‘Yes,’ Sean confirmed.
‘Was that the usual sort of time you’d return when Sasha’s babysat for you in the past?’
Libby nodded. ‘Sometimes it’s been a bit later if we’ve gone to a party or into Oxford with friends, maybe getting back at one or two a.m., but we’ve always said she can stay over if that happens. And that was only ever on a weekend, never a college night.’
‘So you didn’t ask her to stay over last night?’ DI Jones leant forward, elbows on his jeans, his forearms exposed from under his turned-up cuffs.
‘We knew we wouldn’t be very late back so it didn’t seem necessary,’ Sean said. ‘Sometimes Matt, her boyfriend, picks her up and they go to his place. It’s not far. Other times we’ll put her in a taxi or, depending on whether we’ve had a drink, one of us will run her home. It’s never been a problem before.’
The detective didn’t say anything as he jotted down more notes.
‘I just don’t get why she left all her stuff,’ Libby said as tears filled her eyes.
‘So what time did you get home last night?’ the detective asked, glancing between the two of them. ‘I need to know exactly.’
‘Hard to say exactly,’ Sean said. ‘But I suppose it wasn’t long before we started contacting people. Lib, have you got your phone on you? You can check the time we made the calls.’
Libby nodded and pulled her phone from the front pocket of her cardigan. She forced her fingers to stop shaking as she brought up the Messenger message she’d sent to Matt. ‘Eleven twenty-seven,’ she said, looking at Sean. ‘Then I made a call to Jan, Sasha’s mum, at eleven thirty-two. See?’ She held out her phone to the detective, who gave it a quick glance.
‘And that was after you realised that Sasha wasn’t in the cottage or on your property?’
‘Yes,’ Sean said. ‘It’s not a huge house, so it didn’t take us long to figure out she wasn’t in it. We thought she may have popped into the village to meet a friend or something, that she’d be back at any moment looking sheepish when she realised we were back, but no…’ He closed his eyes briefly.
‘Did you go out and look around the village?’ DI Jones asked, tapping his pen on the clipboard.
‘No,’ Sean said immediately. Libby gave him a look.
‘Actually,’ Libby said, hesitating. ‘Um, yes we… I did that. You remember, Sean? I thought it was worth a quick drive around just in case.’
The detective stared at them, mainly at Sean.
‘Sorry, yes, Libby’s right. I’d forgotten.’ Sean touched his forehead. ‘But you were only gone a few minutes at most, love.’ He shrugged as he glanced at her. ‘Anyway, I’d had a couple of drinks by then so I stayed home.’
‘Meaning… that the alcohol made you forget your wife went out in the car to look for Sasha, or that you couldn’t do it yourself because you’d had a drink?’
‘Well, both really,’ Sean replied, giving a small laugh, the kind that was just still appropriate under the circumstances.
‘And had you had a drink too, Mrs Randell?’ DI Jones asked Libby.
‘Just a glass of wine or two early on in the evening. By the time I got in the car, I’d have been fine.’ Libby thought of the car she’d scraped – and Cath. She swallowed. ‘Apart from Eric walking his dog, I didn’t see anyone. And he’d not seen Sasha either.’ She remembered coming home, finding Sean in the hallway, his coat on, breathless, ruddy-faced from the cold air.
‘OK,’ DI Jones said, sitting back in the chair, making an uncomfortable face as he stretched his back. ‘I’ve got a forensics team up at your cottage now. Naturally, they’re going to want to go over everything thoroughly – we only get one chance at this – so I can’t give you any guarantee of timescales. I’m hoping you’ll be able to go back home tomorrow. Monday at the worst.’
‘Not today?’ Sean said, rather more gruffly than was warranted.
‘Unlikely,’ the detective replied. ‘If there’s anything you need, let me know where it is and I’ll have one of the officers bring it outside for you to collect.’
‘Thanks,’ Libby said, her stomach churning. ‘Just do what you need to do.’
‘What I’d like to do is speak to your daughter, Alice,’ he said, looking at each of them in turn.
* * *
‘You contradicted me,’ Sean said. They were out in the farmyard, taking Alice for a walk to see the ducks and hens. They all needed the fresh air. ‘Nice work, Lib.’
‘You wanted me to lie to the police about going out in the car?’ Libby replied, shaking her head. ‘I couldn’t do it, Sean.’
‘Well, you lied about the number of drinks you’d had,’ he replied. Alice skipped on ahead, her curls bouncing on her shoulders. Despite her tiredness, she’d perked up after Marion had made her a good breakfast, and she thankfully seemed unaffected by her brief meeting with DI Jones, who, despite his best efforts, couldn’t eke a single word out of her.
‘That’s different,’ Libby said. ‘I didn’t want to tell a cop that I’d driven my car after a bottle of wine. I thought I was doing the right thing. Anyway, you didn’t mention what Alice said when she refused to speak.’ She hung her head, wondering what kind of mess they were getting into. Seeing her daughter bury her face in the crook of Sean’s shoulder, squirming and curling up her legs when the detective asked her a few simple questions, broke Libby’s heart. No four-year-old should have to be subjected to that. But she was grateful that DI Jones didn’t push things and suggested that, if it came to it, an officer who specialised in dealing with children would be called in.
‘I think Alice saw Natalie in the cottage last night, Sean,’ Libby said, staring up at him.
‘Natalie?’ he said, sighing heavily. ‘Alice had a bad dream, that’s all. There’s no point subjecting her to a grilling by the police.’
‘But—’
‘I tried to cover up for you because you hit a car. Drunk. You didn’t find Sasha so it was irrelevant if you went out or not. I was trying to save your skin, Lib.’
‘I… I just thought it would be helpful to mention that I’d asked Eric if he’d seen Sasha, like you said. You know, to confirm everything?’ Libby watched him, her mouth hanging open. She’d never seen Sean like this before – his jaw clenched defiantly, his eyes almost bursting from pressure. He strode on, his hands thrust deep inside his pockets.
Then the tears came. She couldn’t help herself. Stopping in her tracks, Libby turned her back and covered her face, not wanting Alice to see, but the way her body lurched forward – a deep ache squeezing her heart, wringing out every bad emotion she’d ever felt – it took all her strength to keep upright. She felt her knees buckling beneath her.
And she would have gone down if it hadn’t been for the strong hands under her armpits from behind, keeping her upright.
‘Hey,’ Sean said, pushing his face into her neck. ‘C’mon, you. I know it’s awful but we’ll get through this, OK?’
Libby stared up at him. ‘How can you say that?’ she said, tears pouring down her face. ‘It’s all my fault – it must be. If only… if only…’
‘Easily,’ he replied, pulling her in for a hug. ‘But I need you to stay strong. The whole family needs you, Libby. Don’t lose it. Think of poor Sasha.’
‘That’s… that’s all I’m thinking of,’ Libby said, sniffing and scanning behind Sean to check where Alice was. She spotted her standing at the duck pond, the pink wellies that Marion had bought for her to keep at the farm half submerged in the muddy bog at the water’s edge. She was tearing up slices of stale bread, chucking them into the water for the birds.
‘Be careful, Alice,’ Libby called out, her voice choked from tears. She searched in her pockets for a tissue, eventually wiping her face on her sleeve.
Sean was shaking his head. ‘Look, love, it’s not even been twenty-four hours and you’re a mess. Repeat after me: “It’s not our fault. It could have happened to anybody”.’
‘Sean, don’t…’ Libby s
aid, shrugging out of his grip. She stared up at him. ‘I knew her pretty well, OK? She was a sweet girl with her whole life ahead of her and now… now this has happened. In our house.’
‘You know her pretty well, Libby. Not knew. And she is a sweet girl. Present tense, love, OK? Think positively. They’ve not found a body yet.’
But, as her eyes flashed over to the pond, Libby didn’t care about semantics and tenses.
Alice wasn’t there any more.
Stumbling and slipping, Libby charged over towards the pond, ducks and geese flapping and honking as she approached, yelling out.
‘Alice? Alice… where are you?’
She cast around frantically, trying to take in as much of the farm as she could. Alice wasn’t by the pond, or running through the clump of trees or climbing on the old gate half hanging off its hinges, nor was she on or hiding under the flatbed trailer… She wasn’t anywhere…
‘Al-ice…!’
This time, Libby’s knees did give way and she dropped to the ground, clutching her face, a stone digging into her kneecap. She didn’t care as the tears started up again. She was shaking from the inside out.
‘Lib, Lib, darling… you’ve got to stop this. You’re a nervous wreck and that’s not like you.’
When she glanced up, Sean was standing above her, Alice sitting happily on his hip, kicking her muddy boots against his jeans.
Libby made a noise somewhere between rage and relief, screwing up her eyes as she dragged her fingers down her face. Behind her eyelids, all she could see was Sasha – alone, terrified, being dragged out of the cottage by a monster and, worse, all with Alice upstairs asleep. Anything could have happened.
Anything did happen.
‘Why don’t you go and play on the tree swing, darling?’ Sean said, sliding Alice to the ground and steering her in the direction of the ropes Fred had slung over a branch last summer for his granddaughter, replacing the rotten old swing he used to play on as a child. Alice ran off excitedly.
Sean crouched down to Libby, who was kneeling in the mud. He touched her shoulder. She flinched.
‘She was behind the henhouse looking for eggs, that’s all.’ He paused, waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t. Just sobs choking up her throat. ‘I’m worried about you, Lib. If this is how you are now… Well, we don’t know how long all this will go on for, do we?’
Libby wanted to scream even more, but managed to check herself. ‘You’re right. It’s just that anything could have happened to Alice last night and… and…’ She broke down again. ‘And just now too…’
‘Look, love… I’m not the only one to notice that you’re on edge,’ Sean added. ‘Natalie said she’s concerned about you, that you didn’t seem yourself.’
Libby hoisted herself to her feet, stumbling again. ‘I know, I know. You’re right.’ She sighed. ‘Though I’m not sure what any of this has got to do with Natalie,’ she said, feeling wretched, the tears still streaming.
‘She was only trying to help and…’ He glanced over Libby’s shoulder, his expression changing as he trailed off.
‘She sent the note, didn’t she?’ Libby snapped, her eyes growing wide. She put her hand up over her forehead, shielding the glare as the autumn sun suddenly broke from behind a cloud. ‘It was Natalie, wasn’t it?’
But Sean didn’t reply. He walked off to where Alice was playing, shaking his head in disbelief. As she watched him, Libby saw that Marion had come out. She was standing close behind Alice, stopped in her tracks and her mouth hanging open as her eyes danced between the pair of them.
Twenty-One
From the outside, it didn’t much look like Chestnut Cottage any more. Not the home Libby knew, anyway. Three marked police cars filled the spaces outside the little row of thatched cottages and a uniformed officer was standing beside the latch and braced door, his head almost reaching the low brow of the porch canopy.
Libby watched, car keys in hand, wondering if they were tearing things apart inside – given the white-suited figures she could just make out through the leaded front windows. She’d only driven down to the village out of curiosity, but now she was here she had an overwhelming urge to run inside, yell at everyone to get out, to leave their things alone, to make everything go back to how it was before.
She glanced at her watch. Twenty past four. This time yesterday she was thinking about what to wear for the meal, if she’d have time to wash her hair, believing that a night out would repair the damage she’d done between her and Sean. She’d resolved that by the time they got home from the pub, everything would be fine between them and the air would be cleared. She hated that her insecurities had made him feel so wretched.
‘Hello,’ Libby said, tentatively approaching the officer. ‘Are they…’ She glanced at the front window, pointing nervously. ‘Are they really busy in there, or am I allowed in to get a couple of things? I’m Libby Randell, by the way. I live here.’
‘Mrs Randell,’ the officer said, nodding. ‘I’d need to get clearance from the SIO for that. Forensics are underway.’
‘SIO?’
‘Senior investigating officer,’ he explained.
Libby shuddered, assuming that would be DI Jones. When he’d left Fred and Marion’s farm a few hours ago she hoped she’d never have to see him again. ‘DI Jones said we could get a couple of things if needed. We had to leave in a bit of a rush. I’ve got a four-year-old, you see, and there are some things she wants.’
‘Of course. I’ll make sure the request is passed on, Mrs Randell, and someone will be in touch.’
Libby nodded, a sinking feeling growing inside. Then the front door opened and a woman in a white paper suit came out, a large black camera slung around her neck. She pulled off her face mask and said something to the officer at the door before stretching and catching sight of Libby. She snapped off her latex gloves and removed her shoe covers, dropping them into a box beside the door. Then she ambled down the front path and over to an unmarked car parked on the lane. Libby watched as she pulled out a silver flask and poured herself a hot drink.
‘Leaving that lot to it for a while,’ she said to the officer as she came back up the front path. ‘Not much to go on but they’re picking through and marking up. I’m off out tonight so I hope they get a move on.’ She eyed Libby again, clearly wondering who she was and why she was loitering at the garden gate.
‘Any idea how long it will take?’ Libby asked, thinking she’d take another chance. She stepped from one foot to the other, a pained expression on her face as she clamped her arms around her body. She wondered what they had found that warranted taking pictures.
‘Mrs Randell lives here,’ the officer explained to the woman. ‘She needs a couple of things from inside.’
‘Oh, right,’ she replied. ‘Maybe I can grab something for you? What is it you need?’
Libby felt her cheeks flush. ‘Oh, well, my iPhone charger would be useful. It’s plugged in beside my bed in the main bedroom. And there’s a make-up bag on the bathroom shelf I could really use. I’d say that’s pretty urgent,’ she said, laughing and pointing at her face. ‘Oh, and it sounds silly but there’s a recipe book in the kitchen I was going to get. I’m a chef, you see, and have to plan for a couple of menus. I don’t want to let clients down.’ She smiled quickly. ‘You’ll find it on the shelves at the end of the kitchen cupboards. It’s the one with a green spine.’
‘Sure, I’ll see what I can do,’ the woman said.
‘Didn’t you say you wanted something for your child, too?’ the other officer said.
‘Oh, yes. Yes, I did. If you see a shaggy brown dog, about this big with a blue velvet nose, you’d make a four-year-old girl very happy,’ Libby said. ‘He’s probably on her bed. She can’t sleep without him.’
The woman gave a little nod before slipping on a pair of fresh shoe covers from a container beside the door. Then she disappeared inside the cottage, returning five minutes later with a carrier bag of items. Libby went ove
r to her to save her removing the covers again.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said quietly, glancing inside the bag, noticing the cookbook was there. She turned to go and, as she was heading back to her car, her phone rang.
‘Fran,’ she said, getting into the driver’s seat, fighting the urge to break down in tears and blurt out everything to her best friend. Instead, she shut the door and reclined her head, her voice choked. ‘Yes, yes, I’d really like to see you too, thank you,’ she replied, sniffing, grateful for a glimmer of normality. And, just as they said goodbye, her battery finally ran out and the tears came again.
* * *
Libby stared out at the fields surrounding her. The rolling countryside she’d grown to know and love had taken on a different hue, as if it had been painted in a colour palette normally invisible to the human eye. Her eye, anyway. Everything had a strange and dark tinge to it – as if she were viewing the world through a filter. Through sadness. She put the window down to check if the sounds were the same. She needed grounding, somehow convincing that there was a way out of the flat spin her life had become.
Silence.
Not even the song of a bird or the clop of a passing horse’s hooves. No breath of wind or the sound of a tractor rumbling in a distant field. Even the nearby main road, sometimes audible up here on the hill, was silent and eerie, as if the land knew something bad had happened.
She was only a mile or so out of Great Lyne, parked up in a gateway – the place where she and Sean often ambled up to, taking a long Sunday walk together if Marion came round to look after Alice yet again.
‘Don’t begrudge her,’ Sean had said once. ‘Not many grandparents would help out as much as she does. We need her, Lib. We’re lucky.’
But Libby couldn’t help wondering if it was really Alice she’d come to see, or if she was checking up on her – making sure she was taking care of Sean, the house, holding things together.
‘So what if I don’t use the same fabric conditioner as she does,’ Libby had complained to Sean after Marion had made a comment. ‘Knowing your mum, I’m surprised she doesn’t use pure bleach to do her wash anyway. And as for having a dig at the lunches I make for you, well…’ Libby had literally bitten her tongue until she’d tasted blood at that remark.
Date Night: An Absolutely Gripping Psychological Thriller With a Jaw-Dropping Twist Page 13