The Girls Next Door

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The Girls Next Door Page 22

by Mel Sherratt

She couldn’t stay there any longer. Getting out of the car, she ran up the pavement, past the rows of detached houses, family cars and well-kept gardens. Sean was walking back towards her.

  ‘Where is she?’ she shouted.

  People turned to look, but she didn’t care – and she didn’t stop running. The front door to the property was open, but everyone seemed to be coming out. Still she couldn’t see Jess.

  ‘Where is she?’ As he drew level with her, she tried to get past him, but he blocked her way.

  ‘She isn’t here,’ he said.

  Eden couldn’t contemplate that. She had been so sure on the ride over that she would find her niece, unharmed, and she would take her home. Now all her hopes had been dashed.

  ‘What do you mean? She must be!’

  ‘The house belongs to Mr and Mrs Malcolm. They moved in three months ago. It was repossessed from Jason Proctor. They must have bought it shortly after his daughter died.’

  ‘But why didn’t they get in touch with us and tell us that he used to live here? We’ve wasted valuable time.’ Eden glanced at the house again, still expecting to see her niece. ‘And Jess’s face was everywhere on the television.’

  ‘They’ve been staying with family in Australia for the past month. The plane didn’t touch down until late last night and they went straight to bed. When we woke them up asking for Jason Proctor, it was the first they had heard about it.’

  ‘And you believe them?’ Eden pressed. ‘They could be involved in this. They could—’

  ‘You know all this is easy to check out.’ Sean stopped her. ‘They have suitcases standing up in the hallway, luggage tags on them and flight stickers around the handles. They got in at midnight and went straight to bed.’

  ‘So we’re no further forward than yesterday?’ Her tone sounded accusatory but Sean didn’t respond. It was then she noticed the media vans pulling up, the cameraman filming their every move. ‘Oh, no.’ She pointed to them in exasperation.

  They went inside the house. A young woman wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown was rifling through a box of paperwork. Eden sank into the settee. Sean sat down next to her.

  ‘Do they know where he moved to?’ she asked.

  Sean shook her head. ‘He didn’t leave a forwarding address.’

  ‘I think he rented a property from a firm called Properties Direct,’ said the woman, who continued looking through the box. ‘I remember a letter coming here for him after he had moved out.’

  ‘Thanks. We’ll look into it,’ said Sean.

  Eden glanced at the television screen to see Jess’s image. Then she saw the house, and a few officers entering the property, including herself. The yellow tape below was showing breaking news that there may be a lead on the missing girl. She couldn’t begin to imagine how Laura would feel once she told her the lead had led to nothing.

  Out of the window, she could see more news reporters. She jumped to her feet. ‘I have to go and see my sister.’

  ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

  Eden looked at Sean with a pained expression. ‘I can’t go home without her. I can’t go back to the house and face the neighbours, see her empty bed. What happens if we don’t ever find her? Or if we find her but she’s dead and we didn’t do enough to save her? What do I—’

  ‘Eden, this is not your fault.’ He placed a hand on her arm. ‘Go back to the station and get your car. You need to be with your sister.’

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Last night, Laura had insisted that Sarah go to bed when Brad had left just after midnight, but she herself had stayed downstairs. She’d lain on the settee, the house phone and her mobile next to her, waiting for another call. She wasn’t sure she’d had more than an hour’s sleep. She had dozed because her body had made her, but she didn’t want to rest. Every time she closed her eyes, she would see images of Jess. Lying beaten, bound and gagged on the floor of a disused warehouse. At the bottom of a ditch covered in leaves and detritus. Eyes dead. Body hurt. Soul gone.

  It was past 9 a.m. Eden said he would call again and that they would have to wait. He’d want to let them know what his intentions were, what he was going to do next. Now she pushed open the door to Jess’s bedroom, feeling the need to be close to her daughter.

  It was exactly as she had left it. No one had touched anything since Eden had searched it. She sniffed, smelling her daughter’s deodorant in the air. Just the lingering tang made her eyes brim with tears. Jess was into her perfumes and make-up the same as most teenagers. It was something to make them stand out from each other rather than end up looking like clones.

  She opened the wardrobe, ran a hand over the clothes. Why hadn’t she noticed a few new ones creeping in? Jess had told her they were from some cheap high street shops in Stockleigh where everything was marked as five pounds, and she had believed her. Why wouldn’t she? Even seeing the labels on them now, why would she have doubted her? There had been no reason to until she had found out from Eden what had been going on with the mobile phones.

  When Jess came back – because she had to believe she would come back – she would make sure there were no secrets between them. She wouldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt for a long time.

  She sat down on the bed, reaching for Jess’s pyjamas and holding them against her face. Her smell was there too, fresh and clean. She gulped.

  ‘Where are you, Jess?’ she whispered.

  ‘Mum?’

  Laura looked up to see Sarah. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks blotchy and her hair, although brushed, hadn’t been straightened to its usual perfection. She patted the bed and Sarah sat down beside her. Laura drew her into her arms.

  ‘I didn’t sleep much,’ Sarah said, ‘but I didn’t want to get up either. How are you?’

  ‘Numb, I guess.’ Laura gave a half smile.

  ‘Everything seems strange without Jess here.’ Sarah’s thoughts echoed her mum’s. ‘Where is she, Mum? Do you think she’ll be okay with that man?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Laura tried not to look at the photo on the noticeboard by the side of the wardrobe. It was of the three of them on holiday last year in Spain. Happy, smiling faces. Arms around each other.

  ‘Do you know why he took her? It can’t be because you spoke to this Ashleigh on the phone and he says you let her down.’

  ‘You mean did I do anything wrong?’ Laura bristled. ‘Anything to antagonise him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that at all!’ Sarah looked at her in disapproval. ‘I was just wondering if you could maybe think back to when you last spoke to Ashleigh. Did she mention anything that could give you a clue about why her dad has done this to Jess?’

  ‘I’ve been doing that for most of the night.’ Laura gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘Ashleigh was a mixed-up child. Her mum died when she was thirteen, and neither she nor her dad came to terms with it, I don’t think. I guess they couldn’t cope without her and instead of coming together they grew more and more apart, unable to connect.’

  ‘Did she tell you all that?’ Sarah raised her eyebrows in incredulity.

  ‘In a roundabout way, yes.’ Laura nodded.

  ‘Then you are definitely in the right job, Mum.’

  Despite herself, Laura felt proud to hear her daughter say that. But at the same time, she disagreed.

  ‘If I was in the right job, she wouldn’t have died,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but I will always think it. Ashleigh was hurting. She couldn’t get any support from her dad, so she was unable to speak to anyone but me. And I’m only there to listen, really.’

  ‘Didn’t she ever talk to Nicola, or Marian?’

  ‘No, but that’s not unusual. That’s what most of the teens do. They see us as support figures, someone who they don’t know so they can talk freely without judgement. Ashleigh latched on to me. Maybe if I had listened to her more during that last call, shown more sympathy. . . I don’t know.’

  Sarah shook
her head fervently. ‘You don’t know if she killed herself right after a call to you. It could have been after a row with her dad. Maybe he tipped her over the edge.’

  Laura wasn’t so certain about that, and it still wouldn’t stop her from feeling guilty. ‘Either way, it’s such a shame that a teenager felt the need to take her own life. In this day and age we should be able to refer them to other organisations.’

  ‘Why don’t you do that?’ Sarah’s brow furrowed. ‘I never understood why.’

  ‘Because to the caller it might seem like you’re passing the buck. Like you don’t want to listen to them so you’re trying to get rid of them.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous!’

  ‘It is, I suppose,’ Laura agreed. ‘But my job is to listen to them.’

  ‘And you do it so well. So don’t go beating yourself up that any of this is your fault,’ Sarah added. ‘It isn’t. It’s just that sick bastard who has our Jess. He’s the psycho.’

  But Laura had stopped listening as her phone began to ring. It was Cayden’s mum, Andrea. As she listened, she stood up quickly. ‘There’s breaking news on the television,’ she relayed to Sarah. ‘The police have a house surrounded.’

  Sarah reached for the remote control to Jess’s small TV and switched on a news channel.

  Laura gasped as images came up of a house in a suburban street, police cars blocking it off, lights flashing. She looked closer: was it in Stockleigh? She read the ticker tape beneath the images.

  Lead in hunt for missing schoolgirl Jessica Mountford.

  ‘Have they found her, Mum?’ Sarah asked, eyes wide with excitement. She pointed to the screen ‘There’s Eden!’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Laura reached for her phone. ‘Eden would have told us if they had.’

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Jess sat in the middle of the room. The curtains were drawn, but she knew it was light outside. The clock on the back wall said it was nearing 9.30 a.m. The television was showing Sky News, but the sound was muted. Amongst the shadows, she could see him lying sleeping in the armchair. His loud snores had kept her awake most of the night, but now they were gentle. She knew he would wake soon, so she kept still in the chair. She didn’t want another day to start.

  She tried to swallow behind the tape. She’d been sitting in the chair for near on twenty-four hours. He’d let her off to go to the toilet, only removing the tape from her hands long enough for her to do what she had to and then replacing it with some more. She’d had to leave the toilet door ajar so he could hear what she was up to. It meant he could hear her pee too. She had been so embarrassed.

  As soon as she’d finished, he’d made her go back to sit in the chair. Her bottom was stiff, but she hadn’t complained. She’d wanted him to think she was complying. Because when she got the chance, she was going to grab for the knife under the cushion and try to escape again. He would slip up. She would never give up.

  She just wanted to go home. She wanted her mum, because she needed to hear what she had to say about Ashleigh. Her mum had always been there for her, so she didn’t believe what he was saying.

  She remembered when she had broken her arm when she was seven and how Mum had looked after her then. She remembered how she had held her hand when she’d had a tooth removed after having a painful abscess. She remembered the times she had sat with her and Sarah on the sofa, snuggled up together to watch a video.

  If her mum found out that she had been stealing mobile phones to make some cash, she would be so disappointed. Her mum hadn’t brought her up to do that type of thing, she would say. She knew she’d say that her dad would have been disappointed too. That would sting the most.

  Jess was eight when he had been killed in a car accident, and her mum had brought them up single-handedly, but they had never gone short of love and affection.

  She looked at him again. No matter what he said, it wasn’t all down to her mum. He was at fault too. He should have listened. Her mum hadn’t gone to pieces when her dad had died.

  When she got out of here she would give her mum and sister the biggest hugs ever. Even though they argued, it was only because they were so close. Sarah had always been there for her too. Her sister and her mum could get her through anything, and she needed to be more appreciative.

  A flash of red and blue caught her eye. A breaking news sign was showing on the television and a house came into view, surrounded by police cars. There were police officers going in and out of the property. As the camera zoomed in, Jess spotted Eden among them. She groaned loudly. The ticker tape was saying they had a lead on the missing girl. That was her!

  But they were at the wrong house.

  Her groan woke Jason. He followed her eyes to the television screen. Sitting up quickly, he reached for the remote control and switched up the sound.

  ‘Mmmm!’ A tear escaped and trickled down her cheek.

  ‘Fuck! This wasn’t supposed to happen.’ He turned to her. ‘I only wanted to speak to your mother. Now it’s all going wrong. It’s escalating into something horrific.’

  Jess sat, eyes wide, groaning every now and then.

  Jason took Jess’s phone out of his pocket and switched it on again. He glanced at her, pain in his eyes.

  ‘If your mum had done her job properly, none of this would have happened.’

  Then he began to type out a message.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Eden had collected Amy, as well as her car, and was on her way back to her sister’s house when her phone rang.

  ‘Shit. It’s Laura,’ said Eden, glancing at the screen lighting up in the holder on the dashboard. ‘I can’t answer this. I need to speak to her in person. I’ll switch it to silent until she disconnects.’

  Laura tried her twice more before she arrived outside the house a few minutes later. Eden threw off her seat belt and raced in.

  ‘Where is she?’ said Laura, disappointment clear in her expression.

  ‘She wasn’t there,’ Eden explained. ‘It was his previous address.’

  ‘So they must have a forwarding address! Why aren’t you going there?’

  ‘There’s nothing. He didn’t leave one.’ Eden didn’t tell her they had a lead to look into. She wouldn’t tell any other member of the public for fear of escalating hope, so she wouldn’t tell Laura for the same reasons.

  ‘You can’t find her, can you?’ Laura gave Eden such a sharp look she almost gasped.

  ‘We’re doing our best,’ she started.

  ‘Your best isn’t good enough! I can’t—’

  Eden’s phone alerted her to an incoming message. At the same time, Laura’s phone went off too.

  Eden read the message.

  Help me. 17 Lewistock Lane. He’s locked me up. I can’t get away.

  ‘Jess!’ cried Laura.

  Before she could respond, Eden heard footsteps thundering down the stairs.

  ‘I have a message from Jess,’ said Sarah, running into the room. ‘It says she’s at seventeen Lewistock Lane! That’s not far from here!’

  ‘Me too,’ cried Laura. ‘This means she’s alive, doesn’t it, Eden?’

  Eden held up her hand. She wouldn’t confirm that. It was too soon. For all they knew, Jess might not have sent the message.

  Laura’s phone rang. ‘Yes, we’ve had the same message. We’re on to it, thanks. I’m putting the phone down. Yes, speak soon.’ She looked at Eden. ‘That was Rachel Goodwin, Stacey’s mum.’

  Laura’s phone went again. It was from another of Jess’s friends.

  ‘She must have sent the message to everyone on her contacts list,’ Laura said after she had spoken to her.

  ‘No, that’s the last thing we need!’ Eden looked at Amy, who was radioing in the details. She rang Sean to update him and then turned to Laura as she finished another phone call.

  ‘We need to go,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything.’

  ‘I’m not staying here.’ Laura was behind
her. She tried to push past Eden.

  ‘We can’t put your life in danger too.’ Eden held her back. ‘For all we know we could be walking into a trap.’

  ‘You can’t tell me what to do. She’s MY daughter!’

  ‘Mum.’ Sarah touched her gently on the arm. ‘Let them do their job. Eden will find her.’

  ‘Like she did this morning?’ Laura snapped. ‘You went to the wrong house!’

  ‘We were following a valid lead!’

  Laura’s phone rang again. ‘It’s Cayden,’ she said, answering it. ‘Yes, we know. The police are on their way. No! You stay away, do you hear?’

  Eden didn’t stop to hear any more of the conversation. If Cayden was going to the address, he could mess things up. She was out of the street within a minute and on her way to Lewistock Lane.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  As Eden left the house, Laura’s phone rang. It was from an unknown number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Do not alert anyone to the fact that I’ve rung you. Do you hear me? Anyone.’

  Laura gasped. It was him again. Jason Proctor.

  Sarah was on her phone talking to someone about the text message she’d received. Laura went into the living room and closed the door quietly.

  ‘What do you want?’ Her voice came out sharper than she had intended. ‘Is Jess okay?’

  ‘She’s fine. I’m just letting you know that she isn’t at Lewistock Lane.’

  ‘What?’ A strangled sob escaped Laura. ‘You bastard! Where is she?’

  ‘Don’t worry – she’s with me.’

  ‘I want to speak to her!’

  ‘You don’t get to say what happens.’

  Goosebumps prickled all over her skin.

  ‘You need to come and get her. But you don’t tell anyone you’re coming. You certainly don’t tell that sister of yours.’

  ‘I—’ Her mind went blank as she thought about what he might do if she didn’t go right now. ‘Please don’t hurt her,’ Laura whispered.

 

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