‘Has Rosie mentioned anything about falling out with Kathryn recently?’
Lesley gave her a searching look. ‘What’s this really about?’
Maggie told her about the email Rosie had sent to Cassie.
‘Oh my God,’ said Lesley, stunned. ‘Rosie’s being bullied and Kathryn’s involved?’
‘That’s what the email says, but Kathryn has categorically denied it. She was very upset when we brought it up.’
‘Rosie wouldn’t lie about something like that,’ said Lesley, rubbing her brow roughly with her fingers. ‘Kathryn’s meant to be her best friend. Why is she ganging up on her?’
‘Rosie doesn’t give a reason in the email.’
‘You know, now I come to think of it, I do remember her coming home with a cut on her nose, right across the bridge, about a month ago. She said someone knocked into her during netball practice but that must’ve been when she was hit.’
‘Rosie didn’t send the email from her usual account. She used an old AOL address and Cassie told my colleagues it was the one she had before your win.’
‘She’s right. Rosie stopped using it when people she didn’t know kept emailing her asking for money. She also locked her Instagram and Twitter accounts so she’d be left alone. The things people used to write to her were just awful. If they weren’t asking for money, it was grown men hassling her to go out with them because they’d seen her picture in the papers.’
‘Did you report any of the men?’
‘I wanted to but Mack said he’d deal with it. I think he replied to them threatening to tell the police if they didn’t leave her alone and that did the trick.’
‘I would’ve thought that for someone as protective of their child as Mack is, calling the police would have been his automatic response to her being threatened.’
‘He wanted to sort it out himself,’ Lesley said hotly. ‘He likes to think of himself as our protector.’
Maggie let it slide for the time being.
‘What’s odd,’ she went on, ‘is that Rosie didn’t log on to the AOL account using her phone or her iPad. We’ve accessed the account and there are no other recent emails from her, so we need to know what device she used instead. We can trace the IP address but that takes time. It’s quicker to just ask you what other computers she has access to.’
‘Well, none at home. Mack doesn’t like her using his laptop and I don’t have my own. Perhaps she wrote it at school?’
‘The message was sent on Sunday. Maybe she went to an Internet cafe?’
‘Impossible. She was here all day with me on Sunday, and Mack had his laptop with him in Scotland, so I have no idea . . . Oh!’ Lesley suddenly jumped up from the step. ‘I think I know where she might’ve sent it from.’
‘Really?’ said Maggie, clambering to her feet.
‘Come with me.’
Lesley shot through the kitchen, across the entrance hall and up the stairs as Maggie struggled to keep pace. On the landing they turned left, away from Rosie’s bedroom with the crime scene tape snaking back and forth across the doorway. Lesley came to a halt outside a door opposite the one leading to the guest room where Maggie had showered earlier. As she went to open it, Lesley paused, the knob half turned in her hand.
‘You can’t tell Mack about this. We can make up something else about where it came from, but I don’t want him to know. It’s meant to be a surprise.’
‘Lesley, I—’
She released the knob. ‘Then we don’t go in.’
‘I’m family liaison to both of you,’ said Maggie. ‘It would be unprofessional to lie to him on your behalf.’
‘I’m not asking you to lie – I’m just asking you not to say anything. There’s a difference.’
‘I really can’t.’
‘Fine. Let’s go back downstairs.’
Burying the thought of what Umpire would say if he found out, Maggie gave in.
‘Okay, I won’t say anything, but neither can you. If DCI Umpire finds out I agreed to this I’ll be in a lot of trouble.’
‘Deal.’
Lesley opened the door and they stepped inside a bedroom that was marginally smaller than the guest room Maggie had used. An antique fitted wardrobe covered one wall and the only other furniture was a day bed. The window was bare of curtains.
‘This is the smallest bedroom and we never use it,’ Lesley explained. ‘Or rather Mack doesn’t. I use the wardrobe to store some things he doesn’t know about.’
Lesley retrieved a key from a little glass pot on the windowsill and unlocked the doors to reveal more than a dozen boxes stacked neatly in two columns. They were fairly big – Maggie estimated around four times the size of a shoebox – and each one had a number written on the side in thick black marker, from one to fourteen.
‘What are these?’ she asked.
‘Every year to mark Rosie’s birthday I make her a birthday box. I put in things like books, school projects and holiday souvenirs: anything that’s a nice reminder of what she did in the year leading up to her birthday.’
‘What a lovely idea,’ Maggie exclaimed.
‘I know exactly what’s in each box too,’ said Lesley proudly. ‘Her first Barbie doll is in number six. The first Valentine’s card she received, from a boy in her class, is in ten. Box number twelve contains Justin Bieber posters but One Direction have since replaced him in her affections and box fourteen is pretty much filled with stuff relating to them. Box number one is my favourite though. It’s got her first baby-gro, first dummy, first shoes, first teddy bear, the first lock of hair we had cut.’
‘This is incredible, Lesley,’ said Maggie in awe. ‘Does Rosie know about them?’
Lesley’s voice cracked. ‘No, and nor does Mack. He hates hoarding things and I didn’t want him to chuck them out. At our old house I used to keep the boxes hidden in the loft and managed to sneak them out during the move. I don’t think either of them come in here and even if they do, I keep the wardrobe locked. My plan is to give the boxes to Rosie on her eighteenth birthday.’ She dropped to the carpet and wailed. ‘What if I never get to give them to her?’
Maggie knelt down beside her and hugged her as she cried, close to tears herself. Even though she knew it wasn’t wise to get emotional around the family, she defied anyone not to be moved by the sight of all those boxes.
When Lesley finished crying she looked wrung out and Maggie had to help her to her feet.
‘Why did you bring me up here to show me these?’
‘Rosie’s old laptop is in box fourteen,’ said Lesley, wiping her eyes with a grubby, balled-up tissue she pulled from her skirt pocket. ‘She had it for a couple of years before she got her iPad for her birthday last year. It’s the only computer I can think of that she might’ve used to send that email on Sunday.’
‘I thought you said she didn’t know about the boxes?’
‘I honestly didn’t think she did.’
Maggie reached for box fourteen, which was on the top of the second stack. She pulled it towards her and laid it on the carpet. The tape sealing the box had been torn off. Opening it up, she saw a pink Sony Vaio laptop inside.
‘She must’ve come in, wondered why the wardrobe was locked and gone looking for the key,’ said Lesley. ‘I can’t believe she’s never said anything.’
‘Perhaps she realized you were keeping the boxes as a surprise and didn’t want to spoil it for you.’
‘Or she didn’t care,’ said Lesley sorrowfully.
Maggie fetched a pair of protective latex gloves from her bag before removing the laptop from the box and booting it up. The browsing history confirmed Rosie had indeed used it on Sunday to log on to her AOL account: the email she wrote to Cassie was in the account’s Sent box. As confirmed by the High Tech Crime Unit, it was the only email Rosie had sent in almost eighteen months and Cassie hadn’t replied.
Maggie closed the browser and checked the desktop. There was only one folder on it, untitled. Clicking it open, she saw it
contained a dozen or so Word documents.
‘What are those?’ said Lesley.
Maggie opened the first one, named ‘Nov8’, which she assumed was the date it was written. A quick glance at the first line told her Lesley couldn’t be privy to its contents just yet and she lowered the laptop’s lid.
‘I’m sorry, Lesley, but I can’t let you read this.’
‘Why not? If Rosie wrote that, I want to read it.’
‘I need to see what it says first, in case it ends up being evidence. We can’t risk prejudicing a future court case. Please understand.’
‘Let me see it,’ Lesley demanded, her fingers furling and unfurling like she wanted to snatch the laptop out of Maggie’s hands.
‘I’m sorry, but no,’ said Maggie firmly.
Lesley stared at her defiantly for a moment, then her shoulders sagged like the fight had gone out of her.
‘Fine,’ she said wearily.
She slammed the door behind her as she left. The noise must’ve echoed around the house.
Maggie opened the laptop again. By the time she’d read through the fifth Word document she could see there was a theme to them. Rosie – she was certain it was her – was using her old laptop like a diary, typing out her misery and fears in each document then stashing them away in the belief no one but her would ever read them.
Rosie had laid out the details of her bullying in graphic detail. She was being targeted for still being a virgin. It sounded like some girls she knew – she didn’t name any names this time – wore their promiscuity like a badge of honour and were putting pressure on her to dish out sexual favours to the boys they hung around with, just as they did. To them it was no big deal but clearly to Rosie it was and she wrote of her extreme distress at being told she was pathetic and a loser for not wanting to take part.
Maggie sat back on her haunches. She wasn’t easily shocked – she’d been a police officer far too long for that. But this . . . this was something else. She scrolled through the documents again to see if there were any clues as to who the boys might be. Nationally there had been a number of high-profile court cases involving groups of Asian men grooming vulnerable young girls for sex, but there was no mention of ethnicity here. The only specific reference she found was someone who went by the initials GS.
GS won’t leave me alone . . .
GS was hassling me again when Mum was out. I hid upstairs and pretended I wasn’t in. Kathryn thought it was funny . . .
GS is trying to force me to have sex. I know everyone says I’m too old to still be a virgin but I’m not ready. I don’t want to do it . . .
Maggie closed down that entry and opened the last Word document Rosie had saved. It was dated Monday, the day after she’d emailed Cassie and the day before she went missing. It was the shortest entry of all, only three sentences long, but the few words made Maggie’s blood run cold.
Every time I think about it I want to cry. I was so out of it I don’t remember what happened but GS said I have to do it again and if I don’t Mum and Dad will find out. I’m so scared.
Maggie scrabbled for her mobile and rang Umpire. When he didn’t pick up, she tried the incident room. One of the admin support staff answered and she asked to be put through to him.
‘Tell him it’s DC Neville and I need to speak to him urgently.’
After a few moments, the same person came back on the line.
‘I’m sorry, DCI Umpire can’t talk to you right now. I’ve been told to put you through to DC Berry instead.’
Maggie swallowed her disappointment as Steve came on the line. Part of her wanted to hear Umpire’s reaction when she told him what she’d found. Instead, she found herself recounting it to a distracted Steve. At one point she had to stop and check he was still on the line because he was so quiet.
‘Sorry, Maggie, I am listening. I’m just knackered. Bobby had us up half the night with colic.’
‘But can you make sure you tell Umpire exactly what I’ve just told you? We need to identify this GS character, so tell him I think we should speak to Kathryn Stockton again, and it’s probably worth trying Lily Flynn too.’ She wondered if they were among the girls Rosie referred to who slept around.
‘Sure.’
‘Steve, this is serious. Rosie wrote on Monday that she was scared about GS hassling her. Tuesday she vanishes. That can’t be a coincidence.’
‘Okay, okay, I’ll tell him,’ he said irritably.
‘Can you send someone over to collect the laptop? It needs to go to HTCU as soon as possible.’
‘Yep, I’ll do that too.’
She softened a little. ‘Listen, when this is over, I’d love to come round and meet Bobby.’
‘Isla would love that,’ said Steve, sounding perkier. ‘We could both do with some cheering up. She’s not best pleased with me at the moment.’
‘It’s Umpire she should be cross with.’
‘Try telling her that,’ he said as he hung up.
It would take at least half an hour before someone arrived to collect the laptop. Resting her notebook on her knee, Maggie scrolled down the screen with the cursor until she reached the first message Rosie wrote, back in November. Opening it up, she began to read again.
30
Thursday
The normality made her want to scream. How could they just sit there? Lesley watched with growing resentment as Mack slowly spread butter onto a slice of toast. Across the table, Maggie gingerly sipped a coffee as she checked her phone for messages. It was nearly eight a.m. and Belmar hadn’t arrived yet.
They were sitting at the table in what Mack liked to call the kitchen annexe but to her was just a conservatory. Lesley looked down at her place setting. Both her bowl and cup were empty, as she could stomach neither food nor drink. The only thing she could keep down was water. She craved another cigarette.
The emptiness of the fourth seat goaded her. It was where Rosie sat on the rare occasions the three of them dined at the table. More often than not they ate in front of the TV with their plates balanced on their knees. So much space and still they crammed onto one sofa, jostling for elbow space.
Lesley tried not to dwell on what it would be like if Rosie never came home, if that space at the table was never filled. No, she mustn’t think that way. What was it her dad always said? ‘Until there’s no hope there’s always hope.’ She had a sudden yearning to speak to him. A former army lieutenant, he was a complex man, an oil-and-water mix of authority and optimism. She never remembered him being around much when she was a child – his tours would take him away from home for months on end – but as adults they were close. He’d know how to deal with all this and say the right things. She’d spoken to him half a dozen times since Tuesday and he’d offered to come up from Cornwall, but she told him to stay put. It would be too confusing for her mum to stay at the house with the police there.
She caught Maggie’s eye as she glanced up from her phone. She’d said little after Rosie’s old laptop was collected yesterday and Lesley hadn’t pushed it, deciding she was probably better off not knowing. Instead, the two of them had watched a film in the lounge to pass the time while Mack stayed upstairs in his study. Lesley couldn’t remember what the film was called or what it was about, only that Jack Nicolson was in it, being shouty.
She was relieved Mack had kept himself out of the way. Every time she looked at him her brain screamed that he was a liar and a cheat and it was exhausting trying to be normal around him. She still hadn’t decided what to do about the text messages she had found from Suzy. Before sneaking his phone back onto the bed where he’d dropped it, she’d copied Suzy’s number onto a piece of paper and slipped it into the pocket of her denim skirt, where it remained. She couldn’t imagine calling it, not right now, but at some point she might. Maybe after Rosie was home. Maybe then she’d confront Mack about his deception.
She’d gone to bed before him and surprised herself by drifting off quickly. But she hadn’t stayed asleep for long. The
fear that was now her constant companion fashioned itself into a fist and punched her awake. Don’t go to sleep, it cruelly reminded her as her eyes flew open in fright. Your child is missing, Lesley Kinnock, don’t you dare forget she’s gone. The rest of the night was an exhausting merry-go-round of drifting off and jumping awake and her fractious mood that morning reflected her lack of rest.
‘How did you sleep?’ she asked Maggie.
‘Pretty well, thanks.’ The officer set her phone down on the tablecloth.
‘It doesn’t sound like it.’
‘Another coffee and I’ll be fine. Are you sure you don’t want one?’
‘I don’t think there’s any milk left,’ said Mack. ‘We’ll need to get some more.’
Lesley gaped at him. Did he honestly think she was going to pop to the shops for a couple of pints? Don’t mind me, my daughter’s missing but I’ll just be off to Tesco?
‘Shall I pick up a loaf while I’m at it?’ she spat.
‘Love, I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘I can pick up some things as I have to go back to Mansell this morning for a briefing,’ Maggie offered.
‘What do you suggest we do in the meantime?’
‘Lesley—’ Mack chastised.
‘I don’t mean about the milk,’ she snapped. ‘I mean, do we just sit around again, waiting? I don’t think I can do that for another day. Can you?’ she asked her husband.
‘It’s hard, I know,’ said Maggie. ‘I guess you could go for a walk if you wanted to get out of the house.’
‘What, through the gate at the top of the road? The reporters would love that. Or maybe we could stroll around the meadow where our daughter’s bloodstained skirt was found. How scenic.’
‘Lesley, stop it. She’s just trying to help.’
‘If she wants to help, she should be out there looking for Rosie with the others.’ Lesley scraped her chair away from the table and it tipped backwards onto the floor with a crash. She left it where it was and stormed out of the kitchen. Crossing the entrance hall, she heard footsteps behind her but didn’t slow down.
Gone Astray Page 18
