Gone Astray

by Michelle Davies

  Back indoors he ran straight upstairs, the soles of his trainers slapping hard against the stripped floorboards. He reached the door to the spare room, which he’d commandeered as an office, and threw it wide open. The painted green walls were hidden beneath piles of newspaper cuttings, photographs and pages of A4 paper filled in his neat handwriting. Above his desk, in the centre of the wall, was a snapshot of the girl’s family that was originally published in the Mansell Echo. He wanted to scream every time he looked at it. The parents were smiling as they raised their glasses of champagne at the camera, while the girl clutched a matching flute filled with what looked like orange juice. Propped up in front of them was an oversized cheque made out for the sum of £15 million from Camelot, the distinctive crossed-fingers logo of the National Lottery in one corner and the EuroMillions logo in the other. He clenched his fists as he studied the cheque. It wasn’t even like he was asking for the whole lot. He just wanted something as a thank you.

  Next to the photograph was a torn-out page from the Echo with his picture on it. Or rather his side view, taken inside the garage moments after he’d let the mother shove in front of him. He’d kept it to remind himself why he was doing all this.

  ‘You will pay up,’ he spoke aloud to the parents’ smiling faces. ‘You have no choice.’

  The alarm on his watch beeped to remind him it was time for his testosterone injection. As he retrieved his syringe kit from his sports bag, he saw there was hardly any liquid left in the vial. Rooting around the bottom of his bag he realized it was his last one and immediately he broke out in a sweat. He had just enough now, but if he didn’t get some more before his next injection was due in a couple of days, his body would go into withdrawal. The last time he tried to come off it he’d become depressed, could barely eat or sleep, and the pain in his back was agonizingly worse than it had been before. He couldn’t face that again.

  He reached for his phone.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘I need some pumpers.’

  The person he’d called knew exactly what he meant.

  ‘Already? I only got you that last batch a fortnight ago. It was a month’s supply.’

  ‘Don’t fucking lecture me. Can you get me some or not?’

  The line went silent for a moment and he kicked himself for being rude to the one person he needed to keep on side.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Can you sort me out?’

  ‘Yeah. When do you want it?’

  ‘Today. I can meet you at the gym.’

  ‘It’s a bit short notice. I don’t know if I can . . .’

  ‘Please, I need it,’ he said, hating himself for begging but knowing he had little choice.

  ‘Okay. I’ll text you when it’s ready. I’m at home now. Just think about how much you’re taking though, mate. This stuff can fuck you up big time.’

  He rubbed the ridge on his forehead, the incontrovertible proof that it already had. But he couldn’t cut back, not now. He had to stay strong.

  ‘I know it does, I just lost track of my dosage. I’ll be more careful with the next lot. Thanks, Rob, you’re a mate.’

  38

  No matter how deep into the recesses of her memory she trawled, Lesley couldn’t place the man behind her in the queue. The police said they were going to enhance the CCTV image so she could see it more clearly but, until that happened, she was left with only the grainy shot to ponder.

  There was a kernel of recognition, but from where? Biting her nails as she perched on the edge of the sofa, she thought about everyone she knew. Was it someone’s son or brother? What about a customer at the optician’s on the high street where she used to work part-time, or maybe a teacher from Rosie’s old school? But still she drew a blank and Mack grew more and more frustrated with her until Belmar, hearing him shout, came back into the lounge and persuaded him to leave her alone to give her space to think.

  Mack left his phone with her so she could use the picture on the Echo’s website to jog her memory. Straight away she checked his text messages to see if there were any more from Suzy Breed but there were no new ones, and the ones she’d previously read had been deleted. Had he cut off contact because the police were asking about her, or was he using another means to stay in touch? Lesley debated bringing it up but decided to bury her anger for the time being. She didn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with it on top of everything else.

  Instead she thought about the man who’d called the incident room and made the vile threat towards Rosie. She fantasized about hurting him, of digging her nails into his face as hard as she could and dragging them through his skin. Her desire for violence was overwhelming, a primal urge she’d experienced only once before when a much older child had deliberately pushed Rosie over at school and the fall fractured her wrist. Back then, she’d tempered the urge with the knowledge that to act upon her rage would not only be wrong but would probably get her arrested too. With the crayon writer she wouldn’t suppress it. If she got her hands on him she’d let herself kill the bastard.

  She wondered how long he’d been waiting to make his move. Had he been watching them, biding his time for when Mack wasn’t there and she’d gone out and Rosie was home alone? Was it days, weeks, even months? She shook her head. No, he must’ve acted on the spur of the moment because she would’ve known if someone was spying on them. The house might be veiled behind its boundaries but its very isolation meant she reacted to the tiniest of disturbances. She might not have seen or heard anyone lingering outside, but she was adamant she would have sensed it.

  ‘Lesley?’

  ‘In here.’

  Maggie came in. She had an energy about her that made Lesley feel a bit better. If Maggie thought tracking down the people in the queue was something to be excited about, then she would be, too. Christ knows she was tired of feeling tired.

  ‘Any luck remembering?’ Maggie asked.

  Lesley felt weighed down by pressure. So much was riding on her recalling where she’d seen him but her mind just wouldn’t cooperate.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t think,’ she said balefully.

  ‘Hey, it’s okay, don’t be upset. It was a while ago. Just keep looking at the pictures and hopefully it will come back to you.’

  ‘I wish I shared your confidence. I know I’ve seen him somewhere before but every time I try to think my mind goes blank,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m really sorry for the way I spoke to you at breakfast about doing more to help find Rosie. I shouldn’t have been rude and I want you to know that I do appreciate everything you’re doing for us. I’d think I’d be in a far worse state if you weren’t here.’

  ‘No need to apologize. It’s already forgotten,’ said Maggie airily.

  ‘Well, still, I’m truly sorry.’ Lesley rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘I think I might go and lie down. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Come and get me if there’s any news.’ She took Mack’s BlackBerry upstairs with her and napped with it next to her on the pillow, her last thought before drifting off about the man in the queue and where she’d seen him before. She was soon fast asleep and she didn’t stir when her husband’s phone beeped to signal the arrival of a new text message.

  Mack, I’m waiting . . . xoxo

  39

  Miriam Perrie was shopping when Maggie got through to her just before 3 p.m. and she sounded harassed. Twice Maggie said her name, but Miriam couldn’t hear her over the clamour of background noise.

  ‘Hang on a minute, let me go outside so I can hear you better. I’m in John Lewis.’

  Maggie heard muffled sounds as Cassie’s mum left the store in Mansell.

  ‘Sorry about that. Who did you say you were?’

  ‘Detective Constable Maggie Neville. I’m part of the team investigating Rosie Kinnock’s disappearance.’

  ‘Oh! Have you found her?’

  ‘No, not yet I’m afraid. I would like to speak to your daughter Cassie though. There’s a line of inquiry that’s emerged that I’m hoping she migh
t be able to help us with.’

  ‘What line of inquiry?’

  ‘Well, I think it’s best if I talk to Cassie about it in person. Can I come round later? It won’t take long.’

  ‘She does taekwondo after school on a Thursday. The class takes a couple of hours.’

  ‘Could I speak to her on the phone beforehand? It’s rather urgent. You could give her my number and have her call me.’

  ‘I suppose I could – if I knew what it was about.’

  Miriam Perrie was clearly no pushover and if Maggie wanted to get to Cassie, she’d have to appease her first.

  ‘I want to ask Cassie if she’s ever heard Rosie talk about someone with the initials GS. We think it’s a male,’ she said.

  ‘GS? That’s all you’ve got to go on?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s someone Rosie came into contact with quite often by the sound of things.’

  Miriam fell silent for a moment. Rosie could hear traffic in the background and assumed she was either in the store’s car park or nearby.

  ‘I’ll bet you anything the initials don’t stand for the person’s real name. It’ll be a nickname Rosie came up with to keep who they are a secret,’ said Miriam. ‘It’s what Cassie used to do so I wouldn’t have a clue what she and her friends were talking about. Everything was in code or abbreviated, like BFN, bbz and YOLO.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s what I used to say too,’ said Miriam. ‘BFN means bye for now, bbz is short for babes and YOLO is you only live once. So don’t assume GS stands for the person’s real name – I know full well Cassie used to call me BN for Bloody Nag. Look, I guess she might know. Let me call her now and I’ll ask her to ring you. She’ll just be finishing school.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll text you my number to forward to her.’

  Cassie rang shortly afterwards but their conversation left Maggie deflated. She had no idea who GS was and swore the email Rosie sent her on Sunday was the only one she’d received in the past six months. She hadn’t sent a reply because she no longer considered Rosie a friend, and she didn’t tell the police about it because she’d only given the email a cursory glance when it arrived in her inbox. It was after she saw Lesley crying on television that she realized she should say something. She also confirmed, as Miriam suspected, that Rosie was probably using false initials to disguise GS’s real identity.

  ‘We did it all the time for the boys at school so they wouldn’t know we were talking about them,’ Cassie told Maggie. ‘There was this one lad in the sixth form we both fancied who always wore a red jumper to school. So he was RJ. Another we nicknamed BB, for bad breath. It was just silly kids’ stuff.’

  ‘You really don’t remember Rosie mentioning GS?’

  ‘No, it must be someone in Haxton. It’s not anyone from around here as far as I know.’

  ‘Are there any other friends in Mansell who might know?’

  ‘I guess Emma might. She and Rosie were close too.’

  ‘What’s Emma’s surname?’

  ‘Mitchell.’

  ‘Do you have a number or address for her?’

  ‘She lives in the same road as me, number forty-four.’

  ‘What street is that?’

  ‘Dartmoor Road. Rosie lived around the corner until she moved.’

  Maggie did a quick mental calculation. Dartmoor Road was also on the Corley and only a five-minute drive from Rob’s flat. She could see Emma first, drop round to collect Lou’s money on her way back to her flat, then call to update Umpire on what Emma said.

  She sent Rob a text to warn him she was coming.

  40

  He couldn’t relax as he waited for Rob to text him. He roamed aimlessly from room to room in search of something to fill the time and occupy his mind. His thoughts were all over the place, one minute brooding on the girl, the next jumping to how soon he could have his operation done. In the kitchen he made himself a ham sandwich but tossed it in the bin after the first dry mouthful caught in his throat and made him gag. He tried watching television, but his limbs were too twitchy and he couldn’t sit still. Was that another side effect of the steroids creeping up on him or simply his anxiety? Turning the television off, he went upstairs to the back bedroom, which used to be his parents’ room. He’d cleared it out after their funeral, throwing away all their clothes and belongings as well as the furniture, and now its only occupant was a solitary exercise bike. He climbed on and began pedalling furiously.

  He rarely thought about his parents these days. They’d been dead for almost half his life now. He was nineteen and at university when they were killed in an accident on the M40, crushed into the central reservation by a lorry whose driver didn’t see their car in his blind spot. The sole heir, he’d kept the house that was his childhood home but none of the furnishings. Everything went. Then he returned to his student digs in Loughborough to finish his degree, coming back only during the holidays. On graduating, he went travelling on the money his parents had left in their will, staying in Australia for eighteen months on his way round the world. By the time he moved back to Mansell three years later, memories of his parents had dimmed and his bank account was empty.

  Settling back into suburban life was hard and that’s when the heavy drinking began. Seven nights a week down the pub, all day at weekends. It took the fall off the scaffolding to sober him up and he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since. He no longer needed that form of self-medication when painkillers did just as effective a job. It was only when his doctor wanted to cut down his dosage to protect his liver function that he was forced to find an alternative and was introduced to Rob by one of the trainers at the gym.

  As he cycled, his phone lay on the floor next to the bike. Every minute or so he glanced at it, willing a text from Rob to appear. He hated being this needy, this dependent. But a lifetime of pain was something he simply couldn’t contemplate.

  He had just reached 6 km according to the bike’s LCD console when the doorbell rang downstairs. The muscles in his thighs clenched in protest as he stopped the pedals dead and climbed off. He wasn’t expecting any visitors, nor was he due to have anything delivered. But there was no way to check who was at the front door as the porch roof obscured his view from the upstairs window that overlooked it. He waited for a moment at the top of the stairs, panting from exertion but also from fear. Was it the police? Had they worked out who he was?

  The doorbell rang again, for longer this time. Then he heard a female voice call his name and his stomach somersaulted in shock. He flew down the stairs and wrenched the door open.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  She looked as bemused as he was. ‘Surprised to see me?’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ he said. ‘I told you I’d be in London.’

  ‘This is where you live, isn’t it?’ She crossed her arms defiantly. ‘I think we have things to talk about, don’t you?’

  Fury engulfed him. He wanted to kill her. With his bare hands, a blunt instrument, he didn’t care how. She’d shown up on his doorstep in broad daylight, risking everything, and now he had to get rid of her.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me in?’ she snapped.

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He stepped aside and let her through. She started to say something about his house, but he couldn’t concentrate on her words. The sound of her voice drove him mad. It drilled into his skull and burrowed into his brain and made him want to rip his ears off.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he howled. ‘You had no right to come here.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that—’

  Her eyes widened with fear as he raised his right fist. She tried to move away but he grabbed hold of her arm with his left hand. The first blow knocked her sideways. The second knocked her out cold.

  Silence, at last.

  41

  The Corley was to the east of the town centre. As ugly as it was sprawling, the estate was built o
n a steep hillside that had a high percentage of chalk in its soil and many of the houses had gaping cracks in the walls due to subsidence. Maggie’s parents had to knock almost ten thousand pounds off the asking price because of the problem when they sold up and moved to the other side of town, to a brand-new development.

  The estate still felt like home to Maggie, even though she hadn’t lived there since she was twelve. The tangle of streets with their tight corners, dead ends and sharp inclines were as familiar to her as the back of her hand and as she drove towards Dartmoor Road she felt a prick of belonging she had never experienced anywhere else. Her and Lou’s devastation at being forced to leave the Corley was only tempered by their parents driving them back to see their friends as often as they could.

  Emma Mitchell’s mum answered the door clutching a grimy yellow duster in one hand and a can of Pledge in the other. She squinted at Maggie’s warrant card then shook her head.

  ‘Emma told everything to the other police lady who came round yesterday. She’s very upset right now.’

  ‘The last thing I want is to upset her further, but it’s important that I speak to her. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.’

  Mrs Mitchell hugged the polish and duster to her chest like a toddler might a soft toy. She was solidly built and wore a voluminous dark green blouse over baggy black trousers that made her appear even larger.