Missing (27 page)

‘Da, da, mum,’ he cooed happily and made a quick grab for her face. ‘Ink roo ink.’

Laughing as she scooped him up, she pressed her face into the squidgy warm folds of his neck and blew a raspberry. Immediately he started blowing them too, then began jigging up and down chanting, ‘Roo ink. Roo ink.’

Suddenly realising what he was saying, she clasped him hard in pride. ‘Rufus wants a drink, does he?’ she said kissing him. ‘You’re such a clever boy.’

‘Nan, nan, nan,’ he cried, and began straining out of Vivienne’s arms.

She turned around, and for the first time in Rufus’s short life she found herself reluctant to hand him over to her mother. The scene in the kitchen had made her doubly protective, and thinking too of what was happening to Miles she longed desperately to hold their son close, as though any time now it was going to be just the three of them against the world.

Realising how absurd she was being, when no one could love him more than her mother, she forced herself to let him go, saying, ‘I’ll get him some juice.’

‘It’s in the fridge door,’ her mother told her. ‘The organic apple. Vivi, I—’

‘Later,’ Vivienne interrupted.

Finding Caroline pressing a text into her mobile, Vivienne moved past her to take one of Rufus’s beakers from a child-proof cupboard.

‘I know it probably won’t be easy for you having him back again,’ Caroline said, putting her phone away, ‘but one of us has to consider Mum …’

‘Oh, cut the self-righteousness,’ Vivienne snapped. ‘We both know what’s going on here, so either bring it out in the open or damned well shut up.’

Caroline’s eyebrows rose sarcastically. ‘Isn’t that just typical of you to try and grab the moral high ground. Well, let me tell you this, I’d rather be married to a man with a drink problem than hanker after one who’s on his way to jail for murdering his wife,’ and grabbing her bag she started to leave.

‘It
wasn’t
Jacqueline!’ Vivienne yelled after her, but Caroline was already closing the door.

Snatching up her BlackBerry as it signalled an incoming text, Vivienne clicked through to messages, praying to God it was from Miles, but to her frustration
it
was a reporter she knew from the
Mirror
, offering a lavish incentive for an exclusive interview.

What about the auction?
she wanted to scream.
Is nobody listening? Don’t any of you care that a lovely young mother needs your help?

The instant that rumours of a body had started threading through the press camp, Justine James had leapt into her hire car and driven at top speed back to the Nobody Inn. Time was absolutely of the essence, for the discovery of a body could only mean that within a matter of hours one, or more, of her colleagues would manage to track down Vivienne’s mother – and once they found the mother it would be a very short step to finding the child.

She was sorry about breaking her word to Miles, but since she’d never really intended to keep it, the regret was minimal. Besides, he’d be the first to understand that with all that was happening, no journalist in their right mind could be expected to keep this kind of exclusive to themselves, particularly not one who was in such dire need of career rescue. And this would do it in spades, because it wasn’t only going to secure her future with the
Mail
, it was going to make that smarmy, loud-mouthed philistine of an editor she had now apoplectic with rage when he realised she’d double-crossed him and delivered to another of his great rivals.

It took no more than thirty minutes to write the piece. It was a pity Figgis hadn’t managed to get any shots of the boy yet, but hey, she couldn’t have everything, and there were bound to be some library pictures of Sam they could dig out for baby appeal.

After checking her story through, making it as
sensational
as she could, she sat back for a moment, savouring the triumph. While everyone else ran with the discovery of a body and possible murder, she was going to splash the most powerful motive of all, right across the front page.

Only after she’d clicked to send, and received confirmation that the email and its attachment had gone, did she feel a twinge of trepidation for what it was going to mean having both Miles Avery and Gareth Critchley as lifelong enemies. It wasn’t a prospect that thrilled her, especially considering how powerful both men were. However, it was too late to go back now, and picking up the TV remote she tuned to the latest news.

A few minutes later she was still sitting in her chair, staring in disbelief at the screen. The body belonged to a man, not a woman. Everyone had assumed … She spun back to her computer, but the email had long gone.

It’s OK, she told herself, taking deep breaths. A corpse turning up right next to the Avery land when Jacqueline was still missing was good enough grounds to run with the motive for her murder. Hell, for all she knew there could be half a dozen bodies out there, and even if none of them turned out to be Jacqueline, it still didn’t change the fact that the exclusive of Miles and Vivienne’s love child was going to be snapped up by someone else if she didn’t act now.

Nevertheless, it was with a sick feeling inside that she began to contemplate exactly how Miles might respond to her betrayal, not to mention how badly it was going to go down with the Critch.

‘
Nooooo!
’ Kelsey screamed, clasping her hands to her head as she shook it from side to side. ‘No! No! No!’

White-faced, Miles tried to go to her but she pushed him away, tears of confusion streaming down her cheeks.

‘Leave me alone!’ she yelled, saliva spraying from her lips. ‘I don’t want you near me.’

‘Darling, it’s all right,’ he said, keeping his voice gentle.

‘You’re lying to me. Everyone’s lying all the time,’ she sobbed. ‘Why did you say …?
No!
’ she shrieked as he tried to approach her again. ‘You have to stop this, all of you,’ she raged, turning her stricken face to Sadler and Joy. ‘You said it was a woman …’

‘Kelsey, no one—’ Sadler began.

‘I can’t take any more. Do you hear me? I hate her. I hate you all. Just leave me alone …’ Rushing past them, she tore open the door and ran out into the bleak afternoon.

Miles was close behind, running across the courtyard to try to stop her, but she was too fast. The kitchen door slammed and locked behind her before she charged up the back stairs to her room.

Feeling the same turmoil of emotions that was tearing her apart, he returned to the sitting room where Sadler and Joy were still waiting. His dark eyes were cold as they took in Sadler’s solemn expression. Next to Sadler DC Joy was nervously clutching her mobile, while her pale, anxious face turned repeatedly to the door. He wasn’t going to speak. He was only going to fix Sadler with all the contempt the man deserved, and let him damned well squirm in it.

With a gruff clearing of his throat Sadler said, ‘We’ll be in touch in the morning,’ and nodding to Joy he started out of the room.

The instant they’d gone Miles went upstairs to try
and
talk to Kelsey. There was no reply when he knocked, but she was clearly in there, because the door was locked and when he called out, her music went on to drown him out.

Sighing heavily, he took himself back downstairs and dialled her mobile number. As he’d feared he went straight through to voicemail. ‘Kelsey,’ he said quietly, but firmly. ‘I know today has been hard for you, but it’s going to be all right, darling. I promise. Of course it wasn’t Mum they found, we knew that even before they told us it was a man …’ Hearing the emptiness of his reassurance, his eyes closed in despair. How the hell was he going to get her through this when the police weren’t bothering to stop false rumours hitting the news, and the press themselves were so keen to make this into a murder, most likely committed by him?

Thunderclouds were drawing a veil over the sun and a sharp wind bowed the trees over the drive as Sadler and Joy walked away from the house. Neither of them spoke, they merely stared grimly ahead, still sobered by Kelsey’s understandable explosion.

Feeling the chill in the air, Joy pocketed her mobile and zipped up her coat. She’d like to think she hadn’t been a part of what had happened in this valley today, allowing a child to believe her mother was dead and then retracting it, but she had, and now somehow she had to live with it.

Not until they were next to a golden cascade of angel’s trumpets where Sadler had left his car did he finally turn to Joy and say with a sigh, ‘Well, Detective Constable, that body belongs to someone, so now we need to find out who.’

Joy’s eyes were slightly glazed as she turned in the direction of the lower woods where the body had been found. The image of it was staying with her, forlorn and huddled, as though for warmth, in a bed of damp leaves, the exposed skin of its skeletal hands and its sodden clothes smeared with a slimy green sphagnum. As the pathologist had wiped moss and insects from the face she’d looked away, switching her mind from the sad indignity to the rippling song of a hidden curlew. She was a nature lover, so could name many of the grasses and birds around, which was what she’d done, in her mind, to prevent herself from throwing up. ‘Whoever he is,’ she said, ‘do you think he could be connected to Mrs Avery in some way?’

Sadler’s weariness showed in the heaviness of his eyes. ‘You mean apart from turning up dead right next to her land? Who knows, Elaine? Who knows?’

Looking back at him she gave a small smile and opened the passenger door. She was aware that Sadler had let the rumour float that it was a female body in an effort to wrongfoot Avery, maybe rattle him into making some kind of confession. As a tactic it had spectacularly backfired, and as a decision it stank as badly as the corpse. It just went to prove, she thought dully as they began driving away, that even smart men didn’t always get it right.

Miles was sitting in the semi-darkness, his head resting on the back of the sofa, his hands lying loosely beside him. He’d tried several times now to coax Kelsey out of her room, but she still wouldn’t come down, in spite of him telling her that they’d identified the body on the moor. It belonged to a forty-eight-year old man by the name of Timothy Grainger, whose alcohol abuse,
vagrancy
and petty crimes were well known to the police. No one could say yet how he’d come to be in the woods, much less how he’d ended up the way he had.

‘Might he be someone your wife knew?’ DC Joy had asked doubtfully when she’d called to tell him the news.

‘It seems unlikely,’ he’d answered, keeping it polite. ‘It’s not a name I’ve ever heard her mention.’

‘OK, thank you. I’ll be back in touch once we’ve established the cause of death, or if any new information comes to light.’

In a sane world he knew he’d make Sadler pay for the games he’d played today, but with Jacqueline still missing, and a stranger’s corpse turning up on the far side of their woods, the world was anything but sane.

Sighing, he glanced at his watch, then closed his eyes as his thoughts drifted out across the stark, misted plains of the moor, down into the clefts, over the harsh granite tors to the rugged uplands, so remote and forbidding. Jacqueline had never been able to feel the romance of the moor, had always failed to see the beauty in its rivers and waterfalls, wooded valleys and colourful heathland. She found everything about it sinister and threatening, detested its folklore and was afraid of its wildlife. To think of her out there on a night like this, alone, lost, maybe even …

Sitting forward, he put his head in his hands. Why was he tormenting himself like this when she was no more out there on the moor than she was here in this house? He had to let go of such madness or he’d be no good to himself, never mind anyone else.

Inhaling deeply, he drew his hands down over his unshaven face and let the breath go slowly. Somewhere in the distance thunder was rumbling through
the
heavens, while rain pattered against the windows of the room. The garden lights were on now, and as far as he could make out everyone had gone home. Whether they were planning to continue the search tomorrow he had no idea, nor, at this moment, did he particularly care. He only wanted to go on sitting in this silence, trying to work out what he was going to do about Kelsey. She had to be his priority, he was in no doubt about that, but knowing he had a son who needed him, and whose first fifteen months of life had already been lost to him … He didn’t want to waste any more time. Even now he was longing to see the boy, hold him in his arms, and feel the energy of his young life.

It couldn’t happen yet, though, so at some point he would call Vivienne to tell her that in spite of the way he’d reacted, she was right to protect their son the way she had, and that she should continue to until all this was over. He wouldn’t do it tonight. He’d endured enough attacks on his father’s conscience for one day, and had neither the energy, nor the will right now, to try dealing with any more.

Chapter Twelve

‘VIVI, HI, ARE
you OK?’ Alice said, sounding oddly tentative.

Instantly tensing, Vivienne said, ‘I’m fine. Just giving Rufus his breakfast.’

‘OK. I don’t suppose you’ve seen the
Mail
yet today?’

Vivienne’s heart immediately contracted. ‘No, Mum takes the
Express
. Why? What’s in it?’

‘You’d better brace yourself. I’m afraid Rufus – or Miles’s love child as they’re calling him – has made the front page.’

‘Oh my God,’ Vivienne murmured, putting down the spoon she was holding.

‘The byline belongs to Justine James.’

Vivienne almost reeled. ‘But how does she know? She can’t …’ Her eyes closed. ‘Miles wouldn’t have told her. He just wouldn’t.’

‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Alice agreed.

More dismay sank into Vivienne’s heart. ‘There’s only one other person I can think of,’ she said flatly. ‘My sister, Caroline.’

Alice didn’t comment, showing that her suspicions had already moved in that direction.

‘Or her husband,’ Vivienne continued. ‘One of them has to be the source.’