Worlds Apart (23 page)

Niall said nothing. Taylor’s pain was his pain and Niall stroked his face.

“My fault,” Taylor mumbled. “I was supposed to be looking after her and I didn’t even notice she’d gone. I was…”

Niall froze.

“Playing,” Taylor whispered. “Was I with someone? I don’t…I don’t…”

Taylor slipped into sleep and Niall relaxed. He needed Taylor to remember the happy times they’d had, not the day his ten-year-old sister had vanished into thin air.

Roo woke at six and couldn’t go back to sleep. She ached from sleeping on the floor and stretched until she’d worked the kinks out of her spine. After a quick shower, she dressed and slipped downstairs. If Taylor sacked her and asked where she was going, she’d invent a friend to stay with. In reality, Roo would camp in a field and renew her relationship with Dorothy at the employment agency.

It didn’t take long to finish the invoicing. Roo printed out payment reminders for the few who still owed money, made a list of several to phone, and opened the mail on Taylor’s desk, sorting it into piles. There wasn’t enough to do in this job. Unless Roo was involved in some of the detective work, she’d quickly get bored.

Jonas arrived before either Taylor or Niall made an appearance.

“Morning.” He tossed a folder onto Taylor’s desk and yawned. “Where’s the boss?”

“I don’t know.”
In bed with Niall?

“Is the printer on?”

Roo nodded. Jonas took a memory stick from his pocket and slotted it into the printer. A moment later, the machine whirred as it began to print.

“Holiday snaps?” Roo asked.

Jonas grinned. “No sun, no sand, but plenty of sex. I had to crawl through a ventilation shaft to get these.”

Roo came to stand by his side. The photo emerging was of an almost bald guy tied up in some complicated leather strap work. It didn’t hide much, his cock erect in a cage, saggy balls dangling and a ball gag in his mouth. Roo cringed. He was on his knees in front of an ordinary-looking woman wearing a flowery blouse and a knee-length gray skirt, though she held a whip. The incongruity of it didn’t escape her.

“Oh dear. His wife’s not going to be pleased,” Roo said.

Jonas
tsked
. “Now that’s very sexist. It’s actually
that
woman’s husband we’re working for and that’s not the guy in the picture. He wants to know what she does every Thursday night because she never seems to open the book for her weekly reading club.”

“Wow.”

“They don’t actually have penetrative sex. I’m not sure whether that will be of any comfort.”

Roo frowned. “It’s sad, isn’t it, that people don’t talk to each other? I mean, she might find her husband’s quite keen on the idea of playing with leather. She could be a dominatrix in her own living room and not need to go out.”

“Her husband’s a vicar.”

“He’d definitely be up for it then.”

Jonas laughed. Roo’s smile slipped when Taylor walked in and her heart began to gallop. He didn’t even glance at her.

“Morning, boss.” Jonas put the photos on the desk. “Hope you haven’t eaten.”

Taylor glanced at the pictures.

“I’ve written the report and emailed it to you,” Jonas said.

“Thanks.”

“I haven’t anything on this morning. Like me to show Roo how to do some searches?”

“That’s fine. I’ve things to do.” Taylor walked out.

“What did you do to Mr. Sunshine?” Jonas asked.

He was joking, but Roo knew this was because of last night. At least he hadn’t sacked her. Yet.

“He probably got out of bed the wrong side,” she muttered.

“Whose bed?”

Roo glanced at him, but Jonas had moved to grab Taylor’s chair. He dragged it over next to hers and sat.

“Right. We’ll do a search on you and you can see the procedure.”

“I’m boring. How about we make that a search on you?”

He smiled. “Okay. Me first, then you.”

“Let me get a pencil.”

Roo grabbed a pad of paper and looked at him expectantly.

“We’re looking for coffee,” he said. “First place to search. Kitchen. Check cupboards for mugs.”

Roo elbowed him hard on her way past.

Taylor went out to the garage to get some cardboard boxes and carried them upstairs. No point putting this off any longer. Yet after he’d put down the boxes, he still managed to not open the door of Stephanie’s room. Instead he went into the room next door. Taylor slumped on his parents’ bed. If Stephanie hadn’t disappeared, would his mum and dad still be living here? Was Spain their escape? London hadn’t been his, no matter how much he wished it so.

He looked round the room. Hardly anything left in there. He’d emailed about the bed and they wanted to sell it. He probably ought to go round the house with stickers and get the local auction house to come and take it all away. Taylor frowned. So where was Roo’s stuff? Was she exceptionally tidy or—he gulped—hadn’t she slept in here?

Taylor couldn’t believe she’d go back into his sister’s room after the way he’d exploded. He wandered down the corridor, checking the rooms, and groaned when he saw the sleeping bag in the corner of the smallest bedroom.
Shit.
She’d slept on the floor. Taylor closed his eyes and dropped his head against his arm where it rested on the doorframe.
I am such a dick.

He’d speak to her later.

Do it now.

Taylor glanced back at the boxes piled up by Stephanie’s door. He wasn’t going to put this off again. As he walked along the corridor, he heard Niall coming down the stairs from the attic. When Taylor had woken this morning on the bed, still dressed, the covers had been warm and he knew Niall had slept next to him. A little bit of him was sorry Niall hadn’t stayed, a larger part of him was relieved.

“Morning,” Niall said.

Taylor nodded. “You okay?”

Hadn’t Niall’s chin been scraped last night? There was no sign of it now.

“Fine.” Niall looked at the boxes. “You want a hand?”

“No thanks. I need to do this on my own.” Taylor had wanted to say yes, but this was his burden.

Niall continued down the stairs.

“Hey,” Taylor called. “Don’t forget you promised carrot cake.”

Niall smiled and Taylor felt like he’d walked into a rainbow.
Christ, I’ve got it bad.
He hurried into Stephanie’s room with the boxes.

Taylor didn’t get very far inside. He leaned back against the door and sighed. Apart from the dust, it looked as though his ten-year-old sister had just stepped out for a moment. His parents had wanted to keep everything the same, for the room to be waiting for her. But she’d never come back. And every day, instead of life growing easier, it grew harder.

The press had been full of speculation for weeks.
Ten-year-old disappears from her garden
—a continual headline. The moors were searched, the river too. They used helicopters, dogs, even a psychic, but Stephanie really did seem to have vanished into thin air. His father had been questioned over her disappearance and Taylor had been horrified to think anyone could imagine his kind, decent, distraught father would kill his own child. Then they’d taken his mother to the police station and she’d come back broken, her tears unstoppable, unable to speak for hours.

Then they’d questioned Taylor. Had he been playing with his sister and something had gone wrong? Everyone would understand if there had been an accident. But where was she? Had his father ever tried to touch his sister in an inappropriate way? Had Taylor? Had they both touched her? Where had he hidden her body? Was there a well he knew of? A cave? An old mine? It wasn’t fair to his parents to keep quiet. He needed to tell the truth, all of the truth. The questions were relentless, the pressure intense. Taylor could see why people confessed to stuff they hadn’t done, but he wouldn’t.

Taylor had been left reeling, trying to crush that niggle of doubt the police had planted. What if his dad
had
killed her? Taylor couldn’t believe that and he hated the police for ever making him think it. They didn’t listen to the truth. It was as though they wanted to find Stephanie lying someplace dead because that would be easier. They wanted someone to have killed her, someone they could arrest and put on TV, put in the paper, put on trial. Solve the crime. Close the file. Move on.

His parents were more worn down and exhausted with every day that passed. His mother ended up in a psychiatric hospital, and finally the papers delegated stories about his sister’s disappearance to the inside pages. Smaller and smaller column inches. No more photographers lurking in bushes to take pictures of the family. No more snide remarks from Taylor’s mates who obviously weren’t mates at all. Time passed and people forgot.

Not his parents. Not Taylor.

He began to pack her books in one of the boxes, shaking each of them and flipping through the pages in case she’d written a note, something the family or the police had missed. And as he handled the volumes, an iron fist squeezed his heart because Taylor remembered how much she’d loved her books, how she’d adored Harry Potter. She’d only got to read the first book, but his mum had told him she’d bought the others and stored them in there for when Stephanie came home.

Her clothes still hung in the wardrobe, but no scent of his sister remained. The dresses looked limp and faded. Taylor folded her clothes and piled them in a box. Handling her teddy bears and soft toys increased the lump in his throat to painful proportions. Little things that she’d bought, or been given, filled another box. His parents had taken the photos, school reports, swimming certificates, her special treasures—the personal stuff. Taylor lifted the girly pictures off the walls, folded the bedding and boxed that too until all that was left was the bed, the wardrobe and her chest.

The police had searched this room more than once and found nothing. Taylor had looked, so had his mum and dad. Taylor walked around, tapping the walls, even though the wallpaper was intact and the same as when Stephanie had vanished. There were no hollow spots, no hidden niches, no secret rooms. Finally, he inspected the floor. On his hands and knees, looking for loose boards, Taylor worked his way across the room. The only place he hadn’t checked was under the furniture. But everything would have been too heavy for his sister to move. Taylor gave the bed an experimental shove but it didn’t budge.

He jumped when Niall appeared in the doorway holding two mugs.

“Coffee?” Niall asked.

“Yeah and a hand.”

Niall put the mugs on the floor by the door.

“I want to move the bed, chest and wardrobe.”

“Didn’t the police do that?”

Taylor glanced at him. “Probably. So what? Bed first.”

A thin layer of dust covered the area under the bed. Taylor checked the boards but they were all firm and they put the bed back in place.

“What are you looking for?” Niall asked.

“I don’t know. I just feel as though there’s something I’ve missed.”

They edged the wardrobe away from the wall.

“You’ve looked through all her books and toys?”

“Yep.”

“Nothing missing?”

Taylor gave a short laugh. “You think I’d remember after all this time? I know nothing went missing with her.”

The only things under the wardrobe were one of Taylor’s mini transformers and a pink comb Stephanie used on her doll. Taylor tapped the back of the wardrobe, checked the wall but found nothing.

When the chest was back in place, Taylor picked up a coffee and sat on the bed.

Niall stayed leaning against the wall. “Is this why you became a private detective?”

Taylor looked up at him but didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The answer was yes.

“What are you going to do with her things?”

“I’ll ask my parents, but I guess they can go to a charity shop. Not sure anyone would want the clothes.” He stared at Niall. “You don’t seem as battered as I’d expected. Where did all that blood come from?”

Niall rubbed his chin. “I heal fast.”

“Was I a complete fuckwit last night? Over Roo being in here, I mean.” Except he didn’t only mean that. What they’d done in the orangery still heated his blood. He and Niall had dressed afterward, and until Taylor had spotted the light on in Stephanie’s room, he’d been on the point of inviting Niall into his bed.

“She doesn’t know about your sister. You need to tell her,” Niall said.

Taylor sighed. “I thought Roo would use my parents’ bedroom. She slept on the floor in the room at the end of the corridor.”

Niall raised his eyebrows. “Why would she do that?”

“I’ve fucked it up with her and I was on the point of…”

“On the point of what?”

“Making a move.”

Taylor looked Niall straight in the face.
What’s he thinking?

“You better apologize then,” Niall said, and walked out.

“Niall!” Taylor lurched after him.

When Niall turned and Taylor saw the…
what the hell?
…he stumbled. Was that fear on his face?