Lynda La Plante - Twisted

‘I’m taking my coffee over to the garage. If she needs me, gimme a bell on the mobile,’ Harry said.

She picked up the wrapper from his biscuit and tossed it into the pedal bin just as Marcus knocked to be let back in. Agnes breathed a heavy sigh, and went into the hall to open the front door.

‘Mrs Fulford is upstairs,’ she said and Marcus nodded, thanking her and heading towards the stairs himself. She could smell smoke on him and it made her instantly crave a cigarette, so she shut the kitchen door, opened a drawer and took out her mobile, a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Lighting a cigarette, she sank onto a chair and rang her daughter.

‘Hello darling, I hope I’m not bothering you at work, but we’ve had quite a time here – Amy is missing and the police are making enquiries.’ Natalie asked her to hang on as she was talking to a client.

Agnes dragged on her cigarette, and let smoke drift from her snub nose, taking another drag immediately. Mrs Fulford did not approve of smoking and she rarely if ever lit up at the house, but this was an exception. She’d use the expensive Floris lilac room spray so that ‘she who required scented candles from the White Company to permeate the house to avoid any domestic smells’ would not detect her nicotine addiction. Natalie came back on the line, and Agnes repeated that Amy was missing, but before she could continue her daughter had another call to take so she hung up. She took a few more drags before running the cigarette butt under the cold-water tap, and then she wrapped it in a tissue and tossed it into the pedal bin. It was now three o’clock and she sighed, realizing she had another two hours before she could leave. Meanwhile the dual phone lines on the kitchen telephone were blinking, but she saw that it was the business line, which seemed to be ringing continuously. It was very unlike Lena not to take business calls but under the circumstances it was quite understandable that, as she had said, she was only answering calls on the private line.

Agnes went up the stairs and along the corridor towards Lena’s bedroom; she thought that perhaps she should ask if she was required to stay on later than usual. She hovered outside the bedroom door, listening to Lena and Marcus talking but unable to make out what was being said. She hesitated and gave a light knock. Lena snatched open the door, and Agnes had to step back hurriedly.

‘What do you want?’

‘Just to say I will be going off at the normal time but if there is anything you need from me I can stay.’

‘No, thank you, you can go; sorry if I sounded sharp, I am just at my wits’ end with worry.’

‘I understand, and I hope you’ll get some news. Having a daughter of my own I know how you must be feeling; I don’t know what I would do if it was me and Natalie was missing. So if you need anything please let me know.’

‘Yes, thank you, Agnes.’ Lena closed the door and returned to Marcus, who was sitting on the edge of the bed; she sat beside him, curling up close.

‘You really should get some rest,’ he said gently, touching her arm.

‘I can’t, I feel like I must do something, anything that can help. I need her home, Marcus, I can’t bear this.’

‘I know.’

Lena got up. ‘I’m going to check her room again. There’s got to be something…’ Marcus stood up; even though he wanted to go home to shower before Reid got there, he followed Lena into Amy’s bedroom.

Lena began searching through the drawers, and then again inside the wardrobe. She looked under the bed, and inside the bedside tables – nothing. Then in an instant she saw it: the green leather journal tucked in amongst the other books on the shelf. She rushed over and pulled it out. ‘Her journal, it’s here.’

Marcus reached for it. ‘We should call Reid back.’

‘Not yet,’ Lena said, stepping away and sitting down on the bed. ‘I want to look through it first.’

Marcus moved towards her. ‘I think we should at least let him know we found it.’

Lena looked at him, considering what he had said. ‘Yes, but we don’t want to waste his time; if there’s anything useful in here we’ll call him.’

Marcus agreed, and sat beside her. ‘Why don’t we look at the last entry first?’ Lena started at the back and flipped through the pages.

‘Just some recipes,’ she said.

‘Well, that doesn’t help us,’ he said with a disappointed sigh as he stood up. ‘I don’t want to be late for Reid, so I’d better get going. Call me if there’s any news, and I’ll do the same.’ As he hurried out, Lena was still flicking through journal.

Harriet Newman lived in an elegant town house off the Fulham Road. She was a very attractive tall woman with curly red hair and was wearing jeans, high-heeled knee-length boots and a cashmere sweater. Her two youngest children, who had just been returned from their junior school by the live-in nanny, were noisily having their tea in the big open-plan kitchen. The two detectives from Reid’s team, DS James Lane and DC Timothy Wey, known affectionately by his colleagues as ‘Takeaway’ because of his Chinese ancestry, were invited into a large living room that had pine wood floors, throw rugs, plush-cushioned cream sofas, and walls lined with bright paintings. The large fireplace had a gas log fire, which was lit, and above it was an enormous plasma screen television. No sooner had the two officers sat down than the two young boys came running into the living room, chasing each other.

‘Enough, you two, can’t you see we have guests? Now get back in the kitchen and stay there or go up to your rooms as I don’t want to be interrupted.’

The boys went instantly quiet and shuffled out of the room as Harriet, who had a somewhat scatty manner about her, offered the detectives tea or coffee.

‘No thank you, Mrs Newman. We need to speak to you about Amy Fulford as she is still missing and we wondered if you noticed or sensed anything untoward when you saw her on Saturday,’ DS Lane said.

She shook her head. ‘How awful for her poor parents. I’m happy to answer your questions but I’ve racked my brains since I last spoke to Mr Fulford and I can’t think of anything unusual about Amy that might help your investigation.’

‘Can you go over the course of events concerning Amy on Saturday for us please?’ DC Wey asked.

‘She had been given permission to have a sleepover with my daughter Serena, so I collected them both from the school at around eleven forty-five in the morning. We got back here at about one as there had been a lot of heavy traffic and then I prepared a lunch for the girls and my two boys.’

Harriet spoke quite quickly and was about to continue when DC Wey asked her to pause a second as he needed to take notes of what she was saying. He nodded when he was ready for her to continue.

‘After lunch I left the girls here and took the boys to the War Museum in Chelsea with my husband. They are only five and six years old and love the playground inside the museum as well as all the uniforms on display.’

‘Did the girls, or Amy in particular, say what they were going to do?’ Lane asked.

Harriet paused to think. ‘As I recall, they were going to go shopping and then see a film later in the afternoon. We were about to leave for the museum when Amy said she wanted to collect something from her father’s flat, but Serena did not want to go with her as she wanted to wash her hair. I offered to drop Amy off on the way to the museum but she said she’d make her own way.’

‘Did she say what she needed to collect from her father’s?’ Lane asked.

‘No, and regrettably I didn’t ask. Bill, that’s my husband, and I got back here at about four thirty and Serena was here on her own. She said she had not heard from Amy and had called her on her mobile but it went straight to voicemail so she left a message to meet up at the Fulham Odeon for the five-thirty show. Serena thought that Amy was going to meet her at the Odeon, but she sent a text saying she couldn’t make it as something had come up at her dad’s. Serena then called some other friends who went to the pictures with her.’