Property of a Lady (10 page)

‘Yes.’

‘It’s possible, of course, that she’s bunked off for the morning,’ said DI Brent. ‘She’s a bit young for that – it’s usually teenagers – but it’s not out of the question.’

‘No,’ said Nell at once. ‘No, it won’t be that.’ Beth liked the small, friendly school. She said it was much nicer than the big modern one she had attended in North London, and she had made a number of friends.

‘She’s happy there,’ she said to the inspector. ‘I know she is. And she was looking forward to this morning because they were having a spelling test, and she likes spelling. She’s good at it.’ She gripped the sides of the chair. It was important not to remember Beth’s bright eyes and pleased anticipation of the morning, or how the two of them had gone through a list of words last night in preparation, laughing when Nell pretended not to know how to spell cat or dog.

‘Can I ask about her father—?’

‘He died eighteen months ago,’ said Nell, seeing that Inspector Brent was wondering if this was a modern case of a split-up family and the child running off to be with the absent parent. ‘But she’s adjusted fairly well.’ Except for the nightmares, said her mind, and a small alarm bell sounded in her mind. Could this have anything to do with the nightmares? What if Beth had run away because of them? To get away from the man she thought stood in a corner of her bedroom – the man who had no eyes . . . ? But that did not seem to make any sense. She brought her attention back to the inspector, who was saying he was sure there was no cause for real worry.

‘I’ve sent uniform out to look, of course,’ he said. ‘Mark my words, though, she’ll have gone off somewhere with a friend. Maybe they were dared to do it, something of that kind.’

‘Is anyone else missing from the school?’

‘Well, no,’ he said reluctantly.

Nell suddenly wanted Brad more than at any time since his death. He had loved Beth so much; he had cried with emotion on the night she was born, wrapping his arms around Nell and Beth together as if he wanted to shield them from every bad thing the world held. After he had been killed it had been agony to know he would never see her grow up. He would never be there to frown in pretended disapproval at the outrageous clothes she would wear and the music she would listen to, or the boys she would go out with. But what if Beth never grew up – what if she was in the hands of some warped creature who would hurt her beyond bearing?

‘We’ll take you home,’ said DI Brent. ‘I’ll get someone to drive your car – you’re in no fit state – and we’ll come in to check the house in case there are any clues.’ As an apparent afterthought, he said, ‘I dare say there’ll be a recent photograph we can have, will there?’ and Nell understood the photograph would be circulated and maybe even displayed on regional television, with the heartbreaking question: ‘Have you seen this girl?’ She had always felt deeply sorry for parents of missing children, who had to have their private lives broadcast half across the country. Now, she did not care if they beamed Beth’s photograph around the world if it meant finding her.

DI Brent and a woman police officer followed her through the shop and upstairs to the flat. Rain slid relentlessly down the windowpanes, like tears, as if the sky was weeping because Beth was lost. Nell took the recent photo of her daughter from the mantelpiece and removed it from the frame.

‘Will that do?’

‘Yes, certainly. What a lovely girl,’ said the female PC, studying it. ‘I’m sure she’ll be found very soon, Mrs West. I’ll just make a note of what she was wearing this morning if you’ll describe it.’

Nell forced herself to think. Beth had on her ordinary school uniform of grey skirt, white blouse and red pullover. Black shoes and white socks. Asked if Beth’s room could be searched, she said they could ransack the whole building if they wanted.

She sat on the settee, trying to sip the cup of tea the PC had made. If Beth was dead, the world would no longer hold anything, anywhere. She was just about managing to cope with not having Brad, but she would never cope with losing Beth.

While the PC was in Beth’s room, the inspector walked round the sitting room. He paused by the laptop, which was in the shorter part of the L-shaped sittingroom.

‘Does Beth have access to the Internet, Mrs West?’

‘Limited access,’ said Nell. ‘I’ve got the various safeguards on, and I keep an eye on what she does. She doesn’t go in chat rooms or on Facebook.’

‘Can we look?’

‘Yes, certainly.’ It was helpful to have something to do, even something as small as booting up the laptop.

‘She has her own email box?’ he said, opening the email programme.

‘Yes.’

‘Mobile phone?’

‘No. I’ve promised her one for her next birthday though.’

‘They text and email one another even at that age, don’t they?’ he said, with a brief smile, and then scrolled down the few blameless emails. Friends at Beth’s school, some cousins in Scotland on Brad’s side of the family who sometimes sent emails. He paused, and a small frown creased his brow.

‘What’s this one? It’s sent by a Dr Flint, and there’s an attachment.’

For a couple of seconds Nell could not think who Dr Flint was, and then she said, ‘Oh, that’s Michael Flint. I met him at the weekend – he’s a friend of the Americans who’ve just bought Charect House. He was here to check the work that’s being done. He told Beth a story about his cat which made her laugh, and he sent her a photo of the cat when he got home.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘He’s a lecturer at Oxford. Oriel College, I think.’ She saw Inspector Brent make a note and said, ‘He won’t have anything to do with this, though.’

‘We’ll just check with him, however.’ He shut his notebook.

‘But surely you don’t think—’ Nell stopped, understanding the police would see the sudden entrance into Beth’s life of a single man as potentially suspicious. So she only said, ‘I’m sure he hasn’t got anything to do with this.’

‘We will just check, though.’

‘Have there been any other cases of – of missing children in the area?’ It felt like a betrayal to use the expression – it felt as if she had already given up on Beth. But the curious thing was that as she said it, a faint memory stirred at the back of Nell’s mind – something she had heard or read very recently. She tried to pin down the memory, but her mind was filled up with Beth and it eluded her.

‘No. And that’s good,’ said the inspector.

The search of Beth’s room was over, and it seemed nothing had been found that was likely to be of any help.

‘Is there anyone we can call who’d come to be with you?’ asked the PC. ‘Family – close friend?’

Nell tried to think. Her own parents were dead, and there were only some cousins in the north. Brad had family in Scotland, but they had never been very close. There were friends in London, but she did not want to drag people up here unnecessarily. ‘There’s not really anyone who could come up here at a moment’s notice.’

‘All right. Now listen, if there’s anything you think of that might help us – even the tiniest detail, even if you think it sounds ridiculous – tell us at once.’

He paused, as if allowing her time to consider this, and Nell said, ‘There’s nothing I can think of. Only—’

‘Yes?’

‘She’s been having one or two quite bad nightmares,’ said Nell slowly. ‘She’s been really terrified of them.’

He did not move but there was the impression that he sat up a bit straighter. ‘Can you describe the nightmares?’

‘She said someone was in her room,’ said Nell. ‘Just – standing in a corner of her bedroom, watching her. Oh, but – that couldn’t be actually true, could it? There couldn’t have been someone getting into her room—’ She broke off, hearing the escalating note of panic in her voice, frightened that she might lose control altogether.

‘No,’ he said, so definitely that Nell relaxed. ‘We’d have found signs, and you’d certainly have known if anyone was getting in and hiding somewhere.’

‘Yes, of course. And the only access to Beth’s room is through the window.’

‘Which is two storeys up. Did she describe this figure, though?’

‘She said—’ Nell forced herself to use Beth’s own words. ‘She said he was trying to find her, but he couldn’t because he had no eyes.’

‘Nasty,’ said DI Brent, non-committally. ‘But that could give us a bit of a lead. It’s possible that she saw someone outside the school this morning who looked like her nightmare man. A blind chap, perhaps, or a cripple of some kind.’

‘And ran away from him?’ said Nell, torn between panic all over again and half-guilty hope, because if this was the solution it might not be so bad.

‘It’s not beyond possibility,’ said Brent. ‘I’ll pass it on to uniform right away.’

‘I’ll stay here,’ said the policewoman as the inspector got up to leave. ‘That’s all right, is it, Mrs West?’

‘Nell.’

‘OK. I’m Lisa. We like to be at hand in this kind of situation, just to help out and relay any news.’

Nell did not know whether she wanted this or not. She was not keen on the idea of a stranger, however kind and efficient, being in the flat, offering cups of tea and reassurance every five minutes. But sitting on her own would be even worse, and probably it was police procedure to have an officer there. It would not be for long, of course. Beth would turn up at any minute. She looked at the clock and saw, incredulously, that it was only a quarter past twelve. Only just over three hours since she had dropped Beth off at the school gates.

It was at this point her eyes lit on the old diaries, on the top of the bookshelves, and the vagrant memory clicked into place. Alice had recorded details of a missing child – a child who had been seven years old. She went into the kitchen where Lisa was washing up the teacups.

‘This is most likely of no help, but the inspector said even the smallest thing—’

‘You’ve remembered something?’

‘I think another seven-year-old girl went missing from Marston Lacy in the nineteen sixties,’ said Nell. ‘And I know that’s over forty years ago, but—’

‘But there are such things as copycat crimes,’ said Lisa at once, and Nell was grateful for her quick understanding. ‘And there are weird people in the world nowadays. I’ll call the DI and let him know.’ She reached in a pocket for her phone. ‘There probably won’t be a connection, but let’s not ignore anything. How on earth did you know about it?’

‘It was in some old diaries I found,’ said Nell.

When the voice on the phone announced itself as being Detective Inspector Brent from Marston Lacy CID, Michael assumed it was something to do with Charect House. Perhaps the builders had blown the place up, or maybe there had been a break-in.

But it was nothing to do with Charect House at all. DI Brent wanted to talk to him about Mrs Nell West and her daughter.

‘Beth?’ said Michael, puzzled. ‘Is anything wrong?’ He listened with mounting horror as the inspector explained that Beth West had apparently vanished that morning.

‘That being so, sir, we’re just checking on recent visitors to the antique shop.’

‘Well, I was there at the weekend,’ said Michael. ‘I called in to introduce myself to Nell West. She’s helping some American friends of mine find furniture for a house they’ve just acquired in the area. Charect House. I expect you know it.’

‘I do indeed, Dr Flint. What time would that be? When you called in?’

‘Late afternoon on Friday. I can’t remember the exact time. Oh, and I was there next morning, on the way back to Oxford. Just very briefly, though. About eleven-ish, that was.’

‘Any particular reason for that second call, sir?’

‘Not specially. There was an idea that Beth might become friendly with the daughter of my American friends – they’re the same age – so I thought I’d take the acquaintanceship a bit further. Inspector, what d’you think’s happened to Beth?’

‘We don’t know yet, but I’m sure we’ll find her,’ said the inspector in what Michael thought was an automatically reassuring voice. ‘Tell me, Dr Flint, is there anyone who can vouch for your movements from around eight thirty this morning?’

‘What?’ said Michael, stunned. ‘Are you wondering if I’ve got anything to do with—’ He broke off, fighting the sudden anger. ‘I’m sorry. It’s understandable that you should ask. A stranger befriending Nell West and her daughter – a single man. And two days later the daughter disappears.’

‘I’m grateful you see it that way, sir. It’s purely for elimination, you know.’

‘I had breakfast in my rooms here at seven thirty,’ said Michael. ‘I can’t back that up – oh wait, though, the porter brought up the milk, he’d remember. After that I had a meeting with my faculty head – eight forty-five. That’s a regular Monday morning event. There were four others there – you can have their names, but they’re all senior members of the college. At ten I had a tutorial with four of my second-year students – we had a cup of coffee together at eleven. Any more?’

‘That’s absolutely fine, Dr Flint,’ said Inspector Brent warmly. ‘If there’s anything that occurs to you that might help us, I’d be glad if you’d give me a call. Here’s the number.’ Michael foraged on his desk for a pen and scribbled the number down. ‘Anything at all that you might have noticed while you were in the shop.’

‘I do remember Beth having a vicious nightmare,’ said Michael. ‘I’m no psychologist, but I suppose that might indicate some deep-seated fear. I wouldn’t have thought it would cause her to run away, though.’