Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley #1)(34)

Leo turns. ‘Mum! It’s the police again.’

And then he disappears, leaving her standing at the step, acutely aware of the flashing cameras behind her as the photographers try to get a glimpse of the inside. The killer shot. In both senses. Then Sharon Mason appears. She pulls her cardigan round her. ‘What do you want?’ she says tetchily. ‘I’m not inviting you in.’

‘It won’t take long, Mrs Mason. I think Daisy was writing a fairy tale at school recently?’

Sharon blinks, then looks past Everett to the cameras. If she’s calculating whether it would be better for her public image to be seen talking to the police or slamming the door in their face, she apparently decides on the former. ‘So?’

‘We were just wondering if you have it? Her teacher can’t find it.’

Sharon makes a face; she’s clearly no great fan of Kate Madigan. ‘I can’t think what you want that stupid thing for.’

‘She did a lovely drawing to go with it. There was a princess and a prince and a monster that looked like a pig – ’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me about pigs. She’s been drawing nothing but pigs for weeks. Pigs going shopping, pigs driving cars, pigs getting married.’

‘How strange. Did she say why?’

Sharon shrugs. ‘Who knows. Children never do things for logical reasons. Like who’s friends with who. One minute it’s Millie Connor then all of a sudden that’s off and it’s all Portia and that Chen girl. I try to ignore it most of the time.’

‘So have you seen the story?’

‘I saw it a couple of weeks ago. She was just finishing it. I checked it through to make sure there weren’t any mistakes.’

‘You don’t remember what it was about?’

‘Oh, the usual silly sort of thing. It was all a lot of nonsense.’

‘I see. Could you have a look for it for me? It might be in her school bag.’

‘I don’t think Barry would – ’

‘It’s not here.’

The voice is Leo’s. He’s at the foot of the stairs, swinging on the bottom banister. ‘Her school bag. It’s not here.’

Sharon frowns at him. ‘Are you sure? I’m sure I saw it in her room.’

She turns and bustles past him up the stairs. Leo is still swinging on the banister. They can hear Sharon moving things about upstairs.

‘Portia wasn’t.’

Everett blinks at him. ‘Sorry? Portia wasn’t what?’

‘Portia wasn’t Daisy’s best friend. Portia didn’t like her.’

Everett opens her mouth to say something but then there’s a clatter of heels on the stairs and Sharon has come back.

‘He’s right, for once. It’s not there, but how – ’

But then, behind her, Everett hears the sound of a car drawing up and a clamour of cameras and questions. She turns to see Adam Fawley and Gareth Quinn striding up the path towards her.

‘Where’s your husband, Mrs Mason?’

Sharon’s eyes narrow. ‘Why? What do you want him for?’

‘We can do this here,’ says Fawley, ‘in front of the media, or inside – it’s really up to you.’

Sharon turns her head slightly, but her eyes never leave Fawley’s face. ‘Barry!’

When he emerges, he has a can of lager in one hand and a tabloid newspaper in the other. ‘This had better be bloody good.’

‘A call was passed through to our incident room this evening, Mr Mason,’ says Fawley. ‘From a Miss Amy Cathcart. It seems you and she have been corresponding by email for the past three weeks.’

Sharon grips him by the arm. ‘What are they talking about – who the bloody hell is she?’

‘No one,’ says Barry, shaking her off. But his face is white. ‘I’ve never met anyone called Amy Cathcart.’

‘That’s true, Mrs Mason. Strictly speaking your husband has never actually met Miss Cathcart. But that’s clearly what he had planned. I mean, why else join a dating site?’

‘A dating site?’ Sharon is incandescent. ‘You’ve been on a bloody dating site?’

‘I’m afraid so, Mrs Mason. Using a false name and a pay-as-you-go mobile phone I suspect you know nothing about. Am I right?’

Quinn only just intervenes in time as Sharon hurls herself at her husband’s face. Christ, thinks Everett, feeling the flashes at her back, the press must be absolutely beside themselves.

‘It occurs to me, Mr Mason,’ says Fawley as Quinn pulls Sharon back into the house, ‘that you might prefer to continue this conversation at the station.’

Barry throws Fawley a look of pure hatred. There’s a scratch below his left eye. Then he squares his shoulders and thrusts the can and the paper into Everett’s hands before turning to Fawley. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

*

7 June 2016, 10.53 a.m.

42 days before the disappearance

The Pitt Rivers Ethnographic Museum, Oxford

It’s a bright summer day and three teachers from Bishop Christopher’s are attempting to shepherd an unruly line of pupils into something resembling a queue. One of them is Kate Madigan, another Melanie Harris, and the third is Grania Townsend, who’s wearing an eclectic mixture of clothes ranging from a pair of Doc Martens to a floral cardigan with a lace collar. The older children look bored already, having no idea what ‘ethnographic’ means and clearly sceptical about anything that calls itself a ‘museum’. ‘Just bear with me, OK,’ says Grania. ‘This is nothing like any museum you’ve ever been in before – I promise. There’s a toad stuck with pins, and voodoo dolls, and a witch in a bottle, and a totem pole. A proper, big totem pole. You remember, like we saw in that book about the Native Americans?’