In the bedroom she saw that Dougie was still asleep, the duvet tangled around his abdomen. He slept naked, and in the dim morning light she could just make out the dark trail of hair that connected his belly button to his groin.
His continued slumber meant it unlikely that the phone she’d heard had been hers. Still, wanting to be sure, she went to her bag and had just reached inside when she felt Dougie’s hand on her waist. Drawing himself up to kneeling, he lifted her hair out of the way and kissed the drips of water that remained on her shoulder blades. The search for her phone forgotten, she dropped her bag and turned to him. He had yet to shower but he still smelt fresh, tart. Like pears, new to the bowl. Sliding his hand underneath her towel, he ran his fingers across her hip. She shivered and he dipped his hand lower. Pushing him back onto the bed, she undid her towel and climbed on top of him. Her knees pressed into the mattress and she felt the sheet where he’d been lying, cold against her skin.
Jitesh
Midday on the Commercial Road. Jitesh parked his dad’s Ford estate outside Jessamine’s building and got out. He buzzed her flat, and while he waited for her to answer he scanned the horizon for parking wardens.
In the end he’d told Meera everything, about Shanae and the events that had followed. She’d listened and then, when he was done, she’d said he had to stop blaming himself, that none of it was his fault. He wasn’t convinced, but hearing her say those things had made him feel better, like a weight had been lifted.
Later he’d returned to the contents of Sarah’s Messenger and tried to get hold of Jessamine multiple times on the phone. But despite leaving a voicemail and a follow-up text asking her to get in touch as soon as possible she’d yet to reply. In the end he’d decided to come and seek her out in person. What he knew couldn’t wait. He had to talk to her now, today. Not least because, reading between the lines of Sarah’s last few messages, it seemed something bad was going to happen imminently, something she might regret.
He buzzed the flat again.
No response. Nobody was home.
He checked his watch. Maybe Jessamine wasn’t there because she’d had to return to the police station. The detectives were bound to have more questions. If she was in an interview room, she wouldn’t have her phone with her.
He could drive to the police station, ask for her at the front desk.
He was just about to go when the door opened and a woman appeared. She was crying, her hand over her mouth. A man had his arm around her shoulders, comforting her. As they passed, the door remained open for a few seconds and he was able to see through the hallway to a commotion in the central courtyard beyond. Curious, he slipped inside and made his way out to the garden. A small crowd had gathered near a brick barbecue. They were pointing at something. He moved closer.
There on the ground, next to a pot of red geraniums, was what looked like a loop of thin white sausages arranged in coils. Then he saw the blood. A paw, bent at a strange angle. It was a dead cat. It looked to have fallen from a great height, the impact exploding its intestines. The creature’s ginger fur was soaked with blood but he could just make out a white patch near the hind legs. It took the shape of a love-heart, perfect and symmetrical. Munchie.
He searched the group by the barbecue for Jessamine, and when he didn’t see her there, he peered up to her flat on the fifth floor. He expected to see her looking over the side of the balcony, distraught at the sight of her pet prone in the courtyard. But there was no sign of her or Sarah, who was presumably at school.
Footsteps, and he turned to see the man who’d been comforting the crying woman a few minutes earlier. ‘Anyone left a Ford estate outside?’
Taking care not to stand in the cat’s remains, Jitesh stepped forward.
‘Go now,’ said the man. ‘You’re about to get a ticket.’
Jessamine
Jessamine pulled into the lay-by and got out. Dougie had been right. This was as close as she could get by car to where she needed to be. She’d go the rest of the way on foot.
In the corner of the lay-by a cabin was serving sandwiches and tea. A signpost next to it directed ramblers and dog-walkers through a wooden gate and onto a prescribed path across the fields and beyond. Apart from herself, the woman in the cabin and a man trying to wrestle a muddy spaniel into the boot of a Volvo, no one was around.
She checked the map. The message had been sent from Cassie’s phone while it was somewhere within a two-square-mile area. The lack of nearby cell towers and the fact it had been turned on for such a short time meant they hadn’t been able to narrow it down any more than that. Jessamine had marked the specifics in black Sharpie. The perimeter formed an isosceles triangle on the page and, just as O’Brien’s detective friend had said, the M4 cut right across the top of it. Her plan was to walk this perimeter, then explore the inside of the triangle by cutting into and across it at different points. She had no idea what she was looking for. From everything she’d learned about Cassie, the woman had no connection to Berkshire, let alone this obscure patch of its countryside. The police were probably right. Cassie had composed the message just before she’d disappeared, when she had no connection: it had gone into a queue. Then when the phone was turned back on it had connected to 4G and belatedly delivered it to Marnie.
Monitoring her position with the blue GPS dot on her phone, she went through the wooden gate and set off in the direction of the coordinates that correlated to the bottom of the triangle. In a few hundred metres she’d need to deviate from the path, into the fields to her right.
As she walked, she lifted her face towards the light. The early February air was brisk, but the sun was shining and the snow, which had plagued the country all winter, finally gone. She’d only ever driven through this part of England on her way to somewhere else but now she discovered that the Berkshire Downs were beautiful, all rolling chalk hills fringed by trees and swooping fields that were just starting to green. In the far distance, on slightly higher ground, she could see a large manor house that looked grand and old enough to be National Trust, the River Lambourn flowing in front of it. An arched stone bridge provided the only visible crossing.
She yawned. Last night’s antics with Dougie were starting to take their toll. Jessamine Gooch: shattered from too much shagging. The notion made her smile. He’d been so different to how he was on their first date. Intelligent, funny. They’d talked for hours. Before she’d left his flat that morning he’d brought her in for one last kiss, and she’d found herself wondering if, against all the odds, he might turn out to be someone with whom she could make a real go of it.
She reached the point at which she needed to leave the path and veered right. After skidding down a muddy incline, she continued for another three hundred metres north and she was there. Somewhere within two square miles of this spot, on Wednesday, 23 November, someone had, most likely unintentionally, sent a WhatsApp from Cassie Scolari’s phone.
Walking the perimeter took nearly two hours. She passed the odd copse of trees or hedgerow, but other than that and the background roar of the M4, there was little of any significance. All done, she began to explore the area inside.
Here, she found a few things of more interest. Some of the fields she walked through showed evidence of digging or excavation. To what purpose wasn’t clear. The large patches of mud looked to have been recently filled in, the ground around them littered with scraps of plastic orange netting, the soil imprinted with caterpillar treads. She stopped. Going by the blue GPS dot, she was now slap-bang in the middle of the triangle. She looked around, trying to decide where to look next. To her left was a clutch of trees. Approaching its outer edge, hidden among the beech and oak, she came across a small wooden structure on stilts. A hide. Of course. During the hunting season this part of the country was big on partridge and grouse. She climbed up the ladder and found herself in a dark, crudely constructed space. Two rectangular holes offered a view of the field, the perfect vantage point from which to shoot prey.
> Jessamine shivered. Out of the sunshine the temperature was brisk. She grabbed a handful of pumpkin seeds from her pocket and chewed them slowly, thinking. The planked floor was damp and mossy in places, the corners rucked with old leaves. Nothing of note. She tried to imagine Cassie inside here or out there, wandering the Downs. But it was all too random. If there was a reason for her having been in this region Jessamine couldn’t see it.
She climbed back down the ladder. She’d done what she came to do and now she was going home to see her daughter and have a much-needed early night. Maybe she’d drop Dougie a text, ask him what his plans were for the weekend.
Before making her way back across the fields to her car, she did one final three-sixty turn. Again, her eye caught on the only thing of any real substance: the house in the distance. She checked the map. Sitting on a promontory of sorts, it was a good two to three miles outside the area in which Cassie’s phone had been cell-sited. It wasn’t marked as National Trust. A private residence then, or a hotel. Walking there would take another thirty to forty minutes. She’d already come all this way. An extra hour wouldn’t make much difference.
She set off at a pace. Before long, the ground began to change, becoming boggy and littered with puddles. Her boots and the bottom half of her jeans were soon sodden and spattered with mud. As she neared the bridge she could hear the river, its melt-water rush filling the air like static. She made her way across, and as she reached the apex, she stopped and looked over the low stone wall. The Lambourn had burst its banks. The swollen water foamed dirty and brown.
Up ahead was the manor house and behind it a bank of low hills, hemmed by trees. Its elevated position meant that anyone looking out of one of its many windows would have a spectacular view of the river and Downs beyond. She crossed the bridge and followed the curve of the path up towards the house. When she was close enough she got out her phone, took a picture, then emailed it and its rough coordinates to Jitesh, asking him to see what he could find on the place. Then she sent the same picture to Dougie and made a joke about having gone off the beaten track and asked him to send out the search parties if she didn’t make it back before dark.
She crossed the bridge and followed the curve of the path up towards the house. Circling the garden was a ha-ha, a steep turfed ditch that sloped down to a sunken wall. Forming a boundary between the estate’s grounds and gardens, it resembled a dry moat and at one time would have been used to deter grazing livestock. A gravel driveway looped round the front lawn and away to the right of the house, along a road thick with trees.
As she got closer she realised the building was older than she’d initially thought, possibly Elizabethan. A brick battlement ran along the point at which the roof joined the house, and beneath it a vast arrangement of latticed casement windows, the entrance marked by a central stone porch. She noticed two cars parked at the side of the house. Hopefully that meant someone was at home.
Inside the porch she rang the doorbell and waited. The front entrance was most definitely a modern addition to the property, consisting of a pair of French windows, the top two thirds of which were glass. Through them she had a clear view of the hallway. A cantilevered wooden staircase circled up past a series of landings, the first accentuated by a huge stained-glass window depicting a family crest.
A woman appeared on the stairs.
‘Yes?’ she said, as she opened the door. ‘Can I help you?’
Sporting a velvet Alice band, a cardigan and a long tartan skirt, she had immaculate white bobbed hair.
‘Sorry to trouble you,’ said Jessamine, suddenly conscious of the mud on her jeans. ‘This might seem odd, but I’m investigating a missing woman. There’s a possibility she may have been in or around this area at some point after she disappeared. I wondered if I might show you her picture, see if you recognise her.’
‘A missing woman. How awful.’ She fished a pair of reading glasses out of her cardigan pocket and placed them on her nose. Jessamine handed her the picture.
She studied it carefully for a few moments, then shook her head. ‘Sorry, no. When was it you said she went missing?’
‘Last year, November.’
‘Ah.’ She pursed her lips, apologetic. ‘I only joined the house a short time ago. January.’
‘When you say “joined”, you mean . . .?’ Jessamine left the question deliberately unfinished.
‘I’m a housekeeper. The family . . .’ Not wanting to be indiscreet, she paused. ‘They’ve needed a bit of extra help of late.’
Jessamine thought of the two cars she’d seen parked at the side of the house. ‘Is anyone else at home?’ she asked, hoping to be invited inside. ‘Maybe I could speak with them.’
‘I’m afraid now’s not a good time,’ said the housekeeper. ‘If you leave the picture with me I’ll be sure to pass it on.’
‘My contact details,’ said Jessamine, scribbling her name and number at the bottom of the printout. She thanked her for her time and the woman closed the door, but just before it clicked shut Jessamine heard someone shout from upstairs.
‘Minty?’ The voice was female. ‘I need you. Now.’
The door closed and the housekeeper returned up the stairs from which she’d come. Jessamine remained inside the porch for a few moments, thinking. There was something about the voice she’d heard that bothered her. It was like having a stone in her shoe. Tiny but able to cause great discomfort.
The light was starting to dim. She’d need to get a move on if she was going to make it back to her car before dark. She scanned the grounds one last time. In front of her was the lawn and around it the drive, which led onto a road surrounded on either side by dense forest. At the edge of the lawn was the ha-ha, the sheer drop impossible to see from the house, just as the original landscaper had intended. It was grand and beautiful. A Great English Country House. But it told her nothing about what might have happened to Cassie. Time to leave.
Halfway across the drive she realised why the faceless voice had jarred with her. It was the way the woman had said ‘I’. She’d brought the sound up slowly from somewhere deep at the back of her throat, like a bucket being drawn from a well. She’d heard it once before when she’d visited the flat on Gloucester Road. The voice belonged to the woman she’d met there, the nurse.
She stopped, trying to assemble her thoughts.
Cassie had sketched the location of the child in Broadcasting House on a piece of headed paper. The address on that paper had led Jessamine to Oxford, the bed-and-breakfast and then to the flat in west London, where she’d encountered a young woman. Now, while she was exploring the area in which someone had switched on Cassie’s mobile, she’d come across the same woman.
She was about to turn back to the house, when she saw two figures appear on the horizon. They were too far away for her to make out their faces, but as they got closer Jessamine could see that it was a man and a girl. The man held her by the arm. As soon as she caught sight of Jessamine the girl started shouting.
At first, Jessamine couldn’t make out what she was saying over the white noise of the river. But then, as they drew even closer, Jessamine realised she was screaming the same word again and again. It echoed across the Downs, a clarion call.
‘Mum!’ shouted the girl. ‘Mum!’
Friday 11 November
2016
Rowena/Cassie
I’m at my desk working through a pile of invoices when I hear my mobile. The other one, the one I bought for moments like this.
Millie.
I accept the call.
We haven’t spoken in years, not since we were kids. Hearing her voice again makes me smile, and for a second I forget the damage I’m about to do. To her, to her family.
‘You sound exactly the same!’
‘So do you!’
I first contacted her two weeks ago. In the email I told her I wanted to reconnect but also that I wanted to ask a favour. I was thinking of a career change and wanted to pick her dad’s bra
in on how best to go about finding a way into the civil service. I explained that I’d tried and failed to reach him through official channels and wondered if she might be able to provide a shortcut.
I wasn’t sure if she’d remember me, let alone agree to pass on my request, but I needn’t have worried. She was delighted to be back in touch and said she’d do all she could to help.
Now on the phone she apologises. We’d made tentative plans to meet today for lunch and afterwards she was going to take me to her dad’s office in Westminster. She’d call this morning with the details of when and where. But when it got to one o’clock and I had yet to hear anything I assumed she’d had a change of heart. Now, though, she tells me it’s because her plans have shifted. At the last minute her father has had to go to the country for the weekend. He’ll still see me but I need to come to him.
I tell her I can’t. I’m at work. I ask if we can rearrange for another day and search my bag for my diary but it’s not there. I must have left it at home. Millie says she’ll check but her father is a busy man. She can’t guarantee when she can next get me in. I hesitate. I don’t want to miss my chance and, besides, I want to get this over and done with.
The celebrity was finally unmasked as a paedophile and rapist five years ago. A number of people came forward with claims about what he’d done to them, and, after investigation, the CPS felt their case had enough merit to go to court. The celebrity’s brother was also implicated. But then the celebrity died. A heart attack. His brother followed soon after, cirrhosis of the liver. The subsequent accounts of the pair’s reign of abuse were all the more horrific because I knew they were just the tip of the iceberg.
The Dangerous Kind Page 28