorry, DCI Umpire can’t talk to you right now. I’ve been told to put you through to DC Berry instead.’

Maggie swallowed her disappointment as Steve came on the line. Part of her wanted to hear Umpire’s reaction when she told him what she’d found. Instead, she found herself recounting
it to a distracted Steve. At one point she had to stop and check he was still on the line because he was so quiet.

‘Sorry, Maggie, I am listening. I’m just knackered. Bobby had us up half the night with colic.’

‘But can you make sure you tell Umpire exactly what I’ve just told you? We need to identify this GS character, so tell him I think we should speak to Kathryn Stockton again, and
it’s probably worth trying Lily Flynn too.’ She wondered if they were among the girls Rosie referred to who slept around.

‘Sure.’

‘Steve, this is serious. Rosie wrote on Monday that she was scared about GS hassling her. Tuesday she vanishes. That can’t be a coincidence.’

‘Okay, okay, I’ll tell him,’ he said irritably.

‘Can you send someone over to collect the laptop? It needs to go to HTCU as soon as possible.’

‘Yep, I’ll do that too.’

She softened a little. ‘Listen, when this is over, I’d love to come round and meet Bobby.’

‘Isla would love that,’ said Steve, sounding perkier. ‘We could both do with some cheering up. She’s not best pleased with me at the moment.’

‘It’s Umpire she should be cross with.’

‘Try telling her that,’ he said as he hung up.

It would take at least half an hour before someone arrived to collect the laptop. Resting her notebook on her knee, Maggie scrolled down the screen with the cursor until she reached the first
message Rosie wrote, back in November. Opening it up, she began to read again.

Thursday

The normality made her want to scream. How could they just
sit
there? Lesley watched with growing resentment as Mack slowly spread butter onto a slice of toast. Across
the table, Maggie gingerly sipped a coffee as she checked her phone for messages. It was nearly eight a.m. and Belmar hadn’t arrived yet.

They were sitting at the table in what Mack liked to call the kitchen annexe but to her was just a conservatory. Lesley looked down at her place setting. Both her bowl and cup were empty, as she
could stomach neither food nor drink. The only thing she could keep down was water. She craved another cigarette.

The emptiness of the fourth seat goaded her. It was where Rosie sat on the rare occasions the three of them dined at the table. More often than not they ate in front of the TV with their plates
balanced on their knees. So much space and still they crammed onto one sofa, jostling for elbow space.

Lesley tried not to dwell on what it would be like if Rosie never came home, if that space at the table was never filled. No, she mustn’t think that way. What was it her dad always said?
‘Until there’s no hope there’s always hope.’ She had a sudden yearning to speak to him. A former army lieutenant, he was a complex man, an oil-and-water mix of authority and
optimism. She never remembered him being around much when she was a child – his tours would take him away from home for months on end – but as adults they were close. He’d know
how to deal with all this and say the right things. She’d spoken to him half a dozen times since Tuesday and he’d offered to come up from Cornwall, but she told him to stay put. It
would be too confusing for her mum to stay at the house with the police there.

She caught Maggie’s eye as she glanced up from her phone. She’d said little after Rosie’s old laptop was collected yesterday and Lesley hadn’t pushed it, deciding she was
probably better off not knowing. Instead, the two of them had watched a film in the lounge to pass the time while Mack stayed upstairs in his study. Lesley couldn’t remember what the film was
called or what it was about, only that Jack Nicolson was in it, being shouty.

She was relieved Mack had kept himself out of the way. Every time she looked at him her brain screamed that he was a liar and a cheat and it was exhausting trying to be normal around him. She
still hadn’t decided what to do about the text messages she had found from Suzy. Before sneaking his phone back onto the bed where he’d dropped it, she’d copied Suzy’s
number onto a piece of paper and slipped it into the pocket of her denim skirt, where it remained. She couldn’t imagine calling it, not right now, but at some point she might. Maybe after
Rosie was home. Maybe then she’d confront Mack about his deception.

She’d gone to bed before him and surprised herself by drifting off quickly. But she hadn’t stayed asleep for long. The fear that was now her constant companion fashioned itself into
a fist and punched her awake.
Don’t go to sleep
, it cruelly reminded her as her eyes flew open in fright.
Your child is missing, Lesley Kinnock, don’t you dare forget
she’s gone
. The rest of the night was an exhausting merry-go-round of drifting off and jumping awake and her fractious mood that morning reflected her lack of rest.

‘How did you sleep?’ she asked Maggie.

‘Pretty well, thanks.’ The officer set her phone down on the tablecloth.

‘It doesn’t sound like it.’

‘Another coffee and I’ll be fine. Are you sure you don’t want one?’

‘I don’t think there’s any milk left,’ said Mack. ‘We’ll need to get some more.’

Lesley gaped at him. Did he honestly think she was going to pop to the shops for a couple of pints? Don’t mind me, my daughter’s missing but I’ll just be off to Tesco?

‘Shall I pick up a loaf while I’m at it?’ she spat.

‘Love, I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘I can pick up some things as I have to go back to Mansell this morning for a briefing,’ Maggie offered.

‘What do you suggest we do in the meantime?’

‘Lesley—’ Mack chastised.

‘I don’t mean about the milk,’ she snapped. ‘I mean, do we just sit around again, waiting? I don’t think I can do that for another day. Can you?’ she asked
her husband.

‘It’s hard, I know,’ said Maggie. ‘I guess you could go for a walk if you wanted to get out of the house.’

‘What, through the gate at the top of the road? The reporters would love that. Or maybe we could stroll around the meadow where our daughter’s bloodstained skirt was found. How
scenic.’

‘Lesley, stop it. She’s just trying to help.’

‘If she wants to help, she should be out there looking for Rosie with the others.’ Lesley scraped her chair away from the table and it tipped backwards onto the floor with a crash.
She left it where it was and stormed out of the kitchen. Crossing the entrance hall, she heard footsteps behind her but didn’t slow down.

‘Lesley, wait,’ said Maggie.

‘I’m going to see the Stocktons. I want to talk to Kathryn.’

‘I’m sorry, but you can’t.’

Lesley turned on her.

‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.’

‘I’m sorry, but in this instance I need to. It’s better for the time being if contact between you and the Stocktons is limited.’

‘Is this because of what you found on Rosie’s laptop?’

‘You know I can’t answer that.’

Their stand-off was interrupted by Belmar’s arrival.

‘Is everything okay?’ he asked Maggie.

She shook her head as her phone rang. ‘Umpire,’ she mouthed.

Lesley shook with anger. They had no right to dictate who she spoke to.

As Maggie turned away from her to talk on the phone, Belmar hovered at his colleague’s shoulder, eavesdropping. Neither noticed Lesley as she began to back away from them, towards the
front door. Five seconds later she was gone.

It was going to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. The size of the crowd waiting outside, and the number of officers standing guard, surprised him. How stupid to
think he’d be able to just drive through without being stopped, but it was too late to turn round now. They’d come after him if he did and start asking questions and he wasn’t
prepared for that.

As he drove slowly towards the security gate at the mouth of Burr Way, adrenaline surged through his veins and slammed into the base of his skull and he felt lightheaded and shaky. An inner
voice told him to hold it together, stay calm. Don’t lose it at the first hurdle. Then he spotted a familiar face by the gate and broke into a broad grin. Oh, of all the people. Perfect.