But soon the memory of the man in the white jumpsuit holding up Rosie’s blood-soaked skirt in a plastic bag elbowed its way to the forefront of her mind and took root. It refused to budge no matter how hard she tried not to think about it and a little voice inside her head began an accompanying narrative, needling her to go downstairs and find out what else the police had found. She didn’t want to listen to what it had to say but it kept on, like a tape recorder on a loop. What if they’ve found Rosie’s body? What if they’ve found Rosie’s body? What if they’ve found Rosie’s body?
The voice ceased its chatter when she reached the kitchen. Maggie and Belmar were on stools pulled up to the island counter and immediately they slid off them as she walked in, looking like two naughty children who’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t.
‘Mrs Kinnock, are you—’
She didn’t let Maggie finish.
‘Have you found her? Is there any news?’ she asked. Her heart pounded with fear, but Belmar shook his head.
‘No. We would’ve woken you if there was,’ he said. ‘It seemed better to let you rest.’
‘Mrs Kinnock—’ Maggie began.
Lesley held up a hand to interrupt her.
‘You can call me Lesley,’ she said wearily.
‘We’re so sorry you saw the evidence bag like that, Lesley. That should never have happened.’
Lesley ignored the apology. Her usual response to someone saying sorry was to act like she was the one in the wrong and say something that made him or her feel better. Mack always said she let people off the hook too easily and put others’ feelings before her own. But that was who she was yesterday. Today she couldn’t care less if they were upset. Let them be.
‘Have you found anything else?’
‘No, just the skirt so far,’ said Belmar. ‘But we’ll keep looking even when it’s dark. We can set up lights to help us see if necessary.’
‘There’s a massive search underway beyond the meadow too,’ Maggie jumped in. ‘DCI Umpire is using every resource available and we won’t stop until we find Rosie, I promise you.’
Lesley nodded, too fearful to speak in case she broke down again. She went to a cupboard and took out a tumbler. She was about to open the fridge when she stopped and looked down at the tiled floor. ‘The shopping . . . I never put it away.’
‘I unpacked it earlier, while you were upstairs,’ said Maggie. ‘I don’t know if I’ve put it away in the right places but I thought the fresh stuff might spoil if it stayed out any longer. I hope that was okay.’
She nodded silent thanks as she opened the fridge, took out a carton of orange juice and poured a measure. The slate tiles beneath her bare feet felt even colder than earlier but it wasn’t them making her shiver uncontrollably. That was the panic gnawing away at her.
‘Do either of you want some?’ she said, holding up the carton shakily.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Belmar. ‘I’m heading off in a minute.’
‘But I can stay,’ said Maggie hurriedly.
Lesley looked at her blankly.
‘Some people like their family liaison to stay with them overnight on a case like this, while they wait for news, but others prefer to be left alone. It’s up to you, but I’m happy to stay,’ said Maggie.
Unsure how to respond, Lesley asked what the time was.
‘Just before ten.’
‘Mack should be home soon.’
‘He’s about ten minutes away. One of our colleagues collected him from Heathrow and is driving him here.’
Lesley was suddenly alert with fear. She wasn’t ready to face her husband: she didn’t feel mentally strong enough to deal with his anger and his recriminations. And she certainly didn’t want to tell him about the skirt. It was enough that he blamed her for Rosie going missing: he’d never forgive her when he found out her clothes had come to be soaked in blood, like the garden.
Maggie must have sensed her panic.
‘Our colleague’s informed your husband about the recovery of Rosie’s skirt,’ she said. ‘We thought it was best that he was told straight away.’
‘Oh, okay. Thank you.’
She desperately wanted to ask if they knew how he’d taken the news but stopped herself. She’d find out soon enough.
‘Does Mr Kinnock play a lot of golf?’ said Belmar casually.
‘A bit. Now he’s got more time on his hands,’ she said, taking a sip of orange juice. She was grateful for the change of topic: anything to stop her thinking about Mack’s reaction to Rosie’s skirt being found.
‘The course at Haxton is meant to be really nice.’
‘Do you play?’ Lesley asked him.
‘Never tried. Football’s my thing. I play in a five-a-side league at weekends. My wife’s not a fan though, says it takes up too much of my time. The good thing about golf is you can join in too.’
Lesley pulled a face. ‘I don’t really like it.’
‘So you never go with Mack on his golf trips?’
‘I went on the first one because there was a spa at the hotel we were staying at, but I haven’t gone since.’
‘I think I read somewhere that the Old Course Hotel has got a lovely spa,’ said Maggie. ‘Does Mr Kinnock go away often?’
There was something unsettling about the way they were questioning her.
‘Why are you so interested in Mack playing golf?’ she asked.
‘If he goes away a lot, I was wondering how Rosie feels about it. You said they were very close, so she must miss him.’
‘It’s not every week, it’s once every six weeks, and only for a few days at a time,’ Lesley snapped. ‘Mack’s not an absent father. He probably spends more time with Rosie than most dads do with their kids because he’s here when she gets home from school every day.’
Maggie and Belmar clammed up after she said that and the three of them waited in silence for the next ten minutes until the front door opened and Mack’s deep Scottish burr rang through the house. Tensing up, Lesley couldn’t bring herself to look towards the kitchen doorway as her husband came crashing through it.
‘Lesley?’
The crack in Mack’s voice as he spoke her name made her spin round. Lesley gasped in shock. His face was pallid and drawn and his thick brown hair, the exact same shade as Rosie’s before grey swept through it, stuck out at wild angles as though he’d been tugging at it. Behind his black-framed glasses she could see that his green eyes, also the same colour as Rosie’s, were bloodshot and puffy from crying.
‘Oh, Mack . . .’
He dropped the hand luggage he was carrying onto the floor with a clatter and they held each other tightly, tears running down their faces, oblivious to their audience.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘I should’ve stayed at home and done the shopping online like you said—’
Mack cupped her face with his hands. Lesley’s eyes roamed over his face, drinking in the features as familiar to her as her own.
‘Listen to me,’ he said firmly. ‘None of this is your fault, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have said that to you on the phone. It was an awful, unforgiveable thing to say.’ He pulled her close again.
‘I just want her home,’ she said, burying her face in his chest. ‘Why would someone hurt our baby?’
Mack tenderly kissed the top of her head.
‘I don’t know, sweetheart. I just don’t know.’
11
The call came later than he expected, just after 11 p.m. He’d almost forgotten about her as he spent the rest of the afternoon and evening consumed by thoughts of what he must do next. He mustn’t allow complacency to creep in, to assume the outcome would fall into place simply because he wanted it to. The odds had been stacked in his favour so far – the girl was taken care of, the post box was serendipitously being emptied when he arrived to post his letter, so he knew for sure it had been collected for delivery the next day – but it didn’t mean they would stay that way.
He almost did
n’t recognize her voice at first, although the number that came up indicated it was her calling. Her voice was barely a whisper and there was a lot of background noise in the hotel bar that made it even more difficult to hear. Eventually, after twice telling her to speak up, he got the gist.
She wasn’t asking for an apology for cancelling on her: she was asking if he’d seen the news.
‘No, why?’
‘Something terrible has happened.’
He feigned ignorance. ‘What’s happened? Are you okay?’
‘It’s not me. It’s—’ She let out a sob.
‘You’re scaring me,’ he lied as he reclined on his sofa with his feet up, nursing a Diet Coke.
‘You need to turn on the news,’ she said.
‘Hang on.’ He pretended to switch channels, but his television was already tuned to the BBC’s rolling news bulletin. The details were sketchy so far but the story was creeping further up the running order as the minutes ticked by and it was on the ticker at the bottom of the screen.
‘Oh my God,’ he breathed. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘What are we going to do?’
He pretended to stumble over his words before delivering his perfectly rehearsed answer. ‘But it’s nothing to do with us. You’re in Scotland and I’m in London.’ She thought he lived in a fiat in Clapham South, just off the common, and that the accountancy firm he worked for was based in Euston.
‘But what if Mack tells the police about us meeting up? They might think we’re involved.’
‘You, you mean.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I’ve not spoken to him. He doesn’t even know I exist.’
‘Are you trying to drop me in it?’ Her voice grew louder as anger took hold. ‘We’re in this together. You said you’d help me.’
He took a mental step back. ‘Of course we are, but we haven’t actually done anything wrong. If this was tomorrow and I was at the hotel with you, it might be a different story. But it’s not, so we don’t need to worry. He’s hardly going to say anything considering what’s been going on between you two.’
The first time he saw Mack Kinnock with her he could’ve kissed the ground. Instantly he knew she was his trump card, the key to getting what was rightfully his. It was at the end of April, in Starbucks just off the station concourse at King’s Cross in central London. He’d been trailing Mack as usual one Saturday afternoon when, to his surprise, he’d headed to Haxton station to catch a train into the city. Figuring Mack was off on another spending spree with his money, he followed him to Marylebone, then on the Bakerloo Line one stop to Baker Street, before changing on to the Metropolitan Line to travel the three stops to King’s Cross. The kiss with which Mack had greeted her left him in no doubt as to the nature of their relationship. After all those months of waiting and watching it was like he had hit the jackpot.
The atmosphere didn’t stay genial for long though, and after an hour’s heated discussion Mack stormed off and left her crying into her latte, at which point he’d swooped in, the benevolent stranger reading a newspaper at the next table, to offer her a tissue and a friendly shoulder to cry on. She was too upset to tell him to leave her alone and after some gentle cajoling he whisked her to a nearby pub and plied her with white wine until the whole sorry saga came tumbling out.
‘But I want him to say something,’ she hissed down the phone as he took another leisurely sip of his drink. ‘His wife needs to know.’
‘This isn’t the time. You need to sit tight until they find their daughter.’
‘We need to sit tight,’ she corrected.
‘That’s what I meant. My point is, now is not the time for people to find out about you and Mack. People won’t understand. I also think,’ he pretended to hesitate, ‘you and I should lay off contacting each other for a bit. We know we’ve done nothing wrong, but the police might not see it like that.’
‘I know. It’s just that we were so close to getting the money.’
‘You’ll still get it. He can’t back out, whatever happens.’
Another lie. She wouldn’t get a penny – it was all his for the taking now and this was the last conversation they’d ever have.
Her voice quavered. ‘What do you think has happened to her?’
‘Run away, probably. You said yourself what Mack was like. Look, I think we should hang up now. I feel just awful.’
‘Me too,’ she said, letting out another sob.
He put down the phone and laughed.
12
Wednesday
The woman on the doorstep lived four houses down from Angel’s Reach. When Maggie first answered the door to her, she thought she was there to offer her support to the Kinnocks. It took less than a minute for her to realize her motive for coming round was purely selfish. Overnight, a crowd of reporters had gathered on the other side of the security gate leading into Burr Way and the neighbour, who announced herself as Mrs Roberts, blamed Mack and Lesley for the intrusion. On discovering Maggie was a police officer, she launched into a tirade.
‘Can’t you get rid of the press? They’re causing a nuisance.’
‘They’re not breaking any law by being there,’ said Maggie. ‘The side of the road they’re on is a public one.’
The press office had issued a statement at 7 p.m. the previous evening announcing a teenage girl was missing in Haxton. It hadn’t taken long for the media to find out Rosie Kinnock was the daughter of EuroMillions winners, largely helped by her school friends tweeting and Facebooking appeals for her to get in touch. Less than an hour later, ‘Rosie’ and ‘EuroMillions’ were top trending on Twitter.
‘They’re also on the other side of the security gate,’ Maggie pointed out. ‘They can’t get anywhere near any of the houses.’
‘That is beside the point,’ said Mrs Roberts haughtily. ‘There are vans parked on the grass verge and anyone trying to get in and out of the street is being harassed. I have someone coming to see me today for an appointment and I don’t want him bothered. You have to move them on.’
If Mrs Roberts wasn’t so unpleasant Maggie might’ve been impressed at how impeccably turned out she was at seven thirty in the morning, when she herself hadn’t managed to even brush her hair yet. Judging by the creases lining her face, Mrs Roberts had to be in her early seventies. Her white-blonde hair was slicked back into a neat bun and her make-up artfully applied to give the impression she wore none. Slim in frame, she wore a floral blouse tucked into peach-coloured trousers and cream court shoes with a rounded toe. On her left wrist, just visible beneath the cuff of her blouse, was a bandage support.
‘I’m sorry,’ Maggie repeated, ‘but as I said, it’s a public right of way. We can’t stop them being there.’
‘But the noise they make as they film is intolerable.’
Mrs Roberts had already let slip that her house was further away from the security gate than Angel’s Reach so there was no way she’d hear the reporters doing their pieces to camera. Maggie thought about pointing that out, but the look on Mrs Roberts’s face told her it wouldn’t be appreciated.
‘I understand it’s a difficult situation,’ she said quickly, with as much politeness as she could muster. She really didn’t have time to stand on the doorstep arguing: every minute wasted was one less spent looking for Rosie. ‘However, the press coverage may well prove invaluable in finding Rosie quickly. There are two uniformed officers stationed at the gate to make sure residents still have easy access.’
‘I’m sure the silly girl’s just run off somewhere and all this nonsense is a waste of everyone’s time, mine and yours included.’
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. ‘What makes you say that? Do you know Rosie?’
‘Heavens, no,’ Mrs Roberts sniffed, as though to suggest so was an insult. ‘I have nothing to do with her or her parents. They keep to themselves, as do I.’
I’m not surprised they do if you’re the sort of person they have to live near, thought Maggie sourly.
> ‘Why do you think she’s run off then?’ she asked.
The reply came with a sneer. ‘She’s fifteen years old, for heaven’s sake. She’s probably doing it for attention and now we’re the ones suffering.’
While the selfishness of some people rarely shocked Maggie – people wanting something that wasn’t theirs was at the root of most crimes, after all – this woman was something else. Time to end the conversation.
‘Rosie’s been missing for almost twenty-four hours now and her parents are frantic with worry,’ she said. ‘I know they’ll appreciate the support of their neighbours at this difficult time so I’ll tell them you popped round.’
Maggie shut the door before the woman could react.
Returning briskly to the kitchen, she wondered if the rest of the neighbours were as stuck-up and self-serving as Mrs Roberts was. It would certainly explain why their door-to-door inquiries had drawn a blank. Umpire had revealed as much when he called her half an hour ago to update her on the investigation so far. FLOs weren’t expected to attend every single incident room briefing because their place was with the victims’ relatives, but it was vital they were kept in the loop and any important developments passed on immediately.
Umpire said the last known sighting of Rosie was still at 10.33 a.m., just before the CCTV cameras installed in the Kinnocks’ back garden were switched off.
‘Does Rosie know how to deactivate the system?’ Maggie had asked.
‘Yes. Her dad showed her what to do in the unlikely event she ever needed to reset it.’
‘So the cameras were switched off before Rosie got changed out of her shorts into her party skirt and then went missing?’
‘It looks that way,’ said Umpire.
He said he’d be over later, after briefing the rest of the team at the Major Crime incident room he’d commandeered at Mansell police station. There was a station in Haxton but it was run on a part-time basis by volunteers and only dealt with minor matters such as processing documents for traffic offences. It had neither the capacity nor the technological set-up required to run a Major Crime investigation.
Gone Astray Page 8
