Missing (33 page)

It wasn’t a difficult story to tell. Justine had concocted many like it over the years: families torn apart by the wanton vagaries of fate; tragic and understandable crimes of passion; love overcoming all! What she’d never had, however, was such a direct route to the heart of a family in crisis. The father whose background and character was already well known to her, the daughter who’d suffered years of maternal neglect, and the son – the missing son – who, if this email was to be believed, had been killed a long time ago.

She sat back in her chair, feeling the air go out of her. The curious thing was, this really could be the story of her career, yet instead of rushing ahead she was sitting here almost afraid to move on it. Perhaps, if something had come to light about it in her background checks on Sam’s disappearance, she’d be feeling less doubtful, but nowhere had she come across a single mention of anyone by the name of Elizabeth Barrett, the sender of the email. Clearly no one else had either, or the story would be out there by now, so what exactly was that telling her? That the email had been sent by a crank? Or from someone Miles had paid to keep silent?

Had she not already shown the message to the
Critch
she might be approaching this a different way now, but the man had scented blood and blood he would have, whether she got it for him, or he set someone else on the trail – and handing it over simply wasn’t an option she was going to allow.

Finally, sitting forward, she began entering a web address to create a new hotmail account. Once her bogus identity was set up, she opened a window and began to type, thinking of Miles and how, as an editor, he might handle this.

Dear Mrs Barrett

As Mr Avery’s lawyer, I am in receipt of a copy of your email in which you are making certain claims about his missing son. I’m sure you can imagine how many people have contacted Mr Avery over the years in regard to this matter, often causing the family considerable and unnecessary distress. It is for this reason that Mr Avery has asked me to contact you on his behalf. I shall be happy to arrange a meeting with you if you will be kind enough to furnish some proof of your claim, together with your name, telephone number and address.

With regards, Janette James

Miles’s way wasn’t the same as the Critch’s, and for now, like it or not, she needed to stay close to the Critch.

‘You’re not still puzzling over that envelope, are you?’ DI Sadler demanded, walking into CID with his coat
still
on and a cup of steaming coffee warming his hands.

‘I am, sir,’ DC Joy confirmed, turning it over inside its evidence bag. ‘It’s been bothering me ever since we found it amongst Mrs Avery’s effects. Why is it empty? That’s what I want to know. What’s happened to the letter, or whatever was in it?’

‘It might yet turn up,’ Sadler reminded her. ‘The boys are still out there.’

DC Joy continued to stare down at the badly soiled envelope with its smudged address, roughly torn opening and illegible postmark. Something about it wasn’t seeming quite right to her, though she couldn’t for the life of her say what, other than the fact that its contents were missing. It was as though, she was thinking, she was holding the key to an important door; the only problem was, she had no idea where to find the door. ‘The address is handwritten,’ she said, studying the blurred blue ink, ‘and most of it’s unreadable now, though it’s obviously Moorlands and her name is reasonably clear too. The sender’s address is missing. It must have come off when she opened the letter, because no little scraps have been found nearby, but there was definitely something, because the letters “mes” are still there on the back. Forensics are working their magic on the postmark, but no luck so far.’

‘That might be because it’s here on your desk, instead of in the labs with them,’ Sadler pointed out. ‘Do they know you’ve taken it?’

DC Joy looked shocked. ‘You’re surely not suggesting I stole it, sir.’

‘Borrowed,’ he corrected, and took a mouthful of coffee just as the phone on her desk started to ring.

‘Elaine,’ a voice said from the other end. ‘You might want to get yourself down here.’

‘Ryan?’ she said.

‘That’s me. Is Sadler around?’

‘Yes, he’s right here.’

‘Then bring him too.’

Elaine was already getting to her feet as she rang off. ‘We’re needed in the incident room, sir,’ she told him.

‘They’ve found her,’ Sadler declared, following her into the corridor.

‘I don’t think it can be that,’ she responded, ‘the TAG boys would have called you direct if it was. Your mobile’s switched on, is it?’

Sadler checked, then repocketed it as they ran down the stairs.

Minutes later they were entering the incident room, where several uniformed officers were seated at a haphazard arrangement of tables covered in empty coffee cups and an impressive amount of technology. Sergeant Ryan Austin was leaning against one of the white chalkboards, staring down at a recording device that one of the other officers was operating.

‘Ah, sir,’ he said, as Sadler came in. ‘We’ve received a call that I think you should hear. Play it from the top,’ he told the PC.

After the squeal and hum of a rewind the tape began playing, and almost instantly Joy’s eyes widened with astonishment, while Sadler’s brow started to furrow.

‘Hello,’ a female voice said softly. ‘My name is Jacqueline Avery. I would like you to know that I am perfectly all right. There is no need to go on looking for me—’

‘Can you tell us where you are?’ an officer’s voice cut in.

‘I’d rather not,’ came the reply. ‘I believe I have that right.’

‘Of course, but—’

‘I urge you not to waste any more time searching for me. I have not been harmed in any way—’

‘Can you just tell me—’

There was a click on the line.

‘Hello? Hello? Are you still there?’

Silence.

The tape stopped and all eyes went to Sadler.

‘We’re getting it triangulated,’ Austin told him. ‘We should have a location any time now.’

Sadler nodded. ‘Let me know when you have it,’ he said, starting out of the room, ‘and get me some copies of the tape.’

‘Do you think it was really her?’ Joy asked, catching up with him outside the PC’s locker rooms.

‘Right now,’ he replied, still walking, ‘I’m reserving judgement.’

Intrigued, Joy glanced at him, but said no more as she followed him back upstairs to CID, where he left her to go into his office.

With the door firmly closed behind him he began running with several theories regarding the call, just in case any coincidence or anomaly managed to fuse itself with something a little more substantial than a mere doubt or suspicion. However, by the time Joy rang to let him know she was putting Sergeant Austin through, he was feeling like a fool who had all the pieces of a jigsaw stuck together the wrong way. The picture was there, he was certain of it, and it might even be complete, but it was as though he had a patch of sky in a field, water flowing upwards, and people with bodies only half their own. Which could only
mean,
he reflected irritably as he waited for Austin’s voice to come down the line, that his perspective on this was shot.

Less than five minutes later he was feeling very differently, for the triangulation had turned up something extremely interesting. ‘So what do you make of that?’ he asked DC Joy, who’d come to stand in the doorway whilst he took the call.

‘I don’t know, sir, you weren’t on speaker,’ she reminded him.

Sadler chuckled and rubbed his hands. ‘Well, Detective Constable, it would appear the call was made from the Kew area, using a pay-as-you-go mobile phone registered to someone by the name of Anne Cates.’

‘Who?’ Joy said, frowning.

‘Kew,’ Sadler continued, ‘as I’m sure you know, Elaine, is not a million miles from Chiswick. Or, to be more precise, a mere stroll across the bridge from Pier House, Strand on the Green.’

Joy still wasn’t getting it. ‘Are you saying, sir, that you think Anne Cates is really Vivienne Kane? If you are, I’m afraid I can’t agree, because we’d have recognised the voice.’

‘Certainly we’d have recognised Vivienne Kane’s voice, but we’ve never spoken to her closest friend and business partner, Alice Jackson, who, I believe, happens to work in Chiswick and live in Kew.’

Joy blinked in astonishment. ‘You think Vivienne Kane’s business partner made the call for her?’ she said, afraid he might be losing it.

‘It’s possible,’ Sadler replied. ‘As I said, the mobile is registered to Anne Cates, and the address the phone company has is KJA – Kane Jackson Agency? – Pier House, Strand on the Green.’

Joy only stared at him.

‘I think we need to speak to Ms Kane, don’t you, Detective Constable?’

Joy nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, ‘I think we do. Shall I get her on the line?’

‘No, I want to see her eyes when we turn up unexpectedly. She’s in London at the moment, I believe?’

‘Certainly according to the papers,’ Joy agreed.

‘Good. We’ll catch the first train in the morning.’

Vivienne was in her upstairs sitting room, sorting through the press interest they’d had so far for the auction, while Rufus entertained himself with some wooden bricks and a hammer. His little face was flushed with pleasure, his dark eyes shining with glee as he banged about noisily, shouting at the top of his voice, or blowing bubbles that burst and ran down his chin. Each time she looked at him she had to fight the urge to scoop him up for a hug, because nothing ever felt so good in her arms as his gorgeously squidgy little limbs.

Finding her eyes drawn to the window as it rattled in the wind, she watched the trees in the courtyard outside swaying wildly in the gusts. Rain sliced down from a dense black sky, drowning the flower beds and devastating the last hardy blooms. Were she to spare it a thought she might almost pity the journalists who were out there somewhere, lying in wait, and certainly she’d be sorry for the tourists huddled into pleasure cruisers making the journey from Kew to Charing Cross. But she was too engrossed in the warmth of having her son near, and the work at hand, even to register the hoot of a whistle as a cruiser passed by.

Since she was expecting Sharon or Stella to call at any minute with news on Sharon’s donor, her mobile was right next to her, and when it rang she clicked on without checking who it was.

‘Hi, it’s me,’ a voice said at the other end.

Immediately her heart contracted. ‘Miles,’ she murmured, sitting back in her chair. ‘Thank God. I’ve been so worried.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He sounded so tired and hoarse that she could easily picture his unshaven face and the heaviness of his eyes – and rarely had she wanted to be with him more. ‘I don’t know if it’s wise to call,’ he said, ‘or just plain stupid not to.’

‘What’s important is that you stop shutting me out,’ she told him.

There was a silence before he spoke again, and the note of defeat that had crept into his voice increased her concern. ‘If anything should happen,’ he said, ‘if this doesn’t end the way … I want you to know that you and Rufus will be taken care of.’

‘Miles, don’t say things like that,’ she said gently, but firmly. ‘We’re going to be together, all of us …’

‘But if things
don’t
work out that way …’

‘They will. Listen to me, please. You haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘I guess you realise you’re the only one who seems to think that.’

‘Al Kohler does too. And there will be plenty of others if you’d just let us in. Darling, you’re clearly exhausted. You can’t go on shouldering this alone.’

‘Well, I’m not going to let you do it for me.’

‘For heaven’s sake! That ludicrously chauvinistic attitude is so typical of you I could scream. You think you have to be the tough guy, always coping alone no
matter
what life throws at you. Well, for the record, we have a son now, so I get to have a say in what affects him, and his father.’

‘I’m not going to argue about this,’ he said. ‘I just want you to know that no matter how this ends, I’ve taken steps to—’

‘Make sure Rufus is taken care of. Yes, I heard you. So ring off now, if that’s all you have to say, because we don’t need your charity, or your conscience, we need
you
, and I really don’t appreciate the way you’re making this sound so final.’

As her voice resonated angrily down the line she immediately wanted to retract the harshness, since her frustration wasn’t going to help him at all. ‘Look, I know it must seem as though the world is crashing in on you right now,’ she went on more gently, ‘but you have to remember, your conscience is clear.’

‘Even if it is, do you really think it makes a difference? I’ve been through this before, remember, when they accused me of killing Sam. Now it’s Jacqueline, and frankly, if she is alive …’

‘Of course she is.’

‘If you’re right then frankly I’d want to wring her neck, not for what she’s doing to me, but for what it’s doing to Kelsey. I don’t think she can take much more. She’s either shut up in her bedroom, crying as though her heart’s going to break, or she’s yelling at me, accusing me …’ His voice faltered. ‘She’s got it into her head that she doesn’t matter now I have Rufus.’

‘Then you have to convince her she does. No matter what she says or believes, you have to keep letting her know you’re there, and you won’t walk away.’

‘Until the police arrest me for murder. What will I tell her then?’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘You must know by now that they’ve found her clothes, her handbag, her credit cards.’

‘None of which proves she’s dead, and even if she is, do you seriously think I’m going to believe you did it? No, don’t even answer that. I’ll defend you to the hilt with anyone else, but I’m sure as hell not going to do it with you.’

With a trace of humour in his voice he said, ‘I can almost see the way your eyes are flashing.’ Then he added in a voice that was both rough and tender, ‘God, I miss you.’

‘I miss you too,’ she said, feeling her heart fold around the words, ‘and I can’t bear the way you’re letting this drag you down. I know it’s bringing back too much of the past, but try not to go there, darling. You’re no more guilty now than you were then. They can’t lock you up for a crime you didn’t commit.’