by R. L. Nolen
“I knew it,” she whispered. “I knew it.”
“We tried not to get your hopes up.”
“Any thought of Annie not coming home and I shut down, as if one tiny thought might get through the crack. What am I to think now? Am I supposed to be happy?”
She gripped the back of the chair so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Who was it? In the surf, I mean.” Her voice was barely audible.
“The girl, Victoria Benton, missing now six months.”
“How did this happen? This mix up.”
“The blood type matched yours,” Jon said. “Annie’s clothes were on the body, the hair, the same type and color. She was the same height as Annie. The shoes fit. We made a mistake.”
Constable Craig returned with tea steeping in mugs.
Perstow offered, “We didn’t question. We should have.”
“I mean how would a dead body last that long so well-preserved?” Ruth rubbed her eyes.
“She had only just died.”
“Oh God, no! He kept her alive? That poor child. Oh, that poor mother. Where is her mother?”
Jon said, “She and her husband are on their way. They are in a state of shock. It’s been especially hard for them. They accepted she’d died long ago.”
Ruth stared at the floor and whispered, “Now they’ll have the guilt of being wrong, and wonder why they didn’t persist in searching.”
“They’ve also identified an anorak found buried in the sand at the beach as hers. Forensics doesn’t think it had been in the water long and it was found long after the body.”
“What does that mean? Why was the jacket buried recently? Where has it been?”
“All questions we have no answers for, Mrs. Butler. We don’t think it was purposefully buried. It must have fallen into the water at some point. The action of the tide and waves left it partially covered in sand.”
“So … so this means that he is holding Annie hostage now. But to what end? I haven’t had a ransom demand.” Ruth’s hand shook as she put it to her lips.
She began rocking in her seat. “He’s keeping her alive. Oh Annie!”
“Keeping who alive?” Ruth’s mother walked into the sitting room in a fluffy pink robe. “Ruth, what’s wrong?”
Jon caught Ruth as she slipped sideways.
“Ruth!” Her mother dashed to Ruth.
“Where is my daughter?” Ruth’s eyes were streaming tears.
“We don’t know,” Jon said. “We’ve got teams trying to be discreet, but the search has been stepped up. We are intensely searching everywhere. We don’t want to alert him that we know. It might make things worse.”
Ruth’s mother zeroed in on Jon. “Young man! You’d better explain! I’m not deaf, and I’m certainly not invisible.”
“Mrs. Thompson,” Jon said, “we’ll get this sorted.”
“Why does he go to all the trouble to keep someone alive just to kill her?” Ruth asked, “To what end?”
“Annie is alive?” Ruth’s mother screeched.
“Mother, please! I’ve told you all along. You wouldn’t listen.”
“This is an ongoing investigation,” Perstow told Ruth.
“Look!” Ruth said. “We’re talking about my daughter. What else do you know?”
“We must keep this new information to ourselves,” Jon said. “If the killer knows we know, he’ll run to ground. We can’t begin a full-blown search and alert media and so on.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Ruth snapped. She jumped up and left the room. Annie’s paper awards fluttered as Ruth dashed past them. She came back moments later with her keys and shoes.
“What are you doing?” Ruth’s mother asked.
“I’m going out to search for her.”
Jon shook his head. He didn’t know how to reason with her. He didn’t want to tell her about the stains on the jacket that were being analyzed.
“Didn’t you hear them, Ruth-Ann?” her mother said. “They just got through telling us we must not let the killer know we know. We’ve got to act as if they’d never told us, or we could put Annie in more danger.”
“This is stupid! I’ve said it all along and no one would listen, and now that you all know, too, you’re telling me to stay home and pretend? My daughter is out there. Are you all crazy?”
Jon stood ready to keep her from running out the door. “Please, Mrs. Butler …”
Ruth’s mother muttered, “Sounds as if we could all use a little whiskey in our tea this morning.”
Jon stepped aside as she brushed past him on her way to the kitchen.
Monday morning, 11:10 a.m.
He went to the small garage where the old car sat. Oh, he could afford better now, sure, but why draw attention? He only took her out on special occasions.
He ran his fingers along the smooth, cold metal on the car’s roof. The oxidizing paint left a gray residue on his fingertips. He wiped his hands thoroughly on his handkerchief.
Sunshine filtered a dusty yellow haze through the old shed’s window. Cobwebs were draped from the exposed beams above him. The scent of hay and rodents mixed with petrol assailed his nostrils. Wattle and daub walls were spattered with different colors, a result of his renderings on canvas from earlier years. He remembered the liberating feeling of throwing paint. Stupid galleries didn’t know what excellence was.
His windfall money had afforded him the more important things. Who knew all this would be the result of the discovery in the cave so many years ago? Now, he had a new spot on the map, a different world to travel within freely—and a faked university degree. With enough money one could buy just about anything.
He and The Wife had had a row the morning the girl died. He had stayed with her late that last night. Sad really, the choking last gasps, the pleading eyes. He couldn’t help it. He needed the blood. He could see improvement—his skin was smoother, he had more energy—it was working. The Wife thought he was out too late, too many times. Her opinion didn’t matter. The morning after, he had taken the American woman’s daughter. Ha! Lady Luck was good to him.
He just needed a little more time and some more blood. The American woman was bent on distracting him, but he would overcome the distraction. He didn’t need her blood. Just her life. A life for a life. Isn’t that how it worked?
Then he could complete his mission to turn back time and reclaim what his mother had taken from him. He would be young again. If he couldn’t have Cecil back the way it had been, he would find another Cecil. He didn’t care about the baby. He wanted to tell her that. He didn’t care about the baby. He just wanted her back. He would do whatever she wanted if only he could have a second chance, if only he could tell her that.
Hardly three words passed between Allison Craig, Perstow, and Jon as they drove from Ruth’s house to the car park. Finally Perstow broke the uneasy silence, “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but you do seem different around the lass.”
“I make myself ridiculous in her presence.” Jon caught the secret smile Constable Craig passed to Perstow. “Don’t go reading into the situation, you two.”
He negotiated a turn, slowing to take a right, giving a honk to make sure no one was barreling down the lane towards him on the blind curve. “Surely there is something more we can do than sit on our hands at this point. We’ve got men combing the lanes and fields looking for some clue. We can’t be too obvious.”
Allison Craig said, “Someone would have noticed if he is keeping her in a house.”
Perstow added, “Not in a box, not with a mouse, not with a fox—Mind the rabbit!”
Jon swerved to avoid a hare that chose that moment to dash across the road in front of them. “You’ve been reading too many children’s books.”
“It’s Her Indoors, wishin’ for a child. I’m afraid I’m a bit over my past due date.”
“Aha! Allison did you hear that? You are witness.”
Perstow turned red. “Now, sar!”
“You’re as young as you feel,” Allison o
ffered.
“I feel old,” Perstow moaned.
Jon slowed the car to turn again. He swept an arm out to indicate the area. “See this spot? I chased him and lost him on the cliffs, about here. The dogs lost the scent at the stream up on the rise just over there. I’m thinking, wild animals will decoy themselves to protect the young in their lairs or nest from predators. The killer would be guarding his lair. If we get too close, he pops out and leads us away, in a different direction to distract us. Could there be a place on the cliffs to hide?”
“Smugglers have hidden their goods along the coast of Cornwall for centuries,” Allison said.
“I bet the local youths know some good places to hide along the cliffs.” Jon pulled up to the village car park. “Perstow, get on to that. Someone here knows about places to hide things.”
“Should we get the dogs to try again, tracking something of Annie’s?” Allison asked.
“There’s an idea to float by Trewe. Caves. Caves and abandoned mines. Are there maps?”
Perstow nodded. “Aye. We’ll have some at the library, p’r’aps.”
Jon dropped Allison and Perstow at the incident room and drove back along the High Street to the Hasten Inn. Mrs. McFarland burst from the direction of the kitchen to greet him at the entrance. Her cheeks glowed. “Is Peter Trewe out of hospital? Poor man, with all those grandchildren. The noise in that house. It’s proper baked goods he needs. I’ll take him a cake. He’ll like that.”
Exhausted from almost twenty-four hours without sleep, Jon made excuses and stumbled upstairs to his room. He’d laid down the law to the Murder Investigations Team, but he was the one who should have been listening. His brain was as muddled as his sock drawer. He lifted mismatched socks up. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to mismatched socks, but Mrs. McFarland was quite diligent with his laundry usually.
Would he fail in finding Annie? Would he give DI Bennet back in London something more to hold against him? “Can’t finish the job can you? A failure is what you are.” Would that prediction come true now he couldn’t think straight?
He stared back at himself in the dresser’s mirror. Who do you think you are? You can’t do any good here. Go home! He slammed the sock drawer shut. No! After all this time, he would stay and he would straighten out this business with Trewe, and he would find the lost girl.
45
Tuesday morning
Day seventeen
It was about eighteen miles northeast of Perrin’s Point to the Treborwick Police Station where DCI Trewe worked. The drive took Jon Graham thirty minutes. It had rained sometime in the night, leaving puddles on the roadway, but the sun was bright that morning. The regional station was a square gray building that sat on a rise of land. The time had come to resolve issues. He pursed his lips and stepped through the glass front door into the dimmer interior. His eyes hadn’t adjusted, but he kept walking and almost ran over Perstow, who was leaving in somewhat of a hurry. He must not have noticed Jon entering. Why was he here and not at Perrin’s Point police station in his office?
“Since you are here, do you have a moment?” Jon asked.
“Of course.” Perstow stood back while smoothing his shirt over his protruding front.
“Follow me then.”
Perstow didn’t say a word as Jon walked past several desks and rapped on the door to Trewe’s office. He heard Trewe yell, “Enter.” Jon nodded encouragement to Perstow and walked in. A clutter of coffee mugs, pencils, papers and take-out pizza boxes were scattered across every surface. Jon wondered why Trewe was eating pizza with his digestion problems.
Standing at the window, Trewe turned when they entered. “What is it?”
Without prompting, Jon sat down. “The hospital rest put you in a good mood, I see. Pizza and coffee?”
“I’m in a perfect mood, and someone else was here eating pizza last night.”
Perstow scooted into a chair before being invited.
Trewe repeated, “What is it?”
“After yesterday’s revelation,” Jon said, “the entire direction of this investigation has changed. Now we believe Annie may be alive. I’ve asked Mrs. Butler and her mother to keep quiet until after the second inquest. And I believe that Mrs. Butler may still be in danger.”
“We know this. So why burst in here? I’m up to my eyes. Get on with it.”
It sounded as if Trewe was angrier at him than he usually was. Jon said, “If you would prefer, I’ll ask Mr. Perstow to leave the room.”
“I was completely prepared to speak to the dead girl’s real mother.” Trewe’s pale eyes narrowed, cold as ice. “I wasn’t so sick I couldn’t have gone to the Benton’s home in Devon.”
So that was it, Jon thought. Trewe still thinks Jon was a vigilante, over-stepping his responsibilities.
“I’m sorry that I did not consult you. The police authorities in the girl’s district needed to be the ones to tell the poor parents.”
“That isn’t all, though, is it?” Trewe swung towards him. “Why have you come so formal-like and with a witness?”
“My mother always said if she were going to cook something, she had to clean the kitchen first.”
Trewe rolled his eyes. “And?”
Jon said, “In order to arrive at the truth, I need something cleared up.”
“Bloody hell!” Trewe yelled, “What’s this about?”
“About the investigation that brought me here in the first place.”
Trewe shoved empty take-out boxes aside. “Talk!”
“I’d like to get Bakewell on conference call with your permission.”
“Right.” Trewe punched some numbers into his desk phone.
Bakewell’s voice boomed a loud but normal, “Bakewell here!”
Trewe told him who was calling, and Jon chimed in as well. “Sergeant Perstow is present, also.”
“So the whole circus?” Bakewell exclaimed. “Well, Trewe, it’s come down to this. I wanted this assignment badly, especially when I found out who the subject of the home office’s investigation was.”
“Who?” Trewe’s face looked pinched. Jon thought he saw wariness and stark suspicion in his eyes.
“You.”
Trewe’s face changed from storm to tempest, developing a dangerous, wild-eyed, veins-standing-out-at-the-neck look. “What?”
“Look, it’s the money, man,” Bakewell boomed.
A change came over Trewe. The standing-out veins disappeared. The rigidity and the wild-eyed dangerous look, gone. In its place was something close to a smile. “Money? What money? What are you on about?”
Bakewell’s voice filled the room, “The nine hundred, eighty-two thousand pounds or thereabouts transferred from National Westminster to Lloyds.”
Jon watched Trewe carefully. Shock registered. Then, a trace of a grin played at the edges of his lips, where it gradually spread into a smile. A chuckle started and grew to a laugh. It took him a few moments to work at gaining a modicum of control. He reached for a tissue to wipe his eyes. “Brilliant. I had no idea … What a waste of our tax payers’ money.”
Jon stared at Trewe. What was this?
Trewe took a tissue and blew his nose. “I won the money on the pools.”
“The pools!” Bakewell yelled. “There’s no way in hell you won that money and didn’t spread the word.”
“People change, Tom,” Trewe said.
Jon glanced at Perstow who looked like the canary that had been nabbed by the cat.
With a gigantic grin spread across his face, Trewe wiped his eyes again. “My son-in-law talked me and my son into joining the pool. Split three-way it was a grand thing!”
Suspicion remained at the back of Jon’s mind. How could this man, who wore his emotions like Christmas-fairy lights, have hidden his tremendous fortune for this long? “How is it no one knew?” Jon asked.
“Only the three of us knew. I swore them to secrecy until I was pensioned. If I told anyone else it would get about.” Trewe waved his hand in the
air. “I don’t want a lot of long-lost relatives popping in, acting like pigs in clover. And I don’t need my past sneaking up thinking I might owe more alimony. Pardon me, Tom. So I kept quiet.”
With a parting growl, Bakewell cut the connection from his end.
“Nothing’s changed except … my deposit account.” With that bright non-customary smile plastered to his face, Trewe leaned forward. “How is it my account would be of interest to anyone?”
“Someone at the bank reported a policeman had deposited a large amount of money,” Jon said, “and demanded an investigation.”
“I did wonder at the manager’s reaction at the time I transferred the funds. Wouldn’t stay with that bank after what they did to my son in law, charging him interest on savings! Highway robbery.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“What would you do?”
Jon laughed. “Early retirement and a holiday in the Greek islands or the States comes to mind.”
Trewe snorted. “Everything else keeps interfering.”
“We can wind up the fraud investigation, if you can prove all this, of course,” Jon said.
“I’ve filed a cover letter from Littlewoods … here,” Trewe pulled a drawer towards him and withdrew a sheet of paper, “here it is.” He handed it to Jon. “And all along I thought you just wanted to keep me company.”
Jon glanced at the paper and handed it back to Trewe. He could hardly take it in.
Trewe smiled, calmer now. He shook his head. “The way people react …”
Perstow beamed. “I’m in the room with a rich man.”
Trewe leaned back in his chair, crashing into the wall behind, gouging yet another mark. “See what I mean?”
46
Midday
The postmistress jerked back and almost slipped off the stool behind the counter. “What! Charles? Don't find the door open enough as it is, yer sneakin’ through the back door where no one is allowed?”
Charles stood before the postmistress and smiled, more to himself than at her.