“Yes, that’s right. I made an appointment.”
The silence that followed grew so long that it became agonizing. Graham glanced at Roach, who was hopping nervously from foot to foot. In the café, Roach had suggested that he might simply reveal himself to be her old classmate, but Graham had scotched that idea, too. His objection wasn’t specific. They just couldn’t predict even slightly how she might react to being identified after so long. Instead, Graham had pretended to be a potential client. Bettina had advertised herself as an aromatherapist and reiki healer.
Graham reached for the intercom button again. Then, “Come in.” Buzz.
Graham made a sudden decision, “Constable, I’m going in alone. If you hear nothing from me in thirty minutes, ring the doorbell. If no one answers, call the local police. It’s 114 on your phone. Then call Harding. Got it?”
“Got it,” Roach replied. He watched his boss enter the building and walk up the first flight of stairs and around a corner.
The place needed a lick of paint, but Graham had been inside the bolt-holes of runaway teenagers and other dislocated types plenty of times, and they’d been far worse than this. The apartment block had a neglected, slightly foreboding feel. He didn’t pass a soul.
Short hallways branched off each landing, leading to groups of four apartments on each side. A black cat glared at him as he rounded the corner onto the third-floor landing. The cat shot down the hallway as if to warn someone. Graham shivered and wished once more that it had been possible to bring some kind of weapon, even a can of pepper spray. He also wondered how anyone could run much of a business from a place such as this.
There it was, apartment 452. He knocked softly and waited.
The door opened, its chain still in place. “I’m sorry, I thought the appointment was for later. I’m not quite ready.” she said through the gap. Bettina was a tall, attractive woman. Graham guessed she was in her mid-twenties. The right age. Ocean blue eyes. Her hair, though, was an audacious experiment, a kaleidoscope of purple-blue-green-red that formed a psychedelic spiral around her face.
“I can come in and wait.” Graham had wondered whether a casual or a formal tone would sound better, and ended up lapsing into his usual, deferential politeness.
“Alright,” she said resignedly, and the chain slid back. “But, like I said, nothing’s ready.”
“That’s really not a problem.”
The apartment was neat, airy, and well-kept. Plants adorned every shelf in the kitchen, where there were dozens of cookbooks and a surrealist sculpture of the Eiffel tower, swollen and deranged but oddly transfixing. Off the kitchen was a bedroom, its door mostly closed. Opposite the small kitchen island sat a thoroughly beaten-up leather sofa and some bean bags. If he didn’t know better, he’d have taken it for a shared student apartment.
“Sit here for a moment while I set up my therapy room.” The woman looked over toward another door, completely closed this time, to the right of the bedroom.
“Erm, no, please,” Graham demurred, “Could we just talk for a moment?”
“I’ll just—“
“No, really.”
She looked at Graham quizzically, considering him, then walked to a tall barstool at the kitchen island and gestured for him to sit on a second one. She reached for a half-consumed joint that lay in a thick, glass ashtray.
“So?” she asked, “What do you want to talk to me about?” She lit up and now regarded Graham with a genuine curiosity. He didn’t look like a regular customer. He was too straight-laced, too “establishment.” If anything came across in those first moments with this tall British visitor, it was loneliness. “You know, most of the people who come here are pregnant women and their boyfriends,” she said.
“They are?” Graham asked, wondering how he was going to begin.
“Yeah, you know. People who are looking for a different way to relax. I use aromatherapy and the power of touch, sometimes crystals, to restore balance and sweep away stress in the body.”
Graham smiled slightly. “We could all use a little of that, I suppose.”
“Were you looking for something in particular?” she asked. Her deep, blue eyes were pleasant and welcoming, the kind he normally associated with peace-loving hippies and mind-blown festival-goers. There was nothing in them that spoke of trauma or loss. He cringed inwardly at the thought that he might still, after all of this, be speaking to entirely the wrong woman.
“I’ve actually just come from Jersey,” he began.
Bettina puffed out a cloud of smoke. “Oh, yeah?”
Graham watched for any signs of recognition, but she was either hiding her reaction or had never given the Bailiwick any thought. He plowed on.
“I’ve been there for a few months, and recently I was asked to investigate something that happened there a few years ago.”
Now she paused. He was certain he saw it. A little hiatus in the way she lifted the joint to her lips. “Investigate?” she asked.
“Yes, there was an anniversary, recently,” Graham explained, “of the day a local girl went missing. A schoolgirl, only fifteen years old.”
Bettina took another puff but said nothing. Her eyes left Graham and roamed the room. She had begun to look just a little on edge.
“No one had any idea what happened to her,” Graham continued. “Her mother has been searching, all these years,” he added, very aware of the risk in bringing Ann up so early in this complex interview and choosing not to use her name. “And other people too, her friends and family, everyone’s just desperate to know what happened to her.”
The woman stubbed out the joint carefully. “And have you found out?” she asked as she watched the smoke rise in a final grey curl.
“I think I’m beginning to understand what happened, yes,” Graham said. “But I was wondering if you might be able to help me.”
She was breathing faster now.
“Help you?” she asked. “In what way? How has any of that to do with me?”
Graham took a breath. He was too far in to back out now.
“Because I believe you to be Elizabeth Ridley, formerly of Gorey, Jersey who disappeared on Monday November 7th, 2005.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SHE LOOKED AT him squarely. “Don’t be ridiculous. I am Bettina Nisted. I grew up in Aarhus. I moved to Copenhagen three years ago.”
“I don’t believe that’s true,” Graham replied. She was cool, he’d give her that.
“Of course, it is.”
Graham raised an eyebrow but said nothing for a moment.
“Miss Nisted, facial recognition software and age progression imaging techniques, as well as testing on various biometrics such as fingerprints, your ears, or the irises of your eyes, will prove beyond a doubt whether you are Beth or Bettina,” Graham said, his gaze level, watching her reactions closely. “But they are expensive techniques, and they take time. Besides, I suspect your mother would know you at a glance. It would be better if you’d simply tell me the truth.” He paused, but seeing no reaction from the woman in front of him, he continued, “Perhaps you can tell me why you came here.”
She stood suddenly, the stool skidding away from under her with a metallic shriek. “Came here?” she said loudly. “You think I chose to come here of my own free will?”
Graham was caught in a whirlwind of emotion, but as the furious woman stood there before him, red-faced now with anger, the sensation he felt most keenly was one of the very sweetest relief.
He stood then, both palms face down as he sought to calm her, “Beth, I know you didn’t choose to come here.”
“Don’t call me that,” she spat.
“I’m sorry. Bettina. I’ve been investigating what happened to you.”
“You shouldn’t have come here.” She reached into her pocket for her phone. “You’re going to get me into trouble.”
“Andrew Lyon is at my police station in a holding cell,” he said.
Everything stopped. Her hands were st
ill. She couldn’t take her eyes off Graham now. “A cell?” she asked. She was silent for a moment, and Graham wondered if she was picturing the scene. “You’re the police?”
Graham brought out his wallet and showed her his ID. “Detective Inspector David Graham of the Gorey Constabulary,” he said.
“Gorey,” she said, as if finding the word in her mind for the first time in many years. “You’re from Gorey?”
“I head the local police unit there,” Graham explained.
“And… You’ve arrested him? Cat?”
“Yes,” Graham confirmed. “We have him, and we’re not going to let him go. We just didn’t understand what had happened to you and… well, with no evidence, we feared the very worst.”
Her expression changed yet again. “Well, I’m alive. But nobody can know I’m here,” she said resolutely. “You mustn’t tell anyone.” The final words came out in a hiss.
Graham held up his hands. “Absolutely. It’s your right, and I’ll abide by whatever you say.”
She stared for a moment assessing him, then sat back down, and took a deep breath. “Does my mother know?”
“No,” Graham said quickly. “You can tell her if you want to. But she doesn’t know we’re here or even that we’re following a lead that you might still be alive.”
The young woman pursed her lips and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Graham felt as though he were treading on deep wounds that were covered with shards of glass, any slight misstep threatening to not only re-open old injuries, but also to cut them deeper. “Your mother gave us access to your old journal. She thought it might be helpful.”
“My journal?” she said, as though she hadn’t thought about it in years.
“Beth, we’ve been carrying out two investigations. One was into Andrew Lyon’s past and his use of the Internet. He’s in a lot of trouble.”
This time, she didn’t react to his use of her name.
“He should die for what he did to Susan,” she said simply. She saw Graham’s look of surprise.
“Oh, she thought I didn’t know, but I did. You should help him hang himself or something.”
Graham moved swiftly on. “And then, I’m afraid, we’ve had to take a closer look at the charity your mother has been running.”
“I saw something about it. All those investigators and researchers. I was afraid they might find me.” She paused. “She’s been stealing, hasn’t she?”
He blinked for a second before telling her, “Yes, it looks very much as though she has.”
“Typical.”
“How so?” Graham asked.
Beth snorted derisively. “Because she’s a liar and a cheat, and she never thinks about anyone except herself. I knew that Gorey, my mother, and Lyon weren’t going to just vanish. But I wish they would.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BETH STARED OUT of the window. The view beyond was horizontally dissected by the faux wood blinds. “I did hope Lyon might die before I ever heard his name again,” she said.
She didn’t sound malicious. It was more as though she were convinced that the universe, in its own sweet time, would discover and punish Andrew Lyon for all he had done.
“An investigation is ongoing,” Graham told her, “but try as we might, Lyon hasn’t been persuaded to tell us anything about you. Or about his relationship with Susan Miller.”
There was another dismissive, unimpressed snort. “Relationship? Oh, please. It wasn’t roses and candles, you know. He didn’t wine and dine her. He groomed her, made her trust him. I guess she told you the rest.”
“Yes, but she won’t testify against him,” Graham pointed out.
“I’m not surprised. The media, everyone in Gorey, the whole of Jersey would be all over her, and it’s the last thing she deserves.
“I need to ask you something, but please take your time,” Graham began.
“How did I come to be in Denmark?”
“Yes.”
Graham brought out his notebook, his mind filled with equal measures of curiosity and dread.
“One minute, I was on my way to school, trying to decide if I had time to drop my doll off for repair. The next, I was blindfolded and in the back of a van being driven somewhere.”
Graham’s gut knotted. “What then?”
“A day or so later, I’m not sure, the door opened, and I was pulled out into a muddy field. There was a conversation in a language I didn’t understand, and then I was shoved in another car and driven to a house in the countryside. Training, they called it, at first. Then “work.” she said simply. “Lots of threats, lots of men, lots of foreign languages. They never hit me, but they used drugs and coercion, and they told me lie after lie. I didn’t know which way was up.”
She sighed.
“I can’t remember a lot of it. Blocked it, I suppose. I prefer to focus on my future.”
Graham leaned forward, his elbow leaning on the island, his hands clasped. “I appreciate you telling me this,” he said quietly.
“Oh, I’ve been through it all before,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Graham blinked.
“With the Danish police. Seven years ago, now. I told them everything, right down to the names I heard, the addresses I thought I’d been taken to, everything.”
Graham could barely believe what he was hearing. “But they never contacted the British authorities,” he said. “There wasn’t a word about you.”
“Good! I made them promise not to.”
“But why?” Graham asked. It came out as a desperate plea. “Why would you want to stay here and not go home to your family and friends? Or even let them know you’re alive?”
She made him wait for an answer, looking out of the window again. “They’ve got this special unit, for informants or witnesses, whatever you’d call me, and they cut me a deal.”
“A deal?” Graham asked. The very thought that Beth had been free but unwilling to let her family and friends know, bothered him intensely. Not every daughter gets the chance to come back and make her parents’ lives whole again.
“I asked for a passport, a new identity, the lease on this place,” she said, glancing at the kitchen, “and some money.”
“And in return?” Graham asked.
“I helped them take down a bunch of sickos. They’re all in jail now,” she said, simply.
“A trafficking ring.” Graham said gravely. “You took a huge risk, testifying against them.”
“I guess. But it was a good deal, and I knew I had to take it. There’s no way I could go home, not after all this.”
“But why not? Gorey is full of people who love and miss you.”
She shook her head. “They did. But what would they say to me now? What looks would I get in the street? What would they mutter to each other down at the pub?”
Graham said nothing. He wanted to think the best of the community, but he had to concede that Beth would have had the most difficult time. The story of her abduction would follow her everywhere, through college, and into job interviews and the workplace.
“It would have taken time, but they’d have got over it,” he said. But in his heart, he knew how ambitious that was.
“No, no they wouldn’t. They are small town people. I would have had years of strange encounters with old friends, people who could barely look me in the eye. There would be rumors. Terrible, awful, lurid rumors. And then I’d have left anyway and started somewhere new. At least I know that I like it here. The people are kind. It’s cold and dark in the winter, but I’m used to that, now.”
After a long moment’s thought, Graham admitted, “Perhaps you’re right. There’s bravery and standing up for the truth, and then there’s having to live your life, knowing every day what people are secretly thinking about you. I wouldn’t wish such a life on anyone.”
He closed his notebook. “But what about your mother?”
Another shake of the head. Graham saw that this was an issue long since decided i
n Beth’s mind. For him, her mother was real and present, someone they’d spoken to and investigated. But for this brave young woman, Ann was the distant past, to be set aside and forgotten. “You know, I did look her up. I saw that she’d moved and had a larger house. Probably three times what our old family home was worth. Her and Chris could never have afforded one like that. So, I had a look on that ‘street view’ thing on the Internet. And I saw those posters in the window. About the foundation.”
Graham nodded. “They’re still there, in her window.”
“That’s not a foundation or a charity,” Beth said, her voice bitter now, “or anything to do with finding me. That’s an advertisement for attention on behalf of a lonely, scared old woman who never learned how to make her own way.”
Graham was silent, letting Beth’s pent-up anger flow.
“My mother was always so insecure, always presenting this image of herself as the perfect parent, hostess, and backbone of the local community. But cross her, and she’d turn into witch. Most people wouldn’t believe the things she said to me when I didn’t do or say or look as she wanted. If I didn’t support this image of her that she so badly needed to uphold, I was nothing to her. She needed a husband for that image, too, but the first got himself sent down, and the second was a no-hoper. And then he died, didn’t he?”
“Yes, two years ago,” Graham told her.
Beth showed no grief whatsoever at this piece of news. “All the more reason for her to lean on people, to guilt them into helping her. Did you know the foundation’s website reckons they’ve got ‘active investigations’ going on?”
“Yes, we saw that,” Graham said.
“Well, here I am!” she exclaimed. “You found me after a bit of good police work. Ten years later, my mum’s ‘investigators’ haven’t been within a hundred miles of me. There’s been no one asking questions or trying to get me to come home or anything. You should arrest her.”
“You want us to arrest your own mother?”
“She’s spent ten years dining out on the worst thing that ever happened to me. I’d say she deserves what’s coming to her.”
The Case of the Broken Doll (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 4) Page 14