Gone Astray (12 page)

‘Okay. I’m going to take a shower now.’

He left the kitchen as quietly as he’d entered.

Belmar arrived twenty minutes late and full of apologies, bowling into the kitchen carrying a pile of letters and a takeaway coffee cup. He looked as if he’d had a far
better night’s sleep than she had and she was pleased. It wouldn’t help the Kinnocks or the investigation if they were both tired.

‘Sorry I’m late, I got waylaid on the way in,’ he said.

‘By the press? I hope you didn’t say anything.’

‘I’m not an idiot,’ said Belmar, smoothing down his tie, which was royal purple and the exact same colour as the shirt he also wore beneath his charcoal grey suit. He looked
impeccable again and Maggie idly wondered if he was the type to iron his socks. She could only imagine what he must think of her Next suits and practical but mannish black loafers that hadn’t
been polished since the day she bought them eighteen months ago.

‘It was two of the security guards who work for the company that has the contract for this street,’ he added. ‘They wanted to offer their services.’

‘To do what?’

‘Join the search. They’re pretty cut up about what’s happened.’

‘I’ll bet. A girl going missing in full view of their supposedly sophisticated security system is hardly a great advert.’

‘Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Belmar, wagging his finger at her. ‘If Matheson’s right and Rosie went over the back fence, there are no cameras there
that could’ve recorded it. The guards told me there’s a dispute over who should foot the bill. The council owns the pathway and the residents reckon it should pay for CCTV rather than
them. But the council says it’s not a priority, so at the moment the area’s not covered while the decision’s being appealed.’

‘Umpire won’t be pleased when he hears that. So did they see anything?’

‘No. The firm is contracted to carry out three patrols a day – one at ten a.m., one at three p.m. and again at ten p.m. The first was done as usual and the guard didn’t see
anything out of the ordinary, but by the time the second was due our lot were already on the scene.’

‘Someone’s interviewed all the guards, I take it?’

‘I think the team’s got it covered.’ Belmar smiled benevolently. ‘They have done this kind of thing before, you know.’

The dig annoyed her. ‘I’m asking because I’m still a detective, as are you.’

‘Maggie, I was teasing.’

‘It’s not funny,’ she snapped.

The inference that being an FLO somehow made her less of a detective was the one thing that bothered her about the role. The two weren’t mutually exclusive. The way she saw it, being an
FLO meant helping to solve a case from the inside out. You had to be a good detective to know what information provided by the family was worth following up.

‘Can you get Mack to go through Rosie’s room again to see if there’s anything missing? I had a look with him last night but I’m not sure how thorough he was. He mostly
sat on the bed and cried.’

‘Sure,’ said Belmar. He dropped the bundle of mail he was holding onto the island counter. ‘I bumped into the postman on the way in too.’

The envelopes fanned across the counter. Maggie peered at one half hidden beneath the others.

‘Is that crayon?’

Belmar used his elbow to carefully push the other envelopes out of the way. The one that was left was white, standard size and marked for Lesley’s attention, with both her name and address
written in crude capitals with red crayon. Maggie peered at the postmark. It was yesterday’s date and the stamp said ‘Mansell’.

‘You don’t think . . . ?’ Belmar faltered.

‘I’ll get them,’ said Maggie, sliding off her stool.

She took the stairs two at a time and knocked loudly on the Kinnocks’ bedroom door. Mack was still pulling a T-shirt over his head as he yanked it open. Lesley hovered anxiously behind him
in a cerise towelling dressing gown.

‘What’s happened?’ he demanded to know.

‘A letter has arrived for you that I’m concerned about. I’d like you to come downstairs to open it. Whoever sent it wrote your address in red crayon to make it look like a
child’s handwriting.’

Mack grimaced. ‘It’ll just be someone after money. We’ve had a few of them like that. I’ll throw it away like the rest.’

‘You’ve had others written in crayon or others in general?’

‘Both. After our win we had every scrounger in Britain asking for a handout. I’ve lost count of the number of begging letters we’ve received. Hundreds. Usually just pleading
for cash, but sometimes you get threats.’

‘Do you ever report any?’

‘We don’t take them seriously.’

‘People think they can just stop you in the street and you’ll hand wads of cash over to them,’ Lesley piped up over her husband’s shoulder. ‘It’s why I wish
we’d never gone public about our win.’

It was only fleeting but Maggie caught the warning look Mack shot his wife, who flushed red. Waiving their right to anonymity was clearly an unresolved point of conflict.

‘Even if you have received others, I’d still like you to open this one,’ she said.

‘Fine.’

They trooped downstairs to the kitchen. Belmar had already fetched a pair of protective gloves from his car and the four of them stood in front of the island counter, upon which the envelope
lay.

‘The letter is addressed to you, Lesley. Do you want to open it?’ he said, holding the gloves in her direction. Mack intercepted them.

‘No, I’ll do it,’ he said, snapping them on. The sound made Lesley flinch. Her eyes were underlined by thick purple streaks, the hallmarks of a sleepless night.

Mack stared at the front of the envelope.

‘Yep, this is like the other crayoned ones.’

‘What did the previous notes say?’ asked Maggie.

‘The person wanted money for something but I can’t think what. I remember there was a lot of guff about how we didn’t really deserve our win,’ said Mack. ‘They
harped on about the money being technically theirs. Nasty name-calling and stuff. It’s not theirs, before you ask. We had the only winning ticket for that draw.’

‘Were the notes signed?’ said Maggie.

Mack stared at her, unsmiling. ‘Would you write an abusive letter to someone you didn’t know and put your name to it?’

‘Have you kept them?’

‘What would be the point? No, we throw them all away every week when the recycling comes. I don’t even bother to read them now.’

Gloves on, he ripped the envelope open and pulled out the piece of lined paper folded up inside. The top edge was shredded, like it had been ripped out of a spiral-bound notebook. As he read the
note, the blood drained from his face. Lesley, reading over his shoulder, let out a cry and clamped her hand over her mouth.

‘What does it say?’ asked Belmar urgently.

Mack held up the piece of paper for him and Maggie to read. The note was written in block capitals.

There was a guest bathroom just off the entrance hall. Lesley left the door wide open as she pitched forward and heaved into the toilet bowl. She hadn’t eaten since
yesterday morning and her abdominal muscles cramped viciously as they tried to expel the tiny amount of bile left in the pit of her stomach. She heard Mack say her name as he approached from behind
but she frantically batted him away. She didn’t want anyone anywhere near her. He didn’t argue and closed the door as he left.

As she slumped against the toilet, grief ripped through her like an electric shock. Whoever wrote the note knew the design of Rosie’s skirt and knew about the blood. What had they done to
her?

The idea of her child suffering God knows what at the hands of a stranger made Lesley retch over and over until her body had nothing left to give. Eventually she sat up and dragged the back of
her hand across her mouth to wipe it clean. Her skin felt like it was on fire so she lowered the toilet lid and rested her forehead against its cool surface, shivering involuntarily as her skin
made contact. Then she wished, not for the first time, that she’d never bought the EuroMillions ticket.

Winning such a vast amount of money had changed everything and what she could never tell Mack, what he would find impossible to comprehend, was that she had been far happier before, living in
Mansell in the decidedly average semi-detached house they’d scrimped to buy before they had Rosie. She missed her old job working part-time as an admin clerk for an optician chain in the high
street and pined for their old friends, the couples with children Rosie’s age that she and Mack would go out for a drink with on a Saturday night. It wasn’t the most exciting life,
nothing to boast about, but she cherished its simplicity.

Minutes slipped by until a knock on the door broke through her reverie.

‘Lesley, it’s me, Maggie. DCI Umpire is here. He’d like to talk to you. Do you feel up to it?’

She wanted to scream that, no, she didn’t. She wanted them all to go away and leave her alone, even Mack.

Especially Mack.

She’d tried to convince him that allowing their names to be publicized as EuroMillions winners was a mistake and would make them targets of unwanted attention, but he cared too much about
letting people know how rich he’d become. Before, he’d had a solid career as a town planner and was behind some of the better-received developments in Mansell, including the new
shopping centre. But he earned nothing like the six-figure salaries his old uni friends took home as lawyers, architects and, in one instance, head of a media company. Knowing they were more
successful meant the chip on his shoulder, honed in childhood thanks to his parents favouring his older brother, had sharpened with age. Winning the lottery was Mack’s chance to shine at
last.

‘Lesley?’ Maggie repeated, her voice full of concern.

‘Do I have to talk to him now?’ she said wearily.

‘The sooner you answer his questions, the quicker he can return to the search.’

The insinuation that her being difficult might delay him finding Rosie landed like a punch and she clambered to her feet. Outside the door, Maggie was waiting with her hands tucked into her
trouser pockets and she flashed a kindly smile that almost made Lesley break down again.

‘You okay?’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

‘DCI Umpire will be as quick as he can with his questions. He knows how difficult this is for you and Mack.’

Umpire, Mack and Belmar were waiting in the dining room. Someone had already set down a glass of water on the table for her. Lesley glanced towards the French doors and was relieved to see the
curtains had been left open; she didn’t want to spend the whole time worrying about what new horror might lurk behind them. The brightness outside suggested another sunny day to follow and
the dining room was already warming up. Lesley felt her armpits dampen as she took a seat beside her husband.

‘Mrs Kinnock, I was just telling your husband that I’ll be taking the note away for forensic analysis,’ said DCI Umpire. ‘If we’re lucky we’ll get something
from it.’

The thought of more waiting filled her with despair. ‘How long will that take?’ she fretted.

‘Hopefully only a couple of hours,’ said Umpire. ‘The letter is postmarked Mansell and must’ve been sent yesterday afternoon to make the last post. That does give us
something to go on. You told my officers that whoever wrote the previous notes in crayon seemed convinced your win is rightfully theirs and now this letter demands you hand over a quarter of a
million. Does anyone have a legitimate claim to the money? Have you been in dispute with anyone about the amount you won?’

She and Mack shook their heads.

‘We had the only winning ticket for that draw across the whole of Europe,’ said Lesley. ‘You can check.’

‘I don’t suppose you can remember when the first crayon note was sent?’

‘Not really. We started getting letters after the
Mansell Echo
ran an article about us moving here,’ said Mack. ‘The bloody paper printed a picture of the house
they’d nicked off the estate agent’s website and even though they didn’t publish the name, they said it was on Burr Way. Then someone put it on Twitter and after that we got
deluged by people asking us for money.’

‘You had no idea the paper was going to print the story?’

‘No. We didn’t complain though because we’d been in the
Echo
a few times already, when they interviewed us after the win,’ said Mack. ‘I don’t think
they realized what they were doing.’

Lesley had to bite her lip to stop herself retorting that the real reason Mack didn’t complain was because he wanted everyone to see how flash the house was. But she didn’t, because
she didn’t want the police to see how angry she was with him for sacrificing their privacy for the chance to show off to his peers.

‘Was it just the local paper that ran the picture?’

‘At first, but once it was on Twitter, a national newspaper ran it and it was all over the Internet.’

‘But you can’t pinpoint the exact time the first crayon letter arrived?’

‘No, sorry.’

‘It’s fine, Mr Kinnock,’ said Umpire. ‘I’ll get someone to dig out the original article and we’ll also get on to the lottery provider Camelot to see if anyone
has disputed your jackpot.’

Mack’s hands balled into fists as they rested on his thighs.

‘We won the money fair and square. I bet the bastard who sent us that card is just pissed off they didn’t. Pissed off enough to make us suffer.’

‘By attacking Rosie?’ said Lesley, horrified.

‘Money can be divisive and brings out the worst in some people, while jealousy also makes people behave irrationally,’ said Umpire.