Missing (35 page)

In the early days she’d been drugged in an effort to silence the nightmares and keep her calm. It had turned her into a zombie, but it hadn’t stopped her thinking about stealing a child – if life could take from her, she could take from it. Not that she wanted someone else’s child, she only wanted her own, but sometimes she felt an urge to punish the world for what it was doing to her. She’d never done it, because
even
in her grief-demented state she’d had enough compassion to care about the woman who’d suffer.

With her eyes still focused on the building opposite, she wondered if those responsible had ever returned to the scene of their crime. Did they know it was no longer a garage? Why would they care? Had they spared a thought for her that day, or any day since? Surely they must have read or heard the news, so they’d have known that the police, and even some of their friends, had started to suspect her and Miles of killing their son? It hadn’t made those who’d taken him come forward, but it had brought others into the light, people who had opinions and theories, others who’d suffered similar fates, and a woman who’d stepped from the shadows to claim that she knew for a fact Sam Avery had never been in the car when his mother had driven into the garage.

She blinked reflexively as a driver sped past, angrily blasting his horn. She didn’t look to see what had prompted it. She wasn’t interested. She merely continued to stare at what used to be the garage, unaware of time or space, or even sound. Her breath was shallow, and her nerves taut and frayed like thin copper wires. Sam’s laughter was pushing up from the past to blend with Miles’s frustration and Kelsey’s angry confusion. He wanted to be heard, but his sister’s voice was louder, drowning him out with her sobbing and pleading, desperate to be seen and loved. The need moved past her like a breeze. She knew it was there, and even fleetingly felt it, but it didn’t penetrate far or remain. It had no place with her, she wouldn’t accept it, because it belonged to a world she had no part in.

Life wasn’t going to touch her again, and if it
thought
it had made amends by giving her a daughter, it must realise by now she had proved it wrong. It could keep its little tokens of mercy and false bundles of joy. She’d been cheated of one child, she wasn’t going to be tricked again. Miles could nurture and bond with their daughter if he chose to, the risk was his to take. For her there was no forgiveness – life hadn’t returned her son, so she wouldn’t accept what it had given her in his place. Nor would she allow it to toss her another son, a substitute, a salve, as though Sam had never really mattered. Oh no. She wouldn’t conceive again until her firstborn was back in her arms.

Her head went down and she bunched her hands more tightly in her pockets as she turned to walk on. Anne Cates needed to return to the house she had rented, which she’d paid for in cash, in advance, so no one bothered her at all, not even her landlord who lived in Spain. To her neighbours she was merely the dark-haired woman at number fourteen who kept herself to herself. One or two mumbled good morning and passed on by, heads down, hurrying to the station where they bought various newspapers on their way to work. The headlines would be of momentary interest before they turned the page, moving on to the next. They’d never connect them with the woman who occasionally walked around the green, or stood on a roundabout staring at something that didn’t exist any more. They’d have no idea of the shock she’d received on picking up the paper two days ago, or of the emotions that had followed since like shadows, trailing behind for a while, then suddenly looming large and dark at the front of her mind.

It wasn’t her intention to go to the river, but when next she registered her surroundings she was standing
in
the small, squelchy pools that muddied the shore when the tide went out. Her footprints were fading like ghosts behind her, while seagulls swooped in to peck at flotsam discarded on the desolate banks. Several times these past weeks she’d imagined letting the water close over her, cold and comforting, embracing her like sleep until she was no more. She wouldn’t do it, because if Sam came back she had to be waiting.

Out of nowhere, names began floating up from the past, rising to the surface like small pockets of air, bursting. Anne Cates. Elizabeth Barrett. Vivienne Kane. Then they vanished, dispersed, disintegrating, blending back into the river like tears, perhaps to be washed up again, but on other shores, not here.

Finally she began retracing her steps, remembering where she was going, but having no interest in arriving. Since leaving home she’d walked a lot, around Richmond and Kew, often as far as Chiswick and back. During her journeys she’d often thought about Miles and Kelsey, hearing their voices in her mind, and even caring in a way, but whenever she felt their pain she quickly shut it out. She didn’t want any part of it, even though she understood now, in a way she hadn’t before, that the years of rejection she’d subjected them to had, perversely, bound them to her so tightly that she’d stifled all the love Miles had felt, and created a need in Kelsey that could never be fulfilled. She should have left them a long time ago, or stayed in America. It had been a mistake to come back, but it was one she wouldn’t make again.

You want to kill me for this, Miles, don’t you?
she murmured inside her head.

She could hear him saying yes.
Yes, yes and yes
.

You don’t know who I am any more
, she told him.

I never did
.
Not since …
but between them they didn’t say Sam’s name any more.

Now he had another son, Rufus, whose name he could speak all the time.

Vivienne was speeding down the M4 in her brother-in-law’s Polo with Rufus asleep in his baby seat behind her, while Pete followed on in his Audi. They’d set out early for Devon, and so far seemed to have escaped the press. In fact there was surprisingly little traffic around, which was why, as they passed the Leigh Delamere services close to Chippenham, she recognised Theo as he roared past on his motorbike. Knowing he’d arrive long before them, he’d already arranged to meet Stella and Sharon at the Smugglers, where they were going to give an interview to one of the local papers. At some point later in the day, or perhaps tomorrow if the firemen were free for a photocall this afternoon, Theo was due to embark on his first session with the choreographer.

‘Dancing!’ he’d cried in mock horror when Vivienne had first put it to him. ‘I have to gyrate my body in front of the cameras? Everyone’s going to think I’m like him.’

She’d had to laugh at that, not only because he was well known for camping it up in front of the cameras, but because Pete had let out a little whimper of ‘Yes please.’

They were going to have a riot, those two, entertaining the WI ladies with all their teasing and flirting, while pulling together with Sky to stage a memorable event. Naturally she’d be there to oversee things, but with Rufus to take care of and the mounting need to sort something out with Miles, she wasn’t foolish
enough
to think she could do without their front-line assistance.

Hearing the jingle of her phone in her earpiece she glanced down at the mobile on the seat next to her, and seeing it was Alice clicked on right away.

‘Are you sitting down?’ Alice demanded.

‘As I’m driving I’d find it hard not to be.’

‘OK, get ready for this. The police have just been here looking for you. They’re trying to find out if you – actually
we
– know anyone by the name of Anne Cates.’

Vivienne’s initial alarm was already turning to confusion. ‘Miles mentioned that name yesterday,’ she said. ‘Did they tell you who she is?’

‘Just that she has a phone registered at our address.’

‘At
our
address?’

‘Right here at Pier House.’

Vivienne wasn’t liking the sound of this. ‘And the police actually came in person to ask if we knew her?’

‘They did indeed, and they were pretty pissed off to find you’d already left for Devon. I almost told them, more fool them for not checking before coming, but I didn’t think it would go down too well. Anyway, I thought I’d better warn you that they’re going to be in touch.’

‘Thanks,’ Vivienne murmured, and after ringing off she gave a voice command to her phone which connected her to Miles’s mobile. To her surprise and relief he answered straight away.

‘Hi, are you OK?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ she assured him. ‘At least I think so. Apparently the police have just been to my office asking about this Anne Cates. Isn’t that who they asked Mrs Davies about?’

‘Yes,’ he responded, sounding surprised. ‘Did they throw any light on who she is?’

‘No, but apparently she has a phone registered at the Pier House address.’

Miles fell silent.

Feeling a beat of unease, Vivienne said, ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘Probably,’ he replied, ‘but if it is Jacqueline, why would she do that? It doesn’t make any sense.’ Then, without waiting for an answer, ‘When you speak to the police ask them
when
the phone was registered. They must know – in fact, they must have received a call from it to have been able to trace it. So what did this woman have to say?’

‘I guess we can’t know that until the police decide to tell us, so I’ll call you back once I’ve spoken to them,’ and checking to make sure Pete was still behind she pulled out to overtake a slow-moving lorry.

Seconds after disconnecting, her earpiece rang again. Since it wasn’t a number she recognised she took a chance it might be the police, and wasn’t disappointed.

‘Ms Kane? Detective Inspector Sadler here.’ His voice resonated authority and no little annoyance, reminding her that he’d had a wasted journey to London.

‘Hello, Inspector,’ she said amicably.

‘I’ve been trying to get through,’ he told her, ‘so I imagine Mrs Jackson beat me to it.’

There was no point denying it, so she didn’t. ‘You want to know if I’ve ever heard of someone called Anne Cates,’ she said, glancing in the mirror as Rufus started to wake up. ‘The answer is, I haven’t, but perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me why you’re asking.’

Sounding as if he minded a great deal, he said, ‘Someone claiming to be Jacqueline Avery contacted the incident room in Exeter yesterday afternoon, asking us to call off the search. The call was made from a pay-as-you-go phone that has been registered in the name of Anne Cates at your office address. I wonder if you can explain any of that?’

Vivienne’s pulse had started to race at the mention of Jacqueline. ‘No, Inspector, I can’t,’ she told him as Rufus started to mutter and kick. ‘I’ve never heard the name Anne Cates before. Do you know
where
the call came from?’

‘Kew. You were in the area yesterday, I believe.’

Kew!
‘I drove through, on my way to the supermarket,’ she said, her mind starting to spin. Did he seriously think she’d set herself up with an alias in order to sabotage the search? Worse was the fact that someone really had registered that phone at her office address, and the call had come from as close to home as Kew. ‘Out of interest, Inspector,’ she said, remembering Miles’s instruction, ‘do you know
when
the phone was registered?’

‘On September 19th, eight days before Mrs Avery disappeared.’

Meaning? For the moment she could come up with no clear idea. ‘Do you have a recording of the call?’ she asked, having to speak up to make herself heard above Rufus’s demands for attention. ‘If so, maybe you should ask someone who knows Mrs Avery’s voice if it’s her.’

In a tone that could have cut glass he said, ‘Thank you for your advice, Ms Kane. I’ll be sure to bear it in mind.’

Resisting the urge to bite back, she hit the indicator
to
take the approaching slip road. ‘If you’ll forgive me, Inspector, I’m driving at the moment, and as you can no doubt hear, my son is in need of a drink.’

‘Before you go, Ms Kane,’ he came in quickly, ‘I’d like to know where you can be contacted in Devon.’

Realising he was expecting to be told Moorlands, she took some pleasure in saying, ‘I’ll be on this number,’ and after wishing him a good day she cut the connection.

Minutes later she was standing in a truckers’ lay-by on the A46, trying to comfort Rufus as she told Pete about the call. Thankfully, since Alice had taken Pete aside to tell him to stop with the negative comments about Miles, he’d been treating the matter much more seriously. However, she could have wished for a slightly different answer when she suggested that Anne Cates could be Justine James up to some kind of mischief again.

‘I think the date rules out that possibility,’ he said gravely, stepping in closer as a lorry thundered past. ‘No, I definitely think it’s Jacqueline and in
Kew
.’

‘I have to speak to Miles,’ she said, and handing Rufus over she reached back into the car for her phone. ‘There are toys in the box, and his bottle’s down the side of his chair,’ she instructed, starting to dial.

A few minutes later, having listened to what she was telling him, Miles said, ‘It has to be her. On the one hand it’s a great relief to know she’s alive, but we have to ask ourselves, why haven’t the police contacted me?’

‘I think they have it in their heads that
I’m
responsible for the call. It might explain why they tried to see me in person.’

‘That’s preposterous,’ he declared. ‘Sadler’s an idiot.
He’s
so convinced we’ve been up to no good that he’s lost the ability to see straight.’

Deciding not to pursue that, she said, ‘What would she be doing in Kew?’

‘It’s right next to Richmond, which was where we were living when Sam was taken.’

Knowing he was trying to stop her thinking exactly what she was thinking, she said, ‘If she knew about Rufus before she disappeared, she might not have realised he wasn’t living with me.’

‘
If
she knew, and I’m finding it hard to believe she did. It’s not something she’d have kept to herself.’

Unless she was planning to snatch him, Vivienne was thinking, trying not to panic. ‘We have to assume she knows now,’ she stated.