Gone Astray

by Michelle Davies

  But Mack did love her, in his own way. He might struggle to pay her compliments and she could count on one hand the times he’d bought her flowers, but Lesley never felt lonely in her marriage. Even when quiet, Mack had a looming presence and she always found comfort in knowing he was close by, as did Rosie.

  She had yet to tell him about Maggie mentioning Suzy Breed to her. She was perplexed as to why her name would’ve suddenly come up and it felt strange to suddenly be reminded of the girl, or rather woman, who had once been such a target for her jealousy. Suzy Breed was the only girl Mack had really loved before her and for a long time Lesley felt like she was stuck in her shadow. It was only when Mack proposed that she finally exorcized the ghost of their relationship. What possible reason was there for Maggie to mention her now? She wanted to speak to Maggie again about it before she told Mack.

  The office they’d been asked to wait in was small and basic but Lesley found its sterility oddly comforting. With just a square table, four chairs and beige walls, it was frugal in a way she found she missed living in Angel’s Reach, with its opulent wallpaper, inches-thick carpet and huge rooms. Cool air breezed into the room from a unit on the wall above the clock, making her shiver. She pulled the cardigan tighter around her. Beneath it she wore a plain white cotton shift dress.

  Nearly half an hour had passed since they’d arrived and she asked Maggie, who was sitting at the table next to her, why it was taking so long.

  ‘They’re still setting up. It won’t be much longer. You can blame my driving – I’m afraid I got us here a bit too early.’

  Lesley cupped her face in her hands as bile rose in her throat. She was petrified of saying the wrong thing in front of the press, even though in the car on the way there Mack said he would speak about Rosie on their behalf.

  She felt a hand gently touch her arm.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Maggie.

  She looked up and nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The buzz from next door rose abruptly, as if the door had been opened and the noise suddenly escaped. Her eyes widened in panic.

  ‘I can’t do it. I can’t face them.’

  Mack hurried over and knelt down by her chair. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked exhausted. Seeing him in that state made her want to cry and she fought back tears as he held her hand.

  ‘Sweetheart, we need to do this for Rosie,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘She needs both of us out there telling the world what an amazing kid she is and why we want her to come home. If someone’s got her, we need to show the bastard she has a mum and dad who are suffering because we don’t know where she is. I can’t do it by myself. I need you with me.’

  Lesley nodded as he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  A second later there was a knock on the door and DCI Umpire entered solemnly. He looked at them and then looked at Maggie, who nodded.

  ‘We’re ready,’ she said.

  Umpire sat down next to Lesley. Mack remained crouched beside her.

  ‘The press conference should be straightforward. I’ll be speaking first and releasing some details I hope will help encourage witnesses to come forward,’ he said. ‘Then, if you feel able to, you can address the room directly. Tell them what Rosie’s like as a daughter and why you think she would never go off without telling you. Tell them how much you miss her and want her home. If the press have any questions at the end, I’ll deal with them. Do you want to ask me anything before we go in?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lesley, faltering. ‘Will this work? Will this help find her?’

  DCI Umpire looked grim. ‘I sincerely hope so.’

  The room lit up as he led them in. Lesley’s instinct was to shield her eyes against the camera flashes with her hand but, mindful of how that would look, she instead lurched forward with her head bowed, clinging to Mack’s hand. At the front of the room, in front of a blue backdrop with the police force’s logo on it, was a table covered in microphones propped up on mini tripods. Lesley and Mack sat down with DCI Umpire alongside them. Glancing to her right she saw Maggie and Belmar standing at the side of the room with their backs pressed against the wall. Their presence was comforting.

  As Umpire began his introduction, Lesley stared at the surface of the table. She didn’t want to watch the press watching her and waiting for her to react. She wanted to pretend they weren’t there, that this wasn’t happening to her and Mack, and so she willed herself to block out the sound of Umpire’s voice as he thanked everyone for coming and began to recount the timeline of events that had brought her and Mack to a police conference room with a carpet the texture of a Brillo Pad and an underlying smell of stale sweat.

  Her mind rolled back to the previous morning, to the last time she’d seen Rosie. Had the start of the day been different to any other? Rosie was up early by her usual standards, just after 8 a.m. Another night of not being able to sleep, which Lesley put down to exam stress. Perhaps there had been more to it. God, she wished she’d asked her.

  They had eaten breakfast in silence but there was nothing odd about that, as Rosie was always monosyllabic before 9 a.m. There had been one brief interlude though, when she’d asked if her dad had rung yet.

  ‘I doubt he’s up yet,’ said Lesley, finishing the last bite of her toast. ‘But you can give him a try if you want.’

  ‘What, and have him get the hump with me because he’s got a hangover? No way.’

  They had both laughed because it was a standing joke that Mack couldn’t handle his drink – he was the antithesis of what the reputation of Scotsmen dictated. As Rosie pretended to vomit into her cereal bowl and dissolved into giggles, Lesley revelled in the brief suspension of hostilities. When they weren’t arguing or ignoring each other, the atmosphere could be wonderful.

  DCI Umpire’s voice eventually broke through her self-imposed daze. She tried to shut the sound of him out but her ears refused to obey and eventually her mind joined them in focusing on what he was saying.

  ‘An item of Rosie’s clothing has been recovered from an area close to her house that indicates she has not gone missing of her own volition. I shan’t reveal any more detail at this stage but I cannot stress enough how important it is that anyone who knows anything or saw anything comes forward. Rosie’s parents are suffering greatly right now and want her home . . .’

  Umpire cleared his throat and Lesley finally looked up to see dozens of strange faces staring solemnly at her. There was one on the front row she recognized, a female reporter for the Mansell Echo who interviewed them after their win. As their eyes locked, Lesley realized the girl’s were wet and shiny, as though she was fighting back tears. It shocked Lesley and she began to cry. She was only distantly aware of Umpire asking Mack if he wanted to say anything.

  ‘I do,’ he said, getting to his feet.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  21

  He perched on the edge of the sofa with his hands clasped in front of him, fingers interlaced as though in prayer. As he watched the parents take their places alongside the police officer in charge, he felt surprisingly calm and imagined that anyone listening to the relaxed rhythm of his heart would think he was watching something as sedate as it was innocuous, like the Antiques Roadshow or Countryfile, and not a press conference about the girl whose disappearance could see him sent to prison for a very long time.

  He’d nearly missed it, too. He was walking through the gym to collect his next client from reception when he’d caught sight of the large TV screen above the rowing machines. It was tuned to Sky News and the ticker along the bottom said a press conference about missing teenager Rosie Kinnock would take place in half an hour, at 3.30 p.m. He sacked off his client by feigning a migraine and rushed home.

  He aimed the remote at the TV to turn the volume up. As the officer in charge began talking, a picture of the girl’s smiling face filled the screen. How different she looked to yesterday when she’d backed away from him on all fours like a crab scuttling along sand, her face cont
orted in terror. When he’d raised a hand to her she’d sprawled backwards onto the grass but never cried out. It was as though she had no more screams to give.

  On the television the mum had started crying. Not silent tears but great, undignified sobs.

  ‘What kind of woman goes out and leaves her child like that?’ he spat out loud, as if he was addressing her directly. ‘The selfish kind, that’s who. And I know just how selfish you are, because I’ve been on the receiving end of it. You shoved ahead of me that day as though I didn’t exist. Didn’t even look at me, let alone say thank you for what I did.’

  The memory made him burn with anger. Lesley Kinnock did not warrant anyone’s sympathy. She was a thief. She stole from him and losing her daughter in return was a just punishment as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t like she even wanted the money she took from him: on the few occasions she left the house and he was able to follow her, she always looked as though she had the weight of the world bearing down on her. What the fuck did she have to worry about? People like her didn’t deserve to be rich.

  The dad was talking now and he turned the television up even louder. As he watched the man plead for his daughter’s return, pressure began to build in his temples. Soon the pain was too intense for him to concentrate and he jumped to his feet. ‘SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!’ he screamed as he clenched his fists against the sides of his head and willed the avalanche of white noise to stop. Harder he clenched, until eventually the noise began to abate and it was replaced by shouting coming from the television. He snapped open his eyes to see that the press conference was in uproar. The dad was trying to say something directly into the camera but the police officer was talking over him and the mum was telling him to stop as she pulled at the front of his shirt.

  ‘No, that can’t be right,’ he muttered aloud.

  He grabbed the remote control and rewound until the moment the dad got to his feet. Pressing play, he watched open-mouthed as anger exploded inside him like a bomb going off. Didn’t he warn the stupid bitch of a mother that they weren’t to spend any more until he’d got his rightful share?

  All he wanted was enough to stop the agonizing pain he was in. There was a doctor in the States he’d found online who was pioneering a new technique to treat his type of spinal injury but charged the price of a house to do so. If the girl’s parents had just given him what he needed when he’d first asked for it, it wouldn’t have gone this far. It was their fault.

  His injury could’ve been a lot worse, so his doctors said. An act of extreme folly is how the police described what happened. Egged on by his equally inebriated and now former best friend, he had almost scaled the scaffolding veiling the three-storey building when he lost his grip and fell backwards. Wooden boards that had been fashioned into a platform halfway down broke his fall and his surgeon said he was lucky not to be paralysed. Instead, all he had to contend with was a lifetime of constant pain. Lucky him!

  That’s why he wanted the money, to get his back fixed properly. The steroids could only do so much and while he knew from his own training that working out was important to keep the muscles surrounding his spine as strong as possible, what was he meant to do when he got older? Wither away? Already it was becoming harder to do his job: he had to turn down clients with more complicated injuries because his back hurt too much when he had to adopt certain positions.

  He burned with fury as he watched the commotion on screen.

  ‘YOU’RE MEANT TO GIVE THE MONEY TO ME!’

  22

  The reporters were on their feet, bellowing questions at Mack, and the noise pinned Maggie to the wall. They all looked as stunned as she was and were all asking the same thing: ‘Mr Kinnock, are you really offering a million pounds as a reward to find your daughter?’ Then Umpire caught her eye and she propelled herself into action. Rushing to the front of the room, she practically tipped Lesley out of her seat and guided her out of the room and back into the office while Umpire did the same with Mack. His face claret with fury, Umpire told Maggie to leave them alone and slammed the door shut behind her. As she walked away, in no mood to contradict him, she heard Mack shouting.

  Maggie went in search of Belmar and collared him further along the corridor. He, too, looked dazed. Speaking in a low voice so as not to be overheard – the corridor was filling up with journalists tapping excitedly on their mobiles and tablets, anxious to be the first to report on what had happened – she asked him if he’d known Mack was going to put up the reward.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Belmar, beads of sweat glistening on the skin below his trim hairline. ‘Earlier on he asked if it was usual in cases like this. But it was just a passing mention.’

  ‘That’s bad enough,’ said Maggie with a groan.

  ‘I put him straight though.’

  A reporter stopped beside them. He was talking into his mobile but Maggie couldn’t tell if he was faking the call to listen to them, so she pulled an unresisting Belmar further along the corridor by the arm.

  ‘How did you put him straight? I need to know exactly what you said to him.’

  ‘I said it was probably too early to think about that and he should talk to the DCI. I also said that even if the investigation did go down that route there were strict guidelines that needed to be followed. After that he changed the subject.’ Belmar sagged against the corridor wall. ‘Ballboy’s going to go mental, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s not going to be happy, no. A reward that size will have every chancer and nutter from Cornwall to Carlisle crawling out of the woodwork claiming they’ve got information about where Rosie is and the team will have to check out each one. It’ll slow things down.’

  ‘What should I say if Ballboy asks if I knew?’

  Maggie had to think fast. Mack pledging a million pounds to find Rosie was an unmitigated disaster. It was the biggest reward she could recall anyone offering and now the media focus would be on that instead of finding Rosie. But right now her priority was also to ensure they weren’t unfairly blamed for it and taken off the case. As the officers entrenched in the family home, people would assume they must’ve known about it.

  ‘Did you record the chat in your log?’ she said.

  Belmar shook his head. ‘Not yet. I write mine up at the end of the day.’

  ‘Do it now. Make sure you write down exactly what you just told me – that it was a casual remark by Mack and you told him explicitly there were procedures to follow and that he should talk to Umpire.’

  ‘You want me to doctor my log?’ said Belmar, shocked.

  ‘It’s not doctoring when you’re writing down what was actually said,’ she hissed. ‘I just want you to fill it out now instead of later.’

  ‘But if the DCI finds out—’

  ‘If he brings it up, I’ll just say Mack raised the subject and you’ve recorded it in your log as a passing comment but had you suspected for a single second he was going to pull that stunt, you’d have gone straight to him about it.’

  ‘You think he’ll buy it?’

  ‘I’ll make sure he does. Go on, go and do it now.’

  Bracing herself, she knocked on the office door then entered before Umpire could tell her to stay out. Suit jacket removed and shirtsleeves rolled up, he leaned over the table, hands splayed out on its surface like he was doing a press-up, the lean muscles of his forearms taut with tension. He was trying to reason with Mack, whose own arms were crossed defiantly over his chest.

  ‘The reward you’re offering is not going to help us find your daughter any quicker,’ Umpire was saying. ‘If you won’t withdraw it we’ll have to find some way to reduce it instead.’

  ‘No way,’ said Mack. ‘What would Rosie think?’ He affected a voice that was high and shrill, like an old woman’s. ‘“Oh look, love, your dad’s changed his mind and decided you’re not worth it after all.”’ He shook his head. ‘No, the reward stands.’

  Umpire glared at Maggie and she met his steely gaze full on. She’d done nothing wrong and while
Belmar was an idiot for not mentioning Mack’s question about a reward sooner, neither had he. No one could’ve predicted what Mack would do faced with a room full of journalists. Then she glanced across at Lesley and her heart sank.

  She looked like she’d aged twenty years. Her eyes were unfocused as they gazed at the opposite wall and her posture was slack, as though her body was being crushed by the enormity of the situation she faced. Maggie had seen it happen before. Facing the press meant families having to admit the situation was real and not a horrible, terrifying nightmare they would at some point wake up from. Ignoring Umpire, she crouched down by Lesley’s side.

  ‘How are you doing?’ she whispered.

  Lesley looked at her like she had no idea who Maggie was.

  ‘She needs to go home and get some rest,’ she said to Umpire. ‘They both do.’

  Umpire looked at Mack, who was by the window with his back to the room. The discussion was over as far as he was concerned.

  ‘Fine. Take them home and I’ll call you after the next briefing.’

  ‘Did you hear that, Lesley?’ said Maggie. ‘You’re going home now.’

  Maggie smiled gratefully at Umpire. He could’ve chosen to hammer away at Mack over the reward until he cracked but instead he’d listened to her. As he said his goodbyes and left the room, she could’ve sworn he gave her the briefest of winks. Was it further proof of a thaw towards her? After what Belmar had said about them, she didn’t want to think it meant anything else.

  ‘Belmar is going to drive you home and I’ll follow in a bit,’ Maggie told the Kinnocks. ‘There’s something I have to do first.’ Neither acknowledged they’d heard her, so she left them in the office and went to find Belmar. He was in the now-empty conference room, sitting alone on a row of chairs as he wrote out his log. Quickly she filled him in on the argument she’d interrupted between Mack and Umpire.