by Pryke, Helen
The Lost Girls
Maggie Turner Suspense Series book #1
Helen Pryke
Copyright © 2020 Helen Pryke
The right of Helen Pryke to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in
accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be
reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in
writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the
terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
978-1-913419-60-8
Contents
Other Books By Helen Pryke
Love crime, thriller and mystery books?
MARCH 2015
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
A note from the publisher
Love crime, thriller and mystery books?
You will also enjoy:
Other Books By Helen Pryke
Autumn Sky (a short story)
Historical Fiction
Walls of Silence
Children’s Books
(under the pen name Julia E. Clements)
Dreamland (also available as audiobook)
Unicorns, Mermaids, and Magical Tales
Adventure in Malasorte Castle
The Last of the Guardians (a short story)
For Kayleigh.
Thank you for everything.
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MARCH 2015
MARCH
He stepped back into the shadows with a curse. Light from her bedroom spilled out onto the garden, making the leaves on the trees and the blades of grass stand out in stark contrast to the darker background. A football lay near his feet, and he had an absurd urge to kick it hard against the back door, maybe hard enough to break the glass. He clenched his fists, resisting the impulse to make his presence known. She would get to know him soon enough.
Muffled shouts and the slamming of a door reached him, deadened by the glass. He smiled, taking comfort in the familiar. Every night it was the same: first the shouting match with her mother, then the music, blasting out at full volume. The disco beat throbbed through his head, and he winced. She would change her tastes, he’d make sure of that.
His heart quickened as she stepped over to the window and reached up to pull the curtains across. He could still see her shadow, flitting around the room as she danced off her anger. He imagined her there, tears pouring down her cheeks as she mentally raged against the unfairness of her life, her cruel parents who treated her like a slave. Yes, he’d chosen well this time. Thirteen years ago, he lost his sisters. Now he only had to bide his time, until the day they would be his once more.
1
The silence in the living room was unbearable. Maggie glanced at the two police officers standing before them, their tension palpable. They were almost part of the family now, having come to the house so often since her nephew, Thomas, disappeared without a trace a few weeks earlier. Her sister, Nicola, looked expectantly at them, her tear-stained face still red and swollen after the morning’s crying fit.
Liz Jenkins, the older officer, turned her head away as Richard knelt down and gently held his wife’s hand. Tears glistened in his eyes.
‘It’s him, Nic.’ His voice broke. ‘I’m so sorry, it’s Thomas.’
Nicola’s moan made Maggie’s blood run cold; a deep, guttural sound like nothing she’d ever heard before. Richard sat on the sofa next to her and put his arm around her, his own shoulders shaking as grief poured out of him. Maggie sat in her armchair, teeth clenched, her back rigid, numb to Richard’s words, unable to react with any emotion. That would come later, she knew.
She found it all surreal, as if she were watching the scene from a point high on the ceiling as it unravelled below. Richard, usually so calm and collected, ran his hand through his greying hair, leaving it standing in all directions as he tried to console his wife. Nicola’s face, twisted in grief, was alien to Maggie; her light-brown hair, cut in a cropped style, stuck close to her head, unwashed for some days, and her blue eyes had lost their vibrancy. Both seemed to have aged; deep wrinkles where before there had been none, their skin dry and lacklustre.
Liz spoke softly, her voice monotone as she explained what would happen next to Richard and Nicola, the words not reaching Maggie on the other side of the room.
‘Maggie?’ Sally Northwood, the other policewoman, looked down at her, concerned. ‘Can I get you a tea?’ She reached out to take her hand, but Maggie drew away, not wanting her comfort at this time. A hurt look crossed Sally’s face, then she became professional once more and took a step back.
‘I’d rather go outside for a cigarette,’ Maggie said, standing. Sally followed her along the hallway to the back door.
They stood outside on the patio, a cool breeze blowing around them. The late morning sun was warm on her skin, but Maggie felt cold inside. She took out a cigarette and held it between her lips, her hands trembling as she struck the match against the box. Leaning back, she shook it until the flame went out, and took a long draw on her cigarette.
‘Those things’ll kill you, you know.’
‘Bad timing, Sally.’ Maggie drew more nicotine into her lungs as the policewoman’s cheeks reddened at her faux pas.
‘Sorry.’ Sally looked down at her feet, silent now.
‘What happened?’ She didn’t really want to know, didn’t want to have to imagine her nephew’s last moments of life, but the journalist inside her refused to lie dormant.
‘Early this morning, a man walking his dog found a young boy’s body among the reeds by a river in Farlington Marshes. He phoned the station and we went down right away. From the p
hotos you gave us, we knew it could be Thomas, and called Richard in to identify him.’
‘He drowned?’ Maggie suddenly found it hard to breathe, as if she were the one under water. She’d taken Thomas to the marshes a couple of weeks before he disappeared and shown him what a beautiful place it was.
‘We don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy to confirm the cause of death. He was fully clothed but there was some bruising around his neck, so he may have been strangled. We should know more by this afternoon.’
‘Christ.’ Maggie threw the half-finished cigarette on the ground and buried her head in her hands. ‘I hoped… I mean, there was always the chance…’
‘We did too, Maggie.’
‘He was murdered?’
‘We think so. From the evidence so far… but we need to wait for the autopsy report…’ Sally’s voice trailed off.
‘How could this happen, here, in a place like this? Bedhampton is supposed to be safe, Nicola and I grew up here. It’s unthinkable…’ She stopped, a sob blocking her throat.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Sally put her arm around her shoulders, and this time Maggie let her. She leaned against the woman who had come to mean so much to her over the last few weeks and wept bitter tears of desperation. She thought of Nicola and Richard, supporting each other through their grief, and wondered how she would get through it, all alone. She was only the aunt, what did she matter? She mentally berated herself for being so selfish; she’d lost a nephew, whilst they had lost a son.
‘Why do you put up with me?’ she said out loud with a sniff. ‘I’m a pathetic, forty-one-year-old woman who only thinks of herself, with bits of me sagging that were pert up until a few years ago. Christ, I feel old.’
‘I’m only five years younger than you, and I was looking forward to us getting saggy together,’ Sally replied, stroking her hair. Maggie remained silent, her head whirling with thoughts.
They’d gone through too much in too short a time, and Maggie knew their relationship would never stand the blow of Thomas’s death. She would carry the resentment inside her for the rest of her life, unjustly blaming Sally for not finding him sooner, for not saving the boy who’d lit up those bleak days she’d felt so alone.
There had been an instant attraction between them, one they’d both fought hard to ignore. But as the days passed with no sign of Thomas, they’d turned to each other, first for comfort, and then for love. Maggie couldn’t understand what Sally saw in her; after years of working as an investigative reporter, the long hours and stress had taken their toll. Her dark, almost black hair had more than a few strands of grey, and there was a smattering of wrinkles around her hazel eyes. She felt old, in stark contrast with Sally, who always slathered rich cream into her skin every night to keep it as smooth as a twenty-year-old’s. Even though she was only five years younger, her light-brown hair didn’t have a single strand of grey in it, and her body definitely wasn’t sagging. For a while, Maggie hadn’t cared about the differences; for once in her life, she’d accepted that she was loved, pushing aside her self-doubt and loathing, and had given her all to their relationship. But now things had changed.
She’d thought Sally was the one, that she’d finally found her soulmate after so many years of looking, and she wanted to scream, to hit out against fate, which had given her so much only to cruelly take it away.
Everything seemed so hopeless now that her nephew was gone, and she knew her life would never be the same again. She’d seen it many times before in the faces of the people she’d interviewed; that hollow, haunted look as they searched the crowds for lost loved ones, focused only on one thing to the detriment of everything else in their lives. Broken marriages, discarded relationships, children emotionally abandoned… so many lives ruined when a loved one was murdered. She’d never really understood it before, but now she knew that she would have no more space in her life, or in her heart, for anyone, not anymore. Now, there was only bitter hate inside her, a small spring that would soon become a gushing torrent.
‘Sally, I…’ she began.
‘Don’t.’ Sally wiped a tear from her cheek, then bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘I understand. I’m here for you, whenever you feel… ready.’
Maggie sagged in her arms, her legs trembling too much to support her. She lowered herself to the ground and clasped her hands around her knees, unable to bear Sally’s sorrow as well as her own.
‘Maggie, it’s all raw right now, you can’t see past today. It’s completely normal, I’ve seen it so many times. You’ll feel differently, not tomorrow or next week, maybe not even next year, but there’ll come a time when you want to live again. And I’ll be here waiting for you.’
Sally’s words were meant to reassure her, Maggie realised, but all they did was stir up the anger she was trying to keep suppressed, until she could hold it in no longer. ‘You find the bastard who did it. Promise me you’ll find him,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘I promise we’ll do everything we can.’ Sally crouched down next to her and took her hand, clasping it between her own.
Maggie ignored her, her fury making her numb to everything else. ‘Make sure you do. Because if you don’t, I will… and if I find him, the only place he’s going is the cemetery.’
2
The Southern Recorder
3 June 2015
Thirteen-year-old Jane Simmons has been missing since yesterday afternoon after failing to return to her home in Cosham after school. Police are searching for a blue Mercedes seen in the area near her home around the time of her disappearance and are appealing to the driver to come forward. During an interview, Jane’s distraught mother, Anne, begged anyone who might have seen something to contact the police, no matter how insignificant it may seem.
Jane cringed as she heard her mother’s voice in the hallway. Was she back already? She sighed and turned to Chloe, her younger sister.
‘Eat up, and don’t tell Mum I burned the toast,’ she hissed.
Chloe looked back at her with wide, innocent eyes. ‘Why not? She’ll be able to smell it anyway.’
‘Damn!’ Jane ran across the kitchen and flung open the back door, hoping the acrid smell would disappear before her mum…
‘Hi, girls, I’m home.’ Her mother breezed into the kitchen and dumped her handbag on the counter. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Jane burned the toast,’ Chloe declared.
‘Oh, Jane. Try and be more careful in future. You could start a fire.’
Jane picked up the plates and cups and put them in the sink, ready to wash up. It wasn’t fair, she was only thirteen but had been running around after her twelve-year-old sister for years, as if she was some sort of princess. Even when Jane was little, she’d got her own tea. Her mum seemed to think Chloe was too good for such menial tasks. Probably, it was because perfect little Chloe had sleek dark-brown hair their mother could plait and style to her heart’s content, while Jane’s own mop of tight black curls defied the toughest brush. Add to that her sister’s brown eyes, cute nose, and a smattering of freckles over her cheeks, and Jane didn’t stand a chance. People tended to think she was ill, her skin was so pale, and her nose looked like it had been sat on and squashed. As for her eyes, their watery pale-blue colour completed her ugly sister look.
She squeezed washing-up liquid over the crockery, using more force than was necessary, and turned the tap on, hoping the water would cover the sound of her mum talking to Chloe about her day at school. She tuned out Chloe’s annoying chatter and concentrated on getting the washing-up done, ignoring the two of them sitting together at the table.
‘I’ve got homework to do,’ she said a little while later, drying her hands.
‘Okay. Dad will be home soon, then we’re off out for a couple of hours. You’ll look after Chloe, won’t you?’ her mum said.
‘Do I have any choice?’ Jane muttered.
‘No, you don’t.’ Her mum’s face hardened. ‘And less of your backchat,
young lady. You’re the oldest, so you get more responsibility.’
‘God, it’s so unfair, she’s only a year younger than me. You’re always on Chloe’s side!’ Jane stormed upstairs, anger surging through her body. Always Chloe this and Chloe that, never a thought for what she might be going through. ‘And keep the brat downstairs, or I’ll never get my homework done,’ she yelled down to her mother.
‘Don’t talk about your sister like that,’ her mother shouted back.
‘Aargh!’ Jane stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her, the echoing bang almost satisfying her need to vent. She pressed play on her MP3 and felt the rage slowly dissipate as the rhythmic beat began pulsing around the room. Her body swayed in time with the music as she closed the curtains and took out her schoolbooks. She threw herself down on her bed, her mood dark.