‘We’ve got a room,’ Ruth smiled. Sian had moved in over six months ago. Somehow Sian had come into her life and woken her from a five-year relationship coma. And as far as she was concerned, Sian was the sexiest woman who had ever walked the planet.
Sian placed her hands on Ruth’s hips and moved her sideways to get to the fridge.
‘I demand more booze!’ Sian boomed, attempting to mimic Richard E Grant in Withnail and I. She grabbed some wine and poured them all a large glass. Holding up the bottle, Sian frowned. ‘There’s not a lot in a bottle, is there?’
‘Not the way you drink it,’ Ella teased.
‘You are aware that it’s not pop?’ Ruth said as she put her arm around Ella’s shoulder and escorted her into the living room. Through the open patio doors, the sky was moving from a dusty purple to darker hues of blue.
For a moment, Ruth looked at the sky. Rosie Wright was out there somewhere, and it sent a shiver down Ruth’s spine. She would grab four or five hours sleep and be back looking for her at dawn.
‘Come on, mush, I need to talk to you about something,’ Ruth said to Ella, trying to maintain some kind of normality.
‘Oh good. That sounds ominous.’ Ella rolled her eyes and slumped into the soft armchair.
‘It’s nothing horrible,’ Ruth reassured her.
‘Are you two going to have a baby or something hideous?’ Ella groaned.
‘No. Nothing like that. I mean, I don’t know but that’s not it.’ Ruth was getting flustered and had been thrown off track.
‘You don’t know?’ Ella pulled a face.
‘Ella, can you just listen for a moment? Your dad has sent me two emails and he wants to know if he can get in contact with you,’ Ruth explained. Ruth had seen the emails earlier in the week and it had been weighing on her mind just how she was going to break the news to her daughter.
Ella frowned as she took this in and then bristled. ‘Why?’
‘He’s your dad. He’s coming to the UK this summer and I guess he would like to see you,’ Ruth explained. She knew how little contact Ella had had with her father, and his request would seem confusing. It made Ruth angry, but she didn’t want that to influence Ella.
‘What do you think?’ Ella asked. She had understandably been thrown by the news.
‘It doesn’t really matter what I think,’ Ruth said. She had to allow Ella to do what she wanted and not let her own annoyance cloud the issue.
‘It does to me,’ Ella said.
Sian came in with glasses of wine, which she handed around. She quickly picked up on the slight atmosphere.
‘Sorry. You guys in the middle of something?’ Sian said, gesturing that she could leave them to it.
Ella shook her head. ‘No, no. Mum’s probably told you that my dad’s been in touch.’
Sian looked over at Ruth, who gave her an imperceptible nod. ‘Yeah, she mentioned it.’ Sian looked back over at Ella. ‘Must be confusing for you?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know my dad. He’s a stranger and that’s down to him, isn’t it?’ Ella was clearly struggling to process everything.
Ruth was glad that Ella trusted Sian enough to share how she was feeling. Sian took her wine and sat at the far end of the sofa.
‘Look, I know your dad has not been there for you. And that might make you feel upset or angry. And that’s completely understandable. So if you didn’t want to see him, no one would blame you. But you only have one dad. And the older you get, the more that kind of thing becomes important to you,’ Ruth explained calmly.
There was a moment where Ruth’s words seemed to hang in the air.
‘You miss your dad – Grandad – don’t you?’ Ella asked, picking up on the subtext of Ruth’s words.
‘Yeah, a great deal. It’s just something to bear in mind, that’s all,’ Ruth said.
Ella took a long swig of wine and then said, ‘Maybe I should just ring him?’
That wasn’t what Ruth was expecting her to say. To be honest, she couldn’t predict how her daughter was going to react.
‘Are you okay ringing him?’ Ruth asked, uncertain of how a phone call would leave Ella feeling.
‘Maybe if I just spoke to him and let him explain why he wants to see me, then I would know how I felt about it,’ Ella shrugged.
Bloody hell, what a sensible and astute way of looking at it, Ruth thought. She would never have had that kind of insight when she was Ella’s age. It was rare for her to have that kind of insight as she approached fifty, for God’s sake. It was her daughter’s rational behaviour that made her so proud of Ella.
‘That sounds like a very mature way of handling it, Ella,’ said Sian as she looked up from the laptop that she had just opened.
‘Do you have the number?’ Ruth asked.
‘Yeah, it’s in my phone from years ago. Remember I wanted to call him a few Christmases ago?’ Ella reminded Ruth.
‘Take the landline up to your room and ring him from there.’
‘It’s not my room, it’s the spare room.’
‘It’s your room for as long as you want,’ Ruth said.
Ever since the traumatic events of last Christmas, Ella had stayed in the spare room and Ruth made it clear she needn’t ever leave.
Ella paused and then nodded. ‘Yeah, I will. Then I can talk to you guys afterwards.’
Ella went over and gave them both a kiss.
‘Love you, darling,’ Ruth said, hugging her closely for a few seconds longer than she normally did. Rosie Wright’s disappearance had reminded her how precious Ella was. She was so proud of her daughter that sometimes it felt a little overwhelming.
Ella looked at her. ‘You okay, Mum?’
‘Yeah. Rough day at work,’ Ruth said quietly.
Ella grabbed her wine. ‘I’ll be back down in a bit.’ She disappeared upstairs.
For a few moments, Ruth sat back and drank her wine and listened to the music. Her phone buzzed.
Snowdonia News @ Snowdonia News Online
#RosieAbduction #FindRosie
Sources claim that North Wales Police found significant evidence at Haddon Farm this afternoon. Any information contact @NorthWalesPolice
What had happened to that smiling, innocent sixteen-year-old girl that was so full of life a couple of days ago? The sound of children playing in a nearby garden broke her train of thought. The air from outside was still warm and there was the smell of the remnants of someone’s barbeque.
‘You okay?’ Sian asked as she tapped away at the laptop.
‘Yeah. Fine,’ Ruth said, still deep in thought. ‘I just hope this is a good thing for Ella. If Dan lets her down or hurts her, I will castrate him.’
Sian smirked over at her. ‘Which wouldn’t take long, from what you’ve told me.’
Ruth gave a snort of laughter as Sian wiggled her little finger to show the size of Dan’s manhood. ‘Yeah, I forgot I told you that.’
‘I’ve been looking at city breaks in the autumn for us,’ Sian said, gesturing to the laptop.
‘Great. Something to look forward to.’
‘What about Berlin? Third to the sixth of November?’ Sian suggested.
Ruth noticeably bristled. She couldn’t help it. Sarah, the love of Ruth’s life, had gone missing on the 5 November 2013; it would be six years this year. There was no reason for Sian to have that date etched on her mind. But rather than help take her mind off the anniversary, she knew it would ruin their time away.
Sian had already clocked the sudden change in Ruth’s face and body language.
‘That’s when Sarah went missing, isn’t it? Sorry ...’ Sian said quietly.
‘It’s all right. Not the best of weekends,’ Ruth said.
‘It’s fine. We’ll just go another weekend,’ Sian said, forcing a smile.
The tension in the room was palpable until Ruth’s phone vibrated with a message. It was an email from the chief forensic officer.
‘Oh no,’ Ruth muttered under breath as she read
the update.
Sian gave her a quizzical look. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘DNA test from the lab. The blood we found at the yard today belongs to Rosie Wright.’
‘Oh God, that’s horrible,’ Sian said.
‘I thought it probably did, but I just hoped I was wrong,’ Ruth explained.
‘What does that mean?’
‘There was a lot of blood. From what the chief forensic officer said, we could now be looking for a body.’
IT WAS APPROACHING eight o’clock and Nick and Amanda were standing together to one side of the church meeting room. There were around twenty-five other alcoholics chatting and laughing as they drank tea and ate biscuits.
‘I’m a bit nervous,’ Nick admitted as he finished his coffee.
‘Really? But you love the sound of your own voice,’ Amanda teased him.
He gave her a sarcastic smile, but as he looked into her big, dark brown eyes, he couldn’t believe how lucky he had been to have found her. Despite the mess of last Christmas, and the dark secret that they kept between them, he loved her so much that it frightened him sometimes. But there was another part of him that was utterly terrified of all the responsibility that would soon fall at his feet. He was having to act like a grown-up for once.
‘I’ll speak up so that Junior can hear,’ Nick said as he placed his hand gently on Amanda’s bump. She was six months pregnant.
‘If I sneak out, do you think they’ll notice?’ Nick said with a grin.
‘Go and enjoy your birthday,’ she said as she gave him a kiss. She was referring to his AA first birthday. He had been sober for a year – to the day – and he knew that was a miracle.
‘Maybe I’ll just go and get a biscuit,’ Nick said. He really was feeling nervous now.
Amanda gave him a playful shove towards the front of the room. ‘Just go and sit down, you nob.’
Walking up to his seat, Nick sat down next to Charlie, who was the group leader. Charlie, in his sixties, was a semi-retired architect who had over twenty years sobriety under his belt. Charlie was known as ‘Posh Charlie’ because of his public-school accent and fondness for natty suits.
Opening the meeting, Charlie welcomed everyone and thanked Nick for coming to do the main share. It was traditional for AA members to do their first main share on their one-year anniversary. It meant talking to the group about your life for about half an hour. People would touch on their childhood, talk about their first introduction to alcohol, how it progressed to alcoholism, how they got sober and how they continue to stay sober in recovery.
Charlie handed the meeting over to Nick, who took a moment as he looked out at everyone. The room was still and his mouth went dry.
‘Hi, my name’s Nick, and I’m a very grateful alcoholic.’
‘Hi, Nick,’ the room responded.
‘And I’m feeling a bit nervous about doing my share for the first time. But it’s a miracle that I’m sitting here because for a long time I couldn’t stay sober for a day, let alone a year.
‘As my sponsor said to me, “When you drink, your life will just keep getting worse. When you stop drinking, your life will get better and better.” And he was right.
‘As many of you know, I’ve been around the rooms for many years. I’ve done what I call the old “AA hokey cokey.” You know, “In, out, in, out, shake it all about.” The AA revolving door. I would come into the rooms completely broken, determined to stop drinking. Then after a few weeks, or even a few months, I’d think to myself, “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” I’d always been sober for a few months, so I would reckon I could have a drink and control it. “It will be different this time.” Two days later, I’d be drinking vodka for breakfast and thinking, “Oh bollocks, those bastards in AA were right. It is never going to be different.”
‘As an idea, it’s so simple. If I put alcohol into my system, I have no control over how much I drink and no amount of alcohol will ever be enough until I black out and then pass out. Then I wake up the next day, feel like I’m going to die and so I start again. It’s not a lifestyle choice. It’s not a matter of willpower. It’s an overwhelming, destructive addiction. And this place, these rooms, the friendship, support and love I have found in here, is the reason I am sober today.’
Nick could feel his voice go a little with emotion. He didn’t mind. No one would judge him here.
Amanda gave him a smile and a wink.
THE EVENING’S HEAT had kept the garage unbearably warm as Ruth wandered through the clutter. Ella and Sian had gone to bed half an hour before, and Ruth made her excuse of watching television for a bit longer.
She stepped in between boxes of books, DVDs and CDs that she still hadn’t unpacked since moving her stuff up from South London. An untouched toolbox rested on a nearby shelf. The only time she had ever used it was to get a screwdriver to try to remove a cork from a wine bottle. The lawn mower was the one thing in there that ever got used, and she could smell the warm grass from its collection box.
At the far end, over by the fuse box, Ruth had created a small work area for her own private investigation. She had made sure that the table, chair and the photos and maps on the wall were hidden from the garage doors. She didn’t want Sian to see it. And that made her feel guilty, but it helped Ruth deal with the events of 5 November 2013; a day that would be etched in her memory for ever. It was the day that Ruth’s partner, and the love of her life, Sarah Goddard, vanished into thin air. Sarah had left their home and boarded the 8.05 a.m. train from Crystal Palace to London Victoria. The CCTV footage showed her getting on the train, as she always did. But she never got off. They examined CCTV at London Victoria station millisecond by millisecond. Every frame of CCTV on the line between Crystal Palace was scoured. Every station scanned.
Sitting down at the rickety, wooden table, Ruth put down the cold bottle of beer she had just opened and wiped her cold fingers across the sweat on the back her neck. Glancing up at the wall, her eyes rested on a photo of Sarah. Glastonbury, June 2008. When Ruth took the photo, they had been watching Amy Winehouse singing ‘Back to Black’ on the Pyramid Stage. With a straw cowboy hat and boho seventies sunglasses, Sarah beamed her radiant smile with a cigarette in one hand and a pint of cider in the other. It had been a magical afternoon.
Pushing her teeth together, Ruth felt the pain come as it had done so many times before. And then tears, which she wiped away with the back her hand. It was so bloody unfair. What would she give for the door to open and Sarah be standing there? Anything. Everything. They had had such a beautiful life together, and not knowing what happened to her was unbearable. She simply disappeared off the face of the planet. She had not moved out. Not quit her job. Not met someone else. Not decided to cut ties with Ruth. Not had a terrible accident. No note, no clues, no contact with friends or relatives.
Two passengers remembered seeing her chatting to a man as commuters were squeezed together in compartments. She now knew that man could well be Jurgen Kessler.
Moving her eyes to the left of the wall, she looked at the CCTV image of Kessler. A German banker, he was tall, blonde, blue eyes behind fashionable glasses – archetypically Teutonic.
Next to the CCTV image, a news story from the Telegraph newspaper. Last year, police in Germany had linked Kessler to two murders in Berlin. He had disappeared but had been spotted entering the UK on a false passport in August. He then tried to get a job at Bournemouth University before his fake ID was spotted. Since then, Kessler had vanished again.
Ruth knew that the key to Sarah’s disappearance was Jurgen Kessler. And she was going to track him down, however long that took.
CHAPTER 4
Thirty-five hours
Ruth had arrived at Llancastell nick at the break of dawn and briefed Superintendent Jones and DCI Drake on the developments in the Rosie Wright case. Now that her disappearance was becoming national news, Jones and Drake were keen to show that North Wales Police were moving heaven and earth to find her. It was the typica
l kind of political bullshit she had come to expect from Jones. She had seen him cover his arse before.
Ruth had an old sergeant in the Met called Terry ‘Uncle’ Harrison who she worked with in Battersea CID in the days when Battersea was rough and moody and hadn’t been gentrified into South Chelsea. Harrison had a very dim view of senior management in the Metropolitan Police Force. He said he knew how to spot a candidate for the senior ranks early in someone’s police career. They would be the officer who was most likely to be tying their shoelaces when a fight broke out during an arrest, or who would have the bus timetable handy so they knew the exact minute to push you underneath one.
DCI Drake was different. He was a copper’s copper. Even after the Macpherson report labelled the police force as ‘institutionally racist’, Ruth knew that change had been slow. As a black officer, DCI Ashley Drake would have had to be smarter and work harder than his white colleagues to rise through the ranks. And in her book, that showed great integrity. Drake was essentially the antithesis to Jones.
Drake’s wife, Paula, had been battling breast cancer, and even though Drake never mentioned it, Ruth could see his pre-occupation. She made a mental note to ask him about how she was the next time they had a moment alone.
By the time Ruth had sat down to conduct the North Wales Police’s press conference, she was already aware that someone had leaked the discovery of the blood at the barn.
BBC Wales @ BBC Wales Breaking News
Sources claim that a significant amount of blood was discovered at Haddon Farm by forensic officers yesterday.
Ruth was fuming but had no reason to think it had come from Llancastell CID. It could have been any of the SOCOs or uniformed officers who had been at the farm yesterday afternoon. The leak could have even originated from the forensic lab. It wouldn’t be the first time. Either way, Ruth was angry that the discovery was trending on social media. It should have been information that they had control over.
However, Ruth had to admit that a social-media explosion often helped a case like this. Rosie’s face was all over the internet. A Twitter campaign of #FindRosie had gone viral with over a million likes and retweets. A Facebook page had been set up by school friends.
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