Twisted

by Lynda La Plante

  Lena began to look through the neat rows of dresser drawers, starting from the left, and found everything neatly arranged. Lena knew that Agnes was more than likely the person who carefully folded each bra and matching panties, rolled the tights into small balls and tucked them into the plastic dividers: black tights, woollen tights, socks, white tennis and sports socks all rolled up and tidy.

  The bottom dressing-table drawers held old school books, sketchpads and envelopes in one, in another some Christmas cards still in their packaging. Only one drawer was locked, a small one on the top right-hand side. Lena had no idea where the key would be, and even had she known she would not have unlocked the drawer to discover what it contained. She reckoned it was probably Amy’s diary – as a child she had always kept diaries but once her schoolwork intensified, she was given her own computer and abandoned the ritual. Then before Christmas she had asked for a journal: she was inspired to write short stories and wanted something special to put them in. She asked to have a proper bound one with a lock and key. Marcus had bought her one with her name embossed in gold letters; it had been very expensive, in dark green leather.

  Lena stood in the centre of the room looking from one side to the other. She then went to close the wardrobe and she saw the stack of matching suitcases, in three sizes – small, medium and large. Lena knew Amy also had an overnight cabin bag at school, which she used when visiting Serena’s or her father’s, and it was the only one missing.

  By the time Lena returned to her bedroom, it was after seven, and she had still not heard from Marcus. She was loath to call back yet forced herself to do so, but it went straight to voicemail yet again and she didn’t leave a message. She tried Amy’s mobile phone one more time and that too was on voicemail. She next called the school to ask if Amy had turned up or if they had heard either from her or her father.

  The matron said they had not, and asked if she would call as soon as she heard when they could expect Amy to arrive. They did not approve of unplanned absences or really allow pupils to return after lights out, but if she was expected to be back that evening there was always someone on duty.

  ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong?’ the matron asked and Lena, keeping her voice pleasant, replied that she suspected her husband had taken their daughter to the theatre. It felt lame even to her. Replacing the receiver she lay back on her bed, wondering if the school knew about the impending divorce. Because Amy stayed alternate weekends with her father they might very well suspect some kind of marital problem, even though Amy spent her school holidays mostly with Lena and she always allowed her friends to stay. The truth was, it was so much easier if Amy did have a friend to stay as it kept her occupied and Lena didn’t have to arrange activities. It was much easier now that she was a teenager, but when she was younger, having to chauffeur her around had usually fallen to Lena. Marcus said he loathed having to remember which mother was which, and hated the obligatory small talk. The reality was, whenever they had both been to a school function, Marcus had appeared to thoroughly enjoy chatting to the mothers, flirting and being as charming as he could be. Lena had always taken a back seat on these occasions, usually because she was tired out having had to work flat out all day. She remembered a couple of times she had not even managed to wash her hair or get changed. Marcus on the other hand was wearing his Armani suit, shaved and immaculate. He had installed a gym in a studio above their garage so he would work out, for hours on end, then shower, and this he did virtually on a daily basis. In some ways she was grateful he was at least not hanging around the house trying to start yet another business venture, or becoming depressed because one had failed.

  Lena rolled over, thumped the pillow with her fist. Just thinking about what had happened that morning made her furious all over again. Two years’ separation and here she was still annoyed by all the things Marcus did, and had done before he had left. Yet again she was wasting her time on him.

  At some point she must have fallen asleep, and with all the bedroom lights on. The phone ringing woke her with such a start that for a few moments she was completely disorientated, but then swung her legs to the ground and grabbed the receiver. It was seven a.m.

  ‘Lena, it’s me, I’ve just noticed your missed calls,’ Marcus said abruptly.

  ‘You took your time getting back to me. I have had the school calling me; I have tried ringing her, just what the hell is going on? Where is she?’

  ‘She had a sleepover,’ he said, and his voice sounded slurred.

  ‘Yes I know, but she told Serena’s mother on Saturday afternoon she was going to see you, and she never went back there so Mrs Newman presumed she was staying with you.’

  ‘She wasn’t with me, I never saw her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just said Amy never came here to me, I haven’t heard from her all weekend or yesterday. I thought she was with her friend. I mean, she mentioned some sleepover – I dunno, what’s all the panic about?’

  Lena wanted to scream.

  ‘Is she at school?’ he asked stupidly.

  ‘No she is not, I just told you, they called here, and I have not seen her.’

  ‘What about this girl she was staying with?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Marcus, don’t you listen to what I am saying? I have spoken to them. I talked to Serena’s mother and she picked her up on Saturday morning and drove her to Fulham. Amy then told Mrs Newman she was going to see you and would be back in the evening, but she never turned up.’

  ‘Why didn’t they call me?’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘I have no idea, but we have to find her. If she didn’t come over to you on Saturday afternoon, it means she’s been somewhere else since then and she is still not back at school.’

  ‘Well I don’t know where she is,’ he said lamely, almost as an excuse. Clearly he still hadn’t realized that something could have happened to his daughter. Lena swallowed and gripped the phone tighter.

  ‘Marcus, she has not been seen for over two days now. Don’t you understand how serious this is? Now think if there is someone she might have gone to see.’

  He said something inaudible, and Lena had to ask him to repeat it. But he cleared his throat.

  ‘Sorry, I was just thinking, you have talked to Serena?’

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Only her mother.’

  ‘And they had no idea where she is?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Marcus, try and concentrate. I am asking you to think if she was friendly with anyone you’ve met recently?’

  ‘Erm, to be honest I’ve not met any of her friends. When she’s here they, well, they might come over but on the whole she’s usually on her own and we go out to see a movie, or just watch TV . . .’

  ‘Think, Marcus. Is there anyone she might have gone to see?’

  ‘I’m fucking thinking,’ he groaned.

  Lena closed her eyes and sighed with impatience. ‘Were you at home on Saturday afternoon?’

  ‘No, I was at a football match.’

  ‘So she could have gone to see you and you weren’t in. Does she have a key?’

  ‘Yes of course she does, but if she was here she never left me a note and I didn’t get back until Sunday . . .’

  ‘You mean you were staying somewhere else?’

  ‘Yes, at a friend’s from football.’

  She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut, clenching her teeth. ‘Okay, what about a boyfriend, do you know if she has a boyfriend?’

  ‘She’s not mentioned one. Look, you know you’re firing off questions but I could be asking the same ones of you. Do you know if she was seeing a boy? And you’d know more than me who her close friends would be. We should start ringing around.’

  ‘But her friends are at the school, so they would be there and not with their parents. Marcus, I don’t know what we should do. I mean, do we wait until a bit later this morning and call around or . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Let me just go over it all. She was last seen on Saturday a
fternoon, and no one has heard from her since and it’s now Tuesday morning, so what about her mobile? Have you tried calling her?’

  ‘Of course, it goes straight to voicemail; I’ve tried numerous times. I think we should go to the police.’

  ‘Hang on, hang on. Obviously we have to think about that, but at the same time, we could be getting into a panic over Amy just being a bit of a truant and taking off with a pal.’

  ‘She has never been a bit of a truant, for God’s sake. She has never done anything like this before, and it’s totally out of character. She always calls me when she stays over with you, she calls me if she’s having a sleepover. I have never known her not to make sure I knew where she was and the more I think of it, the worse I am starting to feel. Something is really not right.’

  ‘Okay, call the hospitals,’ sighed Marcus. ‘She may have had an accident, and we can both start doing that.’

  ‘You start calling them, Marcus, I am going to the police. If anything, I should have gone to them earlier. I’ll call you, stay by your phone.’

  She didn’t wait for him to reply but slammed down the receiver. She pulled on a pair of jeans, sneakers, a polo-neck sweater, and a camel-hair coat. She didn’t even comb her hair or check her makeup. She was in the Lexus within minutes of hanging up on Marcus, and she drove to the local Richmond police station, so tense her knuckles were white as she clenched the steering wheel, all the while keeping up a mantra to herself of ‘please don’t let anything bad have happened to her, please don’t let anything have happened to my baby.’

  Chapter 3

  Marcus had woken early with a terrible hangover and raging thirst. He had drunk a pint of water, taken four Paracetamol tablets and a spoonful of Andrews Liver Salts as his stomach churned from the curry he’d eaten the previous evening. There had been the wine before the Indian, then he’d had a lot with his meal and was very drunk by the time he got home and collapsed. He was about to go back to bed when he noticed his answer machine blinking. It was all too tempting not to pick up his calls and, on hearing Lena’s terse message, he was at first in two minds whether to bother calling her back. But he could see she had also made a second call with no message so knew something must be up.

  The previous evening had not exactly been a celebration but he felt the meeting with the lawyers had been more than productive as Lyons assured him they would be successful and he even insinuated that Marcus might not have to work again but could live well if he invested carefully. They had a good lunch, Marcus paid, and it was expensive, as Lyons had chosen a very posh restaurant in Regent Street, but so far he’d been worth his heavy fees. During the lead-up to the meeting he’d been quite aggressive, constantly reminding Marcus that he would require extensive details of his wife’s income and the value of the property and its contents. There was no point in ‘pussyfooting’ around – he had calculated that after seventeen years of marriage Marcus would easily be awarded alimony for the rest of his life. He was certain that he would be awarded half of the monies from the sale of their ‘goods and chattels’, and he would try for fifty per cent of his wife’s very successful business. Marcus did not exactly like the pugnacious and egotistical lawyer, but he had been advised to secure his services as fast as possible just in case Lena might hire him. Lyons loved the notoriety he had garnered from previous cases and he was not just an A-list divorce lawyer, but the toughest of tough operators.

  After a long lunch with Lyons Marcus had gone to meet his present girlfriend, Justine, a twenty-six-year-old, very glamorous and curvaceous blonde. She aspired to a modelling career but was working as a receptionist in a very fashionable hairdressing salon where she was also being trained by the salon’s top stylist. Justine had a list of client confirmations and cleaning up to do before she could leave with Marcus. He had been quite happy to sit in one of the comfortable chairs in the waiting area, leafing through the recent glossy magazines, with one sly eye on the other attractive stylists. They had left together just after five, and returned to her small rented flat in Pimlico. Justine shared the place with another girl who was a waitress at a restaurant, so as they arrived she was just leaving for work. They had a few glasses of wine, went to bed, had sex, and then showered together before leaving at around nine to have a curry in her local Indian restaurant. Justine was not too keen on going back to his place as she had an early start with a very important client, one they always opened specially for to give her streaks and a cut before anyone else was in the salon. Marcus dropped her off in a taxi in Pimlico and then it drove him to Mayfair. He had eaten quite a substantial lunch and then the curry, so it was no wonder he felt ill and went straight to bed.

  He was still feeling hung over but not as bad as when he had first called Lena. He took a cold shower, and, intent on doing as she had asked, began to seriously try and recall who Amy might have gone to see. There had been no note or signs that she had been at the flat, but he had another look around before he went into her bedroom. It would be quite difficult for him to know if she had been there while he was not at home. Her room was, as always, a shambolic mess. Unlike his wife, he had no housekeeper or cleaner and attempted to manage the place himself. There was a small utility room with a washing machine and dryer, and what clothes he needed washing he chucked in there, but bed linen went to the laundry, along with all his good shirts and dry-cleaning. Amy often didn’t bother even straightening her bed, which irritated him, but he didn’t make a thing of it. All her clothes were left in untidy heaps, and books and DVDs were stacked beside the bed. Shoes and boots were piled outside the wardrobe, the doors of which were usually open, and on her dressing table was a jumble of makeup, perfumes, and magazines. Posters of her latest craze, the vampire movies, lined the walls, and she had a big thing for a new, very young group, and had forced him to watch them on TV. It was the floppy-haired lead singer who was the big attraction, and Justin Bieber had lost his place as her favourite.

  He tried to recall his exact weekend activities. On the Saturday, as he had told Lena, he had been to a football match. It was a last-minute decision as he’d bought a single ticket from a guy in the pub who couldn’t go. He’d then gone out with friends for hamburgers, taken in a movie with Justine and stayed the night with her. He had told Lena he was at a male friend’s to avoid listening to her making cutting or flippant remarks. On the Sunday, he had nipped home to get changed, and then gone out with Justine and spent most of the day with her. He would have stayed overnight but, because of his meeting with Lena and the lawyers on the Monday, he had returned to get a good night’s sleep. At no time had Amy called, or left a message on his mobile, and he was a bit ashamed that he had not even attempted to contact her. Knowing she was spending the weekend with her friend, and would be returning to school on the Sunday evening, it had not occurred to him to double-check the arrangements. It was also obvious that Amy did not get along with Justine, not that he ever discussed it with his daughter. It was just a fact and one he refused to get into any kind of argument about as he felt it was none of her business. But when Amy came for her weekend he would not have Justine stay over. Whether or not Amy had mentioned Justine to Lena was yet another subject he had not discussed, and it was not as if Justine was the first woman he had been seeing – there had been quite a number of others over the past two years, but most of them never even got to meet his daughter.

  Amy’s dressing table was heaped with cheap jewellery, perfumes and makeup, bottles of shampoos and conditioners, a matted hairbrush and comb. Marcus searched around, opening a couple of drawers, discovering creased underwear and old tights, vest tops and nightdresses. He then thumbed through all the latest magazines from the pile on top in case there was something between the pages, and tossed them aside to look under the bed, only to find old slippers and a few books covered with an accumulated level of dust. He couldn’t recall ever vacuuming beneath it and he doubted Amy bothered. The bedside table drawer was full of broken bits and pieces of necklaces and beads – no letter
s, no notebooks, or photo albums, nothing of any use. He next checked out the wardrobe, opening a suitcase, a couple of backpacks and a smaller vanity case. All were empty. Left plugged into a wall socket was her mobile charger, but no phone. Standing in the untidy room he could see nothing that gave any indication of where she might have gone, or who she might have been with.

  He returned to the kitchen and brewed up a strong black coffee, sitting on a stool by the breakfast counter as he wondered if Lena had any news. He was about to call her when he glanced at the wall calendar pinned up beside a cork notice board. Amy had begun by circling the weekends she would be staying, but had not bothered for almost six months as she simply called him instead. The corkboard was full of receipts, dry-cleaning tickets, phone numbers for his gym and hairdresser, and invitations to dinners and cocktail parties. There was nothing connected to Amy, no old message left for him, but there was a picture cut out of a Sunday supplement of a King Charles Spaniel puppy. Amy had always wanted a dog, but it was just not possible.

  Meanwhile, Lena was at Richmond Police Station, sitting in front of Detective Constable Barbara Burrows, a fresh-faced young woman with shoulder-length auburn hair. She worked on the Richmond Missing Persons Unit and was painstakingly and methodically writing down details for the ‘misper’ report. The slow procedure was beginning to frustrate Lena and she felt that someone of a higher rank should be talking to her. By now she was very concerned, and to be asked so many questions and forced to repeat herself over and over again about her marriage and separation was irritating. DC Burrows was taking care to cover every angle, as she needed to have a very detailed report to put on the Met’s missing persons database and also the National Missing Persons computer. Burrows explained to Lena there were three risk categories for missing persons – high, medium and low. Due to Amy’s age, and the circumstances, it was possible she had run away and would probably be treated as a medium risk; however, enquiries and searches to try and locate her would still be carefully orchestrated. She told Lena her unit detective inspector was due in shortly and would be checking the report and classifying Amy’s risk category. Lena had become very impatient when asked about boyfriends; to her knowledge Amy did not have any, nor had she ever mentioned she was seeing someone. Burrows had asked about whether or not her father would know, and Lena had replied rather sharply that he did not, and she had asked him to stay home and call the local hospitals.