by Louise Voss
‘Mrs Hardy-Wilson?’ He spoke to her over the gate.
She turned and pushed her sunglasses onto her head. ‘Just Hardy. My daughter’s the only Hardy-Wilson. Yes?’
A flash of his badge. ‘DI Patrick Lennon. It’s your daughter I’m after, actually.’
She dropped the shears into a flowerbed and came closer, waving away a bee that zig-zagged across her path.
‘Georgia? She’s not here … Has something happened?’
Patrick pushed open the gate and went into the garden, finding a patch of shade beneath an apple tree. ‘I need to talk to her. Nothing to worry about. Do you know where she might be, Mrs Hardy?’
The woman scrutinized him, looking him up and down in a manner that made him wonder if he’d forgotten to put his clothes on that morning, then smiled. ‘Call me April, please. Georgia went out for a run – crazy, in this heat.’
‘Would you be able to call her for me?’
‘I suppose so.’
She led him inside the house, where a golden Labrador lay panting on the stone floor of the kitchen.
‘Lemonade? I made it this morning. Excellent with Pimms but I suppose you’re on duty.’ Her quietly wicked smile made him warm to her immediately. He could picture her when she was younger – the naughty public schoolgirl, secretly sneaking a fag in the school grounds. From what he knew of Georgia, she had probably inherited her rule-breaking side from her mum.
Without waiting for a reply, April poured him a glass – it was sharp and sugary – then fished her phone out of the pocket of a pair of shorts that showed off a great pair of legs.
‘Let’s see.’ She pressed the screen and held the phone to her ear.
‘Hmm. Straight to voicemail. I’ll text her. She usually answers straight away, unless she’s with a boy.’
‘Does Georgia have a boyfriend?’
She sent the text and laid the phone on the marble kitchen surface. ‘Oh no. Georgia’s attention span isn’t long enough for her to have a boyfriend. She’s more like a butterfly, flitting about, taking what she needs.’ She laughed and fluttered her hands in imitation of the insect.
‘Do you let Georgia have a lot of freedom, then?’
April took a step closer. ‘She’s sixteen, detective. She needs her freedom to be able to find out who she really is. We’ve always encouraged that. Although we’ve had to curb her spending recently, make her take responsibility for her own money. She’ll get access to her trust when she’s twenty-one. We’re very strict about that.’
‘Have you got any reason to think Georgia has been in need of money recently?’
April leaned against the worktop and smiled with one corner of her mouth. ‘Am I being interviewed? This hasn’t happened to me since the late seventies when I was arrested for smoking a joint.’
‘I’m not interviewing you, April. Just making conversation.’
Her wicked expression returned. ‘Shame. There’s a very naughty cop in my new novel.’
‘You’re a writer?’
‘Yes. Well, I guess there’s no reason why you’d have heard of me.’ She gestured towards a framed poster on the wall. Enslaved, by April Hardy. ‘That’s my new one. I used to write what were called bonkbusters but now it’s all about erotica.’
Patrick blinked. ‘Has Georgia replied to your text yet?’
She checked her phone, her brow creasing a tiny amount. ‘No. Hmm, she has been a long time.’
‘You didn’t answer my question about money,’ Patrick said, sipping his lemonade.
April thought about it. ‘She always wants money for something or other. I know she wants us to get her some swanky car when she passes her test. But she hasn’t been begging us for cash any more than usual.’
‘Do you know Alice Philips and Larry Gould?’
Her face lit up. ‘Yes. Of course. Alice is Georgia’s best friend and Larry is her adorably chavvy boyfriend.’
‘Has Georgia said anything to you about them recently?’
‘No. Well, there’s that dreadful business with Alice’s little sister, but Georgia doesn’t like talking about that, says it upsets her too much.’
‘We really need to talk to Georgia, April.’ He put his empty glass down. ‘It’s serious. It’s connected to Frankie’s disappearance.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Georgia was at Alice’s house the night Frankie disappeared.’
‘Oh. I see. And you want to ask her if she saw anything. Well, I’m sure she would have said something to me if she had.’
‘I still need to talk to her.’ He was itching to tell her about the video that her liberated daughter was responsible for making. Would she be shocked? Was it prudish and old-fashioned of him to be shocked by it? Online porn, celebrity sex tapes and viral videos depicting acts that Patrick didn’t even want to imagine were, to Georgia’s generation, as commonplace and ordinary as reality TV and wi-fi. He guessed April would be relaxed about it too – as long as it wasn’t her daughter actually starring in it.
‘I’m not sure how I can help you further, detective.’
‘Can you try calling her again?’
‘Yes. You know, I’d lost track of time but she’s been gone for hours.’ She picked up her phone. ‘It’s still going straight to voicemail.’
‘As if it’s switched off?’
‘Yes. It’s unusual, to be honest. The phone is like an extension of her. She normally replies to texts within seconds.’ She crossed to the window. ‘I hope she hasn’t collapsed in this heat. Maybe she’s gone to the flat.’
Alice had told Patrick that the porn video had been filmed at Georgia’s parents’ flat.
‘It’s on her usual route,’ April said, ‘and she’s got a key. I’m worrying now.’ She chewed her lip. ‘Maybe I’ll nip down to the flat to take a look.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
Patrick followed April in her top-of-the-range Discovery, thinking about his interview with Alice as he drove. In the final minutes, after she had told them about Georgia, another mystery had been solved: the mystery of why she had been unconscious on the sofa when Helen and Sean got home that night.
‘We ate hash brownies and I got totally paranoid about the video – as soon as it went live I got convinced everyone was going to find out that it was us and that we were going to get in loads of shit. So I took a sleeping pill. Helen has some in her bedside drawer and I nicked one. I’ve never had one before. I didn’t realize it would knock me out that much. I was well out of it.’
He followed April for ten minutes before she pulled up outside a large converted Victorian house and got out.
‘I haven’t been here for ages,’ she said. ‘Our tenants moved out about six months ago and we can’t decide whether to get new ones or sell it. Tenants are such a hassle. But, anyway, I know Georgia comes here sometimes to chill out.’
Not just that, Patrick thought.
She fiddled with the keys for ages before finally opening the door. It was cool inside the hallway. April stooped to pick up the mail, tossing it onto the side before leading Patrick up the stairs to the first floor, where she spent another age unlocking the door of the flat.
So this, according to Alice, was where the teenagers had made their dirty movie. They went into the living room, April’s sandals clicking lightly on the wooden floor as she walked across the room, calling Georgia’s name.
‘She’s not here. No sign she’s been here either.’
She took her phone out and tried to phone her daughter again. She looked properly anxious now.
But Patrick’s attention had been seized by something lying on the coffee table. He crouched and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. A small teddy bear, the kind you would give to a newborn baby. Bonnie had one similar, except hers was a pink rabbit, much-cuddled, always filthy.
Helen Philips had described this teddy to him. He’d seen it in a photograph.
Frankie’s Red Ted.
‘What’s that?’ April aske
d.
His heart was thumping now. ‘April, I really need to talk to your daughter.’
His phone rang. It was Carmella. ‘Sir, that girl you went to talk to, Georgia Hardy-Wilson …’
As he listened to Carmella, he couldn’t meet April’s eye. These were the moments he lived for and dreaded as a policeman. The breakthrough, the sudden parting of the clouds. But these clouds had parted to reveal a hot, vicious sun.
‘April,’ he said, after Carmella had hung up. She was staring at him fearfully. ‘You might want to sit down for a moment. It’s about Georgia.’
Chapter 38
Georgia – Day 6
Georgia let herself out of her house, her Nike sun visor keeping both the evening sun and her long ponytail out of her eyes. Her earphones were plugged firmly into her ears, and Bruno Mars was being delivered right into her brain via her iPhone. She set off at a slow jog towards the park, almost immediately feeling short of breath – it was the first time she had been out running for days now. But she was feeling so guilty about the amount of stress-induced Cokes and sweets she’d been shovelling into herself recently that she was forcing herself to try and jog some of it off.
Yesterday she hadn’t eaten all day, and had been so starving by the evening that she had consumed a Big Mac and large fries followed by a Chinese takeaway and half a tub of Häagen-Dazs with her folks two hours later when she got home. And her nails were bitten to the quick. Her life may be going down the toilet, she thought, but she was determined not to let her arse get huge on top of everything else. She needed to be in control of something.
She ran through the main gate of the park, already feeling slightly better. It was a beautiful evening, cooling down after a hot day, a welcome breeze on her face. Deer lay in indolent groups under the trees, and the sweet scent of cut grass filled her nostrils. She took the path around the edge of the park to avoid the deer, which scared her – you were always hearing stories about how furious stags chased people round and round trees, sometimes for hours, sometimes killing them. A big kid on one of those small bikes rode past her and she veered to the side of the path to avoid him. But he suddenly slewed his bike sideways and blocked her path.
‘What the fuck?’ she said, yanking one of her earbuds out so that Bruno was in mono. The kid was her age, but she didn’t recognize him. He was a right little chav – low-slung jeans, too-large baseball cap, big diamond stud in his ear. He and Jerome obviously had the same fashion advisor, she thought with a shudder. She ran around him, but he got back on his bike, pedalled after her and did the same thing. This time, he walked up close to her.
‘You have to come with me,’ he said.
A worm of fear crept into Georgia’s belly. ‘What do you mean? I don’t have to do anything you tell me to.’ She was aware that she was using her poshest voice. She sounded like her mum hectoring the traffic warden who put a ticket on the windscreen of the Discovery when she’d only stopped for five minutes to go to the Post Office.
‘Yeah right. You won’t be saying that when Jerome has finished with you.’
Georgia swallowed hard. ‘Have you been following me?’
The boy sniffed. ‘Only enough to find out where you live, in that big fancy house. So, come on, you need to follow me. Jerome wants to talk to you. He’s over there in the car.’
He gestured towards the car park, a couple of hundred metres away through the trees. Georgia thought she was going to vomit. She looked desperately around her – the gate she’d come in was just visible, but there was no-one around, and even if she sprinted, this horrible boy would be able to catch up with her easily on his stupid bike. And he knew where she lived! She fingered the iPhone in the side pocket of her jogging bottoms – but who could she call? If she dialled 999 she’d be dropping herself right in it too. She could just hear the conversation: ‘Right, miss, so you’re saying you need rescuing from the man to whom you owe four thousand pounds for losing the drugs you were supposed to be selling for him? I see.’
‘What does he want?’ she heard herself saying. As if she didn’t know.
The boy shrugged. ‘Dunno. But he ain’t happy. Come on. You run that way. I’ll follow.’
She had no choice. He got back on his bike and jerked his head impatiently for her to lead the way.
Fuck. I’m so dead, she thought, and tears filled her eyes. Would Jerome really kill her? Of course not. She was just being a drama queen, like her mum was always telling her she was.
If I get out of this, she thought, I’ll be such a good girl. I’ll never touch weed again, let alone agree to sell it. I’ll study really really hard. Please let me get out of this.
In a way, it was almost a relief to know she was going to meet her fate. The past few days had been unbearably stressful, jumping at every knock at the door and face in the street. Things are never as bad as you think they’re going to be, she chanted in her head, a mantra her dad always used.
But it didn’t feel that they could get much worse.
In minutes they were at the car park, a large open space near an artificial lake. Georgia was relieved to see that although it was far from full, there were still plenty of cars parked and – oh thank God – a few people walking dogs in the distance. If she screamed loudly enough they would hear her.
Jerome’s car wasn’t what she’d expected. It was a battered and rusty plum-coloured Honda that looked like someone’s nan’s car. If she hadn’t been so terrified she would have smiled. Jerome was sitting in the driver’s seat glaring at her, and the expression on his face was enough to make Georgia wee herself, just a little bit. She turned to the boy on the bike and said quietly, ‘He’s not going to hurt me, is he?’
The boy grinned, made a gun shape with his fingers, pointing them at her and mouthing ‘Pop pop,’ then cycled off. Georgia watched him go with a pang of almost regret. She was on her own.
Jerome wound down the window – the car was too old for electric windows.
‘Get in, sugar-tits,’ he said, flinty-eyed, gesturing to the passenger seat.
Georgia opened the door, glancing down at her pale peach short tracksuit bottoms to check that the bit of wee wasn’t visible on the crotch. Could dogs smell human pee? ‘Your dog won’t attack me, will it?’
‘She. You don’t call RiRi it.’
‘Sorry. Will she?’
Jerome shrugged and turned round to address the dog, which sat malevolently on the back seat. ‘Not unless I tell her to.’
She slid hesitantly into the car, closed the door and sat with her back pressed against it, shrinking as far away from Jerome and the dog – softly growling – as she could. The car’s interior stank of weed, wet dog, cigarettes and Jerome’s cloying aftershave. She wondered what songs her family would play at her funeral. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road would be a good one. Her mum used to sing it to her when she was a baby.
‘I’m really sorry, Jerome, but I promise I’m going to pay you back. It won’t take long, I had a bit of a hold up because my parents won’t let me get my savings out of the bank, but right, seriously, I know how to get my hands on a ton of money. I might need your help, but if you help me, we could split it, so you’d actually end up with, like, twenty times more than I owe you …’
Jerome raised one artfully shaved eyebrow. ‘This better be good, bitch, ’cos I am well running out of patience here.’
Georgia took a deep breath – which she immediately regretted, because of the smell. ‘I’m just gonna wind down the window, OK Jerome? I’m feeling a bit faint.’
The fresh air calmed her slightly. She had a moment of doubt – was she crazy, admitting to Jerome what she’d done? But she had no choice. Best just to come out with it.
‘I kidnapped Alice’s sister, for the reward, so I could pay you back,’ she said in a rush to the air-freshener swinging from the rear view mirror.
Jerome sucked his teeth and laughed. ‘No way! You’re gonna have to come up with something better than that. Crazy bitch.’
&nbs
p; ‘I did. I swear.’
He scowled. ‘So where’s the reward then? And where’s the kid?’
‘There was a problem.’ She told him what had happened after she’d left Alice’s house with Frankie.
Jerome listened, as Georgia spoke in a silence broken only by the sound of RiRi licking herself enthusiastically. ‘So it ain’t that insane doctor guy and his mental missus, the ones who took the other two kids, then she topped herself?’
Georgia shook her head. ‘No. But I still know how we can get the money.’
She explained. Jerome nodded slowly. The cogs were almost audibly whirring behind his eyes.
‘Can I go now?’ she asked timidly, after some time.
Jerome was lost in thought,
‘Text me that photo before you go.’
She whipped out her iPhone and immediately obliged. Jerome scrutinized the photo on his Galaxy.
‘You better not be shitting me,’ he said suspiciously. ‘If I find out this is just some random photo, you’re a dead girl. You know that, right?’
Georgia nodded vigorously. Something about the expression on his face made her involuntarily release more urine, and she cringed. She’d left a wet mark on Jerome’s seat. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.
‘You got yourself a reprise. Temporary, anyway. A week, tops. And if I don’t get that four grand in a week, the interest’s up to fifty per cent. Understood?’
Once Jerome had driven off, Georgia’s legs refused to hold her any longer. She sank onto the sandy gravel of the car park, the wet patch on her crotch liquid fear. She had no idea if she’d just taken steps to get her out of the shit, or dropped herself further into it.
She put her head into her hands and howled like a baby. Just like Frankie had, the night she had taken her. She cried so long that she didn’t notice that all the other cars had gone, and the deer had vanished into the dusky long grass to sleep for the night.