Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(45)

“Four that I know of. The drinks lad. Another young lad who delivered the videos each week, the new releases. He was barely eighteen and again blond . . . I don’t know their names or their addresses. They were fun, silly boys.” She faltered for a moment. “And, er, she slept with my father . . . That’s why myself and Caitlyn fell out in the end. Shagging around is all well and good, but you don’t shit where you eat. And Caitlyn was stupid enough to think I would turn a blind eye.”

“Where was your father the day Caitlyn went missing?” asked Tristan. Victoria turned to him, all her faux jolliness gone.

“At a wedding,” she said, her smile now thin. “My whole family was at the wedding, in case you want to know where I was too. My cousin Harriet Farrington got married in Surrey. Leatherhead Church . . .” She saw Tristan and Kate exchange a look. “I have photos, if you need me to prove it.”

“If you could send those, thank you,” said Kate, matching her thin smile.



On the way back home in the car, Kate and Tristan were quiet until they reached the outskirts of Ashdean. It was gray and had started to rain.

“I didn’t get a good vibe off Victoria,” said Kate. “She was very nervous.”

“That pill she took wasn’t for blood pressure. It was Xanax. I saw the bottle,” said Tristan.

“She could just be a person who suffers from nervous anxiety.”

“She seemed completely different in her messages,” said Tristan. “I didn’t like her in person. There was something a bit weird about her.”

“Well, being a bit weird isn’t enough evidence. If it was this Paul Adler who was seen outside the youth club with Caitlyn,” said Kate, “and he has an alibi, and Victoria’s father has an alibi, then who else is there?”

“The lads who delivered stuff to the video shop. We could track them down,” said Tristan. “And we need to show Paul Adler’s picture to Megan in Australia.”

“Why didn’t Malcolm and Sheila know about the boyfriends, the boys?” asked Kate gloomily, taking a left turn onto the coast road.

“What parent knows everything about their teenage son or daughter?” said Tristan.

“Oh Lord, I’ve got all that to come with Jake.”

“Wouldn’t the police have told Malcolm and Sheila about Caitlyn, if they knew?”

“The police probably didn’t tell them. They might not have been assigned a family liaison officer who would give them this information.”

“What do we do now?”

“We need to do our due diligence. We need to follow up everything we’ve looked into. The teacher, the other girls in the school. And I want to talk to this Paul Adler, if only to confirm what Victoria said.”



Over the next four days, Kate and Tristan managed to track down Caitlyn’s teacher and the other girls in her class, who were unable to add anything new to the investigation. Kate also called in a favor from Alan Hexham, who looked into Paul Adler. Victoria’s version of events checked out. He had been a police officer and retired with a commendation in 1988 after an attack where he lost an eye. At the time of Caitlyn’s vanishing, he was questioned by the police, because Caitlyn passed Adler’s Chemist on her route to the cinema, but he was out of the country the day she went missing.

Kate had a look at Paul Adler’s Facebook profile and found an older photo of him and sent it to Megan Hibbert in Melbourne. She messaged back and confirmed he was the man in the H-reg Rover she’d seen picking up Caitlyn outside Carter’s youth club.

On Thursday morning, Kate knew their leads had gone cold, and Malcolm sent her an email, asking how things were going.

It seemed Caitlyn had vanished into thin air.





23

The Carmichael Grammar School’s sports field was set behind the school and backed onto the edge of Dartmoor. Thursday afternoon was cold, and around five p.m. the light was fading enough for the coach of the school hockey team to switch on the floodlights for the first time since the spring.

Layla Gerrard was easily the best hockey player and most popular girl on the team. She was small but wiry and strong. She had a burst of freckles across her nose and cheeks and wore her long strawberry-blonde hair in a thick plait. After practice, the girls went back to the warm changing rooms, pulled on sweaters and tracksuits, and packed up their sports bags and hockey sticks. Most of the team made their way back to the school building, but Layla and Ginny Robinson, who both caught the bus home, left the school fields by a small gate behind the changing rooms.

Layla usually walked part of the way back with Ginny, who was rather posh. Layla liked her, though; she was a good player, and their mutual love of hockey overcame their differences. Once they were out of the floodlit field, they were swallowed by the darkness, walking along a thin path bordering the train tracks, which came out onto a main road. The nights had been drawing in for some weeks, but this was the first evening they had made this journey after the sun had set. They felt secure to be walking in a pair, and they each carried a hockey stick. As they walked, they munched on protein bars and chatted about their coming match on Saturday.

As they reached the main road, the bell sounded, and the railway barriers came down. A train rumbled out of the trees and over the crossing. They took advantage of the red lights and crossed the road. On the other side, they parted company. Ginny carried along the main road to her bus stop, and Layla turned off on a residential street. She hunched down in her fleece, feeling the cold air stinging her bare legs.