Twisted

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘But if she saw the TV appeal and the state her parents were in, why didn’t she make contact to at least say she was alive and well?’

  ‘I tried to persuade her to get in touch with them or you, but Amy was adamant that she would not do that and refused to explain why. She only said that she wanted to go away, stay away from them forever.’

  ‘What about money? She’d made no withdrawals from her bank.’

  ‘Because she didn’t want anyone to be able to trace her. I tried to make her change her mind, but she was very strung out and insisted that she would be able to finance herself to go abroad. I asked how, but she wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘But she left her passport at her home?’

  ‘I know that,’ Jo snapped.

  He lifted his hands in submission as she turned away and remained silent for a few moments before she continued.

  ‘My full name is Josephine Poliakoff, I started using Polka years ago as a surname as it sort of sounded to me more like a dancer. I had a younger sister who died just before I became an art teacher at the school.’

  ‘The girl on the beach in the picture in the hallway of your school cottage?’ he recalled and she gave him an odd smile.

  ‘Yes, you have a good memory. Her name was Anna and I still had her old passport. She was barely older than Amy.’

  ‘I thought at the time she looked similar to Amy, but her hair was much shorter.’

  ‘Amy cut her hair short so there was even more of a similarity between them and the passport was still valid. Then I had Miss Harrington walking into the cottage and it was just awful as she looked around and then implied that she had received some anonymous information about me – I told you. Anyway, she asked me if I was lesbian and said that I was unsuitable for my position with the girls, blah blah, and I didn’t wait to even explain anything but gave her my resignation – the relief on her face! But as to who would have written to her – God knows, probably that little bitch Serena.’

  He could hardly believe it, but he didn’t want to interrupt as she described booking and paying for a flight online for Amy, who downloaded and printed off the e-ticket at an internet café. Amy’s flight was a one-way trip to Santa Fe and so as not to create any suspicion, she herself left for Peru and they had a tentative plan to reunite if Amy succeeded in leaving the UK.

  ‘So when did she fly to Santa Fe?’

  ‘About a week or two after I left the school. You have to understand that for Amy there was no going back, so she stopped reading the papers or watching the news. She genuinely didn’t know about what happened to her father and mother since she ran away.’

  ‘So how did you end up in this godforsaken place?’

  ‘When my art tour finished I took a flight from Peru to San Francisco, bought the old Land Rover and, not even knowing if she would still be there, I drove to Santa Fe. It took me a week or so to find Amy. She was working in a restaurant, living in a commune with other kids, hippie types, junkies and runaways like herself.’

  She gave a long sigh and seemed defeated as she quietly explained how they planned a trip to Mexico City and subsequently decided to keep on the move to Mazatlan. They had agreed to not use any mobile phones or even her laptop; they had wanted to be completely free of any possible contact from England.

  ‘We found this place, and together made it habitable, and this is where we have been living since Santa Fe.’

  He looked around and gave a half-smile: it was not in any way luxurious but with the lit fire and the warm glow of the candles it was comfortable, albeit with no electricity.

  ‘I suppose you want to know how we financed it all?’

  He nodded and she continued.

  ‘To start with, my savings, and then Amy had numerous bits and pieces of jewellery she said she had been given, and we prised out the stones and I would drive into town and sell them, but she never accompanied me. We were very careful not to create any suspicion, but had more than enough to buy the hens and the furnishings and obviously groceries, in fact everything we needed.’

  She rubbed at her curls and began twisting one round and round in her forefinger. He remembered her doing the same thing when he had interviewed her in England.

  ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.

  ‘At some point we were starting to get a bit worried as funds were low and she wanted me to use the tiara to raise cash. She wanted to prise out the stones, but it seemed to me to be too destructive as it was such a beautiful art deco design and I knew it had to be worth a lot of money undamaged.’

  ‘Did she tell you where she got it from?’

  ‘She said she had been left it all in a will, that it was hers to do whatever she wanted with. The other pieces had been a couple of rings, a bracelet and a pearl necklace.’

  She sucked in her breath and sighed. ‘Stupid, it was so stupid of me, and I ruined everything by trying to sell it in Mexico City. I had created too much interest as the men in the jewellery shop wanted me to show them something to prove I owned the tiara and I think they thought it was stolen.’

  He decided to let her finish her story before telling her he suspected the jewellery was stolen from Simon Boatly, and that the use of her passport to fly out of London had been the reason he had been able to trace her. She rubbed her head, making her curls stand up on end, and then got up to place more kindling on the fire. She drew a cushion to sit beside it and told him how she had read the advert in the New York Times from the lawyers.

  ‘I was even more stupid because I called them from the jewellery shop, and that was when I found out that Amy’s father was dead.’

  She sniffed as the tears welled up in her eyes and she used her shirt cuff to wipe them.

  ‘Did they mention that Amy as her father’s beneficiary was possibly in line to inherit three million pounds?’

  She gasped. ‘Three million?’

  ‘Whether or not she would be able to claim it is doubtful because her father had been left it in Simon Boatly’s will on condition that he divorced her mother. As he died before the divorce was actually agreed it is legally very questionable, but the lawyers seemed to be treating it as a possible legacy.’

  ‘Three million? My God, she doesn’t know. I am a bit confused about Simon Boatly, what happened to him?’

  ‘He died a few days before Marcus Fulford.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said and drew up her knees to rest her head against them.

  ‘I think the jewellery Amy told you was inherited belonged to Simon Boatly and she stole it.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ she muttered, still with her head on her knees.

  ‘She must have taken it when she was hiding out at his house in Henley.’

  ‘Did he know she had taken it?’

  Reid shook his head, saying he doubted it and that Boatly was a very wealthy man who had probably not even looked at the jewellery for many years, as he had not even bothered to renew the insurance. He was by now aching with tiredness. Although so many unanswered questions had now been ironed out, the most important one remained: where Amy was now? It was as if Jo had read his mind because she looked up and stared at him before turning back to the firelight.

  ‘I don’t know where she is. She took the tiara and left early this morning.’

  She got up and walked into the bedroom, as his head dropped forward and he jolted up.

  ‘This morning?’ he said loudly, getting to his feet.

  She came out with the letter.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, I took it that she had left a while ago, but this morning?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jo snapped and pushed the letter towards him. ‘I have been out searching for her. I don’t know where she has gone, but they had not seen her at the bus station. I asked everyone and searched all the roads but she was nowhere to be seen. I don’t know where she has gone, she could have hitched a ride. She’s broken my heart, just walked out on me as if all we have been through together stands for nothing. I don’t know how she could do that to me.’ />
  He was not even listening as he stood by the lit candle reading the letter. Finishing it, he folded it and held it out for her to take.

  ‘Well, what she has written certainly answers many of the questions I have wondered about for so long, especially over Amy’s state of mind and why she ran away from her parents. Question is, do you believe everything she has written is true?’ he asked.

  Jo pressed the folded pages to her chest. ‘How do I know if anything she has told me is the truth any more?’

  ‘Do you remember when I saw you at the school I said that we suspected Amy was prostituting herself . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, I asked her about that.’

  ‘And . . . ?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘She’d seen her father with prostitutes and wanted to know why and how long he’d been seeing them, but was scared to ask him. She was confused and thought that if she dressed up in her school uniform she could get closer to the girls and talk to them. A man pulled up in a car and asked her something but she didn’t hear him so she asked what he wanted and he drove away. One of the prostitutes threatened her, she was scared and ran off.’

  Reid smiled ironically, realizing the actual innocence of the situation, and thought to himself how crass it was that DCS Douglas was convinced from the CCTV that Amy treated prostitution as some sort of hobby. He took a deep breath and sat down. ‘Listen, I am really exhausted. I mean, part of me wants to go out and drive around to try and find her, but I think it will be more beneficial to search in daylight. I also think I need to tell you what has happened in the UK and the shockwaves her disappearance has caused.’

  ‘Oh God, if I go back will I be arrested?’

  He suddenly lost it, glaring at her. ‘I should have arrested you for having a sexual relationship with an underage teenager when you told me about your lesbian affair with Amy.’

  ‘Well why didn’t you?’ she snapped.

  ‘I don’t fucking know, and you have no bloody idea what this investigation has done to me.’ He could keep in his anguish no longer. ‘While you and that girl lived in some fantasy world of secrets and make believe, I went through a nightmare that I have been caught up in ever since. I nearly lost my mind and my job while trying to get to the bottom of it all. I believed an innocent young girl had been murdered, then wrongly accused her father of sexually abusing her and disposing of her body. You are a teacher, you’re supposed to act responsibly, and now all you seem to care about is your bloody self and whether or not you might get arrested!’

  The slap caught him off guard and he lost his balance; it infuriated him to such an extent he lurched forward and grabbed her by the wrists.

  ‘Instead of bleating about the possibility of being arrested you need to realize that Amy’s running away was a major factor in tipping her mother over the edge, causing her mind to become possessed by a maniac bent on revenge and poisoning anyone perceived as an enemy.’

  ‘You can’t blame Amy for that, you can see from her letter to me that her mother was already mentally disturbed.’

  ‘Had you persuaded her to come forward at the beginning of this sordid mess, then the journal would have been exposed as being written by her mother. I could have got medical help for her, but above all three innocent men would still be alive, so yes I can in some ways blame Amy and you for that!’

  Jo backed away from him, dragging her wrists free. He lifted his hands in a submissive gesture, recognizing she was genuinely frightened.

  ‘I’m sorry, but this has obsessed me for so long, and just so you know I am not here with any connection to the police, I’m here because I needed to prove . . .’ He couldn’t find the right words and stood shaking his head because he had an overpowering feeling he was going to break down and cry. He turned from her, hating becoming over-emotional and disliking the fact she seemed scared of him.

  ‘I was one of the casualties, believe it or not. I’ve lost my way and I’ve had to take sick leave due to the stress.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He held out his hand and asked her to sit with him. She truthfully did not understand and yet she held his hand as they sat in front of the fire.

  ‘Let me start from the beginning. Lena and Marcus Fulford reported Amy missing, and it was my job to investigate her disappearance. They brought to my attention a journal purportedly written by Amy.’

  ‘The journal, I know she told me she had been given it as a birthday present from her father. She did want to write short stories and I think had begun to write something but found that the journal had been opened so tore out the page because it was, I suppose, yet another indication that her mother pried into everything – she even said that at one time she had kept diaries but her mother read them . . . I think she just left it in her bedroom at her mother’s house.’

  ‘It was her mother who actually wrote in it.’

  ‘But why?’

  He kept it as brief as possible; she made no interruption and only released her hand from his to put another log on the fire. Quietly he told her about the sessions at the secure unit between Professor Cornwall and Lena Fulford and how her emotional breakdown and the appalling revelations of her abuse had affected him. Lastly he described how Lena had admitted to using poison to eliminate her so-called enemies. He made little reference to the decision by DCI Jackson to close the case, with Marcus Fulford more than implicated in abusing his daughter and disposing of her body.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said softly.

  ‘The most incriminating evidence against him was the discovery of the maroon sweater that Amy was last seen wearing, which was found in his rented flat. Plus the Cartier watch that had been in his car.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ she said sadly.

  ‘It did to the inquiry, because it meant that Amy had to have returned to his flat, as she was supposed to be going to see her father to collect the watch.’

  Jo got up and stretched, in an attempt to detract from how she was feeling. She guiltily realized that she had unwittingly played a part in encouraging Amy to never make contact with her parents again.

  ‘What has happened to her mother?’

  Reid shrugged and explained that after the last session she had become virtually catatonic and was now held in a secure mental facility. He added that he suspected she was perhaps better off being unable to remember, and due to her condition she would be deemed unfit to plead and there would be no trial.

  ‘Approve or not, it meant the case was closed – well it appeared that way to everyone else – but I have to live with the truth and it hurts me.’

  ‘Why?’

  He gave a long sigh and his eyes felt as if they were burning with tiredness.

  ‘I honestly don’t know, apart from the fact that I had a lot of interaction with Marcus Fulford, and he was a weak man, but I could never get my head around the accusations that he had abused Amy,’ he confessed. ‘He seemed genuinely distressed about her disappearance and even when all the information about him being bisexual and hiring prostitutes and rent boys started to surface he never tried to lie his way out of it, he appeared to me to want to find his daughter. I also had to deal with Lena, and not until I witnessed the sessions did I realize that she was severely mentally ill. Now in retrospect, if I play out all the numerous times I talked with her, she virtually telegraphed her different personalities. They surfaced time and time again, but I was predominantly so intent on finding her daughter I just accepted that she was behaving oddly due to stress.’

  Jo was now lying on a small sofa, with one arm resting across her chest, and her eyes were closed.

  ‘Well, now you know it all,’ he said, getting to his feet.

  ‘Do we?’ she said. ‘I am trying to imagine what it must have been like to live with Lena, how Amy had to become Miss Perfect, afraid to leave so much as a tissue loose in her bedroom. Then having the complete opposite when she stayed with her father, his sexual antics, and if it is true that her mother was feeding h
er poison to make her sick, then it’s no wonder she wanted to run away.’

  He yawned, stretched his arms and looked at his wristwatch. It was almost five in the morning; the sun had started to stream through the wooden blinds.

  Jo shook her head. ‘The way Amy had to be perfect at school, even after the times she spent with me, I am guilty of never really understanding the incredible pressure she must have been feeling. I am not excusing myself for what I did, but she told me that Serena Newman was blackmailing her, posting the disgusting comments on her Facebook page, and that she had found out that Amy had been with me in my cottage at the school, and she had wanted her Cartier watch to keep quiet about us. I am even more sure that the anonymous tip-off to Miss Harrington came from her.’

  He had moved to lie on the cushions in front of the dying fire, and he was too tired to even reply as Jo went on.

  ‘She did go to her father’s that afternoon; she changed into an old hoodie and jeans and then caught the train to Henley and hid there. She told me she made the decision to run away when she got to Serena’s. She’d lost her Cartier watch and thought it might be somewhere at her father’s; it was expensive and she intended to sell it for cash to run away, not give it to Serena.’

  She got up and went to the big bag she had put their paintings in ready for them to take when they left. She began to sort through various canvases, and then opened a big artist’s sketch-pad and flicked through it.

  She turned as she heard him snoring, and went to pick up an embroidered Mexican rug to lay over him; he was out for the count. She carried the sketchbook into the bedroom, closing the door and opening the shutters. She intended finding the particular drawing she wanted to show him, but resting back on the pillows she couldn’t keep awake.

  Reid woke a few hours later. Disorientated, he sat up and then flopped back, hardly able to believe he had fallen asleep. He took a few deep breaths and got to his feet, and then wondered in panic if Jo Polka had taken off. He pushed open the shutters, but the Land Rover was still there, the hens were clucking frantically and as he opened the door to look out he discovered the sun was already blistering hot. He walked round to the hosepipe and stripped off to shower again, but paused to look into the window of the bedroom. She was fast asleep. He turned on the hose, making the most of the relative privacy.