In Bitter Chill (19 page)

Rachel looked at her notebook and resisted the temptation to light the fire and burn it. If Sadler was right, then half of her genealogy was a complete lie and her mother had colluded in the deception. She’d nurtured Rachel’s interest in her family while knowing that the foundations on which her entire professional life was based were lies.

She walked over to the mirror at the bottom of the stairs and stared at her reflection. She looked like her mother, although about two stone heavier. Mary Jones had spent most of her life on a diet to keep herself trim, and Rachel’s small act of rebellion had been to eat what she wanted when she was growing up. And her solid body had been one of the reasons she had avoided mirrors. But today she forced herself to look at her face with fresh eyes. What was there in her of this other man?

‘And does it have anything to do with my kidnapping?’

She spoke the words out loud and her breath misted the glass, blurring the familiar features.

If her natural father was behind the abduction, it wouldn’t make any sense to kidnap Sophie too. There had been plenty of opportunity to take Rachel alone in the 1970s, when children had seemingly unlimited freedom. Those days almost certainly came to an end with the kidnapping of Sophie and herself. Bampton’s attitude towards its children had taken a radical rethink, playgrounds had been reconfigured, after-school clubs had sprung up and the suburban roads had gradually cleared of playing children. When Rachel saw a child on its bike now it was kitted out as if it was about to enter combat, so ensconced was it in the padding and plastic. She could remember the feel of her hair flying back from her as she careered one-handed down the hill towards her house. A different world.

She walked up to her bedroom and switched on the overhead light. Her mother had lied to her for a reason. And Sadler believed that she had also suspected that her real father was involved in the kidnapping. And they were going find him first, were they? Well, not if she had anything to do with it.

She crossed to her pine chest of drawers and pulled open her sock drawer. Her socks were short and in muted shades of black, brown or grey. She lifted a pair up and untangled the knot. She felt nothing. She hurried down the stairs and opened her front door. There was no one outside her house. She turned left and walked slightly uphill to the house three doors away. The front door was identical to hers except painted a cheery red rather than her respectable grey. She rapped on the door and Jenny opened it, her large tortoiseshell glasses hiked up on top of her head.

‘Rachel! You OK? I’ve been meaning to come round all this week to see if there was anything I could do. But you know what it’s like with kids. I’m lucky if I get an hour to myself before I go to bed.’

Rachel shook her heard. ‘It’s all right, look—’

Jenny shot out her arm. ‘Don’t stand there on the doorstep. Come in.’

The house was configured as hers was and she stepped straight into the living room. It was a mess of plastic toys, half-filled coffee cups and strewn gossip magazines.

‘I won’t keep you long; I do know how it is.’ Rachel looked round the living room. ‘Look, I was wondering if I could borrow a pair of your daughter’s school socks. You know, the long white ones she wears.’

Whatever Jenny had been expecting it wasn’t this. Rachel had an excuse ready. ‘I have to do a report for a client interested in schoolchildren down the ages. I’m doing something on uniforms and I’m stuck for inspiration. I’m trying to gather a few items together.’

Jenny’s doubtful face cleared. ‘How interesting. I tell you, when I worked for the local authority nothing like this ever happened to me. It was all procedures and compliance. Hang on.’

Only a person as mild mannered as Jenny would have accepted Rachel’s bizarre suggestion so easily. Rachel looked round the living room again, wondering how a family of four could crowd into such a space. But at least it looked like a family lived there, unlike her tidy but sterile house. Jenny came down with a pair of long white socks which Rachel stuffed into her pocket. Whatever effect they would have on her, she didn’t want an audience, even one as kind as Jenny.

Her phone was ringing as she re-entered her house.

‘It’s Richard. What are you up to later?’

The sound of his voice brought a warmth to her stomach that made her want to forget about the past and flee from her obsession with the current investigation. He offered her a refuge, his comfortable home a sanctuary from everything that had come before, but, for the moment, she must resist the pull of safety.

‘Are you there, Rachel? How are you?’ he repeated and she forced herself to concentrate.

‘It’s so nice to hear from you. I wanted to call, but . . .’

‘Look. It’s OK. I just wanted to check you were all right.’

Rachel hadn’t realised that she had been holding her breath until she exhaled, her spine bending to accommodate the space left behind.

‘I’m fine. You?’

The tone of the voice changed from anxiety into warmth. ‘I’m fine too. Are we OK after last time? We left the pub in a hurry and . . .’

Rachel looked up at the clock. Five minutes to seven. She fingered the rough ball of material in her pocket. ‘Everything’s fine. But I can’t chat. I have to go and see Nancy this evening.’

‘Is everything OK? I thought Monday was your day for visits.’

‘Don’t worry, I just need to drop something off.’ She clicked off the phone and searched for the charging cradle, gently laying the handset in the holder.

She immediately felt guilty. There were enough stresses in her past to jeopardise a potential future together. Did she need to magnify them by adding secrets to their present? But, then, he hadn’t been upfront with her about his visit to the woods. And, deep down, she wasn’t yet able to make that final leap of trust.

She then pulled out the white sock ball from her pocket and unravelled the two pieces. Almost immediately she felt a searing pain under her ribs accompanied by a sense of longing as sharp as the physical sensation. Her legs wobbled slightly and she moved herself to the sofa. On its arm, she laid both socks next to each other so that they formed a parallel. They were slightly ribbed with an entwining of flowers running down each leg. They were similar to ones worn by her as a child.

On impulse, Rachel picked up one of the socks and threw it on the floor under the table. The image of the one sock, sitting atop sofa’s arm brought back the longing. She tentatively reached out and touched the material and at the back of her mind images began to flicker like a dream barely remembered. She grasped at the pictures but as soon as she had them in her reach they disintegrated.
Come back
, she silently pleaded.
Come back
.

Then suddenly she had a strong image of a man. Tall with large hands and smelling of tobacco leaning over her. He was reaching out to touch her hair and smiling down at her. And behind him a woman. That woman: frowning.

Nancy was having the curlers removed from her hair when Rachel arrived in her room. A mobile hairdresser came and did the patients every Thursday, which was usually a good time for Rachel to telephone Nancy as she was usually in a good mood after having her hair done. Terry Cooper, who’d been coming to the nursing home for years, turned around with a hairgrip sticking out of the corner of his mouth when he heard Rachel enter the room.

‘Here she is. Give me another five minutes and I’ll be finished,’ he said through clenched lips.

Rachel sat in the wing-back chair and watched Terry tease out the curls as he carefully removed each roller.

‘You got a boyfriend yet, me duck?’

Rachel saw Nancy smirk at Terry’s direct question. ‘Maybe.’

Nancy’s eyes widened and Rachel had to stifle the urge to quickly retract the confession. Was Richard Weiss really her boyfriend?

‘Who is he?’ Nancy’s voice quivered, and Rachel, for the first time, realised how important it was to her grandmother that she had someone.

‘Richard Weiss, the solicitor. And it’s only recent, we’re taking it easy.’ It was a lie. There had been no discussion whatsoever about how they were taking things. But the less Nancy was told the better.

‘Richard Weiss? The solicitor’s son?’

‘He’s a solicitor now himself, Nan. He’s older than me. Just.’

Nancy snorted. ‘Well, bring him in to see me. I get sick of living with all these old people. I could do with some young company sometimes.’

It was a good an opening as she was likely to get. And Rachel took it.

‘Did Mum bring my dad home to see you much before they got engaged?’

Nancy looked uninterested. ‘Not really. It was too quick, if you ask me. She met him and was engaged and married before you could bat an eye.’ She saw Rachel’s face. ‘Not that it mattered or anything. Lots of people get married quickly. No shame in it.’

Terry Cooper was looking from one to the other. ‘Don’t stop because I’m here. I’ve heard it all, believe me.’

‘I don’t have a problem with Mum being pregnant when she got married, Nan. Honestly. I just wondered if you had seen much of him before. You know, before the wedding.’

‘There was none of that. I think that other man put her off. That’s what happens sometimes, isn’t it? You bring golden boy home and then it goes sour and you’re a damn sight more careful next time around. I . . .’

Rachel’s heart was beating hard inside her chest and she could feel her innards twist into a hard knot. As casually as she could, she asked, ‘A boyfriend? Who was that?’

Nancy looked hard at her. ‘I can’t remember who it was. But I can remember Mair showing herself up again the one and only time he came around. She was as rude as anything to him. We’d made a special effort too. Hughie put on a suit and I’d bought myself a new dress that morning. Pale lemon, it was.’

Typical of Nancy to concentrate on what she was wearing, thought Rachel.

‘And there sat Mum in the corner, knitting with her elbows out like a turkey and needles clacking like a hen. And the radio blasting out hymns. I told her that it’d have to go off when Mary’s man arrived. And to be fair, as she always had a soft spot for Mary, she did sit up straight when they arrived.’

‘So what happened? How did she act up?’ Rachel was impatient for the whole story and Nancy was typically stringing it along.

‘She was rude to him. Mary brought him over to Mair’s chair and she never even got up. She just looked and looked at him, and then finally snapped, “What did you say your name was again?” like he was some kind of child. And he blushed beetroot red and stammered—’

‘What? What name did he stammer?’ Rachel practically shouted and Terry was looking at her in alarm.

‘Take it easy, Rachel. Your nan is only telling you an old story.’

Rachel took a deep breath and willed her voice to calm. ‘Can you remember what he was called?’

‘Of course I can’t remember his name. This was years ago. My point was after, when the man was gone, your mother turned on Mair and said that she had ruined it all. By being so rude to him. And my mum looked so shocked, which was unusual for her. Normally she couldn’t care less about what anyone thought of her. But, as I said, she always had a soft spot for Mary.’

Rachel felt like weeping. She didn’t want reminiscences. She wanted hard facts. Which didn’t look like they would be forthcoming.

‘Mair went up to apologise to her afterwards. I saw her come down with a grim look on her face and when I asked her what she’d said, she told me to mind my own business. But Mary came down later with a face on her too. Couldn’t look at any of us. But that was the last we saw of the man.’

Rachel held her head in her hands. ‘Can’t you remember anything else about him? Anything at all?’

Nancy’s face cleared and brightened. ‘I remember he was tall.’

Connie rolled over in her bed and fumbled for her mobile. She’d slept badly and wondered if she’d done the right thing in talking to that journalist. The thought of the possible ramifications kept her awake for half the night. But then it didn’t take much. She punched in the number of Rachel Jones’s mobile.

‘Hello?’

The man’s voice threw her. ‘Er, hi. It’s DC Connie Childs. Is Rachel there?’

‘Damn. Have I answered the wrong phone? Rachel . . .’

Connie could hear rustling and a whispered exchange. About thirty seconds later Rachel’s voice came on, irritated.

‘Sorry about that. Richard and I’ve both got the same type of mobile. He’s mortified that he answered mine.’

‘It’s not a problem. I just wanted to pick your brains about something.’

‘Go on.’ The muffled voice suggested Rachel was eating her breakfast.

‘I was wondering about your mum’s friends. Who she was close to and so on. Maybe someone who had been in her life for a while. Someone who was still a friend around the time you were kidnapped?’

‘My mum? I don’t know. DI Sadler asked me that yesterday. After the kidnapping we moved to Clowton and our whole lives changed – friends, colleagues and so on. The only constant was my nan, who I saw all through my childhood.’

‘And your nan’s in a nursing home?’

‘That’s right. She’s completely doolally. I don’t think you’ll get any information from her at all.’

There was a long pause.
She’s lying
, thought Connie.

‘Is there no one at all?’

‘Well, there was a next-door neighbour that I used to go into if my mum was late home from work and I remember her babysitting a couple of times. This was before the kidnapping. Maybe she will be able to help.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Audrey. I remember she worked as a nurse and so her shift patterns were really strange, which suited us. I would often drop in and see her. It was in the old Bampton hospital.’

Connie got up and lit a cigarette, the one that she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t have, and jotted into her notebook the name of the hospital that Penny Lander had also been interested in.

‘And do you think your mum might have confided in her, this Audrey.’

‘To be honest, no. My mum was a private person. But they lived next door to each other for a quite a few years, so if anyone knows anything it will be her. But I don’t know if she is even in Bampton now. It’s been over thirty years. And when the hospital closed she could easily have moved jobs.’

‘Last name?’ Connie asked and the silence down the phone indicated that she’d been too abrupt. ‘Sorry. Early mornings aren’t my thing and I’ve already broken my daily resolution by having my first fag.’

Surprisingly, Rachel laughed down the phone. ‘I know what you mean. I’ve just eaten a croissant and that’s before breakfast.’

Connie sniggered.

‘I’m pretty sure her name was Audrey Frost. Her last name was easy to remember as a child and I’m pretty sure that was it. Will you let me know if you find her?’

Connie agreed and ended the call. The phone rang immediately. Looking at the screen she could see it was Sadler.

‘Connie. Sorry to call again so early but in case I don’t see you today we need to have a chat about something outside the office.’

Connie’s stomach lurched. Had he found out about her meeting with Nick Oates?

‘It’s about the wedding tomorrow. We need to think about a present.’

Connie stopped herself from smiling in case he heard it in the tone of her voice. ‘A present? I hadn’t given it any thought to be honest.’

‘Well, we can hardly go empty handed, can we?’ He sounded irritated, thought Connie, as she stubbed out her cigarette.

‘I suppose not. Do you want me to get something?’

‘Could you? Thanks, Con.’ There was a brief silence. ‘Are you bringing a partner?’

‘No one to bring, to be honest. You?’

‘Um no. Perhaps they’ll sit us together.’ He sounded hopeful, but not in a romantic way. It didn’t sound like he was looking forward to it. Well, that made two of them.

‘Maybe. On the same table as Llewellyn and his wife. They’re going, apparently.’

Sadler let it pass. ‘Fine. Well, give me a call later with an update how you’re getting on. And thanks for getting the present. Let me know how much I owe you.’

Sadler sat in his office looking out into the incident room that gave off an air of muted concentration. The tasks had all been successfully allotted and each of the team was working steadily through their jobs. Palmer’s temporary replacement, who’d been brought in for two weeks to cover tasks while his sergeant was on leave, was clearly competent. He had his head bent over a laptop and was tapping away. Sadler ran his hands through his hair and let out a deep breath. The confrontation with Christina yesterday had left him drained and to be back at work was a relief.

Penny Lander’s murder was connected to the seismic event that took place in 1978, but now it looked like the kidnapping had its roots in events years earlier. So, what had they discovered? Well, for a start, focus had now decisively shifted from Sophie to Rachel. The likely scenario was that Sophie had unfortunately been with Rachel when the kidnapper had struck. And if that was the case, and Sadler was sure it was, then Sophie was almost certainly lying somewhere in Truscott Woods.

The suicide of Yvonne Jenkins, he was now willing to concede, was merely that. The final act of a woman who had finished with life. Why she’d waited so long was a mystery. Connie’s description of the house had sounded depressing, but clearly she’d made something of a life for herself. Perhaps it was simply that, on this particular anniversary, the realisation finally struck that, no matter how long she waited, Sophie wasn’t coming home. But Sadler wasn’t a man who believed in ‘simply’s. Something had tipped her over the edge. And then Yvonne Jenkins’s suicide had unleashed a chain of events that had culminated in the death of Penny Lander. It wasn’t the first time that Sadler had seen this. Suicide could break up families, awaken illnesses dormant within unsuspecting relatives, cause fissures in lives. But it was the first time in his career that he would be linking suicide to a murder.

His mobile rang, an unknown number, and he answered it. There was a short silence at the other end of the phone.

‘It’s Justine Lander here.’

Sadler felt his heart thump in his chest and inwardly cursed. He was now not only technically but actually single, so why the teenage embarrassment?

‘Is it a difficult time?’

There it was again. The tang of bitterness that he’d heard in her voice before. ‘No, of course it isn’t. Are you still at the house, or at your aunt’s?’

‘I’m still at the house. I’ve been tidying up and going briefly through Mum’s things. Just to see if there’s anything urgent that needs doing.’

‘Did you find anything? I hope everything was left in good order after our lot had been through it.’

‘It was fine. It was pretty tidy, to be honest. Although I could tell someone had been here, if you know what I mean; But I wondered if they had gone through the garden shed.’

Sadler wondered if he had heard her properly. ‘The shed?’

‘It’s where my mum used to keep all the junk she couldn’t fit in the house. Old stuff which didn’t matter if it went mouldy; in fact, if it did all the better as she could just throw it out then.’

‘Well, they certainly should have done. Why? Have you found anything?’

There was a silence again. ‘You might want to come down and take a look.’

Audrey Frost was a large-hipped woman with smallish waist and an enormous cleavage that stretched the nylon blouse that she was wearing so that it gaped in three places. Connie could see the glimpse of a grey-white bra and made an effort not to stare at the enormous bosom. She had been easy to find. The electoral roll showed her living at Arkwright Lane in 1978 and then in 1980 moving to Hugh Street in the north of Bampton. She was still there, in a semi-detached house, slightly untidy but not in the dirty way of those who failed to care for either themselves or their properties. Audrey seemed merely to take a lackadaisical approach to housework rather than making a deliberate attempt to live in squalor.

Connie had briefly explained her interest over the phone and Audrey was clearly curious. She sat Connie down and bustled off to make some tea, her nylon blouse sending off darts of static as she left the room. Connie looked around her, and once more was struck by another room without any photographs. She shouted her questions to Audrey, who was taking her time in the kitchen.

‘As I mentioned over the phone, your name was given to us by Rachel Jones. I think you’d remember her as a little girl.’

Audrey came back into the room. ‘I remember her very well, scruffy little urchin that she was. Hair all scraggy like a scarecrow and her school uniform always creased. Some children can look neat and tidy no matter what and others, like Rachel, manage to look like little tinkers.’

‘Did her mother look after her properly?’

A flash of annoyance crossed the woman’s face. ‘Of course she looked after her. It wasn’t easy in the seventies to bring up a child by yourself. You couldn’t sit back and let the state look after you for nothing. If you were single back then, you had to work to support yourself and no harm it did anyone, in my opinion. For a woman, it at least got you out of the house.’

Connie recalled the interview with Peter Jenkins and thought Audrey Frost had a point. But the woman hadn’t finished.

‘And don’t go blaming Mary for what happened with Rachel and Sophie. Children used to walk themselves to school back then. It wasn’t a choice – most people expected it and you kept an eye out for the kids when they were passing your house.’

‘What do you think happened, then?’

‘I’ve no idea, and one thing is for sure, neither did Mary. I remember going round to the house the night of the kidnapping. Only the local press had arrived; the nationals were struggling to get up here because of a train strike. I remember Mary was white with shock. She kept asking herself who could have done such a thing.’

‘She had no idea at all?’

‘I’m positive she hadn’t a clue.’

A slight hesitation in Audrey’s voice made Connie look up sharply. ‘But you’re thinking of something?’

‘It’s nothing, really; I just remember she nipped across to mine to make a call just after I arrived, asked if I would keep an eye on Rachel. There was a policewoman there who had come home with them but she wanted me to be there too, as I knew Rachel, while she used my phone.’

‘She wanted to use the phone in your house?’

‘Not everyone had phones in those days. I thought nothing of it. Said go ahead, and I’ll keep an eye on Rachel.’

‘But you think it was suspicious?’

‘Then I remembered that Mary had installed a phone in the house only a couple of months earlier. I had a quick look around downstairs and I found it in the dining room.’

‘So why do you think she wanted to make a phone call at your house?’

Audrey’s mouth settled into a thin line. ‘She must have wanted to speak to someone without me overhearing.’

She turned to stare out of the living room window, her broad back turned to the room. Connie let the silence settle while she digested the information. Mary Jones had installed a phone in her dining room but hadn’t wanted to use it in front of either the policewoman or in front of Audrey. Had she suspected who the attacker was? Connie’s thoughts went to the father of Rachel Jones.

‘Did Mary ever talk about her husband, Paul Saxton?’

Audrey didn’t turn but spoke to the window. ‘Not much. She never really spoke about her husband at all. He died. That’s all that I knew.’

Connie was missing something and she tried to formulate the words properly. ‘Did she talk about anyone else?’

This time Audrey did turn round. ‘There was someone else.’

‘Before her husband?’

‘Certainly before and maybe during. I’m not sure.’

‘Did she mention his name?’

Audrey shook her head and sat down heavily on her sofa. ‘No, never a name. But there was someone. She used to talk about a man who’d let her down. I got the impression that he must have been something of a rogue. She certainly didn’t want to talk about him in any detail.’

‘But she mentioned the fact that there was someone. How did she seem when she talked about him?’

Audrey looked down at her knees and rubbed her hands over them as if to warm herself up. ‘She seemed ashamed.’