Behind Closed Doors (3 page)

It was hard to imagine allowing young children such freedoms today. In fact, Andee would rather not try, given how many more predators there seemed to be out there now. As far as she was aware, though, there had never been any trouble, or certainly not of that sort, in Paradise Cove.

Which brought her back to Sophie Monroe and exactly who the mysterious friends she’d mentioned in a text might be.

Passing three banners for Eli Morrow’s Dare Devil Show Tonight at 6.30 and a huge blue elephant inviting all takers to eat as much they could for a fiver, she followed Barry into the recessed entry of Blue Ocean Holiday Park. Had she been told it was called Golden Beach she’d have known exactly where it was, but it had apparently changed names since her day.

It had also, she noticed, as they drove under what appeared to be a permanently upright security barrier, acquired some fancier caravans than those she remembered, and a rather quaint red-brick bungalow near the entrance which, she knew from Barry, was home to the manager, Heidi Monroe, and her family.

Pulling into a reserved spot outside the dwelling, while Barry and Simon Lear, who was with him, drove on to the site offices and entertainment complex, Andee turned off her engine and was about to gather up her bag when her mobile rang. Seeing it was her mother, she clicked on. ‘Hi, everything OK?’ she asked.

‘I’m fine,’ her mother assured her. ‘Just wondering what time to expect you this evening.’

‘Hard to say. Why, do we have something on?’ Please don’t let her have forgotten her mother was entertaining, she managed to let her down often enough as it was.

‘No, not us, but I’ve been invited for drinks at the Melvilles’ and I wondered if you’d like to come with me.’

‘As your date?’

Her mother’s laugh rarely failed to make Andee smile. What a sweet, beautiful, courageous woman Maureen Lawrence was. How could life have treated someone so gentle so cruelly?

‘How about as my significant other?’ Maureen suggested, having recently learned the phrase from her grandchildren and been tickled to bits by it.

Still smiling, Andee asked, ‘When do you have to let them know?’

‘Oh, you can just turn up,’ Maureen assured her. ‘They’ll be delighted to see you.’

Since she was fond of the Melvilles, who’d been friends of her grandparents when they were still around, Andee said, ‘What are the kids doing, any idea?’ Since Luke was seventeen now, and Alayna fifteen, they were making serious claims on independence, so it wasn’t unusual to find out where they were or what they were doing after, rather than before, the event.

‘Alayna’s here,’ her mother replied, ‘and Luke’s gone into Kesterly with his friends. Oh, I’d better go, someone’s at the door. Call me when you’re on your way, and Alayna said please don’t forget to buy her a strapless bra at M&S, she needs it for tomorrow night,’ and adding an habitual ‘love you’ she rang off.

After texting Alayna for confirmation of her bra size, Andee dropped her phone back into her bag, and checked her Airwave radio was on before getting out of the car. She had got no further than opening the door when her mobile rang again.

This time it was Graeme, the antique dealer she’d recently started seeing, and feeling a pleasing warmth swell inside her she clicked on the line. ‘Hi, how are you?’ she asked.

‘The short answer is fine,’ he replied, his tone lilting with the humour that had attracted her to him in the first place, ‘the long one is in a hurry to get back.’

‘But I thought you loved Italy.’

‘I do, and I’m still hopeful that the next time I’m here you’ll be with me. As you’re not at the moment, I’m finding myself rather keen to get home to Kesterly.’

Though she was pleased by the words, she couldn’t help wondering if they were moving too fast. But why was she thinking that when they’d had
six
dates and had progressed no further than a romantic kiss the night before he’d left? And she couldn’t deny how much she’d enjoyed that. Anyway, she was surely allowed some fun after all the heartache she’d had to go through. ‘Are you on schedule to come back tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid not,’ he groaned, ‘which is why I’m calling. I’m having to delay by a day, but if you’re free on Wednesday evening I’d love to cook for you.’

She liked the sound of that. ‘At your place?’

‘Unless you’ve got somewhere else in mind?’

Smiling, she said, ‘I’ll bring the wine.’

‘Just bring yourself.’

And an overnight bag?
She wouldn’t ask, of course, but she wondered what he’d say if she did. More to the point, what would she do if the answer was yes? Why, she’d take one, of course, and tell her mother and the children she was going . . . She couldn’t think of anywhere off the top of her head, but she’d come up with something. ‘I should go,’ she told him. ‘Call me when your plane gets in.’

After turning off her personal phone, she got out of the car and paused for a moment to take in her surroundings. Though there was no sign of life inside the bungalow, crowds of holidaymakers were milling around, coming and going from the camp, chomping on ice-creams or toffee apples, while the shop, only yards away, was like a giant cake bursting with people and prizes. Citrussy-coloured beach balls, buckets, spades, luminous inflatables, surfboards, wetsuits, flippers, snorkels (
snorkelling in Kesterly!
), everything the self-respecting camper could wish for, plus throbbing disco music.

And across the street was the pulsing, whirling, psychedelic monster of a funfair.

‘The owners of the site are currently in Spain,’ Barry had informed her earlier, ‘but the Monroes have let them know what’s happening and apparently they’re keen to co-operate in any way they can.’

This was good, Andee always liked people who co-operated, though in the case of Jimmy and Jackie Poynter it could be a first. Not that she’d had any dealings with the couple herself, but several of her colleagues had, so one thing Andee could be certain of was that the Poynters weren’t regulars at the policemen’s ball.

‘Mrs Monroe? Heidi?’ she smiled when an anguished-looking woman with beautiful Afro-Caribbean features and a shock of glorious dark hair answered the door. She’d be around thirty, Andee guessed, though the purple shadows under her eyes were making her seem haunted and older.

The woman nodded and stammered, ‘I – um . . .’ She pressed a sodden tissue to her mouth as her voice caught on a sob. ‘If you could go to the office,’ she said, ‘it’s next to the shop . . .’

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Andrea Lawrence,’ Andee explained, holding up her badge and feeling for the strain this woman was under – provided it was genuine, of course, and she had no reason to think it wasn’t when she clearly hadn’t been expected.

Heidi Monroe was frowning, as though not quite understanding. ‘I wasn’t . . . They didn’t say anyone else was coming.’

Still smiling, Andee said, ‘Can I come in?’

For a moment Heidi seemed at a loss, then a voice called out from inside, ‘Who is it?’

Stepping back, Heidi opened the door wider for Andee to enter. ‘I’m afraid we’re not very . . .’ she began, but didn’t finish as she led the way along a dimly lit hallway with doors on either side, into a bright, open-plan kitchen-cum-living room at the back. It was cosily furnished with downy sofas and a thick pile carpet, and looked out on to a small garden with a large pebbledash building beyond that blocked any other sort of view. It smelled of oranges and used nappies.

‘It’s the police again,’ Heidi announced.

A stocky man with not much hair and a tattoo on his left arm turned from whatever he’d been staring at outside, which was probably nothing. The anguish in his eyes was so stark it was almost palpable, and the tight white line around his mouth showed the inner struggle with his conscience.
Was he to blame for his daughter running off? What should he be doing to try to find her?
No sign at the moment of the infant Archie whom Barry had mentioned, though the smell, jumble of toys scattered around the place, and cute clothes hanging on the washing line outside firmly established a baby in residence.

Andee moved forward to introduce herself. ‘You must be Gavin,’ she said, shaking his hand. His grip was firm enough, but there was no colour in his face and she could almost feel the worry that was weakening him.

‘I take it you haven’t heard from Sophie since my colleague was here?’ she asked.

Gavin swallowed and shook his head. With a glance at his wife, he said, ‘I keep checking my phone, and sending texts, but she’s still not answering.’

‘It’s not like her,’ Heidi put in. ‘I mean, it is, sometimes, if she’s upset or angry with us, but never for this long.’

‘What about the rest of your family?’ Andee asked. ‘I take it you’ve tried contacting them?’

Heidi looked embarrassed as she said, ‘We don’t really have anyone, or no one she’d go to. Gavin’s an only child and his parents are both gone, and mine, well, they won’t have anything to do with us, and I don’t have any brothers or sisters.’

Wondering if it was the mixed marriage that had alienated Heidi’s parents, Andee gestured towards the table, and Heidi rushed to move a high chair out of the way.

Once all three were settled and Andee had taken out her notebook, she said, ‘I hope you’ll bear with me if I repeat some of the questions you were asked earlier. We just want to get everything straight.’

‘Of course,’ the Monroes said in unison.

‘Anything that’ll help us find her,’ Gavin added hoarsely.

Having seen the school photo they’d given Barry in which the wide-eyed, blonde-haired Sophie looked rather like a young Scarlett Johannsson, Andee was trying to find a likeness to her father. For the moment it was hard to detect one, though chances were Sophie didn’t resemble the photo much anyway, since most girls that age totally transformed their appearance once out of uniform.

‘Can I start by asking about Sophie’s mother?’ she said. ‘Is there . . .’

‘Her mother died four years ago,’ Gavin told her.

Andee regarded him with interest. As far as she was concerned this was as important as what Sophie looked like, or what she’d been wearing the last time anyone had seen her, since losing a parent in early life could have a profound effect on a child’s behaviour. ‘Does she have family on her mother’s side?’ she asked.

Gavin shook his head, ‘Jilly had a brother, but he was killed in the same accident that took her parents. It happened before I met her, so I never knew them.’

‘I think Sophie still misses her mum,’ Heidi commented sadly. ‘I mean, I know she does.’

How could she not?
Losing the centre of her world at the age of ten wasn’t something a child was ever really going to get over, especially if she hadn’t received the right counselling.

Had she?

Deciding this part of Sophie’s background could be pursued at a later date, should it prove necessary, Andee changed course. ‘OK, perhaps we can start with when you last saw her. When was that, exactly, and what happened?’

Heidi’s hands clenched and unclenched on the table. ‘She was here with us last Sunday night. We had tea together, about seven, then Gavin had to pop out.’ She took a shuddery breath. ‘As soon as he’d gone Sophie said she was going out too. I told her she couldn’t until she’d cleared the table and we ended up having a silly row about me picking on her all the time . . .’ She glanced at Gavin. ‘It was the usual stuff, you know what it’s like when we ask her to help out around the house.’

‘I don’t think she means to be difficult,’ Gavin told Andee, ‘it’s just a phase she’s going through.’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘They’re all the same at that age, aren’t they? Think they’re already grown up. Can’t tell them anything . . .’ His voice trailed off as his inner struggle got the better of him.

‘Do you row a lot?’ Andee asked Heidi.

Heidi pushed back her hair as she shook her head. ‘We never used to, but lately . . .’

When she didn’t elaborate, Andee simply nodded her understanding. ‘So what happened after the row?’ she prompted.

Heidi shrugged. ‘She took herself off to her room, the same as she always does. Before she slammed the door she said . . . She said thanks for making her want to kill herself.’ Her eyes closed as the memory of the words seemed to cut right through her. ‘I didn’t take any notice of it at the time,’ she said brokenly.

‘She didn’t mean it,’ Gavin put in quickly, clearly trying to reassure himself as well as his wife. ‘She’s always saying stuff like that . . . It’s just with her disappearing after . . .’

Knowing that suicide was one of the favourite threats of worked-up teenagers, Andee asked, ‘Has she ever made an attempt on her own life?’

Gavin’s face was ashen as he shook his head.

‘Or talked about ending it in any serious way?’

Again he shook his head.

‘OK. So she went to her room . . .’

‘And then she must have sneaked out,’ Heidi continued. ‘We didn’t hear her go, but when I looked in later and saw she wasn’t there I assumed she’d gone over to the entertainment complex, or maybe to her friend’s, Estelle Morris.’

‘Did you call Estelle?’

‘Not that night, but I did when Sophie still hadn’t come back the next day. Estelle said she hadn’t seen her. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not, so I tried ringing Gavin. When I couldn’t get through I left a message for him to call me back. I didn’t say anything about Sophie in the message because I didn’t want to worry him. I kept telling myself she was with him, that she’d waited for him to leave the house and had gone running after him. Of course he’d have let me know if she had, but it’s . . . Well, it’s what I kept telling myself until . . . until we finally got to speak.’

‘Which was when?’

‘On the Tuesday. We talked about the baby first . . . I kept waiting for him to say Sophie was with him, but then he asked how she was and if she was over her paddy yet . . .’ She glanced at her husband, her breath catching on a sob. ‘That was when we realised that neither of us knew where she was, so I immediately rang Estelle again. She kept swearing she hadn’t seen her, or heard from her. I still didn’t know whether or not she was telling the truth . . . I wanted to believe she was lying, because if she was at least it would mean Sophie was safe. Then Gavin got a text from Sophie telling him to stop looking for her.’