Killing Rachel (3 page)

‘Really going?’ Rachel said.

‘Yes.’

Rachel gave a little smile. She was still at the door as if she didn’t want to come into Rose’s room, as if there was an invisible barrier keeping her out. She lifted her arms, her hands at the back of her neck.

‘I wanted to return this,’ she said.

She unfastened the locket and chain and held it out in her hand.

Rose didn’t move. ‘I don’t want it.’

‘Neither do I,’ Rachel said and tossed it in her direction.

Rose watched it fall on the carpet as Rachel walked away, her flip-flops making slapping sounds on the floor along the corridor. Then she picked it up and held it tightly in her palm. Her eyes felt sore but she would not cry. Not any more. She went across to the bin and threw the piece of jewellery into it.

Now, five months later, it felt as though Rachel Bliss was standing at the doorway of her study in Belsize Park, staring at her with steely blue eyes. She read over the last line.

I’m begging you.

Rachel.

She folded the letter over and over. Then she folded it again.

THREE

Rose and Joshua were in the studio at the bottom of Anna’s garden. It had once been a garage of sorts. It was brick-built and run-down but when Rose left boarding school for good she had restored it and made it a place of her own. She kept her art equipment there and it was also big enough for an old sofa, a wicker chair and several big cushions. It was Sunday evening, just after seven. Joshua was lying across the sofa, his big boots hanging off the end. Rose was sitting on the floor, resting her back against the battered upholstery. On the floor were two plates and the remains of takeaway noodles. There was a rolled-up magazine by the plates, and a can of beer and a bottle of Coke. Music was playing in the background, one of her favourite bands. After eating and drinking she had told Joshua about the letters she had received from Rachel Bliss.

‘This is the girl who upset you in Norfolk?’

She nodded.

‘And she wants you to help her?’

Rose didn’t say anything. It wasn’t really a question. She’d told Joshua some stuff about Rachel in emails she’d sent months before.

‘Well, I’m not replying . . .’ she started saying.

‘Oh! I got this letter,’ he said, interrupting, sitting up and struggling to pull a folded envelope out of his back pocket, ‘My Uncle Stu forwarded it. From the solicitors? Myers and Goodwood?’

The solicitors who acted on behalf of their parents.

‘See what it says.’

He passed the letter to her. She read over a short paragraph.

Dear Joshua,

I’m sending this to your uncle as I don’t have your current London address. I hope you are well and that you are enjoying your university course.

Some items of your father’s property have been sent to us. If you ring me (you have my mobile number) and give me your London address, I’ll forward them to you.

Yours

Robert Myers

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘I rang him yesterday,’ he said. ‘They have something of Dad’s from seven years ago when he was working in the area headquarters at Chelmsford. Do you remember? He went there for three months? He had to stay over some nights?’

Rose shook her head. She honestly didn’t remember. Both her mother and Joshua’s father had been in the police force. Rose had known that but she’d had no idea
where
they’d worked.

‘He was based there for three months. Now they’re reorganising and the offices are to be used for something else. They needed to clear stuff out and found a file of Dad’s. They sent it to the solicitors.’

‘There’s nothing from my mum?’

Joshua shook his head, ‘No, it was just Dad who went to Chelmsford. Kathy was still working in central London.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You were only ten.’

That was true. At ten she hadn’t thought much about her mother’s job. She knew her mother was a policewoman but she didn’t go out and walk the streets like the police officers who came into her school. She often felt a little cheated by this. Her mother went to work in a dark suit with high heels. She looked like any businesswoman going out to work.

‘I wonder what it is?’

‘Who knows? I gave them my new address and they’re going to send it to me. Maybe it’s something that will help us find them.’

Finding their parents
.

It had become the main thing for both of them. It had always been Joshua’s passion but Rose had spent five years packing away her emotions and trying to get on with her life. She had been so sure that her mum and Brendan were both dead, murdered because of some cold case investigation that they were working on.

She had been told this by a senior policeman weeks after they went missing. She remembered that visit as if it was yesterday.

Chief Inspector Munroe had come after she’d been living at her grandmother’s house for a few weeks. He was an important and busy man but this visit was something personal, something he had to do.

‘I worked with your mother and Brendan. That’s why I had to come and see you face to face,’ he said.

He was in uniform and sat opposite her in the drawing room. He placed his hat on the coffee table between them. His face was tanned as if he’d just returned from a holiday. He pulled at his collar a couple of times, giving her an encouraging smile. He looked uncomfortable. No doubt he wished he was back on the beach. Her grandmother was moving quietly around behind her and she could hear the clink of cups and saucers on a tray. Rose waited for Inspector Munroe to give her some information, some news about her missing mother. Her grandmother placed two cups and saucers on the table. On each of them sat a silver spoon.

‘I’ll be in the other room if you need me.’

Her grandmother spoke quietly and Rose wasn’t sure if she was addressing her or the policeman.

‘How old are you, Rose?’ he said, moments later, his voice soft.

‘I’m twelve.’

‘You’re going to have to be a very grown-up girl because I have some very bad news to give you.’

Rose stared into his eyes. Her throat felt hot as if it was on fire. The policeman went on in a low and unhappy voice.

‘There were four ongoing investigations in the Cold Case Ops Team. We have looked into the ones where your mother and Brendan Johnson were the leading officers and we have come to the conclusion that they touched a nerve somewhere. It’s our view, after reviewing all the evidence, that they are most certainly dead, killed by an assassin, paid for by organised crime.’

He stopped and looked at her as if he expected her to say something.

‘Have you found their bodies?’ Rose said, imagining her mother’s face still and pale, her eyelids tightly closed.

‘No. I doubt we will ever find them.’

‘Then how can you be
sure
. . .?’

‘All the evidence points in that direction. Things we have found out which we are not yet able to make public. If we did it might harm other investigations. Your mother was an excellent police officer, Rose. I knew her. I knew her years ago when she first started working for the force. She was very professional. She would have understood this. You are a young girl but you must understand it now.’

Rose lowered her face and sipped at the burning hot tea. She kept her eyes on the tanned man opposite her. He fiddled with his cup and moved around in his seat. Chief Inspector Munroe. She’d never heard her mother mention him before.

‘What’s your first name?’ Rose said.

He looked taken aback.

‘My name is James. James Munroe,’ he said, pulling something out of his pocket. ‘Here’s my card. Feel free to call me at any time. And I would add that I will continue this investigation for as long as it takes to determine what happened to your mother and Brendan Johnson.’

She took the card and looked at it as Chief Inspector Munroe stood up. Her grandmother had reappeared as if by magic and their voices faded in her ears as she focused hard on the words in front of her.
Chief Inspector James Munroe
. She wondered if Joshua was sitting in his uncle’s house in Newcastle with another nice policeman sitting nearby saying,
I will continue this investigation for as long as it takes to determine what happened to your father and Katherine Smith . . .

Now Rose knew that it wasn’t true. The policeman had been wrong. The past back then had been a place of darkness, a black hole which had sucked their parents down. Now there was some light. They had found out that her mother and Brendan were
alive
. They hadn’t
seen
them nor did they know where they were but they’d been told that they were safe and Rose and Joshua were determined that they would find them. She felt emotional all of a sudden and turned to say something to Joshua about it but he had his eyes closed.

Later, when it was time for Joshua to go, she tidied up the plates and picked up the can and bottle. Her knees were stiff and she stretched her arms out. It felt like it was late at night. Joshua was saying something to her.

‘You’re not thinking about that girl from school, are you?’

‘Rachel? No.’

‘She really upset you, didn’t she?’

Rose nodded.

‘Lucky you’ve got better friends now, then!’

‘Friends? I thought we were family?’

‘We are, but we’re friends as well,’ he said, throwing an arm around her shoulder and giving her a swift hug.

He went out of the gate at the bottom of the garden and Rose waved at his disappearing back. It was quarter to eight. She wondered if he was going back to the flat or if he was heading off somewhere else. The blonde girl, Clara, came into her head. She was a friend from uni, he’d said. Was Joshua heading off to see her? The thought of it made her throat dry.

The music was still playing in the studio and she slumped down for a moment on the sofa where Joshua had sat. On the floor she saw the envelope that his letter had come in. She picked it up. His name and his uncle’s address were on the front. At the bottom right-hand of the envelope, in italics, was the name of the solicitors,
Myers and Goodwood
.

It wasn’t exactly an unforgettable name and yet it was one that Rose had heard often over the years.
Myers and Goodwood
. They had a will that her mother and Joshua’s father had made. This had been explained to Rose in the early days of living with her grandmother. Two years or so before they disappeared her mother and Brendan had made a contingency will. It stated that should anything happen to them then the financial affairs and well-being of their children would be dealt with by the solicitors. It wasn’t unusual, a solicitor had told Rose, for officers involved in dangerous work to make provisions for their families in case anything unexpected happened.

And something had happened. They had vanished into thin air.

There’d been a babysitter that night, a girl from along the street, Sandy Nicholls. Rose was allowed to stay up and wait for her mother’s return and she’d sat next to Sandy on the sofa, linking Sandy’s arm as they watched programme after programme. From time to time Sandy pressed the
Mute
button and told Rose some gossip from her college and some story about a boy she loved who was treating her badly. Sandy also spent a good bit of the evening tapping out texts on her phone. Eventually, as the evening got later and later, Sandy rang Rose’s mother’s mobile but it just went to voicemail. Rose remembered her leaving a message.
Hi, Mrs Smith! It’s just me, Sandy. Nothing wrong here. I just wondered when you were planning to get back. Only it’s 11.15 now and it’s a little later than you usually stay out?

Joshua came down from his room where he’d been for most of the evening. He avoided making eye contact with Sandy and gruffly asked, ‘Where are they?’

Rose watched Sandy walk back and forth to the window, pulling the curtain to the side and looking out. Joshua sat in a chair in the corner staring at his mobile and looking up now and then, his face turning towards the door expectantly.

After midnight Sandy rang her parents. At one o’clock Sandy’s father came round. Mr Nicholls had a wobbly stomach and a loud voice and he sent Sandy home and told Rose and Joshua to go to bed. He said he’d wait up for their parents.

There was nothing else to do but go to bed. Rose got under her duvet and called out to Joshua. He came to her room.

‘Do you think they’re all right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t think they’ve been in an accident?’

‘Nope. The car’s broken down most probably.’