Missing (18 page)

Justine couldn’t hear the reply, but she didn’t need to to know who was calling. It was evident not only from his words, but from the softness of his tone as he spoke them.

She watched him walk into the conservatory and close the door behind him. Just these past few minutes had shown her that getting her old friend Colleen Peterson to run a story in the
Mail
, then drop Vivienne’s name into the five o’clock bulletin, had been the right call. She couldn’t put anything in her own name right now, but if everything went to plan this story was going to earn her a first-class ticket out
of
Critch hell and onto the
Mail
, because that was the deal she and Colleen had struck with the
Mail
’s editor this past weekend.

She didn’t like to think of it as a betrayal of Miles; after all, she’d more or less told him five minutes ago that it was what she was intending to do, and no way would she file anything to anyone that wasn’t true. No, this was more a saving of her own skin, because if she’d learned anything during her years as a journalist, it was to take care of herself first, and never to trust an editor. Not even Miles. And if he thought he was going to pull out of their agreement now, then he needed to think again, because she was going nowhere until she’d found out for certain if that child really did exist – and if it did, what part was it playing in Jacqueline Avery’s disappearance?

Chapter Seven

‘NO, I DIDN’T
hear the news myself,’ Vivienne was saying into the phone. ‘I just called Alice at the office and she told me. She said you were trying to reach me.’

‘I was,’ Miles confirmed. ‘Where are you?’

She looked around the converted cider press that Susie Blake’s housekeeper had unlocked for her a few minutes ago. Quaint and cosy, it consisted of no more than a small kitchen-cum-sitting room, and a staircase leading to a vaulted mezzanine bedroom with en suite bath. ‘I’m out of town seeing new clients,’ she answered briefly.

There was a pause before he said, ‘I’m sorry this is happening. Your name shouldn’t have been dragged into it.’

As aware as he was of what had happened the last time their names had been linked in the press, she tried to downplay it by saying, ‘It was bound to happen, and after today there shouldn’t be any reason to mention me again.’

With no little irony he said, ‘They don’t need reasons, the past is enough. Has anyone tried to contact you?’

‘From the press? Apparently Kayla’s fielded a few calls, and my email’s looking pretty full, but don’t
worry,
I’ll go the no-comment route. I take it there’s been no word from Jacqueline?’

‘No.’ He paused. ‘It’s looking as though she didn’t get on the train.’

Vivienne’s heart gave an unsteady beat, even though she’d already heard the rumour. ‘So she could still be in Devon?’

‘Possibly.’ Again he paused. ‘A lot of money’s gone from one of our joint accounts.’

She frowned. ‘What are you reading into that?’

‘It was withdrawn about a month before she left, so it doesn’t seem as though her decision to go was impulsive, and if she’s using cash, I can only presume it’s because she doesn’t want to be traced.’

Able to picture the strain on his face, she said, ‘Are the police actively looking for her now, or just making enquiries?’

‘I’m not sure. The missing money won’t encourage them to set up a search. She’s an adult. She has the right to disappear, if that’s what she wants.’

But not to do this to you, she wanted to say. ‘How’s Kelsey?’ she asked.

‘Getting more worried by the day. I don’t know if talking to her headmistress will help, or just make things worse.’ He sighed wearily. ‘I dread to think of the long-term effects this is going to have on her, as if she hasn’t suffered enough already. She needs some kind of stability in her life.’

‘She has it with you,’ Vivienne reminded him gently. ‘You’re there for her, and that’s all that matters.’

‘I wish it was, but seeing the way … This is nothing short of a nightmare for her. How can it be anything else? Her mother’s walked out on her again, and she doesn’t know whether to feel afraid of her coming back
after
what happened the last time, or if she should want it as much as she seems to. She’s all over the damned place. And what’s going to happen if Jacqueline does decide to show up, which she presumably will, at some point? Do we carry on with the same farce we’ve been living for the past fifteen years? Pretending Sam’s going to turn up at any moment. Maintaining a united front so both Mummy and Daddy will be there when he knocks on the door? Shopping for all the latest gadgetry and fashions a boy could want, so she can show him
when he comes back
that she’s never forgotten him? It’s got to end. Somehow, someone has to find a way of making her understand that she deserves a life too. For Christ’s sake, we all do.’

‘Especially Kelsey,’ Vivienne murmured – and Rufus, she added in her mind, her heart stirring with the need to unite him with his father. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she told him, wishing she felt as confident as she sounded. ‘Somehow, we’ll work this out.’

There was a long silence before he said, ‘You don’t know how much it means to hear you say “we”, but I can’t involve you in this.’

‘The press have already done that.’

‘You don’t need to speak to them, and as long as we don’t see one another there’ll be no reason for the police to be in touch with you again, either. I just hope to God she’s not …’ He stopped, and she knew why. Words were almost impossible when there was such a cruel mix of emotions in his heart.

‘I should go now,’ she said softly. ‘Please don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. So will Jacqueline. Just focus on Kelsey.’

As she put the phone down her eyes drifted to the
small
terrace outside the kitchenette, where a regal-looking peacock was gazing quizzically in through the open door. It seemed to be asking what right she had to be there, and if she had to give an answer, it might be to ask the same thing. She was too close to Moorlands, too far into Jacqueline’s world to feel either secure or right about being there, particularly if Jacqueline was still in Devon.

Getting up from the table where she’d dropped her laptop and BlackBerry on arriving, she went outside and watched the peacock. It strutted off past the pond that was scooped like an oyster shell into the lawn beyond the small terrace before soaring, honking and fluttering, into the branches of a nearby oak. She looked around, feeling the cool dampness of the air, and cocooned by nature in a way that was vaguely unnerving. It was as though she was being watched by a hundred hidden eyes. The country sounds were sibilant and persistent, scratching, rustling, croaking, and blending with the gush of the stream that bubbled and raced alongside the press. A sharp cracking noise made her turn quickly, but there was nothing to be seen amongst the mossy barks and golden branches of the surrounding trees.

With a growing anxiety she started across the stone bridge that linked the terrace to a gravelled clearing where her car was parked, and currently a family of pheasants was pecking about in the dirt. She was intending to fetch her overnight bag, but instead she found herself walking on through the small wood that cloistered the press, taking long, firm strides as though there were some purpose to where she was going.

The big old manor house, with its pale grey stone
walls
and elegantly turreted towers, was nestling grandly, emptily, in the weakening sunlight as she passed, while down at the gates the Lodge, home to Laura the housekeeper and her gamekeeper husband, would only become visible once the foliage had fallen.

Taking a path she’d occasionally followed with Susie, or Miles, she walked on to the stables, digging her hands into the pockets of her jeans and hunching her shoulders. She was heading towards an open field that sloped steeply down from the woods where local landowners often held their shoots, though she knew Miles had given up his gun some time ago after watching too many birds being shot for sport and then buried because they were never going to be eaten.

As she strode up over the field a mix of defiance and fear was powering her legs, and making her strangely light-headed. It wasn’t that she really believed Jacqueline was somewhere close by, in fact it was absurd even to think it, yet she was aware that this gesture was somehow challenging, as though she needed to prove to herself, or anyone watching, that she wasn’t intimidated, or at all afraid.

When finally she reached the gate that connected the Blakes’ land to the game-infested territory beyond, she stopped and leaned against it, taking a moment to catch her breath before going through. When she did she turned away from the woods that climbed on up to the moor, and went to stand on the crest that marked the boundary between Moorlands and the Blakes’ much more sizeable estate. As she gazed down into the spectacular valley she felt her heart filling with its beauty. The evening sun was burnishing the fields in shades of amber and gold, glinting and sparkling, and spreading like honey down to the house itself. A
blood-red
creeper clung to the walls and framed the windows, while the grey tiled roof and rising chimneys shone like molten alloy. She remembered the times she and Miles had stood on this very spot gazing down at the home they were making their own – how close they had become during that one short year. Being in touch with him now she was aware of that closeness reasserting itself, as though no time had passed at all.

She looked on to the woods that dipped away from the far side of Moorlands’ lake, spreading out like an enormous hand to the distant road beyond. They were quite separate from the woods behind her, where the shoots took place and the gamekeepers kept an avid lookout for intruders, though these woods too straggled over to the hill behind Moorlands to form its boundary with the moor.

As she gazed down at the house again she was trying to imagine Jacqueline inside, or crossing the courtyard to stroll down to the lake. Though it had been her home for the past two years, and for a while before she’d gone to the States, Vivienne knew she’d never had any fondness for it, so perhaps that was why her presence, at least in Vivienne’s mind, seemed strangely ephemeral, almost ghostlike. Yet at the same time it was as though her disappearance had created an energy that was stealing through the trees like a wind, and drifting down from the moor like a mist. Even the scent of grass and earth seemed to be hers, while the sough of the air was the plaintive cry of a woman searching for her lost child; the anguished beat of a broken heart.

With a shiver of pity she turned around and began wandering back the way she’d come. As tormented
and
unpredictable as Jacqueline was, she surely had to know how much distress her actions were causing her husband and daughter. How could she not care? More to the point, how could she allow a child who’d vanished fifteen years ago to take precedence over one who was still there?

By the time Vivienne had collected her bag from the car and returned to the press the light had almost gone, and the feeling of being alone, and yet not, was creeping in on her again. Closing and locking the door behind her, she walked around the room pulling the curtains, then put a match to the fire the housekeeper had set. For a while she stood watching the flames lick up through the tangle of twigs and logs, then after opening a bottle of wine she’d found in the fridge she went to check her BlackBerry.

Amongst the emails asking for interviews or comments about Jacqueline she found half a dozen or so expressing interest in the auction, which she dealt with right away. Next she listened to a voice message from Kayla letting her know that a Devon-based choreographer was making contact with the firemen to start work on their auction routine, then she opened a text saying:

I know you know where she is.

As her insides jarred, the phone rang, making her start.

‘Mum,’ she said, clicking on quickly. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Of course. I heard the news while I was driving back from town, so I’m wondering how you are. I take it you heard it too.’

‘Actually I didn’t, but I know what was said. How’s Rufus?’

‘Being made a fuss of by his aunt and uncle. Do you—’

Vivienne broke in sharply. ‘Are they listening to this call?’ she demanded, knowing how her sister would gloat if she was.

‘No, they’re in the sitting room. So what are you going to do about having your name dragged into it?’

Feeling more annoyed than she should, she said, ‘There’s not much I can do, is there?’ Then, without thinking, ‘I received another text just now, from the person who seems to think I know where Jacqueline is.’

Linda’s tone was clipped as she said, ‘But that’s absurd. I think you should tell the police.’

‘I’m considering it.’

‘Do you think Jacqueline herself could be sending them?’

‘It has crossed my mind, but why would she? What does it achieve?’

‘That’s asking me to think the way she does, and I’m not sure any of us can do that. Anyway, if it’s not her, who the heck else could it be, apart from that dreadful Justine James?’

‘Actually, I’m pretty certain that’s who it is. She’s trying to conjure up her own exclusive, meaning that if I contact the police she’ll be able to go to print with the messages, as though they’ve been leaked by an insider.’

‘She can’t get away with that,’ Linda declared hotly.

‘You’d be amazed what the press gets away with when someone’s fighting shy of publicity. Look at the things some of them are saying about Miles, slanting
their
coverage to cast him in the worst possible light, as if he didn’t get enough of that when Sam went missing.’

‘Well, maybe he should speak up for himself and tell them that if anyone’s done away with her, she’ll have done it to herself.’

Vivienne’s eyes closed. ‘Mum, don’t say things like that.’

‘You might not want to hear it, but you can’t deny that a part of you wishes she’d put herself—’

‘For God’s sake,’ Vivienne broke in angrily, ‘don’t you realise how it could sound to someone else if they heard you talking like that?’