In Bitter Chill (21 page)

‘Have you seen this before?’ His tone was too abrupt, breaking the sense of closeness that had been present earlier.

Justine’s face fell, but she moved closer and took the clipping from his hands. She shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen it before. Why?’

Why indeed
, thought Sadler.
Why does Penny have the original newspaper clipping of an event that took place five months before the two girls were kidnapped?

‘I have to go.’ Sadler pulled out his car keys from his pocket and turned towards the front door. He could feel Justine Lander’s eyes on him as he let himself out of the front door.

Rachel stared at the screen, her brain attempting to assimilate the information. She was heart-stoppingly astounded that her mother had a brother. No one had said a word to her. Who else had colluded in this deception? Rachel leaned back in her seat and rubbed her face.
Concentrate
, she thought, her professional training kicking in. If the records were simply those of a client, what would she have thought?

One possibility was that the baby had died at birth and the incident was never mentioned. She came across cases like this all the time in her research. In the days before antibiotics, babies had been stillborn or had died a few days after birth. Even as recently as 1942, the death of a child would have been a sad but not astonishing event. To check this, she would need to look for a death certificate, which would be time consuming with a surname like Price.

Was her grandfather Hughie the father of the child? He and Nancy got married in September 1945, at the very end of the war, but somehow Rachel doubted that they were together a full three years before then. Her grandfather hadn’t been called up. His asthma meant he had been given exemption from military service and he spent the war working his trade as a mechanic. There had been ample opportunity for them to get married if they’d wanted to before 1945.

Rachel searched the recesses of her brain. Her mother had never mentioned a brother. She was absolutely sure of it. The female line had been all-important in the family, that was true. But not to the detriment of all the other men. Hughie had held his own place within the family, first as a breadwinner and then, after he’d retired in the mid-1980s, as a reassuring male presence in her life. Both he and Nancy were bewildered by her kidnapping and Rachel’s mother seemed to shrink away from their offered comfort. At the time, Rachel barely noticed this withdrawal by her mother from her family. If it registered at all, she simply assumed that it was part of her mother’s retreat from the world, her wrapping of a protective cloak around herself and her daughter. But sitting in the gloomy light of the archive office, she could see that it wasn’t normal behaviour. Surely her mother should have turned to her family, not away from them.

Rachel glanced at the flickering screen. Something wasn’t making sense. Assuming she had an uncle, or half-uncle, why would he want to kidnap her? There was a connection she wasn’t making. Yet Penny Lander was here before her, she was absolutely sure. Penny Lander had discovered this anomaly. Rachel massaged her head and thought. What had Sydney at the library said? That Mrs Lander had been making enquiries about illegitimacy and cottage hospitals. The only male in Mrs Lander’s life was her husband, James. Could he have been the illegitimate child? Was James Lander the baby that Nancy had given up?

She picked up her bag and left the basement, her footsteps echoing around the cavernous room as she climbed up the stone steps. Tim Dowling was still sitting behind the reception desk, his body hunched over some document he was reading. He must have heard her approach but didn’t look up.

‘Find what you wanted?’

She ignored him and opened the door onto the street.

The large reception room of the Wilton Hotel was bedecked in white and silver balloons that bobbed up and down as the chill wind percolated through the cracks in the windows. Connie pulled the collar of her black velvet jacket up around her neck and shivered. Sadler, standing to her left, held in his hand an undrunk glass of champagne and was talking to a woman she didn’t recognise. Connie was on her second glass, although she didn’t really like the stuff. It had a thin sweetness to it that left a metallic taste in the back of her throat. But it was their day off and she was in the mood to let her hair down. She looked around for someone to talk to but, like most weddings, the party was made of groups of family and friends who had clearly known each other for years. Only she and Sadler were here from the station, which wasn’t surprising, given that she had heard Palmer moaning about having to pay for the reception themselves, as Joanne’s parents were retired. Llewellyn and his wife were nowhere to be seen.

The woman Sadler was talking to moved off and he was now staring into his champagne glass. What a misery he was, thought Connie. No wonder he’d never married. She wondered if he was still with his glamorous girlfriend. They had been spotted together once in a local pub by an eagle-eyed girl in the forensic ops team and the news had spread like wildfire around the office. But that had been a while back and it looked like it had finished, given the fact she wasn’t accompanying him. He caught her eye and smiled and she thought again how attractive and yet remote she found him. Still, he was at least moving towards her to provide some backup in this awkward social situation.

‘That was Palmer’s sister. She was telling me how much he loves his job.’

Connie rolled her eyes and she heard Sadler laugh beside her. ‘So you think he paid her to say that?’

Connie’s gaze followed the woman moving away from her. ‘I think, given the amount she’s drunk already, she didn’t need much persuasion.’

Sadler put down his champagne glass. ‘That’s the problem with weddings. Always too much to drink.’

‘You’ve not touched yours,’ she pointed out.

He slid his eyes sideways. ‘Are you keeping track, DC Childs?’

She willed herself not to flush but looked up at him and was surprised to see him smiling. They both looked over to where Palmer was standing with his new bride. Joanne had sensibly chosen a long-sleeved dress with a little fur jacket, hopefully fake. She looked beautiful, thought Connie. Beautiful and slightly frightening. There was something about brides that 
always
 sent a chill through her. Palmer looked pleased and slightly scared. She guessed he would start to feel better once his speech was out of the way. At least he hadn’t tried to practise that on her in the pub, although she was still confused about his plea to stay the night. What had that been all about? Thank God she had sent him on his way. She’d caught sight of the bride’s mother, a large buxom woman in a bright red jacket. Not someone she’d want to get on the wrong side of.

‘Do you want to go for a walk? It’s at least another half an hour before we eat. I’ve just checked.’

Connie looked at Sadler in surprise. ‘It’s freezing outside. I’ve only got this dress and my coat. Where did you have in mind?’

Sadler for the first time seemed to take in what Connie was wearing. She had a wraparound dress that fell to her knees. She had thought about putting heels on but one look at the weather had changed her mind and she had put on her suede boots with the wedges. They would be ruined if it was raining.

‘Is this the first time I’ve seen you in a dress?’

A retort rose to her lips but again she could see that Sadler was smiling at her. ‘It doesn’t matter. I thought outside because we could get some peace to talk though . . .’

A shudder shot through Connie’s thin frame.
I’m freezing already
. ‘Fine,’ she said.

They both retrieved their coats from the bored-looking girl behind the counter and walked out into Bampton’s main square. The squall of the wind shot needles of ice at them, pinning the skirt of Connie’s dress to her legs.
That’s my boots gone
, she thought.

Sadler seemed oblivious to his surroundings. ‘I tried to call yesterday evening.’

Connie shoved her hands in her coat pockets and started walking. ‘I was at the cinema.’

She felt him looking at her.

‘I suppose this could have waited until Monday. Whoever killed Penny Lander isn’t rampaging Bampton’s streets looking for their next victim. But we finally seem to be making some headway this week. The pieces are starting to come together, even if we’re not completely there yet.’

Connie decided to come clean.

‘My cinema date wasn’t for pleasure. It was with a journalist.’

She could feel disapproval radiating off him. ‘You could get sacked for that, Con.’

She looked at the floor and noted his use of her shortened first name. ‘He’d been doing some digging himself and thought he might have some information that would help us.’ She didn’t mention that it was she who had asked him to do the digging in the first place.

‘Did he come up with anything?’

‘Yes, actually. But I seem to have a jigsaw puzzle of images and nothing is making sense.’

‘Why don’t you go first, Connie? Let’s go back to 1978. What do you think happened then?’

‘I think it starts earlier than that.’

He turned to her and smiled. ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it? But let’s start at the first crime. Start with 1978.’

Connie shrugged, humouring him. ‘OK. Rachel and Sophie were walking to the school and were picked up by a woman acting on behalf of someone else.’

‘Why don’t you think it was the woman who wanted either of the girls?’

‘I think we can definitely say that it was Rachel, not Sophie, who was the kidnapper’s target. We’ve looked into Sophie’s background. It’s tragic but there’s nothing to suggest any hidden secrets that we need to continue looking for.’

‘We’re absolutely sure that it wasn’t a random attack? That neither girl was the intended target and it was just an opportunist kidnapping.’

‘Not now we know that Rachel’s mother had a big secret that she had kept hidden from everyone, including her daughter.’

‘The identity of Rachel’s real father.’

‘Exactly. But Mary Jones is now dead so she isn’t going to be able to give us any information about him.’

‘And we’re working on the assumption that Rachel doesn’t know who NN, the missing person, is either.’

‘No, but as you pointed out, I think Rachel is well on the way to finding out who the man is.’

Sadler pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck. Although she was freezing, Connie could feel adrenaline coursing through her.

‘And he decided to kidnap his natural daughter because . . . ?’

Connie lifted her arms in a gesture of defeat. ‘I don’t know. This is where my theory starts to loosen. Why would a father kidnap his own child? Mary Jones sounds a reasonable person; why should she deny Rachel’s father access to her? Unless he was some kind of paedophile or mentally unbalanced. That would explain what happened to the missing Sophie.’

‘Rachel was unharmed physically.’

‘But this has been the problem since the original investigation. We’ve been lumping them together. Rachel wasn’t assaulted so we’ve automatically assumed that Sophie wouldn’t have been either. We have no proof of that.’

‘But isn’t that likely to have made Sophie the intended victim? If he was willing to abuse a child who wasn’t his own daughter. Although that would explain why the two of them were kidnapped together.’

The wind had died down a notch. Connie searched in her handbag for a cigarette and lit it, ignoring Sadler’s look of distaste. ‘Something’s not right. This theory doesn’t follow through. Who are the possible men in the case who could be Rachel’s natural father?’

Sadler stopped. ‘One: James Lander – he’s the husband of Penny who was murdered although we’re yet to establish a connection.’

‘And I suppose we ought to include Sophie’s father, Peter Jenkins. There’s nothing to link him with Mary Jones but he will have known the family. Although I’m not sure why he would kill his own daughter.’

‘You said earlier that you thought the origins of the case went back before 1978. When were you thinking of?’

Connie looked up at him. ‘To 1970 and the deception by Rachel’s mother.’

‘Only 1970? I think we need to go back much, much further than that. I want to add another name to the mix,’ said Sadler. ‘Nancy Price.’

‘Nancy Price?’ asked Connie. ‘Who’s she? Oh, hang on, don’t tell me. Price is in the Jones family tree somewhere. She’s . . .’

‘Rachel’s maternal grandmother.’

‘Was she alive in 1978?’

‘She’s still alive now.’

‘Alive now – ahh. According to Rachel she’s completely nutty and living in a nursing home.’

‘I’m not so sure about that. I think Rachel’s protecting her grandmother.’

Connie stared at him. ‘You don’t think she was the woman involved in the kidnapping?’

‘I think we can assume Rachel would have recognised her own grandmother. And anyway her description states the woman was youngish. Even allowing for the fact that children aren’t brilliant at guessing ages, we can rule her out.’

‘But Penny Lander found something out about her?’

Sadler told her about the notepad hidden in the shed. ‘It’s definitely Nancy Price that was the answer to what she was looking for. That name was the answer. Our problem is . . .’

‘What was the question?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Then Nancy Price clearly holds some of the answers that we need. Do you know where the nursing home is?’

‘I made a few calls last night when I couldn’t get hold of you. I spoke to one of the supervisors in the home. She’s quite frail, Rachel was right about that, but her mind is fine. Apparently she’s a bit of a character. The woman seemed genuinely fond of her.’

‘We need to go and see her.’ Connie could feel the hairs on the back of her neck begin to prickle. This woman was the key. Nancy Price, who had stayed in the shadows up to now. ‘It’s not Rachel’s father who’s our NN, it’s Nancy Price.’

Sadler turned and looked back towards the lights emanating from the hotel. Connie got the feeling that he felt the same way about the jollity taking place inside the building.

‘We can’t miss the wedding breakfast. I’m Palmer’s boss. I need to be there.’

‘But we don’t have to stay for the dancing. We could go then.’

Sadler looked down at her, his pale opaque eyes half shadowed in the afternoon gloom. Connie saw him smile.