BEFORE I FOUND YOU a gripping mystery full of killer twists

by Daisy White

  “I wish I knew, because I’d guess Ella is with him, or she would have been down in the cellar with this one. There was a half pint of milk on the side in the kitchen, wasn’t there? And one of the other rooms off the hall looked like it had been used as a bedroom. There were two beds . . . Maybe the others have something upstairs.”

  “Why would he take Ella with him?” I sigh and sink down onto a small dusty red velvet sofa under the window.

  “She was Susie’s kid, wasn’t she? Maybe he had second thoughts about getting rid of her after he’d had a chance to think about his wife’s death. Trouble is, whatever Stocker’s thinking, the best thing for Appleton would be to have them all dead so there’s nobody left to tell tales about his involvement in the Stockers’ sick games.”

  “He must have seen them losing their grip over the years, perhaps even demanded more money off them that they couldn’t pay. But he must have worried that things would finally unravel. Do you think Susie really did take her own life? Oh God, do you think Appleton threatened her and was somehow involved?” I say, struck by the thought, remembering the telephone call that Trixie talked about. The one that upset Susie so much the night she died.

  “We might never find out. Lily didn’t say that there was another man that night, did she?”

  “No, I don’t think so, but she’s been kept down in that cellar for six months, so no wonder she couldn’t even speak. She may not even have known. It could have been anything to tip Susie over the edge, or it could just have been the fact she was dying and, like Trixie said, she wanted to end it on her terms.”

  “What now?” Kenny lights another cigarette, taking in the sad little room, and wandering over to pick up a few dusty china ornaments on a side shelf.

  “There must be something we’ve missed. Let’s find out if Lily has woken up yet.”

  “Come on then, Ruby Baker, put a bit of effort into it!” He hauls me up from the dusty sofa.

  We are just heading back across the black and white chequer-board tiles in the hallway when the doorbell rings. I freeze and grip Kenny’s arm and we stand, waiting, until someone raps urgently at the door.

  “Ruby, I know it’s you in there because I saw you at the window. Let me in!”

  “Trixie?” What the hell is she doing back here?

  I run across the hall and fling open the door. Trixie glances quickly around and then comes inside, looking at Kenny uncertainly and stopping dead at the sight of Beverly kneeling next to the sleeping child.

  “You found her!” The woman totters a bit on her spindly legs. As last time, she’s dressed in a short skirt and thin blouse, but at least this time she has added a cardigan to her insubstantial outfit. Her thin, bony face is pale, despite an uneven daub of rouge on each cheek. “That’s not Ella, though. I came to tell you I know where Stocker’s gone. Well, I know where I think he’s gone. Or have you found Ella here too?”

  “No, she isn’t here. How do you know?” Beverly is on her feet, speaking quickly. “Where are they?”

  Trixie flinches at her tone, but her mouth is set in an obstinate line. “You must be Beverly. You look just like . . . just like I thought you would,” she falters, momentarily confused, before she continues. “Anyway, when you said you wanted to know where John Stocker might go if he was on the run, I’d forgotten about this place. If I’m right Stocker will have gone down to a place near Peacehaven. There’s a ruined farmhouse off the road. He’s got some old sheds right on the cliff edge and there’s a little path down to a sort of hidden cove. He used it to get rid of any rubbish, if you know what I mean.” She pulls a disgusted face.

  “You mean bodies?” Kenny says.

  “Sometimes. Susie would go and watch, and she wanted me along too,” Trixie tells us, lighting a cigarette, “but I’m telling you that’s where he’ll be. Once he was going to have it rebuilt as some kind of country mansion, but he never got around to starting. You’ll have to look carefully, but it’s this side of Peacehaven, and there's a narrow track on the right-hand side. You can still see the old farm . . . Abbots Farm, I think. The sign is in the hedge and you can just about read it.” She studies Beverly again, her bright red-rimmed eyes lingering on the other woman’s face. I think she’s about to say something else, but she just makes a shooing gesture with her hands. “Go!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Mary needs to get back for Summer, and we need to get Lily up to hospital for a check-up, so we need to split up. Kenny, can we drive to your place and pick up your car?” I say, thinking quickly.

  “I’ll drive Mary to get Summer and drop her home. After that I’ll do the hospital, then I’ll go straight on and get Inspector Hammond. James, you come with me and look after the girl.” Johnnie is slamming doors and James is awkwardly manoeuvring the unconscious girl.

  “You’ll go to the police station?” I stare at him.

  “I didn’t say that, Ruby. I said I’d get Hammond. You and Kenny will get there first, so do what needs to be done and get Ella out of the way.” Johnnie waits while the six of us pile into his car.

  “I’m going with Ruby,” says Beverly firmly.

  As we pull out of the tree-lined road, James says, suddenly, urgently, “She’s waking up!”

  I bend over her soft, pale face. “Lily. Lily darling, it’s OK, you’re safe with us now. Do you remember when I found you on the beach?”

  The girl blinks drowsily, still half asleep.

  “Lily, your sister is in danger. We must find Ella. Can you tell us what happened to you?” I have to lean close to hear her whisper, and James shifts his arm so she’s nearer to my shoulder.

  “The policeman came to show us photographs. He came back and took us away and he said if we screamed he would kill us.” She shivers. “He had a gun.”

  “Good girl. What happened then?” I sway sideways as Johnnie makes a left turn, overtaking a van at speed. “It’s alright, we’re just in the car.”

  A long pause while her brow wrinkles into a frown and her eyelids droop. “He took us home, and the other man was there. They shouted at each other. I think . . . I think the policeman wanted him to kill us, but he wanted money first. While they were shouting Ella gave me some medicine and told me to hide in the chest. I didn’t want to because I was scared, but she made me.”

  “Do you know where Ella has gone?”

  Lily shakes her head sorrowfully. “No, but he must have taken her, mustn’t he?” Tears trickle down her pale cheeks and I find her hand and squeeze, while James cuddles her close.

  Johnnie screeches back into the centre of Brighton and Kenny, Beverly and I leap out at Kenny’s place.

  “Be careful, Ruby!” shouts Mary, then “Stay safe, sweetheart . . .” as Johnnie swings the car around and heads uphill, tooting the horn.

  The old beige car is sitting on the kerb, string from the door handles blowing merrily in the breeze. “How fast do you think we can get there?” I ask Ken, helping Beverly to yank open the doors.

  “Peacehaven isn’t far, but it does depend how hard it is to find this ruined farm place.” He turns the ignition key and the car rattles into life. Beverly and I cling to each other in the back seat as Kenny squeals the tyres and turns towards Peacehaven.

  The coast road changes from town to countryside pretty quickly and we judder past a few farms, watching the cliffs rise to our right and the fields turning lusher and greener. It’s early evening now, and the sun is lower over the sea. The vast flat expanse of water is never hidden from view for long. I shiver with a sudden sense of foreboding, watching the sunbeams dance blood red and gold over the waves.

  Beverly, frozen beside me, her curly hair blowing out in the wind, is gripping my hand so tightly my knuckles have gone white.

  “Look, I just saw a sign to Peacehaven off that lane. We must be getting close!” I shout to Kenny, gently releasing my hand from Beverly’s. My mouth is dry.

  He slows, and the car rattles along, annoying faster traffic behind us. Ken mak
es a rude gesture as a lorry and two cars overtake, leaving us alone on the road. We all scan the hedges to our right for a battered sign. The roadside verges are crowded with giant weeds, overgrown hedges dotted with wildflowers, and the odd rabbit leaping to safety. In the distance, a tractor is chugging slowly across a corn field, trailer loaded dangerously high. Even out here, out of sight of the waves, as we dip down and round a bend, I can smell the salt of the sea.

  “There!” Beverly shouts suddenly, making me jump. She points quickly and Kenny slows down to a crawl to make a right turn, bumping down a weed-infested track.

  The overgrown hedges almost meet above us, but there are other fresh tyre tracks slashing a way through the greenery, forcing a way ahead for us. Eventually we drive through a rusty metal gate, open and half hanging off its hinges. Kenny kills the engine and we freewheel slowly to a stop in front of a ruined farmhouse. The cobblestone walls of a cattle yard are decorated with the same tufted ferns as the driveway, and the house itself is nothing but three blackened walls and a tottering brick chimney.

  Several other outbuildings are in the same state of disrepair, but there is another track leading between a rickety cow barn and the cattle yard. The gate to this has a rusty padlock still intact and wheel marks indicate someone has gone through fairly recently.

  “Let’s go on foot,” I say, whispering even though I can’t see anyone in the house or yard.

  I can feel Beverly trembling beside me as we get out of the car, closing the doors gently and following Kenny to the gate.

  He gives it a shake, but the padlock is twined through thick rusty chains, and the gate stays shut. Shrugging at us, he starts to climb over the gate. Beverly and I follow, and we hurry along the grassy track in silence. It winds eastwards, descending swiftly, scarred with great sheer places of bare chalk, amidst the sheep-cropped turf. Eventually, peering cautiously around every blind corner, we round a bend, and the hedge that lines the track on both sides finishes in a straggle of weeds.

  Again there is evidence of broken vegetation and crushed chalky stones, as though a vehicle has come this way. Two large wooden and metal sheds stand between us and the cliff edge, and the track narrows abruptly to a single file pathway, dropping steeply between the rocks. The sound of waves breaking lazily on the shore and the screech of a couple of seagulls high overhead breaks the uncertain silence.

  “This must go to the cove Trixie told us about. Should we search those sheds first?” Beverly whispers, despite the rush of the sea covering any noise we might make, “Or go straight down there?”

  Kenny puts a gentle hand on my arm and points. Parked almost out of sight, right next to one of the buildings, is a white Ford Anglia. “That must be him, so let’s go up to the buildings. Remember, we aren’t the police, and if we are right and he does have some kind of strange attachment to Ella, we can try to play on that. Especially if we can offer a way out.”

  We walk carefully towards the vehicle, leaving our hedge cover and venturing out onto the short grass of the cliff top, but nobody challenges us.

  It’s a shabby car and parked at an angle, as though someone was in a hurry. Or the driver had trouble seeing properly, I think, remembering. Was it Will who said Stocker was losing his sight? Next to the driver’s door are a couple of empty beer bottles, lots of cigarette ends and a pile of crisp packets.

  The shed nearest to us isn’t locked, and I cautiously crack open the door. It smells of cows, tar, and petrol, but there is nothing there except piles of splintered wooden packing crates. Chains hanging from the wooden beams swing ominously in the sea breeze, and the metal roof is full of rusty holes. The second shed is locked with another rusty padlock and chain links which are the size of my arm.

  “Let’s go around the back and see if there is another way in,” suggests Kenny, leading the way between the buildings.

  We emerge blinking in the low sun, a few yards from the edge of the cliff. To our right the grassland slopes down to the little path we followed before. To our left a track winds to a grassy knoll up on the cliff. A rusty blue van stands parked a little way from the edge. The soft blue of the summer sky is fading to the rosy gold of evening, and the shadows are lengthening. We are near enough to see that a man and a girl are sitting in the van, side by side, and that smoke from a cigarette drifts away over the sea.

  “Ella,” gasps Beverly.

  Kenny shushes her, and I whisper that maybe we should try cutting back around the farm and approaching the van from the other side. Ella’s side.

  “We don’t know what he’s going to do. Let’s keep going. He must have seen us by now. We’ve been visible ever since we left the shelter of the shed,” Beverly says, grinding out the words, fighting back tears. She moves forward, almost shoving us away.

  “Beverly, wait!” I put a quick hand onto her arm, and she bites her lip hard, tears in her eyes.

  “I need to get to her!” she hisses.

  “No, Ruby’s right, we need to go with a plan. We should all walk up there, and just greet him normally. We need to see what state he’s in, and if Ella is tied up or anything. I can’t see from here, but she seems to be sitting quite normally in the passenger seat at the moment,” Kenny says softly.

  “Oh God, please let her be OK,” Beverly says, clinging to my arm.

  “Ready? Right, just walk slowly over to the van. Let’s get a bit closer to the edge of the cliff so we don’t startle him,” Ken orders, and we walk, with him in the middle and me nearest the rocky edge.

  It seems to take an age before we are close enough to them, and I swallow, my mouth dry and heart pounding. “Kenny, what if he’s got a gun?”

  “Bit late to worry about that now,” he murmurs. “Come on, a bit closer. They can see us, he’s just pretending not to.”

  “Maybe not. Remember, Trixie said his sight isn’t good,” I say quickly. I glance to my right, down into the cove with its shimmering waves and black shiny boulders. It isn’t a high cliff, perhaps just a few feet in places. The blue van sits on a grassy knoll, and beyond it I can pick out a stretch of shingle beach, protected by a semi-circle of chalky downland. Clumps of green bushes line the cliff edge, their branches twisted by the wind. In other circumstances it would be a peaceful place.

  A yard away from the van we halt, and wait. John Stocker is leaning back against his seat, smoking, his eyes closed. Ella is sitting bolt upright in her seat, staring at us.

  Kenny gestures to her to come to us, and she darts a terrified glance at the man beside her, but stays where she is. As we all start to move forward, closer to Ella, the man speaks. His voice husky, deep and painful.

  “What do you want?”

  Before Ken or I can say anything Beverly snaps, “I’ve come for my daughter. Ella, come here.”

  The man laughs, sitting up properly and sending his cigarette spinning out the open window of the van. The laugh is painful, and makes him cough up phlegm, which he spits after his cigarette butt. We are close enough to hear his rasping, heavy breathing, and see his wasted, yellowing face. The flesh has sunk deep into the hollows under his eyes and cheekbones, and dug pits around his collarbone. He grabs a half empty bottle of beer and takes a swig, which calms his coughing fit.

  “Beverly Collins. I never thought I’d meet you. You don’t look bad after Holloway. Better than most of those poor bitches, I expect.” This man who has caused so much misery and suffering can now hardly speak or breathe. He must have been a tall, wide-shouldered brute, but whatever illness he is suffering from is stripping that flesh away. His blue shirt hangs off his bony frame.

  “I’ve come for my daughter,” Beverly repeats, as Ella makes no move.

  The man jerks his head to look directly at us. His cloud of filthy grey hair sticks out against the dark blue of the evening sky and amongst the shadows, his face is a grotesque parody of death. “I told her the truth,” — he jabs a finger at Ella, who flinches away — “I told her it wasn’t my idea. I didn’t want to take her, but Susie
did. It was all she could think about after she lost the last baby. Then . . .” He takes a shuddering breath, coughing and gasping, before he can continue, “And then she saw the newspaper, with the picture of Beverly and Ella, and the caption telling everyone where they lived. Susie saw that she had a little girl. That cut her up. They had been living in the same town, and now she had a beautiful little girl.”

  “Mr Stocker, let Ella go. She needs her mother . . .” I say just as Beverly cuts in.

  “But why me? Why was Susie so interested in me?” Beverly’s voice is raw with emotion. “Why ruin my life and take my child, when she could have had anyone?”

  The man splutters with laughter and gives Ella a playful shove. He takes another swig from the bottle, before belching loudly. “Anyone. I like that. Yes, with me she could have asked for anyone’s kid, but it had to be yours. It had to be yours, Beverly, because she wanted to keep it in the family. Susie was your sister.”

  “What?” Beverly leans heavily on my shoulder and I steady her. Her face is pale, and she stares fixedly at the man.

  “After Susie lost all those babies, one of the doctors suggested it might be a hereditary problem — you know, passed down from her family. That was when she started to look into her family and found they weren’t hers at all!” He pauses for another coughing fit. “She found out her mother was a loony who had given her away. That didn’t please my Susie, of course. Then she found out about you. You didn’t get given away as a helpless baby, did you, love?”

  “It’s called adoption, and I don’t think her mother had a choice,” I tell him, scarcely able to believe his words. Could he be making this up? I glance at Ken who shakes his own head and gives a half shrug, clearly as bewildered as me.

  “My God, my own sister . . . Well, don’t expect me to feel sorry for her!” Beverly says, her voice edged with ice. “You stole my child and had me locked up. And for what? So that Susie could take some sort of twisted revenge on me?”