Lena changed into a pair of pure cotton pyjamas, cleaned her makeup off, brushed her hair with a hundred strokes, and moisturized her face, neck and hands. Slowly, as if on automatic pilot, she got ready for bed, and turned down the silk bedspread as usual, flipped back the purest Egyptian cotton sheets and eased her feet out of her cashmere slippers. She left just a low night-light switched on by her bedside as she lay back and let her mind wander over the time she’d spent with Marcus that evening. She was restless but didn’t want to take a sleeping tablet as it was becoming too regular an occurrence; at the same time she reasoned that if ever there was an excuse she certainly had one as she was so strung out. She’d forgotten to fetch a bottle of water from the small bedroom fridge so she got out of bed and took one, unscrewing the cap she returned to her bed, growing irritated that Agnes must have moved her pills and placed them inside the bedside cabinet. She tossed out various bottles of vitamins and packets of migraine tablets before she found the prescription bottle of Zopiclone sleeping tablets. She tipped them into the palm of her hand and after counting them was certain she should have had more. She wondered if Agnes had taken some and then it struck her that perhaps it was Amy?
Lena tossed and turned. From feeling almost paranoid about her sleeping tablets she next started to get annoyed with herself. Mr Henshaw had suggested that it had to be someone very close to her who had gained access to her private papers and bank statements. She had not even brought it up with Marcus – truthfully she had not even really thought about it, but now she did. Marcus’s solicitor, the obnoxious Jacob Lyons, had been able to assess her present earnings and current bank accounts, both business and personal, along with projections of future income. It had to be someone with access to her office at home or her business office that she used at her Kiddy Winks address. Why had she not asked Marcus while he was with her? She needed to know because she was beginning to think that perhaps it was Amy after all. She wondered if it might be Agnes, but then she doubted that the housekeeper would have been able to access the computer in her business office, as she could not recall Agnes ever being there. Then she reckoned that if anyone were computer-literate it would be easy to get hold of all the information from her computer here at the house. She returned to the idea that it had to have been Amy – would she have done it? Surely she wouldn’t have fed all the details to Marcus ready for the divorce meeting, especially not if what she had written about him in her journal was any indication of how she felt about him, but then she had also described Lena in unpleasant terms. It appeared that Amy disliked everyone she came into contact with.
Lena’s head started to throb; she began to think that she was about to have one of her migraines. Where was her baby, her little girl, her beautiful daughter? If she was upset, if she were in trouble, she would take care of it, and all she wanted was for Amy to come home. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, leaning over the bedside to reach for her migraine relief capsules, and was then unable to keep her balance. She fell face forwards onto the carpet, and slithered down to lie prone on the floor beside her bed. Curling into a foetal position she started to cry, and from a whimper her crying became awful gut-wrenching sobs. Lena had drunk too much white wine, eaten just a bowl of soup, and taking sleeping tablets had now aggravated her emotional turmoil. Pain and confusion assailed her from every quarter but dominating everything was a terrible underlying panic for Amy.
Chapter 15
Agnes could not open the front door as the safety chain was on, so she walked up the lane towards the garage in the hope that Harry Dunn was there. The garage doors were closed; frustrated and concerned, Agnes hurried back to the front of the house and dialled the landline. It rang for what seemed an interminable time before Lena answered.
‘Mrs Fulford, it’s Agnes, the safety chain is on.’
Lena was still in her pyjamas and looked dreadful.
‘What time is it?’
Agnes said it was eight fifteen; she was early because she felt she should be at the house at this time of crisis. She’d brought a carrier bag full of newspapers, and reported that the appeal about Amy had also been on the local morning news. Lena slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. She had woken up lying on the floor by her bed; the telephone ringing had made her heart pump as she hoped it was Amy. Agnes took out the papers and then busied herself putting on the kettle and filling the coffee percolator. She placed the wine glasses into the dishwasher along with the soup plates and rinsed the soup pan out. Lena meanwhile scoured every article, which featured headlines such as TEENAGER AMY FULFORD MISSING, PARENTS’ FEARS FOR FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD SCHOOLGIRL GROW and AMY COME HOME. There were requests for anyone with information to come forward and two papers included a photograph, and yet it had not made the front page in a single paper.
‘The local papers will make more of it,’ Agnes said comfortingly while fetching a cup and saucer for Lena’s coffee.
‘I’m going to take a shower and get dressed. I’ll take my coffee upstairs,’ Lena told her, leaving the papers scattered over the table.
Agnes poured herself a mug as Harry Dunn rang the doorbell. He sat with Agnes and looked through the papers as she gave him a coffee and a Penguin biscuit. Eventually he refolded them and slowly tore off the wrapper of his biscuit.
‘What do you think?’ he asked morosely.
‘I don’t know. I mean those articles don’t say much, do they? They sort of underline that she’s missing but you don’t get any details, but if she has just run off then surely she’ll read the papers and make contact. If she doesn’t then God only knows what has happened to her.’
‘Is her passport missing?’ he wondered, crumpling the biscuit paper.
‘I don’t know. Mrs Fulford’s in a right state, she’s usually up by six and in her office upstairs. Not like her to oversleep, unless she doused herself with sleeping tablets – she’d left them out on her beside cabinet yesterday morning. I think her husband was here because there’s two empty bottles of wine and dirty crockery, unless she had some other visitor. She was holed up in the TV room watching videos when I left last night.’
They finished their coffee and Agnes cleared up the kitchen, with Harry still sitting at the table. They both looked anxiously towards the phone as it rang. Agnes let it carry on, expecting Lena to pick it up as the lights showed it was the business line. It stopped as the answer phone clicked in and then it rang again immediately, this time on the house line, and Agnes answered.
‘The Fulford residence,’ she said briskly.
Lena stepped out of the shower in her bathroom and, grabbing a towel, she snatched the receiver from the wall, to hear Agnes telling her there was a reporter wishing to speak to her and she didn’t know whether or not to put him through. Lena had a brief conversation with a journalist from the local newspaper but declined to give an interview. It was by now eight forty, and the home line rang continuously. Somehow the journalists had gained her ex-directory private number and they were persistent and quite aggressive. Added to the barrage of calls on her home line, the business line was ringing literally every minute. Staff from sales, receptionists, deliveries and even clients called to enquire about Amy, even though hardly any had ever met her, and they left message after message. Lena’s mobile was equally active, it never stopped, as her staff unable to get through on the business line reverted to attempting to speak to her via her mobile.
Lena was at her wits’ end; the perpetual ringing felt like a nightmare intrusion. She was afraid that even if Amy had tried to make contact she would not have been able to get through.
A journalist with a photographer approached Reid and Burrows as they drew up in their car and asked if there was news. Reid kept his cool and gave them a brief ‘sadly not as yet’ as he and Burrows hurried to the front door. An anxious-looking Agnes answered and let them both in as the telephones rang. ‘Mrs Fulford’s in the sitting room and she’s really becoming very distressed by all these phone calls,’ she confided.
‘I obviously keep on hoping it will be Amy, so I can’t just let it ring.’ Lena’s face reverted to its former anxiety. ‘My business line has also been inundated with calls. I have the answer phone on but I will have to eventually check who has made contact. Right now I just can’t face having conversations with anyone.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘Sorry, what am I thinking of ? Would you like something to drink, tea or . . . ?’
‘No, no, it’s fine.’ Reid looked at her steadily. ‘Your housekeeper and driver were seen removing boxes from your garage yesterday afternoon – do you know anything about that?’
She frowned, confused. ‘Boxes?’
‘Yes, we had a report from a neighbour, and I have been instructed to search these premises and that includes the garage. I will be as diplomatic and unobtrusive as possible, but the focus will be on your daughter’s bedroom in the hope we will find some clue to her whereabouts. Do you know what was being removed from your garage?’
‘I have no idea – there must be some mistake.’
‘Both your driver and housekeeper were seen packing the boxes.’
Lena walked to the sitting-room door and opened it. ‘Agnes, can you come in here for a minute please?’
Agnes came to the door, thinking they were going to ask for coffee to be brought in, but Lena looked at her angrily. ‘Did you take anything out of the garage yesterday?’
‘Yes, you told Harry that he could clear some old things out and I took what he didn’t want. Neither of us would take anything without your knowledge or permission, Mrs Fulford.’
Reid held up his hand, and asked if Lena would mind leaving him with the housekeeper so he could talk to her privately. Lena was furious but at the same time confused because she couldn’t really remember giving Harry or Agnes permission. Reid asked if Harry was available, as he would also like to speak to him. Lena agreed to go into the kitchen and call him as he was probably in the garage. Throughout these exchanges the phones could be heard ringing constantly.
Agnes folded her arms. ‘She was looking for the old video player because she wanted to watch some tapes of her daughter. Harry said he’d been told to clear out the old boxes she’d been storing in there.’
Reid couldn’t help but notice how Agnes’s round face glistened with sweat and she kept on clasping and unclasping her hands. He also thought it rather rude that she kept referring to Mrs Fulford as ‘she’.
‘What was in Mrs Fulford’s boxes, Mrs Moors?’
She sighed with agitation. ‘Mostly old bed linen – well, to be honest, she probably thinks of it as old but to me it was very stylish. Couple of table cloths and a few pans and some crockery, that was all I took; whether or not Harry took other stuff I wouldn’t know . . . because he’d already earmarked a couple of boxes. To be honest, I mean I could be wrong, but I think she didn’t like keeping the sheets and things from when her husband was here.’
She paused, twisting her hair back from her face and hooking it behind her ears. ‘I can bring it back if you want me to, or if she wants it back, but that’s all I took and Harry said she gave him permission. I paid for a taxi to move it.’
‘Were there any of Mrs Fulford’s daughter’s belongings in the boxes?’
‘The boxes have been stacked up in the garage for quite a while, but I don’t recall seeing anything of hers.’
Reid thanked Agnes, and as she opened the door Lena walked in, saying that her driver was coming and that a van with SOCOs had drawn up outside.
‘DC Burrows said they were forensics officers – do I let them in? Or do you want to talk to them?’
He smiled and said that the SOCOs were assisting in the search and would need to be shown Amy’s bedroom, as he would like them to begin there. Hesitating, Lena apologized for the confusion with the contents of the garage. ‘I honestly can’t remember giving Harry permission, but I must have done – I was in such a state yesterday. I went over to the garage to find an old video player as I wanted to watch some family films and . . .’ She lifted her arms in a shrug.
‘Were there any of Amy’s belongings in the garage?’
‘No, I don’t think so. It was mostly crockery and linen. I meant to give it to the Princess Alice Trust months and months ago, but just never got around to it. I’m sorry . . .’
Harry Dunn tapped on the open door and anxiously eased his way into the room.
‘You did give me permission, Mrs Fulford, you said I could take whatever I wanted as they’d been stacked and left in the garage for so long. You had to move them aside to find the video recorder.’
Barbara Burrows stood behind Harry and signalled that the SOCOs were ready to go into Amy’s bedroom.
The house phone began to ring and Lena turned to Reid. ‘Is it all right if I show them upstairs and DC Burrows answers the phone?’
Reid nodded and Barbara went to take the phone. Harry remained standing just inside the door, and not until Reid signalled for him to come in and sit down did he nervously do as requested, closing the door.
‘Agnes told me there was some problems with the removal of stuff from the garage, but I swear I got permission, I would not have taken anything without knowing it was okay to do so. Mrs Fulford said for me to clear the boxes and that’s what I did – I mean I can bring it all back.’
‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Dunn,’ Reid assured him, ‘unless there were items that belonged to Amy, or anything that could give an indication as to where she might have gone.’
‘No, it was household stuff and Agnes took a lot of it, for her daughter. She got a local taxi firm to move it out.’
Reid rubbed at his chin; the simple explanation Harry and Agnes had given made him doubt there was an ulterior motive behind the removal of the boxes.
Harry edged to the end of his seat. ‘I’ve still got the stuff in the boxes at home.’
‘There was nothing unusual in any of these boxes?’
Harry looked puzzled, and Reid watched him closely. ‘Bad smells, stains, anything suspicious?’
‘No, sir. Also, the boxes had been done up with parcel tape and none of them had been recently opened. I tore it off to check what was inside – you know, choosing what I was going to take – and then Agnes came into the garage and she picked and mixed if you know what I mean?’
‘Thank you, that’ll be all, and you’ll be on hand, will you, if Mrs Fulford needs you?’
‘Yes, sir, I’ll be here.’
Harry made small quick steps to the door, and froze when Reid suddenly spoke again. ‘One more thing. Who gave you the order to clean Mr Fulford’s car?’
‘Agnes, she give me the keys and I gave it a wash and interior valet as it was filthy inside and out.’
‘You did a good job.’
Harry scuttled out, his heart thudding because for a minute he thought he was going to be asked about the watch he’d found between the front seats. He’d stashed it in a drawer at his flat, and now it worried him deeply and he realized he’d better get rid of it fast.
Lena stood in Amy’s bedroom doorway, watching the two forensics officers begin their work. After a few moments she went back down the stairs just as Reid walked into the hallway.
He asked Lena about the video films she had been watching and she told him that she would give the tapes to him if he wanted.
‘Some of them are from when she was a child, but there are more recent tapes – well, not for the last couple of years but . . .’ She hesitated enough for him to enquire if she felt they were important.
‘Can I show you what made me very agitated? It might mean nothing, but it’s something I never noticed before. If you’d like to come with me to the TV room the
videotapes are all there.’
He suggested that Lena set up what she wanted him to look at as he needed to have a word with DC Burrows in the kitchen, where his colleague was now fending off the calls, which were coming in thick and fast. Burrows nimbly put off the numerous press requests for interviews and to anyone making a personal enquiry she was very polite, saying there was no news at present. She made careful notes on all the callers and was thankful for a tray of coffee and biscuits Agnes brought her.
Agnes was still hovering and Reid asked her to leave them for a moment. DC Burrows gestured to her notepad and said that the majority of calls were press enquiries but Mrs Fulford’s business answer phone was full and suggested that perhaps those messages should be checked out.
‘I’ll discuss it with Mrs Fulford. I want you to call the dog section and get a cadaver dog brought in to go over the garage.’
Barbara looked aghast and Reid was quick to explain himself.
‘We need to do everything by the book and I’m just being cautious.’
As Reid entered the TV room Lena turned from where she was standing by the television with videotapes in her hand.
‘I want you to see this one first. She’d be eleven – it was a birthday party in Spain when we were on holiday.’
Reid sat on the sofa and watched as five children tucked into large bowls of ice cream. The focus was on the birthday girl who suddenly took off her sun hat and swirled it over her head, laughing. She was golden brown, her hair bleached white from the sun, and she was standing up on her chair as a birthday cake was brought to the table by her equally suntanned father. She was an extraordinarily pretty child, very slender, and her excited shrieks and laughter were infectious as she clapped her hands and blew out the candles. Lena switched off the tape.
‘She was always laughing.’ She patted a stack of videos, all dated with handwritten labels. ‘All of these are showing how much fun she was, a real delight to be around, and now I want you to look at this tape; it’s from a couple of years ago, so she would be thirteen.’
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