Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(71)

Willis was startled by the noise that came from Eileen Phillips as she started sobbing.

‘It’s been confirmed today, I am not expected to make it to spring. I am dying and I would like to be buried with my daughter.’

John Phillips sighed, closed his eyes for a few seconds and then began talking, reluctantly pushing his thoughts and words out. ‘Trevor told us a bunch of lies, everyone did. Eileen found the note while I was gone. God knows what was in Heather’s mind. I had no idea from one day to the next – all her secrets. I didn’t feel I knew her at all.’ He rubbed his face with his hands and took deep breaths whilst he sat back in the chair. He looked drawn and ill. There was a pause, when both Carter and Willis questioned whether they should stop interviewing John Phillips because he looked ready to collapse, but Carter persisted.

‘When you went looking for Heather at the farm the next day, what did you find?’

‘A bunch of people lying about, still drunk, taking God knows what. Dossers! That’s what they were,’ he said angrily. ‘All my brother-in-law cared about was making money and having his women on tap! He should never have let them in, I blame him for my daughter’s disappearance.’

‘Did you have a conversation with Douglas that day?’ John shook his head. ‘Mr Phillips, did you see Saul the farrier the next day?’ asked Carter.

‘I don’t know. Saul is a good man. Don’t cast aspersions about him, he was quiet, lived alone, he did no harm. He bought Murphy from Trevor after Heather left and he looked after the old fella.’

‘But you didn’t see him when you went to look for Heather?’ Carter persisted.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Didn’t you think that was odd?’

‘I did, a little. There was still all the rubbish in the fields and there was livestock in there and normally Saul would have seen to that but maybe he was ill.’ John Phillips looked down at his hands. ‘I don’t know, you’re confusing me now.’

‘Did you notice if his van was there?’ Carter asked.

‘I did not.’

‘You must have thought you should ask him if he’d seen Heather?’

‘Of course.’

‘And did you?’ Carter was pushing so hard.

‘I was so caught up in rowing with Trevor about his lies that I didn’t think to speak to Saul. I wanted Trevor to sort it – his fault – he should make amends.’

Carter paused before he asked, ‘When you look back on your relationship with your daughter, Heather, what do you think about it?’

‘Nothing,’ answered John. ‘I did my best. She was wilful and wild and if she didn’t like the way she was treated she should have stuck up for herself.’

‘Mrs Phillips, maybe this is the time to make sure everything said is said, and nothing is left forever unknown. Is there anything you want to tell us about the disappearance of Heather?’

Mrs Phillips stared at her husband before she turned to Carter and Willis. ‘We’ve told you the truth, we loved our daughter, it wasn’t us who did her any harm. Now get out.’

‘Okay, I apologise for upsetting you.’ Carter held up his hands. ‘I just want to understand what happened here; so many people say she was beaten by you, John, is that true?’

‘I took my belt to her when she deserved it. Running away, sneaking out, she came to a bad end, and that’s what happens to girls like that: wilful and arrogant. I did my best with her.’

Willis shook her head. ‘Poor Heather.’

That night Willis went home and lay on her bed in the house she shared with her friend Tina. Willis had the top bedroom, on her own on that landing. She had never consciously decorated her room; it didn’t occur to her to transform it into anything other than a sleeping and working place. Tina sometimes had other ideas and a chair or a new cushion might appear. The things that Willis valued about the room and the house were its position away from others in the house, its London plane trees outside the window and the fact that she could run to the park in eight minutes and then her mind could go anywhere it liked. Willis sometimes needed that. She had grown up with pain and insecurity, she still had some healing left to do. Running, making time to face her past, helped that. Her phone beeped and she saw that it was a text from Tucker.

You up? Want to talk? x

Willis turned her phone face down and put it beside her bed. She had a busy morning ahead.





Chapter 36


Saturday 22 July 2000


The day of the party Cathy spent the afternoon working with Heather, helping the kids in the pony club, whilst they tried to make their bored ponies work a little harder. Now as they untacked the ponies, wiping them down and leaving them tied up in the fresh air to cool off as the last of the kids had gone home, Cathy was thinking about Heather. The more she studied her, the more she could finally see what all the fuss was about. Douglas had such an obsession with the young girl. Cathy noticed how Heather was changing daily. She remembered what that was like; it was a wonderfully bewildering time when the clitoris announced its existence. Cathy remembered squeezing her legs together really tight when she lay in bed and feeling the wonderful ache in her sex, the compulsion to touch herself, to touch other girls, to tickle their knickers or touch their breasts. The sticky fingers and the ache for something but you didn’t know what.