Patricia Carnegie glared at her. ‘They’d better not make a mess,’ she hissed through clenched teeth. She stamped back into the house.
‘That was easier than I anticipated.’ Sue’s voice was thoughtful.
‘Shouldn’t we be glad of that?’ Kate had been happy about how easy everything had been, but she picked up on the doubt Sue seemed to be feeling.
‘I don’t know. This lady’s a wildcat when it comes to her son. I would have expected her to be kicking and screaming.’
‘Maybe she knows more than she’s saying about what her son got up to.’ Kate left Sue and walked into the house to the gleaming kitchen where Patricia Carnegie was fussing over an espresso machine.
Sue was right, the woman was too calm and accepting of what was going on, despite her initial half-hearted objection.
* * * *
Megan stumbled through the wood, tripping on roots and slipping on dead leaves. Her blouse and skirt were sodden, and her hair clung in wet strands to her neck. She stopped to catch her breath, leaning on a tree trunk, and staring into the darkness. She could no longer see the light from the house at her back and she didn’t know how far she’d come, nor how far the trees stretched. But the trees couldn’t go on for ever. Surely there would be houses, or a road she could follow. There had to be something.
She heard the noise of a car in the distance, but it was coming from the direction of the house, and the woman had said it wasn’t safe there. Her heart thumped in her chest and she shuddered. It meant he had returned and would be looking for her. She had to get further away.
She cast a fearful glance back the way she had come, but all she saw was darkness and trees. And in front of her, more darkness and trees, but that was the way she would have to go, she couldn’t risk staying here in case he caught her again.
Suppressing a sob, she stumbled deeper into the wood where the trees were thicker and darker, and more menacing.
Chapter Forty
‘I don’t know, I couldn’t feel a pulse. I think he might be dead.’ Emma’s hand ached, it was gripping the phone so hard.
She listened to the mechanical voice at the other end of the line.
‘Of course I’m sure it’s an overdose, he had this blasted big needle sticking out of his arm.’
She listened again. ‘I don’t know what he’s taken, all I know is he had a needle in his arm.’ Her voice got higher in pitch, until she was screaming. ‘Just get the damned ambulance here, because if he’s not dead, he soon will be.’
She rammed the phone onto its cradle and leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths until the panic in her chest subsided.
A green and yellow checkered car with a flashing blue light on top screeched to a halt outside the house, and a paramedic carrying a bag, erupted from the passenger side. This was closely followed by a police car which drew up behind the ambulance car. A policeman got out of the passenger side and followed the paramedic to the door.
‘Where’s the ambulance?’ Emma demanded, glaring at the man in the green coverall suit.
‘We’re first responders, love. Now where is he?’
The policeman stood back to allow a second paramedic past.
‘In there.’ Emma pointed down the corridor to the kitchen. ‘He’s in a bad way . . . I don’t know if he’s still alive.’
The paramedics pushed past her. ‘We don’t have time to waste, love.’
They ran down the corridor. Emma followed close behind.
Diane was sitting in a chair in the kitchen. She seemed dazed, but her eyes were fixed on Bill’s prone body.
‘I’ll have to ask you to leave, we need room to work,’ the first paramedic said to her, while feeling Bill’s neck with his fingers.
‘Might be a flicker there. We need to get the Naloxone into him right away if he’s to have any chance.’
Emma stood in the doorway, feeling helpless. She wanted to reach out to her mother, who still sat immobile on the kitchen chair, but to do that she’d have to step over the paramedic’s legs, and he’d already indicated he needed room to work.
The paramedic rummaged in his bag until he found what he was looking for, an oblong shaped pack. He twisted the ends off the pack and produced a syringe. Looking up, he spotted the policeman. ‘Can you get them out of here. I’m going to have to get this into him and get him into the recovery position. I’ll need room to do it.’
‘You heard the man,’ the policeman said, ‘he wants you all out of the way so he can work.’
Emma glanced despairingly at Diane who gave no indication of having heard. She wanted to move away but not without her mother.
‘I said everyone out, and I meant it. So get out now.’
Emma backed away but didn’t take her eyes off Diane.
‘Now,’ he snapped, ‘I’m not going to say it again.’
At last Diane looked up, and Emma beckoned to her. ‘Come on, Mum. We can’t do anything here, and we need to get out of the way.’
Diane followed her down the passage and into the lounge, where she slumped onto the settee and looked blankly at the door.
Emma sat down beside her and put her arm round Diane’s shoulders. ‘It’ll be all right, Mum.’
But she didn’t think it would be all right, and thoughts scurried round her brain.
What was the detective doing here anyway? And how come he chose their kitchen to take an overdose? And why didn’t Ryan see him when he came home? Too many questions and no answers.
****
Patricia Carnegie ignored Kate and lifted the cup of Espresso to her lips while she stared out of the kitchen window to where lights bobbed and flickered, indicating the start of the search.
‘They won’t find anything, you know.’ She sounded smug.
‘Nevertheless, we have to search, when it concerns a missing child.’ The smell of the coffee annoyed Kate. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch time, and she didn’t know when she would get the opportunity to grab a bite.
One of the policemen entered the kitchen. ‘Nothing here, ma’am.’
Kate nodded. ‘You’d better join the search outside.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I hate to say it, but I told you so.’ Patricia Carnegie took a sip of her coffee and turned her gaze back to the window.
‘We’re not finished yet. Don’t go anywhere.’ Kate resisted the temptation to whack the woman across her smug face, and marched to the door. What was it about this case that had her emotions getting out of hand? She was usually better at controlling herself than this.
The rain was heavier now, and she didn’t have a waterproof. She was tempted to sit in the car, but that wouldn’t look good to the men doing the searching. If they could put up with the rain, so could she.
She looked around for Sue, but the policewoman was nowhere to be seen. She must have joined the search.
Sighing, Kate trudged to the edge of the wood, listening to the men moving forward in a line searching the undergrowth.
‘Ma’am.’ Sue appeared at her side. ‘We’ve found a shed, they’re cutting the lock off now. I thought you might want to be there when it’s opened.’
‘Thanks, Sue.’ Kate followed her into the wood.
The shed door gaped open, and one of the men was shining his torch inside. ‘Nothing here, ma’am. But it looks as if someone has been here.’ He picked up a length of rope. ‘This has been cut, looks like it was used to tie something up.’
‘I think this is the place in the photos.’ Sue’s voice was hushed.
‘What’s in the wooden chest over there?’ Kate’s pulse raced, surely the girl couldn’t be inside, but it was big enough to contain her.
‘It’s padlocked, ma’am, but we’ll soon get that off.’
Kate held her breath when the padlock bounced off and hit the ground. If the girl was inside, there was no way she’d still be alive.
‘Oh, shit.’ The constable turned away from the chest, clamping his hand over his mouth.
>
Kate closed her eyes. Her head swam and she didn’t feel good. They’d found her, and they were too late.
‘Ma’am.’ Sue’s voice penetrated the fog in her brain. ‘It’s not Megan. It’s something a lot older than that.’
Kate forced her eyes open and walked over to the chest to look. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but certainly not a skeleton lying on an ancient velvet cushion.
****
A faint rumble of voices from the kitchen seeped up the corridor and into the lounge like sibilant whispers. Emma strained to hear but could distinguish nothing. Diane sat beside her on the settee, her fingers restlessly stroking and picking at the arm of the chair. Other than that, she seemed oblivious to what was going on. Ryan was nowhere to be seen. Did that mean he had something to do with what had happened? Emma’s mind was too confused to try and work it out.
A siren, announcing the arrival of the ambulance, jolted her out of her thoughts. It parked at the kerbside behind the paramedics green and yellow checkered car. The ambulance driver and another paramedic got out and hurried up the path to the house, their feet thumping on the hallway floor, as they rushed to join their colleagues in the kitchen. The sound of voices increased but nothing else happened, making her wonder what they were doing.
At last, after what seemed a lifetime to Emma, two of them stretchered Bill’s body down the hallway. Rising from her seat to look out the window, she watched as they loaded Bill into the ambulance.
‘Is he going to be all right?’ She turned to face the policeman entering the room. A policewoman stood guard at the door.
‘We don’t know, miss. He’s being taken to the hospital now. But in the meantime I need to ask you some questions.’
Emma returned to the settee and grasped Diane’s hand.
‘First of all I need all your names, dates of birth, that kind of thing. We’ll get that out of the way first.’
Emma supplied the information, although she wondered what it had to do with anything. But the policeman had said it was procedure so she thought she’d better not argue.
The door opened and Ryan entered fully clad.
‘And you are, sir?’
Ryan collapsed into an armchair. ‘Ryan Carnegie,’ he said. ‘I live here.’
‘Right.’ The policeman scribbled in his pad as Ryan gave him all his details. ‘Now we’ll get on with what happened here tonight. First of all I want to know who our overdose victim is.’
Emma shrugged. ‘He’s a detective who has been investigating my sister’s disappearance.’
The policeman looked up. ‘Have you got a name for this detective?’
Emma looked over at Diane. ‘Mum, you know more about him than me.’
Diane’s fingers stopped rubbing the chair arm. ‘His name’s Detective Sergeant Bill Murphy, and he’s with the CID.’ Her voice was flat, as if she were reciting from a book.
The policeman looked over to his colleague.
‘Get on to HQ and check it out.’
The policewoman reached for her airwave set, nodded and left the room. No doubt to report in without the family hearing.
‘Tell me about your sister and her disappearance.’
Emma sighed. ‘It’s old news. She vanished five years ago, but they’ve reopened the case.’
‘I see.’
‘What was DS Murphy doing here, and how come he’s overdosed in your kitchen?’
Emma shrugged. ‘None of us know the answer to that. We’d only just come in and there he was.’
‘I don’t think he was a drug user.’ Diane’s voice was quiet, but penetrating. ‘He was a nice man who was trying to help.’
The policewoman came back into the room. ‘I got through to CID, they’re sending someone over and we’ve to protect the scene until they get here.’
The policeman tucked his notebook into his pocket. ‘We’d better leave the rest of the questioning to them.’ Turning to the family he said, ‘I want you all to stay here. Nobody is to leave the room.’
Chapter Forty-One
Kate thought she’d never get the picture of that grinning skull and skeletal frame out of her mind. She swallowed hard before she said, ‘Well it’s not Megan Fraser, that’s for sure.’
‘No, ma’am, but I think she might have been here.’ The officer held up a piece of material that looked like a rosette.
‘What is it?’
Sue peered at it. ‘It looks like a ponytail scrunchie, one of those fancy ones with frills. I think Megan was wearing one when she disappeared.’
‘You’d better bag it,’ Kate said.
‘Try not to handle it too much, while I pop back to the car to fetch an evidence bag,’ Sue said.
She was back in moments, Kate reckoned she must have run all the way there and back, and the scrunchie was safely bagged.
Sue handed one of the officers a roll of blue and white tape. ‘I brought this as well,’ she said, ‘we can get this taped off as a crime scene. One of you will have to stand guard until we can get the SOCOs here.’
Kate backed out of the shed. ‘We’ll need dogs,’ she said, ‘because if she’s not here, she must be out in the wood somewhere.’ Or dead and buried, Kate thought, although she didn’t say it.
Kate plodded back to the house over the sodden ground. She could see the glimmer of light from the windows, and behind her lights flashed between the trees, as the searchers moved deeper into the wood.
Inspector Mason stood by the bonnet of his car instructing a new batch of searchers. Kate beckoned to him and he finished what he was saying before turning his attention to her.
‘We’ve found evidence Megan was held in a shed which is a few yards inside the wood. I thought we might get the dogs involved in the search.’
‘I’ll get on to it right away,’ Mason said. ‘I’ll get someone to contact her mother for a piece of clothing as well.’
Behind her, Kate heard Sue give a muffled laugh that was quickly turned into a cough.
The inspector looked at her but didn’t say anything. He was already talking into his airwave set while they walked towards the house.
Kate hid a smile. The inspector’s beat covered the Greenfield estate, so no doubt he knew May Fraser better than they did.
‘Come on, Sue,’ she said, increasing her pace, ‘we need to have another word with Mrs Carnegie. That lady has some explaining to do.’
Patricia Carnegie sprawled on the white leather sofa in the lounge, a glass in her hand. She looked up when Kate and Sue entered the room. ‘Well, what is it now? Don’t you think you’ve upset me enough?’
‘We’ve found the shed,’ Kate said in a grim voice.
‘Well what of it? It’s only a garden shed. It’s where Paul keeps . . . kept his tools.’ She sipped her drink.
‘I think it’s more than that.’ Kate marched over to the sofa and looked down on Patricia. The woman pulled back as if she felt threatened.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We opened the wooden chest in the shed and found skeletal remains inside.’
Patricia’s eyes widened. ‘You’re lying.’
‘No, and what’s more we found evidence Megan Fraser had been there, but she’s not there now.’
‘That’s impossible.’ Patricia laid her glass on the coffee table. ‘I would have known about it.’
‘We think you did know about it. And I want to know where Megan is now.’
‘Well, she’s not here, you’ve searched.’
‘But you know where she is.’
‘How would I know that, when I didn’t even know she was there?’
Kate turned to Sue. ‘This is getting us nowhere. We’re going to have to take her into custody.’
‘You can’t do that, I don’t know anything. Maybe she is in the wood, but you’re searching there, so you’re bound to find her.’ Patricia smirked. It was as if she were taunting them.
‘Where does the wood lead?’ Kate demanded, and turning to Sue, she ad
ded. ‘We can start searching from the other side. That way we’re bound to find her.’
Patricia picked up her glass again. ‘That might be difficult. You see there’s a large, water-filled quarry at the far side of the wood. Anyone approaching it in the dark might not even see it until it was too late.’
Kate had never felt more like hitting someone than she did now, but she bit her lip, and glared at Patricia who studied her drink as if she’d never seen it before.
‘We need to alert the searchers,’ Kate said to Sue, turning her back on Patricia. She marched to the door, opened it and shouted to the constable outside. ‘I want you to stay on guard at this door,’ she said, when he hurried over to her, ‘and don’t let Mrs Carnegie out of your sight.’ And without a backward glance at Patricia Carnegie, she marched down the hallway to the front door.
Kate and Sue stood on the doorstep. Over in the wood, flickering lights relieved the darkness, pinpointing where the searchers were. The rain had turned sleety, and the chill in the air was reminiscent of winter, rather than the approach of spring. Kate pulled her collar up, but it didn’t relieve the chill that had swept over her when she heard about the quarry.
‘If I find out Patricia Carnegie sent that child in the direction of the quarry, I’ll have her guts for garters,’ she hissed.
Sue said nothing, but the expression on her face indicated she felt the same.
Kate gave herself a shake. Standing here brooding about what she might or might not do wasn’t helping to find Megan. She had to alert Inspector Mason to the dangers the quarry represented to both Megan and the searchers.
Inspector Mason stood at the edge of the wood, his point to point airwave set in his hand. He turned at Kate’s approach. ‘A dog is on its way, in fact, I think the dog van’s arrived.’
Kate followed the line of his eyes and watched a police van crunch to a halt in a space that looked hardly big enough to take it. The police handler got out, opened the rear door of the van, and after reaching in to grab the dog’s leash, a large German Shepherd, jumped to the ground.
Missing Believed Dead Page 21
