‘You don’t think she ran away?’ It was always her fear that the police wouldn’t take Flora’s case seriously, believing she was just a teenage runaway, even after the blouse was found.
‘You know I don’t,’ he says shortly. ‘And I haven’t changed my mind about that. We took the case very seriously. You have my word on it.’
‘How can somebody just vanish?’ She can hear the desperation in her voice. It was the same question she’d asked herself every day for eighteen years.
‘You’d be surprised by how many people go missing in the UK each year.’
She shakes her head. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I can bear it …’ Then she, too, sits up straighter, her jaw jutting out. She can’t fall apart now. She’s been strong all these years. And she has to remain so, for Heather. For Ethan.
He assesses her with his calm expression. ‘I’m sorry, Margot.’ His pale eyes are sad, his mouth set.
She assesses him with a cold, hard stare. ‘I’m assuming there’s no development with Flora and that you’re here about Heather.’
He has the good grace to look regretful. ‘I know you’ve been asked this before, when you were first interviewed after Heather was taken into hospital, but have you thought more about the victims, Deirdre and Clive Wilson? Are you sure you don’t know them?’
‘No. I’ve never heard of them. Neither has Adam – Heather’s husband. We can’t think of any link between Heather and those people.’
‘Have they ever stayed at the caravan park?’
‘Not that I know of, but I haven’t checked the register. And I don’t recognize them from the photos that have been in the paper. We’ve not been very busy, really, since about October. It’s too cold for camping.’
He reaches inside his coat and takes out a little notepad. He flicks through it and Margot’s unease intensifies. Eventually he says, ‘Your husband, Keith Powell.’
‘Yes.’
He consults his notes. ‘He was killed on the twenty-first of April 1990 on the farm you used to own in Kent. Is that correct?’
Margot suddenly understands why Ruthgow has come all this way. ‘That’s right.’ Her mouth is so dry she has to get up to pour herself a glass of water. They’d once bonded over the death of their spouses. He hadn’t known then, of course, exactly how Keith had died. It was a secret she’d hoped she would take to the grave.
Ruthgow waits until she’s returned to her seat before continuing. ‘He was killed with a shotgun. Similar model used by Heather to shoot Deirdre and Clive Wilson.’
Margot blinks back tears. ‘It was an unfortunate accident, that’s all. No charges were brought.’
Ruthgow doesn’t say anything, he just surveys her with those calm, unreadable eyes, and she realizes it’s not just his appearance that has changed in the intervening years: back then he was more emotional, warmer. She’d felt she could tell him anything after Flora had gone missing. He was on her side, more than any other officer working on the case at the time. She’d sensed some of them saw Flora Powell as a typical teenage girl who’d lied and kept secrets from her family, including a boyfriend. Not Gary Ruthgow.
And now here he is with his thinly veiled accusations.
‘I’m sorry, Margot, I really am, but this doesn’t look good. A dead father, a missing sister. And now two more dead.’
Margot stands up, pushing her chair back. She knows exactly what he’s insinuating. Hasn’t she thought the same thing herself in her darker moments? ‘I want you to leave. Please, just go!’
Ruthgow stands up, too, looking pained. ‘I don’t want to upset you. We have to look into every possibility. You know Flora’s case isn’t closed. It’s cold, that’s all. Margot, please …’ He holds out a hand and in his expression she sees the man he used to be, the man she cried and got drunk with, opened up to – about Keith and how much she missed him even though he hadn’t always been the perfect husband or father. And, in turn, he’d confided in her about coping with his wife’s sudden death in a car crash. But now she was on the other side: no longer the innocent victim whose precious daughter had been snatched away so cruelly. Now she was the mother of a killer.
‘She was just a kid,’ she says hotly, as she walks him to the front door. But Ruthgow leaves without saying anything further.
Heather was only ten years old when Keith died. She was only ten years old when she pulled the trigger on the gun that killed her father.
17
Margot
Margot watches from the living-room window as Ruthgow gets into his unmarked police car and drives away. How did he find out about Keith’s accident? When Flora went missing it never came out – the police force in Kent had handled it, and back then Margot hadn’t thought of the implications. Heather had been fourteen when Flora had disappeared. And it had never once occurred to her that Heather was responsible. Why would it? But now … No. She refuses to believe it. Heather loved Flora more than anyone in the world: she would never have hurt her. If anything, what had happened to Keith, then to Flora, has obviously destabilized Heather to such an extent that she’d flipped. Maybe Deirdre and Clive Wilson were targeted completely at random. Heather probably didn’t even know what she was doing. Surely it was temporary insanity.
Yesterday she’d contacted a defence lawyer in the likelihood that Heather will go to court – because her daughter will wake up, and when she does they need to fight her case. Together. Damn Ruthgow. He must be near to retiring. Does he want to solve Flora’s case before he leaves the force? Is that what this is all about? And if he and the rest of his team pin it on Heather, it’s a closed case, ends neatly tied up. Ruthgow can walk off into his future with a clear conscience and a pat on the back.
She closes her eyes and remembers the day Keith died. It had been a beautiful April afternoon, the girls’ favourite time of year because that was when the lambs were born. They’d loved the farm in Maidstone, Kent. She had foolishly thought it was an idyllic place to bring up children. She’d always told the girls to respect the guns, never to handle or hold them without permission and supervision. Both she and Keith had been so strict about that. The girls could shoot, of course. Keith had trained them well. But he’d drummed it into them that they were never to pick up a gun unsupervised. So why had Heather picked up the gun that day? Keith had been using it himself only five minutes before. She knew he was always strict about locking the guns into the cabinet after use. He’d had to kill a cow that was ill and in pain. She remembers seeing him striding towards the barn with the shotgun over his shoulder and a look of determination on his face. Little did she know it would be the last time she’d see him alive. Less than ten minutes later, while she’d been putting out the washing, she’d heard a gunshot ring out. It hadn’t frightened her. She’d thought Keith was killing another animal. But then there was a scream. A child’s. And a deathly silence that had made her flesh turn cold. She knew the girls were playing in the barn with the lambs so she’d run as fast as she could around the side of the house just in time to see Keith staggering backwards and clutching his chest, her daughters looking on in horror, and then the gun slipping from Heather’s grasp onto the grass, fear and shock etched over both girls’ pale little faces.
By the time Margot had reached her husband he was already dead, his eyes rolled back in his head and blood blooming at the front of his shirt. She’d furiously checked for a pulse, even though she knew he was gone. And then she thought of her daughters, and how they must be feeling to see their father dead like that on the ground. She had no choice but to leave him lying there while she ushered the girls back into the house. Heather said it was an accident. That Keith had left the gun on the ground by the barn after shooting the cow and she’d picked it up. Keith, realizing his mistake at leaving the gun unattended, had shouted at her to put it down. ‘She swung the gun towards Daddy without thinking and it just went off. It was an accident,’ Flora had explained, backing up Heather’s version of events.
And Margot had ha
d no reason to doubt any of it. Until now.
Margot stands in the front porch and pushes her feet back into her recently vacated wellies. The sky is brooding but there’s no rain yet so she takes this chance to make her way across the field to the caravan park. The wooden shed that they’ve converted into an office for the site is empty but she can see through the window of the coach house that Adam is in. His face is illuminated by the computer screen. Has he picked Ethan up yet from nursery? It’s nearly six. She raps on the door and he lifts his head, annoyance crossing his features at being disturbed. When he sees it’s her he waves, although he still doesn’t smile. He gets up and she imagines his lumbering gait as he goes to answer the door.
‘You okay?’ he says, as he pulls the door open.
‘Do you want me to pick Ethan up from nursery?’
‘Nah, you’re all right, Marg. Mum’s gone to get him. He’s staying the night at hers. I think being here makes him miss Heather more, y’know?’
She nods, trying to quash the jealous feelings in the pit of her stomach at the thought of Gloria spending all this time with her precious grandson. She knows it’s for the best, but she wants him.
Adam stands aside to let her in and the two of them take up most of the space in the small, square hallway. The ceilings are low, and there are parts of the house where Adam has to stoop. Margot had been thinking lately that as Heather and Adam extend their family they could move into the main house and she’d come here. The house is too big for her now. All those empty rooms, Flora’s still as it was when she last used it. She wonders what will happen if Heather doesn’t wake up. Or if she goes to prison. Will Adam still want to be here, running the caravan park? Leo’s already left. She bought him out five years ago. After Flora went missing, all his spark and humour slowly seeped out of him, and he spent longer and longer away from Tilby. Then, one night a year or so later, when he was out of his head on whisky, he admitted that he couldn’t stand being here any longer, that he was fed up with the stares and silent accusations of the locals that he, the only young man living at Tilby Manor at the time, must be responsible for Flora’s disappearance.
‘Do you want a cuppa?’ asks Adam now. He looks haggard, thinks Margot. She wonders if he’s eating properly. In the week that Heather’s been in hospital Adam has sometimes joined Margot for dinner, and a few nights he’s stayed in one of her spare rooms for company, but most of the time he’s sequestered in here.
‘I’m fine, thanks. Just wanted a quick look at the register. The police were here earlier …’
His eyes narrow. ‘The police? Why?’
She holds up a hand to prevent him going off on one. It’s always been Adam’s way. Talk first and think later. It had taken Margot a long time to like him, if she was being honest with herself. Heather had been so young and innocent in that department. She’d never had a boyfriend before – not one Margot knew about anyway. But when Heather was just eighteen she’d met Adam at the annual barn dance to raise funds for the church hall. He was from a little village in south Gloucestershire, but had been staying with his uncle Saul on his farm a mile or so from Tilby, learning the trade. Adam’s cousin, Ezra, had had a crush on Heather, but it had been strong, silent, gruff Adam who had stolen her heart. She’d seemed besotted with him from the outset, which had worried Margot. She couldn’t help but think he was a crutch, after Keith and Flora. They were inseparable. Heather was never one for lots of friends, especially after Jess, but she’d kept in touch with a few girls from college. Soon, they had fallen by the wayside as Heather spent all her time with Adam.
She often wondered if Adam had convinced Heather to stop seeing her friends. Heather had let slip once that he was a little possessive. But as time went on and Adam and Heather took over running the caravan park, Margot began to see another side to Adam. He was fiercely loyal to Heather and, under the gruff exterior, he was warm, especially to animals. He seemed more comfortable with the horses than he did with people. Despite her reservations, he’s been a good husband and father. It’s only in the last few months that she’s noticed a change in him – snappy with Heather, less patient when things went wrong. Just before Heather’s ‘accident’, she saw him fling files across the office in a fit of rage. He hadn’t noticed she was outside. When she asked him about it later he’d been red-faced and apologetic, saying he was looking for some paperwork and had got frustrated. He had reminded Margot of Keith, towards the end.
‘It’s nothing,’ she lies now. She’s definitely not going to tell him they suspect Heather might have had something to do with Flora’s death. ‘They just wanted to ask if I could have a look through the register and see if Deirdre or Clive Wilson had ever stayed here. They’re trying to find a link.’
The lines in his forehead deepen. ‘We’ve already told them we don’t know the bloody Wilsons. Why won’t they listen? Why can’t they see that Heather’s been struggling? The post-natal depression …’
‘They’re just trying to do their job,’ she says levelly.
He exhales and runs a hand over his beard. ‘Let’s go to the office, then,’ he says, moving towards the front door. Margot follows. It’s raining now and they have to make a mad dash across the yard.
It smells damp as Adam opens the door, despite its insulation, as though nobody has inhabited it for a while. But the desk, as usual, is messy, papers, books and pens strewn haphazardly across it, with a half-drunk mug of week-old coffee standing by the monitor, spores of green mould floating on the top. Even the keyboard is covered with papers so that only the ends are visible. Adam looks mildly embarrassed as he rummages – no wonder he can never find anything, she thinks – until he comes to two A4-sized leatherbound diaries. He pushes them towards Margot. ‘These are 2011 and 2012, although there’s only a few pages marked in that one,’ he says.
Margot takes a seat at the desk and moves the debris aside, flicking through the pages of the 2012 diary. She takes out her reading glasses from the inner pocket of her gilet, slipping them on to peer through the list of names.
‘Right, well, I’ll get going,’ says Adam.
‘I’ll lock up,’ she says, without glancing up. ‘Come over for dinner later, if you like. You need to keep your strength up and I’ve got a casserole in the slow cooker.’
‘Thanks, Marg.’ He’s the only person who has ever shortened her name. It would annoy her coming from anyone else. But in Adam’s West Country burr it seems natural. She hears the door bang shut behind him as he leaves.
She licks her index finger before turning over the page. There aren’t many recent names on the list, out of season, so she doesn’t bother to read the first few pages of 2012. Instead she concentrates on the 2011 diary, flicking back to the summer when they were at their busiest. All the names of the customers who stayed on the campsite are there, in either Heather’s loopy writing or Adam’s more stilted hand. Sean and Sally Peeves, Caravan One, 6 August 2011, one week. Lawrence and Felicity Dawes, Caravan Two, 6 August, two weeks. Petra Anderson, pitch for one tent, four nights. It’s tedious work. And how far should she go back? They’ve been running this caravan park for nearly twenty years. Does she even have the old records? She recalls dumping a load of notebooks in the attic a year or so ago. Maybe she’d give them to the police and they could go through it all. And even if the Wilsons did stay here, what does it prove? That Heather knew them? But it doesn’t explain why she’d want to shoot them.
She turns to the beginning of the book, January 2011. She flicks to the next page, then to March. A year ago. But nothing. She sighs, pushing the diary aside and picking up the 2012 diary. And, to her surprise, there it is, on the second page, written in familiar looping handwriting.
Deirdre Wilson, Caravan Three, 3 February 2012, two nights.
She takes her glasses off and rubs at the corners of her eyes. She was here. Deirdre was here just over a month ago. And, judging by the handwriting, Heather had met her.
18
Margot
&nb
sp; Margot stares at Heather’s handwriting, stunned at her discovery. There it is, in blue biro, the proof of a link between her daughter and the Wilsons.
Sliding the diary under her gilet to protect it from the rain, Margot locks the office and darts back through the caravan park. There is a light on in Colin’s caravan and it seeps around the edges of the closed gingham curtains that Heather had run up on the sewing-machine. Her heart lurches at the sight of them. From the windows on the other side of the caravan, Colin will have a view of the cliffs and the sea in the distance. She wonders how he feels about what’s happened with Heather. He seemed very fond of her, although he has only once asked how she is, and Margot felt he took pains to avoid the subject of the shootings, shuffling his feet and keeping his eyes on the ground. When she cleaned his caravan yesterday she found a Get Well card with a cartoon dog holding a bunch of flowers on the front. But he’d only got as far as writing Heather’s name inside. Margot hadn’t meant to pry: it had fluttered to the floor in the breeze she had created when she opened the caravan door. She imagines him now, sitting alone in front of the tiny inbuilt TV with his meal for one, and feels real empathy with him for the first time.
Margot jogs across the field that separates the caravan park from the house, past the paddock and through the garden. One of the horses neighs from the stables. Winnie, she thinks, and the sound comforts her. When she reaches the porch she kicks off her wellies and enters the house.
Only last month Deirdre Wilson stayed here on their caravan site. There was no sign of Clive’s name, but what does it mean? Is it just a coincidence?
She turns on the light in the living room, shuddering as she spots a figure standing at the edge of the driveway. Another journalist? It’s a bit late. She flops onto the sofa, with the diary on her lap. She knows she’ll have to tell Ruthgow about Deirdre.
Then She Vanishes Page 10