The car skidded to a halt at an angle on the drive and she jumped out. She had already kicked off her stupid power heels for fear of falling flat on her face on the slippery ground, and she ran barefoot through the snow to the front door. She opened the letter box and called through.
‘Josh, it’s Mummy. It’s okay now, darling. You can open the door.’
She waited, transferring her weight from frozen foot to frozen foot. Where was he? Why wasn’t he watching out for her?
‘Come on, Josh,’ she whispered, the cold now forgotten as she longed for some sign of life from within the house.
After what seemed like ten minutes she saw the sitting room curtain move slightly and Josh’s face, pale against his mop of dark curly hair, appeared in the gap, the phone pressed against his ear. He gave her a little wave. Thank God. It looked like he was okay, which meant they were both okay.
She saw him speak and nod, and then the curtain fell back into place. A minute later she heard the double lock turning. Finally the door opened.
More than anything, she had to keep calm. She had to try her best not to convey her confusion and panic to her son. She sometimes forgot how young he was because of his serious attitude to life – a total contrast to his fidgety, perpetually cheerful sister.
‘Hey Joshy. Well done, looking after Lily. She’s okay, is she?’
Josh nodded, staring at her feet. ‘Where are your shoes?’
She almost wanted to laugh. Trust Josh to notice that.
‘Is Auntie Suzy still on the phone?’ she asked.
Josh nodded, handed her the phone and sauntered off into the sitting room as if nothing unusual had happened.
‘Hi Suzy. Thank you so much for keeping him talking.’
‘What’s going on, Mags? Where’s Duncan?’
‘I can’t talk now. I’m sorry. I need to see to the kids, and I need to keep this line free in case Duncan tries to call. You know my mobile’s a bit flaky here. Look, I’ll call you later, or tomorrow. I don’t know what’s going on, Suze. I’m bloody furious with him. I know he wants to bring in some money, but if he’s left the kids to go and deal with a faulty boiler…’
She quickly thanked her sister said goodbye before she could give in to the desire to list all the things she might do to Duncan. The lack of any response from Duncan’s phone was nagging away at the back of Maggie’s mind, but in this weather that could be down to a poor signal from the local tower.
For now, her priority had to be her children. She pushed open the door to the sitting room. Josh was on the sofa, staring at the screen of his iPad mini. Lily was lying on her stomach far too close to the television, swinging her legs and banging her feet together in time to the music.
‘Mum, can we have something to eat, please? I’m starving, and Lily’s been moaning for ages.’
‘I have not, Joshy,’ Lily said without turning round. ‘That’s a fib.’
‘I’ll make you something in a minute, but first can you tell me what happened when Daddy went out?’
She could see that Josh was worried, and she felt bad for not doing a better job of protecting him. Lily ignored the question.
‘He was making our tea. Then he came in to say that he had to go. He went into the garage, probably to get some tools. I expect somebody’s got a burst pipe or something.’
That would have made perfect sense if it hadn’t meant he would be leaving the children alone in the house. Surely he wouldn’t do that for some stranger’s burst pipe?
Maggie sat down next to Josh and stared into thin air, trying to calm down. Duncan wouldn’t have done this without good reason. She was going to have to wait until he got home and stay calm.
As she pushed herself off the sofa to go and see what she could make for the children’s tea, Josh muttered something.
‘Sorry, Josh. What did you say?’ she asked.
‘I just wondered why he needed a posh bag to go out on a job.’
Maggie sat down again.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When I went to wave to him from the window he was carrying the bag you use when you go away for work.’ Josh shrugged.
Maggie felt her chest tighten and pushed down the fear that was rising through her chest. She knew which one Josh meant. And she knew Duncan would never use that to carry his tools. It was a weekend bag – brown leather.
Maggie leaned forward and gave her son a hug, which for once he reciprocated. She was struggling to hide the fact that something was terribly wrong, but he was a perceptive child.
‘Thanks, Josh. I’ll make you some food in a moment, but keep an eye on Lily for me, would you?’
Maggie left the room and raced upstairs to their bedroom, pulling open drawers at random. A few clothes were missing; his toothbrush and razor had gone from their en-suite bathroom too. She stood still and stared at the empty space where Duncan’s toiletries should be. She felt her throat tighten and her eyes flooded with tears.
Garage, she thought. Josh said he went to the garage.
She ran downstairs and out through the connecting door into the garage. Standing to one side against a breezeblock wall was a dark green metal cupboard, a cupboard that had been padlocked since the day she had met Duncan. Now both doors stood open, the padlock hanging loose. The cupboard was empty.
Duncan had gone.
4
The evening briefing session for DI Becky Robinson’s team had been a miserable affair. She was glad they had caught the bastard who for the last few years had been terrorising elderly women, but she wished she could think of some way to protect such poor old souls so no one had to suffer horrors like these again. What if it were to happen to her own gran? Next chance she had, Becky was going to get herself back down to London for a few days and sort out how best to keep her safe. Not that her gran would take any notice. She believed everybody was inherently good, while Becky was increasingly of the opinion that people were inherently bad; it was just a matter of how well they controlled their badness.
Cynical bugger, she thought as she made her way back to the incident room. There was still work to be done on the case, of course. Alf Horton might be locked up now, but they had to make sure they had enough irrefutable evidence to put him well and truly away. One of her sergeants was managing the interviews with Horton and his solicitor, who was apparently a woman. How could she bring herself to represent a rat like him?
Passing her boss’s office as she made her way along the corridor, Becky glanced in through the open door. He seemed deep in thought and didn’t even look up as she walked by. Detective Chief Inspector Tom Douglas was her ideal boss in so many ways, although for a while last year – immediately after the Natasha Joseph case – Becky had been worried about him. He had seemed a lot chirpier for the last few months, though, and appeared almost back to his normal self. Anyway, whatever had ailed him was none of her business, although she wished he would realise that she was always there for him. Whatever he needed.
‘Becky!’
Tom may not have looked up as she passed his door, but obviously he had recognised her footsteps. She turned and peered around the door jamb.
‘Yes, boss?’
‘Come in a minute and sit down.’
Tom closed a thick buff folder and stuck it on top of a pile of about twenty similar files that looked perilously close to falling over. He sat back in his chair and smiled at Becky, giving her his full attention. She noticed that his dark blond hair had grown a little longer recently, and was touching the collar of his white shirt, the top button of which was undone. Becky picked up Tom’s discarded tie from the back of one of the visitors’ chairs, reached over and laid it gently on top of his black suit jacket, which was hanging over the only other chair.
‘Well done today,’ Tom said. ‘I know you got your man, but just give me the edited highlights of the evidence we’ve got against him.’
Becky pulled a face. ‘You really don’t want to know about this guy, Tom. Alf Horton is the l
owest form of human life. To have committed the crimes he has I can only assume that he’s a true psychopath. There’s no sign of guilt at all, and his victims were probably all so trusting. Mind you, how anybody would trust him, I don’t know. He looks as if he’s never seen sunlight – you know, one of those pasty almost grey faces with lips that are too thin with spittle in the corners of his mouth.’
Tom seemed amused by her distaste. ‘Bloody hell, Becky – you’ve met worse than him before. Why’s he creeping you out?’
‘I can’t believe everything he’s done. The man lives with his elderly mother, for God’s sake, but she won’t hear a word against him. Says he’s an angel from heaven. He reminds me of Hannibal Lecter when he smiles at Clarice. I get the feeling he would like to jump over the desk and rip me apart with his teeth.’
Tom was still laughing at her expression when his phone rang. He gave her a smile of apology and picked it up.
‘Tom Douglas.’
There was a pause of several seconds and Tom frowned.
‘Sorry, Max, but I genuinely have no idea. I haven’t seen Leo for months. Why are you worried about her?’
Becky pretended to read the file she was holding, but couldn’t help listening when she heard Leo’s name mentioned. Becky had always thought Leo – or Leonora as she was more accurately called – would eventually move in with Tom, but in a rare moment of familiarity when Becky was waxing lyrical about her own love life Tom had mentioned that his relationship with Leo was over. He had never said why, but he had announced it with an air of such determination that Becky was certain Tom had been the one making the decision.
Becky could hear a deep voice at the other end of the phone, but couldn’t catch the words.
‘Do you want me to go round to her apartment?’ Tom asked. He paused again to listen to the caller.
‘Okay. Well if you change your mind, let me know. The neighbours know me and I’d be happy to go. But don’t you think it more likely she’s gone away and forgotten to tell anybody? You know how independent she is – she probably thinks nobody will miss her.’
After that the call was brought swiftly to an end and Tom raised his eyes briefly to the ceiling. ‘Bloody women.’
‘Problem?’ Becky asked.
Tom leaned back and rotated his pen between his fingers, a habit he had when thinking, or possibly when not wanting to look the other person in the eye.
‘That was Max Saunders. He’s married to Leo’s sister Ellie and was my neighbour in Cheshire until I sold the cottage a few months ago. According to Max, Leo didn’t turn up for their new baby’s christening last Sunday. Ellie was just angry with her to start with, but they’ve tried calling and she isn’t answering her mobile. Ellie’s worried now. Max will go round to her apartment if they can’t track her down in the next couple of days. If it was anything else, I would guess she’d gone off somewhere, not thinking anybody would care about her enough to wonder where she was. But surely she wouldn’t miss the christening?’
Becky saw a flash of irritation on Tom’s face and was desperate to ask him more questions, but her hopes of him confiding in her were dashed as he pointed to the file on her lap.
‘Where were we, Becky? You were going to tell me about your arrest, I think.’
Tom’s session with Becky lasted no more than fifteen minutes as the Alf Horton case appeared to be cut and dried. Horton had refused to sign a confession, but he hadn’t denied anything either, and as a minimum they had the most recent crime, where he had been caught red-handed. It seemed Horton was likely to plead guilty and that made everybody’s life easier. There was still work to be done to give the CPS rock-solid evidence of the earlier crimes, though – the more cases, the longer the sentence. And this needed to be a long one.
Much as Tom preferred discussing an active enquiry rather than ploughing through the mountain of paperwork piled on his desk, he could see that Becky was itching to get on with pulling the case together. Either that or quizzing him about Leo.
Talking about his ex-girlfriend was difficult. He had cared deeply about her, but her fundamental lack of trust in men and the fact that she had constantly backed away from him whenever she had thought he was getting too serious had eventually become too much. He thought back to their last few weeks together. In so many ways they had appeared to be closer than ever, but the flashes of suspicion on her face whenever he had received an unexpected text or call, and her momentary silence whenever he said he was working late had started to rile him and put him permanently on edge. He had never given her any reason to distrust him, but he was a policeman, and that meant that sometimes he couldn’t tell her about every call, every case, every unexpected meeting.
She was beautiful, though. He loved her style, her obsession with only wearing black and white and the way she wore clothes that skimmed her figure, their ultra-soft fabrics moving with her, just giving a hint of the body that lay beneath – a body that had never failed to thrill him.
The crunch had finally come nearly a year ago. The kidnap case he had been working on was complex enough, but it had been so much more than that for him.
Tom fought to push the memories of that intense twenty-four-hour period from his mind – the revelations about the death of his brother, Jack, all those years ago and the ongoing consequences were something he rarely allowed himself to think about, at least during working hours. When the case was finally over Tom had needed somebody to talk to and he had wanted that person to be Leo, but mistaking Tom’s twenty-four-hour silence for an act of betrayal, Leo had taken herself away on holiday, out of touch, as if to punish Tom for a sin he didn’t know he had committed.
He had known then that there was no way back. He needed a woman who trusted him, and experience told him that, whatever their best intentions, people rarely change.
Tom realised that he had been staring at the same piece of paper for ten minutes while his mind wandered to Leo. Where the hell was she this time? Who had rattled her enough to cause her to rush off without telling anybody where she was going? Or had something happened to her – an accident in her apartment and nobody knew she was hurt?
He sighed and pushed the papers away. Visions of Leo sprawled on the floor, in pain, wouldn’t leave his mind.
‘Bugger,’ he said quietly as he grabbed his car keys from the desk. Max might have told him not to check up on Leo, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to focus until he was sure she was okay.
5
The snow was getting thicker now and starting to drift in the wind. As Maggie looked out of the bedroom window she could see the thick flakes swirling in the amber glow of the streetlights lining the deserted cul-de-sac. The room behind her was in darkness. She felt as if she had been standing there for hours – waiting, hoping, praying to see Duncan return in his pristine white van. It was only three hours since she had arrived home, but it felt like days.
She ached to hear his voice – hear him tell her that he was on his way home and whatever had happened was a mistake; hear him say that he loved her. Had he left her? Really? Without a word of explanation? She racked her brain trying to think of a single reason why he would do that.
His phone still appeared to be dead, although she had called it every ten minutes, and she was trying hard not to let the children realise that something was wrong. Lily was oblivious to it all, but Josh knew that his daddy shouldn’t have left him alone in the house to look after his young sister. He was a sensitive child, and Maggie knew he would be going over everything in his head. He had looked at her as if she held the answer, but she was no nearer to understanding what was happening than Josh.
Suzy had sent her a text asking for an update, and Maggie was ashamed of the fact that she had lied to her sister. Or avoided the truth. She had just put ‘All ok now. Speak tomorrow.’ She hadn’t wanted to get involved in a long discussion. She didn’t have any answers.
Maggie had been through Duncan’s wardrobe to see what was missing, but she wasn’t capable o
f working out if her husband taken enough for a night, for a week, or maybe for good. She stifled a sob at the thought.
A sharp gust of wind outside blew snow across the road and against the wall of the house. Whether Duncan was here or not, it seemed unlikely Maggie would be able to get the car out of the drive first thing in the morning, and for a moment she was relieved. The sick bastard she had been asked to defend would have to be passed on to somebody else. She could stay at home with the children, and wait for her husband to return.
Where are you, Duncan? I miss you.
Maggie’s limbs were tight with cold and lack of movement. She backed stiffly up to the bed, sitting down and wrapping the duvet round her shoulders. Her whole body started shaking, and she didn’t know if it was fear or the frigid air of her bedroom that was causing it. She didn’t want to leave her vigil at the window, though. She bit her bottom lip, trying to stop it from trembling. Crying wasn’t going to help. She had to think.
The cupboard in the garage was niggling her. What had he needed to take out of that cupboard, and why? It wasn’t his work tools. She knew that.
Ever since they moved in together, Duncan had kept the green cupboard locked. Initially Maggie had decided not to make an issue of it. He was entitled to his own space, and if she was honest there were things in her past she would rather he knew nothing about – such as her appalling choice of partner before Duncan. A married man with three children. She shuddered at the thought. She hadn’t lied about that terrible period in her life, but she hadn’t volunteered the information either.
After she and Duncan had been together for a while she had asked him for the key to the cupboard – she was clearing away some clutter – but he had refused to give it to her, saying he would do it himself. She hadn’t pushed it. She had always thought the cupboard might contain something to do with his mother because he had nothing of hers around the house – no photos or mementos – and yet she knew how much Duncan’s mother had meant to him. He had given up his studies at Leeds University to look after her when she was ill with cancer, and had nursed her while simultaneously training to be a plumber, a job he thought he might be able to combine with being her carer. Sadly she had died a couple of years before Maggie had met him.
Tom Douglas Box Set 2 Page 34
