Lost Girls

by K Leitch

  ‘Oh that is so sweet,’ Tracy said, ‘I hope I’m still flirting with Simon when I’m that age…it really cheers you up doesn’t it, a good flirt…’

  ‘Oh I know,’ Carla said, ‘sometimes I feel so tired and dowdy and James will come over and whisper naughty things in my ear and all of a sudden I’m the sexiest woman in the room,’ she finished with a soppy look on her face.

  ‘That actually brings me on to something that I need to talk to you about,’ Maggie said with a worried look on her face.

  ‘What! Don’t tell me James has been whispering naughty things in your ear Wendover or I’ll…’ Carla started up angrily.

  ‘Oh for fucks sake Carla, how much have you had to drink?’ laughed Maggie. ‘Of course I wasn’t talking about James…’

  ‘Oh well that’s alright then,’ Carla mumbled. ‘Who are you talking about then?’

  ‘I accidentally overheard Maylee on the phone the other day…’ she went on to tell them about the conversation and who the call was to.

  ‘Bloody hell…and the girl is still standing, I don’t believe it Maggie. Haven’t you called her out about it?’ Tracy said gobsmacked.

  ‘No well that’s just it…I don’t know what’s the right thing to do. I mean do I tell Dom? Or do I confront Maylee? I may have got the whole thing wrong anyway. The trouble was I had just got back from the hospital after Martha had taken her fall and I was so emotional…well to be honest I think if I’d tackled her about it there and then I would have killed her. I don’t ever remember being so angry about anything in my life before…including when Greg cheated on me.’

  ‘Well you’re a lioness…protecting your cubs sweetheart,’ said Helen reaching out and taking Maggie’s hand. ‘We are all of us far more affected when someone we love is being hurt, especially our children.’

  The girls sat and pondered Helen’s profound statement for a minute. ‘Too fucking right,’ said Tracy.

  ‘So what are you going to do Maggs?’ Carla asked.

  ‘Well I think I’ve decided to keep an eye on her and see if I spot anything else. She hasn’t got a clue that I heard her and that gives me an advantage. I need more proof I think before I take it further,’ Maggie said getting up to go to the bar.

  ‘Well I think you’re doing the right thing love,’ Carla said squeezing her hand as she went past. ‘It would be so awful if you confronted her and it was all a misunderstanding.’

  Maggie shuddered. ‘Oh God it doesn’t bear thinking about…I doubt whether Dom would ever speak to me again…same again girls?’

  ‘Well I’m going to keep my eye on the little minx as well,’ Tracy said furiously after Maggie had gone. ‘I bloody knew something was going on between those two. Poor, poor Dom, I hope she gets all she deserves, little bitch. And what is that bloody Luke Wiseman playing at…his father’s just been murdered for fucks sake!’

  ‘Well people react to grief in different ways I suppose, maybe this is his way of getting through it… but Dom is going to be devastated when he finds out,’ Helen said pulling a face. ‘Poor Maggie, this is all she needs on top of her mum and Martha’s fall, no wonder she’s looking so tired..’

  ‘Ooh, don’t all look at once,’ Tracy said suddenly changing the subject, ‘but you see that woman that’s just come in…no don’t make it obvious, dodgy duffle and scraped back hair…she’s the one I was telling you about. She run’s the mobile library; she’s taken over from Viv…’

  ‘Oh I didn’t know Viv had retired,’ Carla chipped in, ‘ah that’s a shame she was such a poppet.’

  ‘Yes she may have been a poppet Carla, but she was a thief…’

  ‘What!’ said Carla shocked. ‘No surely not…not sweet old Viv.’

  ‘Er yes…she used to sell the mobile library toys and books at a car boot sale in Lingfield. I saw her there one day with my own eyes; she nearly died when she saw me looking through her stuff. And Juno swears blind that she had it away with her scarf…anyway we’re getting off the subject. That woman is Rebecca Sheenan and she is the new mobile librarian and to be quite frank she is weird…’

  ‘She looks innocuous enough to me,’ Helen said peering over. ‘Admittedly I wouldn’t be seen dead in that duffle but…’

  ‘Well I’m telling you there’s something wrong with the girl,’ Tracy insisted. ‘She never smiles, she hardly talks to the children or to us, she’s just got no social skills at all,’ she finished determinedly.

  ‘Who are we annihilating…what have I missed?’ said Maggie holding a tray of drinks aloft and then setting them down on the table.

  The girls drew her attention to Rebecca Sheenan, who at that moment had been joined by a large man wearing an almost identical duffle, topped off with a woollen hat.

  ‘Ooh,’ hissed Tracy, although there was no way Rebecca would have been able to hear her even if she’d been shouting. ‘That must be her brother, she lives with him…so that just shows you.’

  ‘I know him,’ said Helen surprising everybody, ‘he does the gardens at Brampton Hall, or at least he has been the last few times I’ve been up there…John I think he’s called, or Josh something beginning with J anyway…he’s deaf.’

  ‘Oh my God Tracy Burton I hope you’ve got the grace to be ashamed of yourself,’ Carla said turning to Tracy giggling. ‘That poor woman obviously looks after her deaf brother…she’s probably sacrificed her own life to look after him…she should be feted not pillared…’

  ‘OK, OK I get the point,’ Tracy said looking a bit embarrassed. ‘Well she has no need to be so unpleasant anyway,’ she said in her own defence. ‘Although I suppose it must be pretty hard looking after a sibling like that.’ Just at that moment Rebecca looked over and caught Tracy looking at her, Tracy smiled and raised her glass at her…Rebecca looked straight through her and then away, a hard look on her face.

  ‘Oh bloody hell I don’t care if I’m a bitch…the woman is just weird,’ she said crossly.

  CHAPTER 41 - CARLA

  Imogen Wiseman sat with her head bent, her hands clutching at her lace hanky in her agitation.

  ‘So you see Mrs Wiseman, why I find it very hard to believe that you have never heard of Jonas Silco,’ Carla was saying.

  DC Mandy Hopkins had called Carla just as Frank was parking the car outside the grand entrance to Brampton Hall where they were due to re-interview Imogen Wiseman. It seemed that the Linden Hotel had been owned by two people, Ingrid Delaney (or Imogen Wiseman as they now knew her) and a Mr Oliver Hanley. And not only that, but Jonas Silco had worked at the hotel as manager for about eight years, until just before the hotel had been destroyed by fire in the early seventies.

  Imogen had been all graciousness and smiles up until the point that Carla had confronted her with this information, now her face had taken on a belligerent expression and so far she had said nothing.

  ‘I understand from Silco’s nephew that he left your employ under a bit of a cloud…is that right Mrs Wiseman?’ Frank asked.

  Instead of answering straightaway, Imogen began muttering angrily under her breath. ‘I told him to steer clear of that sort…nothing but trouble, I told him but would he listen? Oh no he knew best…much more cost effective, get them while they’re young and they’ll work for almost nothing as long as they’ve got a roof over their heads. Stupid pig headed man…I knew they’d be trouble, I’d had dealings with the likes of them before you see…’ she rambled on.

  Carla and Frank exchanged a look, Carla cleared her throat. ‘Um…excuse me Mrs Wiseman, are you saying you warned Jonas Silco about something…I’m sorry I don’t follow.’

  Imogen looked at her shaking her head impatiently. ‘No not him, Albie. I warned him not to have darkies working in the hotel…or Irish for that matter, not much to choose between them really.’ She broke off as she noticed Carla’s shocked expression. ‘Oh I know it’s not very PC to say things like that these days but you must know as well as me that they’re trouble, trouble for the people that work with them and trou
ble for us…I told him that. But he was always more concerned about how much he could save and let’s face it they’re cheap…’

  ‘Hang on, hang on,’ Frank interrupted, bewildered. ‘Can you back up a minute please Imogen, firstly what has this got to do with Albie? I was under the impression that you co-owned the hotel with a chap called…um, Delaney, Oliver Delaney?’

  ‘Well yes,’ said Imogen looking at them as if they were stupid, she tutted and raised her eyebrows. ‘Delaney is Albie obviously,’ she finished shaking her head at their ignorance. ‘After all the unpleasantness with the Linden, Albie and I went back to the States. We were hoping to be able to make a fresh start…but no, the story had followed us there and it soon became obvious that the only way to avoid it was to change our names. Oliver’s middle name was Albert and his mother’s maiden name was Wiseman so that’s what he chose, obviously I became Wiseman when we married a few months later and I had always liked the name Imogen…so romantic don’t you think?’ she asked Carla, who tried not to catch Frank’s eye.

  ‘Ok,’ Frank went on determinedly, ‘so you and Albie owned the Linden, and you employ Jonas Silco as your manager, can you tell us the events that led to him being accused of raping and murdering a girl that worked in the hotel?’

  ‘Well that was what I was trying to say!’ exclaimed Imogen excitedly. ‘About the blacks and the Irish.’ Carla and Frank said nothing.

  ‘It was a black girl that went missing,’ she explained, ‘…Um Missy I think her name was. Black as the ace of spades… and ugly! Oh my dear, I said to Albie, if you must insist on employing her, for God’s sake keep her down in the kitchens, can’t have her putting the guests off their dinner,’ she chortled at her own joke.

  ‘So what happened to this girl?’ Carla interrupted abruptly.

  ‘Well she just up and left one day…not a word of warning, nothing. Left us very shorthanded at a busy time…but as I said, I did warn him.’ She shook her head resignedly. ‘Anyway a few weeks later her brother turns up, great big brute of a black man, shouting and swearing, in the public lobby of all places, wanting to know where his sister is. Apparently the girl had been writing home and complaining that Jonas had been assaulting her. She’d been begging to go home actually, so of course she’d made up this story so that her mum would let her home…ha! No chance, her mum needed the money she sent her, so she had told her she had to stay and make the best of it, but the brother was convinced that she’d been raped by Silco and he wanted revenge.’

  ‘But you didn’t think there was any truth to her story?’ Carla asked.

  ‘Oh my God no,’ Imogen said firmly. ‘The girl was butt ugly…no man in his right mind would bother with her, and anyway on top of her running out on the hotel, Jonas told me that she’d actually stolen some money from his room…so that just shows you doesn’t it.’

  ‘Well you’d only got his word that he’d never touched her and you’d only got his word that she’d taken money so…’ Frank began.

  ‘Well of course, but I wasn’t going to take the word of a girl of that sort over my hotel manager was I?’ Imogen said looking at them as if they were mad. ‘Jonas Silco was an exemplary hotel manager with an impeccable reputation; it was mainly due to his attention to detail and professionalism that the Linden was heralded as one of the most prestigious hotels in London,’ she finished with pride.

  ‘I’m a bit bewildered though Mrs Wiseman,’ Frank said after a moment. ‘If it was such a storm in a teacup why did you end up selling up and moving back to America, and why was Jonas Silco sacked a couple of years later?’

  ‘It was all the fault of the brother,’ Imogen said her eyes flashing. ‘He just wouldn’t let it go, he was convinced that some harm had come to the girl and that we were covering it up. It’s like I said he was deranged… deranged and stupid.’ She lowered her voice and turned to Carla, ‘I’m sure you must come across it many times in your line of work detective, these black thugs they just seem to thrive on violence and they’ve all got such a bloody great chip on their shoulders…as if we were personally responsible for the bloody slave trade. They’re not the same as us, don’t live by the same moral guidelines if you know what I mean, well what can you expect I suppose,’ she said with a little laugh. ‘He went to the papers of course and they loved it, scum that they are, and soon even some of our regulars stopped booking their rooms. I think we probably would have been able to weather the storm but then he got hold of the other girl and so he thought he had some real evidence then…’

  ‘Hang on,’ interrupted Carla, ‘what other girl, were there two of them?’

  ‘No…well yes, but not really,’ Imogen heaved a sigh and explained with exaggerated patience to Carla and Frank. ‘When you are in the hotel business my dear, you come across these sorts of situations time and time again. And quite frankly you come across girls like these time and time again. Una Flannery was a little Irish trollop, all red hair and cheeky smiles and she was after making a quick buck from us by spouting nonsense about Jonas. Probably because she’d read all the stories about him in the paper, so she thought she’d cash in.’

  ‘So she claimed that Silco had raped her as well?’

  ‘Oh worse than that, she said he had systematically beaten and tortured her before raping her, and that she was carrying his child.’ Imogen shook her head at them in disbelief. ‘Can you believe the lengths some girls will go to? I told her to get out, she had obviously gotten herself into trouble with some young man and was trying to blame it all on Silco, as I said, all she was after was money…’

  ‘How can you be so sure of that Mrs Wiseman?’ Frank said in disbelief. ‘Did you check out her story? What about other members of staff, what did they say?’

  ‘Well what could they say?’ Imogen said spreading her hands wide. ‘The girl had been a flirty little thing from the word go…always smiling at the male guests, giving them the eye. Really, if you’d met her you would have thought the same…I was glad to see the back of her if I’m honest. Unfortunately though she ran into Jacob Gattoré, Missy’s brother, and she told him things about his sister…wicked lies that she’d killed herself and that we’d covered it up to save the hotel.’ Imogen turned tear filled eyes to Carla. ‘Not a shred of truth detective…wicked wicked lies all of it, my Albie would never have done that, he was always very caring of the staff, even the blacks and the Irish…’

  ‘So what we can glean from what you’re saying is that Jonas Silco and Albie do have a connection and a common enemy…all be it a very old one,’ Carla said.

  ‘Well yes I suppose they do,’ Imogen started, ‘but we let Silco go after the Una Flannery incident, I suppose that wicked girl got what she wanted, but really we couldn’t have anymore scandal attached to the hotel. We gave him a very handsome severance payment though, after that I never heard from him again. As for Una…once she’d filled Gattoré’s head with her filth, I believe she went back to Ireland in disgrace, but to be quite honest with you I hope she’s rotting in hell the trouble she caused us,’ she finished with venom.

  ‘Do you have any idea where in Ireland she lived Mrs Wiseman?’ Frank asked, taking out his notebook.

  ‘Not a clue…sorry,’ Imogen said shortly.

  ‘We’ll need a list of names of all the people that worked for you at the same time as Jonas Silco please Mrs Wiseman…’ began Carla.

  ‘Why? Surely you can’t really think there’s some connection to Albie’s murder, that doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘There are some similarities in the way that Jonas Silco and your husband were killed Mrs Wiseman which lead us to believe that there is a connection between them…so if you could….’

  ‘Jacob Gattoré… that’s who you want,’ Imogen said angrily. ‘I told you he’s a nasty black thug out for revenge, find him and you’ll find Albie’s killer…I guarantee it.’

  ‘Well we will certainly be looking into Mr Gattoré’s whereabouts at the time of the murder Mrs Wiseman…’

&nb
sp; Just then the door opened and Luke Wiseman came into the room…except on closer inspection Carla could see that this wasn’t Luke, oh he had the same tall good looks and the devastating smile, which at the moment was directed at his mother as she held her hands out in welcome.

  ‘Oh detective I don’t know if you’ve met other my son yet,’ she said standing. ‘David, this is Detectives Right and Hill from our local constabulary, they needed to ask a few questions with regard to Daddy’s murder.’

  Carla looked at David Wiseman closely; despite the striking resemblance to his twin brother she could now spot some differences. Whereas Luke Wiseman’s eyes were a sparkling blue, David’s were a pale grey, his chin wasn’t quite as firm and his nose was slightly bent as if it had been broken at some point. On the other hand the smile he gave Carla seemed genuine and without any flirty overtones.

  After shaking hands with Carla and Frank he walked over to Imogen and took her hand, ‘Are you OK Mummy?’ he asked worriedly. Imogen squeezed his hand and smiled up at him nodding.

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss Mr Wiseman,’ Carla said as she stood to take her leave.

  ‘I just hope you find who did this detective,’ David said. ‘It just seems so completely unlikely that anyone would have wanted to kill Dad. I mean I’m not saying he was perfect, but I can’t think of anyone that would have hated him that much…can you Mother?’ he finished turning to his mum who was looking distinctly shifty.

  ‘Of course not Davie, I think this must have been some thugs that were trying to steal something and your father just got in the way…something like that…’ she trailed off.

  Carla and Frank shared a look. ‘If you could let me have that list of employees Mrs Wiseman,’ Frank reminded her as they left.

  ‘Yes of course, if you really think it’s necessary,’ Imogen said a touch impatiently. ‘I’ll get David to email it to you later today if that’s alright.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Carla said as she shook her hand and followed Frank to the car.