Lost Girls

by Angela Marsons

  The wrought iron itself was finished with one-foot-high spikes – ornately crafted and in keeping with the design of the gate; but spikes all the same.

  ‘Sociable folks,’ Bryant observed as he pressed the intercom fixed to the right-hand wall.

  ‘Mrs Trueman?’ Bryant said, as a voice filled with static acknowledged their call.

  ‘Who are you?’ the voice said, neither confirming nor denying.

  ‘I'm Detective Sergeant Bryant and Detective Inspector Stone is beside me.’

  ‘Please hold your identification card up to the camera.’

  Bryant looked around for a camera as he removed his ID card from his pocket.

  ‘Where's the bloody thing?’ he snarled.

  Eerily a voice said, ‘It's on the entryphone next to the push button.’

  Bryant looked closely. ‘Jesus, it's tiny.’

  Kim followed his gaze. The miniature CCTV camera looked like a screw fixing.

  ‘And the other one,’ said the voice.

  Kim passed her card and Bryant held it up.

  ‘That's fine, now what do you want?’

  ‘We'd like to come in and speak to you,’ said Bryant, shortly.

  Like her, he was beginning to lose patience with the game of hide and seek.

  ‘I'd like to know what this is about, Inspector.’

  Kim leaned forward. ‘It's a matter concerning your daughter, Mrs Trueman, so please open the gate so we can speak properly.’

  There was a definite click from the centre of the gate. Bryant pushed on the handle. It remained secure.

  ‘Guv, I am seriously gonna lose—’

  A second thunk sounded from the top of the gate and a third from the bottom.

  ‘Triple electronic dead bolts?’ Bryant said. ‘What's she got in here – Lord Lucan wearing the Hope Diamond riding around on Shergar?’

  Kim sighed as she closed the gate firmly behind her. ‘No, Bryant, just her child.’

  The three locks clicked back into place.

  They stepped into a property set in approximately two acres. The path from the gate led between two symmetrical lawns.

  To the left, in front of the kitchen window, was a single swing. The wall encircled the property, as did the glass.

  As they neared the front of the house a heavy oak door was pulled back by a petite brunette wearing jeans and a man's T-shirt. The garment was spattered with lime green paint.

  ‘Mrs Trueman?’ Bryant asked, holding out his hand.

  She returned the handshake but there was no smile. She stepped back and allowed them in, taking a careful look outside before closing the door behind them.

  Kim spotted five doors and a stairway leading from the space but the woman didn't point to any of them.

  ‘You said this was about my daughter?’

  Kim stepped forward. ‘Mrs Trueman, we need to speak with you about Emily's abduction.’

  ‘Have you caught them?’ she asked, clasping her hands.

  Kim shook her head and the woman's face dropped.

  Her hands met and wrestled each other. ‘Then what?’

  ‘We're looking at the case again, Mrs Trueman, and we'd like your help.’

  No way could Kim allow this woman to suspect that the same thing had happened again. The anxiety that radiated from Julia Trueman could shatter her into a million pieces.

  Emily’s mother pointed to a door. Their footsteps echoed in the hallway. There were no house sounds: no television, no radio and no chatter. The silence of the house was thick and oppressive.

  The door led into a small sitting room. Plump sofas faced an open fire. The wall behind was stacked floor to ceiling with books. A picture window looked out on to the rear of the property. A gravel drive ended at a dense wooden gate that rose as high as the wall.

  Kim guessed the drive led on to a lane that met civilisation a few miles down the road.

  Mrs Trueman sat on the edge of the single seat. They took the sofa.

  ‘Yesterday we spoke with Mrs Cotton. She—’

  ‘How is she?’ the woman asked quickly.

  ‘I take it you don't speak any more?’

  ‘How can we?’ the woman asked. ‘I kept my daughter and she lost hers. How can I even look at her? We were like sisters. I miss her. I miss them both.’

  She glanced behind them to the wall that held the door. The wall that faced the single chair.

  Kim's eyes rested on a blown-up framed photograph of the six of them at a table surrounding a huge dish of paella. Their faces were reddened from sunburn.

  ‘Our last holiday together,’ Mrs Trueman said, quietly. ‘Suzie was a beautiful child. I was her godmother as well. Jennifer and I were friends since school. But everything was destroyed during those few days.’

  Kim was about to ask about the ransom but the woman fixed her with a look.

  ‘Inspector, do you know what kind of person you are? I mean, do you really know?’

  ‘I like to think so.’

  ‘And so did I – until one text message made me question everything. What these people did was unforgivable. We all turned into something from our own worst nightmares. Desperation and fear do horrible things to a person.’

  Kim wanted to ask the one question that mattered to her but felt they were travelling in that direction anyway.

  ‘Our friendship counted for nothing against the lives of our children. My best friend was suddenly my enemy. We were locked in this surreal battle and only one of us could win.’

  ‘Did you pay the ransom?’ Kim asked, quietly.

  The woman looked at her, her face stripped bare. Her eyes held the terror of that time. And the shame.

  ‘No, we didn't. But we were going to,’ she said, honestly.

  Kim and Bryant exchanged a glance.

  ‘So why was Emily freed and yet Suzie was not?’

  Mrs Trueman shrugged. ‘We don't know. We've asked ourselves that a million times.’

  Kim wondered who the hell had made that decision and why.

  The door to the room opened gently and a head popped round.

  A little older and considerably paler than her likeness on the wall, but Kim recognised Emily. Her mouth closed as her gaze took in the presence of strangers. Instantly her eyes were troubled as she looked to her mother.

  Mrs Trueman stood. ‘It's okay, Emily. Have you finished your history lesson?’

  The girl nodded but her gaze had returned to Kim.

  Although Mrs Trueman tried to block the path of her daughter, she curled around her mother and entered the room.

  ‘Emily, it's nothing to worry about. Go back upstairs and start—’

  ‘Have you found Suzie?’ the girl asked, hopefully.

  Kim swallowed and shook her head. The girl's eyes filled with tears but she bravely fought them back.

  It had been thirteen months since her ordeal, but clearly her best friend was never far from her thoughts.

  ‘Emily, please go upstairs. I'll be up in a minute to mark your work.’

  Emily hesitated but a guiding hand on her forearm prompted her to do as her mother asked.

  ‘She doesn't go to school?’ Bryant asked.

  Mrs Trueman closed the door and shook her head. ‘No, Emily is home schooled. It's safer.’

  ‘Could we spend a few minutes with her?’ Kim asked, softly.

  Mrs Trueman shook her head vehemently. ‘No, that’s impossible. We don't speak about it, to her or anyone else. It's best she forgets.’

  Yeah, that didn't seem to be working out too well. Every waking minute locked inside a fortress with no interaction was a constant reminder of the reason why.

  ‘Did Emily get counselling?’

  Mrs Trueman shook her head. ‘No, we decided we just needed to put it behind us. Children are resilient and bounce back. We didn't want some psychotherapist putting feelings of guilt into her head, telling her how she should be feeling. That wouldn't have helped anyone.’

  Kim idly wondered whose feeli
ngs of guilt the woman was trying to bury.

  ‘So, I'm sorry but I can't allow you anywhere near her. You'll bring it all back.’

  From what Kim could see, it had never gone away. For any of them.

  Mrs Trueman remained by the door. ‘Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get on.’

  Kim stood and suddenly had a thought.

  ‘Did they give you a drop point?’

  If this family had been prepared to pay they would have had to know how.

  Mrs Trueman hesitated.

  ‘Please, you have to understand that we need your help right now.’

  ‘And you have to understand that I know they're still out there.’

  ‘I get that, but they're not coming back for Emily.’

  ‘I hear the words, but I don't believe them. There is no guarantee you can give me that I will accept.’

  Kim sighed heavily.

  ‘But I will tell you if you assure me that you will leave us alone from this point on.’

  Kim could see she was never going to get to Emily alone so she had to take what she could get.

  She nodded her agreement.

  ‘The money was to be dropped on Wednesday at twelve into a grit bin on Wordsley High Street.’ She frowned. ‘But you should know that. You still have my old phone.’

  Damn it, Kim realised too late that she had slipped up. If they were investigating the old case like she’d said, she would have already checked the evidence – which was still in storage as the case had never been solved.

  ‘I was just checking that was the last communication you had,’ Kim said, quickly.

  Mrs Trueman nodded her confirmation.

  The second she left this house she’d be instructing Dawson to pick up the phone.

  Kim took out a card and placed it on the hallway table. ‘If you think of anything else that might help please give me a call.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell her that Jenny Cotton was desperate to bury her daughter. But she didn't.

  Bryant headed to the car but Kim stepped back.

  ‘Look, I understand you want to protect your child but this is too much. You're stifling her. She needs to be around other people. She needs to run and laugh with kids her own age. She needs to build positive memories before she can let go of the bad.’

  The woman's face was set. ‘Thank you but I think I know what's best for my daughter.’

  Kim shook her head. ‘No, this is what's best for you. She'll develop into a nervous, anxious kid who's frightened of everyone she meets.’

  ‘Inspector, I'm keeping my child alive.’

  Kim looked around at the complete absence of joy.

  ‘Yeah, but it's not much of a life, is it?’

  The heavy oak door started to close in her face, but not before Kim saw a shadow pass by the top of the stairs.

  Sixty-Four

  Emily closed her bedroom door quietly and sat on the bed.

  She should be opening her geography book next but she couldn't face it.

  Although she was schooled at home her mother was a stickler for keeping proper school hours. She was at her desk by nine o’clock with four equal lessons throughout the day.

  What she missed about school was the racket: the chatter, the shouting and squealing.

  Out here in their new house there was nothing.

  The wall and the hedge deadened the traffic noise from the road. She never heard sounds from their neighbours whose houses were a ten-minute trek from her own. She had no clue if there were children her age anywhere close by.

  Even the house was silent. On weekdays her mother moved around downstairs cleaning and tidying but there was never anything in the background. No radio, no television. It was like her mother was constantly listening to the sounds of the house, waiting for anything out of place.

  Only with the deafening sound of tyres on gravel did the house come alive. When her father returned from work her mother's anxiety was released and for a few hours each evening they would pretend to be normal.

  Emily missed a lot of things from her old life, but mainly she missed her friend.

  She reached beneath the bed and took out the half-filled scrapbook. The first page was a printed-out picture of Emily and Suzie beaming above a heading of 'Our Travels'.

  The scrapbook held page upon page of the two of them on holidays, in go-karts, on fair rides, in the sea and their last one at a Justin Bieber concert.

  She looked at the blank page opposite, still not able to believe there would be no more. That the memories she had were all she was ever going to get.

  She stared at their last picture, hard. Suzie had been so proud of her 'belieber' T- shirt. All the way home from the NEC arena in Birmingham they had laughed, swooned and argued about who was going to marry their idol. They eventually decided they would share him; much to the entertainment of their mothers in the front seats.

  Three days later they'd been snatched.

  Emily looked into the eyes of her friend; so full of fun and mischief. So different to when they'd been pulled from each other that last time. Suzie’s face began to blur before her as Emily’s finger touched the face that still lived in her dreams.

  She constantly remembered the ordeal, as though it had happened last week. During the day she suffered the guilt of having lived when Suzie had died. At night the fear returned in her dreams. Especially of that last day.

  She remembered the man’s arms around her stomach as he pulled her away from her friend. She remembered the feel of his bony chest against the back of her head as he’d pulled her across the room. She remembered the sensation of trying to grip Suzie's cold hand. She had thought that if they both held on tightly nothing could force them apart. But she'd been wrong.

  A punch to the side of Suzie's head had sent her tumbling to the ground and Emily had been unable to hang on. Within a second she had felt herself being grabbed around the waist and lifted. She had screamed at Suzie to wake up but she'd remained where she was on the ground. And she’d never seen her friend again.

  The vision hit her in the stomach anew and the tears began to fall.

  She wiped a droplet from the face of her friend and clutched the book to her midriff as the sobs ripped through her body.

  ‘Oh, Suzie, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.’

  Sixty-Five

  ‘What's bugging you, Guv?’ Bryant asked as they got back into the car after leaving the Truemans’ house.

  ‘Piss off,’ Kim said, aggravated he knew her that well.

  ‘You look like a kid on Christmas morning who got a stocking full of coal. Actually, that probably wasn't …’

  His words trailed away as he started the car.

  ‘It’s all about logic,’ she said. ‘My brain is happy to dismiss something once it understands the logic and yet there’s something that won’t go away.’

  ‘Like what?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe I should have listened,’ she said, staring out of the window.

  ‘Well, that'd be a first, but you're gonna have to narrow it down.’

  ‘Eloise.’

  He switched the engine off. ‘You've got to be kidding me. You're considering changing a lifetime habit for a crackpot, psychic, medium … whatever she is?’

  Kim realised how ridiculous it sounded but Stacey's findings about the woman were not what she'd been expecting. She'd anticipated the woman would be a self-serving, manipulative charlatan preying on the vulnerabilities of others. At the very least a book or two.

  ‘She told me that he wasn’t finished with the others and last night Jenny Cotton got a message asking if she wants to play again.’

  ‘Coincidence,’ he said, dismissively. ‘Did she offer anything else?’

  ‘Yeah, the number 278. She repeated it and told me to remember it.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Kim shook her head. She would not share the third observation about Mikey.

  She remembered Eloise’s words as Helen had dragged h
er away. ‘She did say something about someone close to the …’

  ‘I think you’re giving it too much thought. She’s some kind of crook and we’re just waiting for the punchline.’

  ‘But what did she have to gain?’

  Bryant shrugged. ‘Involvement on a high profile case would have done ticket sales the world of good. Maybe an occasional appearance on This Morning. Who knows?’

  ‘But that’s the problem. Why hasn’t she gone to the papers or the radio trying to make something out of it? Why is there no money-making scheme here at all? Until I understand it I can’t forget it.’

  He glanced sideways. ‘That look ain’t budging.’ He sighed. ‘You can't seriously believe she has anything useful to offer us to find Charlie and Amy? And if she did say anything, can you honestly tell me you'd believe her, let alone act on it?’

  Kim counted about three questions there and the answer was no to every one of them. And yet Eloise had said that the other game wasn’t over and the things she’d said about Mikey…

  Damn it, no one could have known about that.

  Sixty-Six

  Dawson checked the address on the paper in his hand. Yep, it definitely said 42 Rosemary Gardens. And that was the address he was looking at right now. The house lay in a cul-de-sac that branched off the Amblecote Road in Brierley Hill. The differences between this and the properties on Hollytree were not synonymous with the one mile that separated them. Relatively speaking, this house was on another planet.

  Dawson wondered if Shona was having a bit of a laugh at his expense. Sending him on a wild goose chase. Girls who lived in Rosemary Gardens didn’t voluntarily enter the Hollytree estate and if they did they needed to be locked in their rooms.

  After his conversation with Dewain’s family, this was his logical next step. He hoped to leave here with a lead on who had informed Lyron that Dewain was still alive. Someone had leaked it to the gang leader and the boss was entrusting him with the task of finding out who.

  He’d worked his own cases before but this was not like an armed robbery of a petrol station or a GBH or even a domestic assault. This was a case that had affected his boss deeply. He’d heard that she had even pinned Tracy Frost to the wall in a gym somewhere. He had no idea if that was true and he knew he’d never hear it from her. But it wouldn’t have surprised him. There was something in that kid that had resonated with her. He had no idea what it was.