Gone Astray

by Michelle Davies

  Umpire was staggered.

  ‘Lisa is certain Rosie’s still in Haxton?’

  ‘Yes, and I think I know where.’ She told him about Farley’s client records and Mrs Roberts. ‘I’m right outside Verma Lodge now.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do, sir. You weren’t returning my calls and I left you a message at the incident room. I couldn’t sit around the hospital knowing there was a chance Rosie’s here. I don’t know how Farley got her past Mrs Roberts but if Rosie’s inside I should get to her now,’ she said. The delay was making her jittery.

  ‘No, you don’t move a muscle. You wait until I get there with back-up. You hear me, Neville? That’s an order. You wait.’

  She said yes but had no intention of obeying it. If Rosie was being held against her will inside Verma Lodge, she couldn’t just sit outside waiting. After seeing the state Farley had left Lisa in, she couldn’t face Lesley and Mack knowing she’d waited. Finding their daughter was more important than whatever Umpire might do to her later.

  ‘Did you hear me, Neville? You stay where you are.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  White stucco brick, with bright orange roof tiles and a veranda that ran along the front of the house, Verma Lodge seemed more suited to sunnier climes, like Greece or Spain or even Florida, than it did a Home Counties village presently deluged by showers.

  The front door was locked. Maggie went round the back and tried the door to the conservatory. The handle gave easily and she was inside in seconds. The conservatory led into a formal lounge with salmon pink walls. Maggie skirted round the sofa and sped into the hallway. Instinct told her to head upstairs and as soon as she was on the landing she started throwing open doors and shouting Rosie’s name. If Farley was there, she wanted him to hear her and fool him into thinking she wasn’t acting alone.

  Yet the bedrooms were all empty and the bathrooms too. She felt a twinge of uncertainty. What if she was wrong about this? She ran back into the first bedroom, the master suite, where there was an antique double wardrobe. Maggie yanked open the doors but it was empty save for a woman’s clothes and shoes. She went through all the other rooms, checking wardrobes and under beds in the same way. By the time she reached the far end of the corridor from the stairs, her concern had dissolved into fear that she’d made a terrible mistake.

  She retraced her steps until she found herself back where she’d started, in the conservatory. She gazed out across the garden, which was flush to the terrace with no steps down to negotiate. It was a lot more overgrown than the one at Angel’s Reach, with enormous ferns and bamboo plants bending over a stone path that wound across the grass. Without a second thought, she took off along the path, following its direction until, on her right, she came across a towering hedgerow. Maggie inhaled deeply. The air was laced with the bitter scent of chlorine. She continued walking the length of the hedgerow until she came across a wrought-iron gate set within it. Through its rails she could see shimmering blue water and on the other side was a chalet-style pool house with a floor-to-ceiling glass frontage. Despite being a distance away, Maggie still recognized the person lying on the day bed inside, a rose-patterned duvet tucked around their chin.

  Rosie.

  60

  Maggie sprinted round the swimming pool, almost losing her footing as she slid in a puddle of water spread across the tiled surround. The door to the pool house was unlocked and she burst through it to get to Rosie. Kneeling down by the day bed, she quickly checked the teenager’s pulse – she was alive, but only just. Her breathing was shallow and her skin so pale it was tinged blue, like she’d been exposed to the cold. Maggie gently peeled the duvet back and saw someone had removed Rosie’s clothing and dressed her in a nightgown. It was old-fashioned, with a high, frilled collar, and Maggie guessed it belonged to Mrs Roberts.

  The left-hand side of the nightgown was stained with spots of blood and further investigation revealed that a bandage had been applied to the side of Rosie’s ribcage. Maggie peeled back the bandage to check the severity of the wound and was assailed by the putrid smell of pus. If blood loss hadn’t taken Rosie to the brink of death, blood poisoning almost certainly had.

  Next to the day bed was a bottle of water, four packets of Nurofen Plus, more bandage dressings, antiseptic lotion and cotton wool. It looked as though Farley had, in the most rudimentary way, tried to keep Rosie alive in the pool house, which was bitingly cold inside and stank of chlorine. Then Maggie noticed a bunch of battered-looking daffodils stuffed into a jar set down on the floor by the foot of the bed. He brought her flowers? The sick bastard.

  Maggie gently stroked Rosie’s forehead.

  ‘Rosie, you’re safe now. My name is Maggie and I’m a police officer. I’m going to get you out of here.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  Maggie twisted round in surprise. The man she now knew to be Adrian Farley was in the doorway – but he wasn’t alone.

  Next to him was Lily.

  ‘Lily? What are you doing—’

  Maggie faltered as she caught sight of the Stanley knife in Farley’s right hand. He lifted it to Lily’s throat and the fully extended silver blade seemed to glow in the dull light.

  ‘Step back from the bed,’ he ordered.

  ‘I need to get Rosie to hospital,’ said Maggie. Staying on her knees, she pulled her mobile out of her pocket. ‘She’s in a bad way.’

  ‘No, she’s not, I’ve been taking care of her.’

  ‘With over-the-counter painkillers? She needs help from a doctor, not a branch of Boots.’

  ‘She’s not going anywhere until I get my money.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. If she dies you won’t get a penny. Send her back alive and I’ll help you get the reward,’ she lied.

  ‘Like you have any sway over it,’ he scoffed. ‘I know who you are, you’re just the family liaison officer. You’re bottom of the heap. You don’t count.’

  Maggie knew she had to stay calm to get Rosie out of there. She ignored him and turned to Rosie’s friend.

  ‘Lily, are you okay? Has he hurt you?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she whispered, trying to tilt her neck and head away from the blade.

  ‘You don’t fucking deserve to be,’ Farley snarled at her. ‘It’s all your fault everything’s gone wrong.’

  ‘No it’s not, it’s yours. If you’d just kept out of it . . .’ Lily tailed off.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’ said Maggie in amazement. Then it hit her. ‘Lily, is this your grandmother’s house? Is Mrs Roberts your nan?’

  The teenager nodded balefully.

  So the parties were Lily’s doing. The quiet little redhead none of them had given any thought to.

  ‘She’s just asleep, you know,’ said Farley, nodding at Rosie. ‘I gave her sleeping tablets.’

  ‘How many? She’s out cold.’

  ‘Enough to keep her dozing like Sleeping Beauty. I haven’t hurt her, if that’s what you think.’

  ‘Really? Because I’ve just seen Lisa and she told me exactly what you did to her.’

  ‘We were already fucking so I don’t know what her problem is,’ he huffed. ‘Do you actually think I’d have sex with a fifteen-year-old child? What do you take me for? I was the one who stopped that moron security guard Eddie taking advantage of her. It’s down to him she’s in this state, not me. You should be thanking me for saving her!’

  ‘I will if you let me get Rosie to hospital.’

  ‘Nice try, but that’s not going to happen. Not until I get my money.’

  Maggie turned to Lily. ‘Did you know Rosie was here all this time?’

  Farley’s laugh came out more like a bark. ‘Know about it? She’s been helping me keep her here. Who do you think brought her the flowers?’

  As Maggie sat back, shocked, Lily implored her to listen.

  ‘It’s not what you think. Ouch!’ she shrieked.

  The knife blade had nicked her throat.
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  ‘Whoops, sorry, my bad,’ said Farley with a grin. ‘But really, Lily, don’t think you can put this all on me. Shall we tell the nice police lady what really happened?’

  When Lily refused to speak, Farley took over.

  ‘Lily has been a very, very naughty girl. She’s been inviting her friends to granny’s pool house for parties and they’ve been getting up to all sorts of naughtiness. Not just drink and drugs, if you know what I mean. So late one afternoon I’m here treating Mrs Roberts and we hear glass breaking. She asks me to take a look and I find Lily and her friends out here with Eddie Sinclair, all high as kites. You should see the pictures he took . . . not bad for an amateur.’ Farley gestured at Rosie. ‘In her defence though, she looked like she was out of it and didn’t know what was going on.’

  Maggie felt sick as she thought about the image of Rosie in the green shoes but she kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt Farley’s flow. He was talking in a singsong voice like he was performing on stage and seemed alarmingly manic. She looked around to see if there was any way out other than the doorway he and Lily were blocking, but she couldn’t see any.

  ‘Now Lily here knew she was in a lot of trouble but I covered up for her with her granny, on the understanding she owed me a favour.’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Lily said, breaking down. ‘But I really didn’t mean to hurt Rosie.’

  Farley rolled his eyes. ‘Jabbing her in the side with a knife hardly helped, did it?’

  Maggie finally spoke. ‘You helped him abduct her?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that. He –’ Lily jerked her head towards Farley – ‘bribed Eddie to give him the picture of Rosie because he wanted to use it to force her to get money out of her parents. It was his idea to get Rosie to come over here on Tuesday morning when no one was around so he could tell her how much he wanted. But when I went round to her house, she went mad at me for letting Eddie take her picture when she was drunk and told me to go away. I panicked because I knew he –’ she jerked her head at Farley again – ‘was waiting, so I threatened her with a knife to get her to come. I didn’t think she’d try to fight me. It was by accident she was stabbed.’

  ‘Where did you get the knife from?’

  ‘A drawer in her kitchen.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘I washed it and put it back.’

  ‘So it was you who turned off the alarm system?’

  ‘No, he made Eddie come with me,’ Lily said, glancing again at Farley. ‘He said if Eddie didn’t help he’d tell the police about the photographs.’ She looked imploringly at Maggie. ‘They’re not a big deal though. We all did a couple of topless poses in return for Eddie getting us some weed and Molly.’

  ‘Molly is a drug, in case you didn’t know,’ said Farley with a grin. ‘Kids today, eh?’

  ‘We’re not kids,’ Lily snapped. ‘It was just like doing a fashion shoot. It was a laugh.’

  ‘Rosie didn’t look like she was having fun in the photograph I saw,’ said Maggie reproachfully. ‘You’re meant to be her friend. How could you exploit her like that? I’m assuming they were your green shoes she’s wearing in the picture?’

  Lily suddenly looked petrified, as though the implication of what she’d done had finally hit home. Her words spilled out as she tried to explain herself.

  ‘It’s just a bit of fun. Everyone takes topless pictures to send to guys they like. The only difference is Eddie uses a proper camera, not a phone.’

  Maggie shook her head despairingly. Then a thought struck her. ‘What about Rosie’s skirt, the one we found in the meadow?’

  ‘Eddie put it there, not me.’

  ‘But you used it to try to stop the bleeding first?’ said Maggie.

  ‘Yes, it was the only thing to hand. Rosie let me borrow it last week to wear to a party and I asked if I could borrow it again. That was my excuse for going round to her house on Tuesday,’ said Lily, shamefaced and shaking.

  ‘We haven’t found the shorts she was wearing yet.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Eddie, he hid those too. He . . . he took the rest of her clothes after we brought her here,’ she said, glancing nervously at Farley, who shrugged.

  ‘They’re long gone,’ he said.

  ‘We found a trace of condom on the inside lining of Rosie’s skirt. I’m pretty certain she’s not had sex with anyone, so if you’ve borrowed the skirt last week, was that something to do with you too?’

  Maggie took the way Lily’s face flushed deep red as confirmation it was, while Farley laughed.

  ‘She’s no innocent, is our Lily. Just ask her ex-boyfriend Charlie.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you set Rosie up so Sinclair could take pictures of her. He’s a grown man, you’re still kids.’

  ‘He’s only twenty-one. He’s not that much older than us,’ Lily shot back.

  ‘And how could you let him keep her here all this time, knowing how worried her parents are?’

  ‘He said it would only be for a couple of days. He said he’d tell the police it was all down to me if I didn’t go along with it. I was scared.’

  ‘Ladies, ladies,’ Farley interrupted. ‘Can we please get back to what’s important – my money?’

  ‘You won’t get a penny out of the Kinnocks unless you let Rosie go,’ said Maggie firmly.

  ‘That bitch pushed in front of me!’ he shouted. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like, knowing I came so close to winning and knowing it was almost certainly my only chance because no one’s ever that lucky twice – and it was just taken from me?’ For a second he brandished the knife at Maggie. ‘You think I’m stupid for trying to get my money back, I can see it on your face. But if you knew the pain I had to live with every day, you’d understand.’

  ‘Pain? What pain?’ Maggie scoffed.

  Farley spun round and pulled his T-shirt up. She winced at the livid scar running the length of his spine.

  ‘Nine operations I’ve had, and still it’s no better.’ He choked on his words. ‘I just want it put right but they wouldn’t help me, wouldn’t give me a penny. I never meant for the girl to get hurt. All I was going to do was tell her I’d send Eddie’s picture to her mum and dad unless she paid me.’ His face clouded over. ‘Then this stupid cow and Sinclair fucked it up. Once she was injured there was no way they could leave her at her house so Eddie called me and I carried her round here.’

  ‘You’ve been caught together on CCTV, by the security gate.’

  Farley smirked. ‘Took you a while to put two and two together, did it? Yes, I drove here but I parked in the next street. I went along the back pathway on foot to get to Verma Lodge and the Kinnocks’ garden.’

  ‘How did you get Rosie past Mrs Roberts?’

  ‘I told Nana I wanted to go shopping and she drove me into Mansell,’ said Lily morosely.

  ‘But you must’ve had blood on you from Rosie?’

  ‘I didn’t, Eddie did. He was the one who used the skirt to stop it.’

  ‘Where is your grandmother now?’

  ‘I don’t know. She wasn’t in when I arrived earlier.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Farley, ‘she’s in the compost heap. I’m afraid we had a disagreement.’

  Lily burst into tears. ‘No, not Nana!’

  Maggie’s heart hammered wildly against her ribcage. She needed to get Rosie and Lily out of there.

  ‘Look, this is your chance to put it all right,’ she told Farley. ‘Let me get Rosie to hospital and I know her parents will be grateful.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m not fucking stupid.’

  ‘Listen to her,’ Lily begged him. ‘Let us go.’

  Farley turned to address Lily, giving Maggie the split second she needed to act. But as she dived across the floor to kick his legs out from under him, he spun round and swooped his hand down and she cried out as the knife blade sliced into her forearm. As blood bubbled from the wound, she dropped her mobile in shock.

  Lily screamed and ran for the
door but Farley was too quick for her. The knife went into the back of her shoulder up to the hilt and the teenager jerked horribly as blood gushed through the hole it made in her T-shirt.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Maggie yelled.

  As she tried to crawl across to Lily, who’d pitched forward onto the floor, Farley grabbed her hair and pulled her off. From the corner of her eye she saw Rosie stir and she panicked. She had to stop Farley before he noticed too. Ignoring the searing white-hot pain from the wound in her arm, Maggie groped her hand across the floorboards until her fingers made contact with the jar holding the daffodils. Clenching her hand around it, she swung her arm as hard as she could and smashed the glass into the side of Farley’s head. Bits of glass, petals and water went flying across the room as he keeled over, blood pouring from his temple. He lost his grip on the knife and Maggie kicked it out of his reach before managing to cuff him. Then, almost crying with relief, she staggered across the pool house to the day bed, where Rosie had slipped back into unconsciousness.

  ‘It’s okay,’ whispered Maggie, squeezing her hand. ‘You’re safe now, Rosie. You’re safe.’

  61

  Mack was awake when Lesley returned to his room. He smiled wanly as she entered and his lips felt dry and cracked against hers as she kissed him hello. He was wearing his glasses again.

  ‘You gave me such a scare,’ she chided him. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

  ‘I’m sorry, love. Is there any news?’

  She shook her head, desperate to block out the image that popped into her mind of their daughter’s cold, lifeless body on a metal gurney in a bleak, sterile mortuary. She had tried so hard in the past few days not to think about Rosie being found dead, her body battered and destroyed as it lay in a ditch or shallow grave or some other desolate and lonely final resting place, and had clung to the belief that, as her mum, she would know if Rosie had been killed because she’d feel it. But with Sinclair’s arrest seemingly bringing them no closer to finding her, she was suddenly tortured by images of them cradling Rosie’s body and being at her funeral surrounded by teenagers sobbing as her favourite pop songs were piped through tinny speakers.