The Moment She Left (6 page)

Refusing to ask who the woman was, Andee followed him through the door marked Private, trying not to wince as the young woman burst into a gale of loud laughter.

‘I made us some tea,’ Blake said, leading her into his cluttered workshop where the pieces he was restoring appeared more traditional than those in the shop. Victorian, Chippendale, Arts and Crafts Revival. Not that she knew much about antiques, but they looked to her to be from those sorts of periods. ‘I remembered that you like peppermint,’ Blake added, glancing over his shoulder.

Sensing the anxiety in his effort to please, Andee put real warmth into her smile. ‘Sounds perfect,’ she said. ‘
And
you have biscuits?’

‘From the bakery next door.’

As he poured she took out a slender file containing the notes she’d made during her examination of the police files, and perched on a tall stool next to a workbench. Sun was streaming in through the open back doors, casting dusty bands of light over the dozens of crowded shelves and piles of furniture waiting to be polished, or restored or reunited with missing pieces, in much the same way as Blake was waiting to be reunited with his own missing piece. The air was curdled with the scent of old wood, turps, paint, glue and probably a dozen other ingredients essential to his trade. She found it quite pleasing, she realised.

After setting down the tea and sweeping a mound of stained rags aside, he pulled up a stool the other side of the bench.

‘So what do you think?’ he asked, coming straight to the point.

Putting a hand on the file as she spoke, and wishing she wasn’t about to crush his hopes, she said, ‘What I
think is that the police have done a thorough job. You know the case isn’t closed, of course?’

He nodded. ‘But the search has been scaled right back. I realise it has to happen when there are no leads, I just . . . It’s hard to sit there doing nothing when it’s your child.’

Understanding better than he knew, she said, ‘Did you, personally, feel, during the height of the search, that every avenue was being explored? Looking back, do you think something might have been missed?’

His eyes drifted around the many objects in the room, clocks, dolls, musical instruments, cabinets, tables and chairs, and it was a while before she realised that he was caught in a memory, perhaps he was even hearing Jessica’s voice. She knew how it happened, how incredibly real it could feel, so she said nothing, simply waited for him to return to the present.

In the end he said, ‘I’m sorry, what was . . . Oh yes. Actually, my head was so messed up back then that it’s hard to know how I felt, apart from scared out of my mind. I still am, it’s just not always on the surface.’ He looked down at his tea. ‘I can’t think of anything that wasn’t covered,’ he admitted quietly, ‘but she has to be somewhere. People don’t just vanish.’

Knowing that they did, and knowing that he knew it too, Andee sipped her tea, giving him a moment to recover from a build-up of emotion.

‘Four police forces have been involved in the search,’ she reminded him. ‘Presuming everyone interviewed was telling the truth, and there’s nothing to suggest otherwise, the only questions that remain, apart from
the obvious one of where is she, is why did she go to Notting Hill Gate station that day when she’d only just told Matt that she was on her way to Paddington? And was the reason for the change of plan connected to the call that came as she was going into Goodge Street station? I think we can assume that it was.’

He stared at nothing in silent despair. How many times must he have gone over this already, and he was still no closer to an answer than he’d been at the start. No one was. ‘People always think there are cameras everywhere,’ he said. ‘I’ve even heard that they can track mobile phones when they’re turned off . . .’

When he didn’t continue, Andee said, ‘There are a lot of mistaken beliefs out there, and it’s true to say that cameras often aren’t where we want them to be.’

He nodded absently. ‘If we had her phone,’ he said, ‘we might be able to find out more, like who was texting her, did she turn on her GPS, but I’m sure you already know that they’ve never found it. Or her laptop, or anything else she had with her that day.’

Yes, Andee did know that. It was largely why the search had proved so difficult. With no Internet search history to guide them, no emails in or out of an account that her friends and family hadn’t known about, no social media memberships she might have kept to herself . . .

‘A trace on the mystery number,’ Blake went on, ‘showed that it’s registered to a Kim Yoder, but no one’s ever been found with that name, so we have to assume it’s false.’

Deciding to change the subject slightly, Andee said very carefully, ‘The incident that forced you to leave Manchester, can you think of any reason why . . .’

‘It’s not connected,’ he assured her. His face was taut, his hands clenched tightly together. ‘Do you think it was?’ he asked, suddenly not seeming quite so sure.

From what she’d read she didn’t, and clearly the detectives who’d interviewed everyone associated with the incident didn’t think so either. Of course their reports would have influenced her thinking, but there really didn’t seem any logic to it. ‘Are you ever in contact with any former friends or colleagues from those days?’

‘No one. Jenny’s mum and dad had already moved to Devon by the time we left, both mine have already departed this world and neither of us has any brothers or sisters. So when we left we severed all ties.’

‘Did Jessica do the same?’

‘As far as I know. She’d have told Matt if she was still in touch with anyone.’ His eyes came bleakly to hers. ‘You think it’s hopeless, don’t you?’ he said, clearly making an effort to keep his voice steady.

The awful truth was, she did, but there was no way she could bring herself to admit it, so what she said was, ‘There are a few calls I still need to make.’ This was the truth, there were, but at this stage she didn’t want to go into detail just in case the police had already been there and she hadn’t yet found it in the files.

Rowzee’s eyes were taking a while to open. She knew where she was – on the floor next to her desk – but
she didn’t know yet how long she’d been there, or how badly she’d hit her head in the fall. It was definitely hurting, but not unbearably. It was just making it difficult to get a full grip on her senses for the moment.

It didn’t matter. There was no rush. She was quite sure she wasn’t expecting anyone, so she could take her time getting up. She mustn’t go too fast or she’d end up making herself dizzy again.

When at last she was on her feet, she righted the chair that had tumbled with her and took several breaths as she brushed herself down. How very silly of her to go and black out like that without realising it was coming. She must have been concentrating so hard on the email she was sending to Victor’s agent about a rights issue that she hadn’t spotted any little black tadpoles swimming about in front of her eyes, or connected with the light-headedness that made her feel as though she was floating out to sea. Those were the usual signs of something untoward occurring, although they didn’t always come to anything. However, just in case, when she realised they were there, a bit like putting an umbrella in her bag on a stormy day, she could take precautions, such as sitting on a sofa, or going to lie on the bed. Today she’d gone and toppled right off her chair, clunk, bump, out for the count, straight on to the wooden floor.

Checking the clock she saw to her relief that she’d only been out for a couple of minutes, hardly any time at all. And she really didn’t feel any the worse for it. In fact, she was feeling absolutely fine, she decided, apart from the little headache that was already passing.
She’d just get herself a drink of water, or maybe a nice cup of tea, check there were no visible injuries to her face or head then carry on with what she’d been doing.

To her delight, when she returned to her computer, she found four emails accepting the invitation to the party on Friday evening. She was especially thrilled to discover that Charles Stamfield, owner of Burlingford Hall and the whole of the estate, and their local MP until a spell of bad health had forced him to resign, was ‘happy to attend’. She frowned. Maybe he’d lost his seat in the last election and that was why he wasn’t in Parliament any more? Yes, she was sure that was it, but he’d been ill as well, so hopefully this acceptance meant he was on the mend. They hadn’t seen him in far too long, or his lovely wife Gina. It was such a shame that he was no longer representing their community; everyone was agreed that he’d done a splendid job as their champion. Well, clearly not everyone, or they’d have voted him back in again.

Disappointingly, there was no mention of Gina coming with him. She was one of Rowzee’s favourite people and not because she was such an accomplished actress, though Rowzee was naturally impressed by her talent, but because she was such good company and had always been so generous with her time. Over the years she’d often helped stage school drama productions, had even taken a cameo role in a few. She’d done the same for the local am-dram society, of which Rowzee was president; and on several memorable occasions she’d brought famous guest speakers to town for the WI to ooh and aah over.

Could it be true that she hadn’t seen Gina since the last election? Time flew by so quickly these days that it was hard to keep track of everything, but now she came to think of it she felt sure that the last time Gina had been in Kesterly was for Victor’s funeral. The election had been just after that, although Rowzee couldn’t remember much about it now, she’d been in such a fog of grief at the time. Oh, now it was coming back to her. Gina had called a while after the funeral to find out how she was, and to let her know that she was flying to the States to sort out some family business. Yes, that was right, so maybe she was still there. It seemed a very long time to be away; however Gina and Charles’s daughter, Lydia, was in New York, so maybe Gina was with her. She’d ask Pamela when she came home if she’d heard from Gina lately, then she’d patiently endure Pamela’s snipes about her Alzheimer’s setting in.

As if Pamela’s memory was any better.

It wasn’t, for she had to remind Pamela of things every bit as often as Pamela had to remind her. That was age for you: so depressing when even a look in the mirror showed two women who surely couldn’t be considered anywhere close to mid-sixties – or not in the way Rowzee thought of sixty-year-olds, all fusty dry skin, grizzled grey hair and frumpy clothes. She and Pamela had, in her opinion, still-youthful complexions, soft bouncy hair, and the fashionable clothes they wore often came from Zara and Next.

Where had Pamela said she was going, again?

Oh yes, that was right, she hadn’t said, but apparently she wouldn’t be home until late. That meant Rowzee still
had plenty of time to sneak a little nap without Pamela knowing and accusing her of getting old, before applying herself to the secret research project she’d recently started online.

It was quite exciting in its way, although frightening too, and she couldn’t imagine for one minute that any of her family would approve if they were to find out about it. The point was not to let them find out.

And take upon ’s the mystery of things . . .
That was from
King Lear
, Act 5, Scene 3 – proving that her memory wasn’t as rusty as she sometimes feared.

‘Andee, you’re still here,’ Graeme Ogilvie stated in cheerful surprise as she and Blake came through from the workshop. ‘I was hoping I wouldn’t miss you.’

Appreciating his friendliness, Andee smiled as she noticed that the blonde from earlier was nowhere to be seen. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ she said, glancing curiously at the bags that he was loading on to his desk, full of what looked like acres of foaming lace, ribbons, pink satin and – was that a sword sticking out of the top of one?

‘I can explain,’ he promised with a twinkle. To Blake, he said, ‘Is everything OK?’

Blake turned to Andee, apparently wanting her to answer.

‘I’m going to talk to some of Jessica’s friends again,’ Andee told them, keeping the plans for her next step to herself for now.

Evidently pleased with the reply, Graeme said, ‘It never does any harm to go over things with fresh eyes. You know how sometimes you can’t see for looking,
so there’s a chance something might have been missed somewhere.’

Andee couldn’t deny his reasoning, nor could she feel quite comfortable with the way his dark eyes rested so easily, yet intently on hers. She knew he couldn’t help it, it was simply the way he looked at a person, but it was that look, combined with the proximity of him, that had made her realise, the last time she was here, that she was still attracted to him. She’d even been ready, at the time, to believe the feeling was mutual, but that was before she’d come across his new partner, assistant, whoever she was, who’d just appeared from a storeroom with a giant roll of bubble wrap.

‘Ah, have you met Lucie?’ Graeme asked, turning to hold out an arm to the younger woman. ‘She’s been holding the fort for me this afternoon. Lucie, I’d like you to meet Andee Lawrence.’

‘I recognised you the minute you came in,’ the gorgeous Lucie declared, coming to shake Andee’s hand. She looked so friendly and happy to be there – and clearly saw Andee as no threat to her position at all. ‘I think it’s wonderful that you’re going to help Blake,’ she ran on. ‘We all do. We’ve come to think of him as family now. We did, even before Jessica disappeared, but I think it’s true to say that this dreadful time has brought us closer together?’ She was looking at Blake for confirmation.

‘I sometimes wonder how I’d have got through it without you all,’ he admitted. ‘You’ve been so kind and supportive.’

Touching an affectionate hand to his cheek, Lucie went to investigate the bags Graeme had left on the
desk and immediately began chuckling as she pulled out what looked like children’s party costumes.

‘They’re going to look so cute,’ she cried. ‘Two princesses and a little knight in shining armour. I’m guessing Katie chose them?’ she asked Graeme.