The Running Girls(47)

Ideally, Laurie would have liked to have seen the diary before proceeding, but she suspected Sandra knew much more than she’d been letting on. “Can you think of a reason Tilly and Glen would argue?”

Sandra shook her head, but Laurie could see the realization dawning on her. Her life had been a lie and it had now reached a terrible conclusion. “Tilly found out something about Mia,” Laurie said. “About Mia and Glen.”

She knew immediately that Sandra understood what she was saying. The woman shrank back into the sofa, but there was no denial. “Grace told me,” she said, hugging herself. “But I just couldn’t, you know . . .”

“Couldn’t what?”

“I couldn’t let it be true,” said Sandra, shrugging her shoulders as if that explained everything.

After Sandra had composed herself, Laurie asked her to call Glen. “Tell him you need him back here as soon as possible.”

The call went straight to voicemail. “He usually has it switched off,” said Sandra, by way of explanation.

After trying Glen’s work and apartment building with no luck, Laurie called Filmore and requested that an APB be put out on Glen Harrington. Filmore’s tone of voice suggested he wasn’t happy with the request, and Laurie had to spell out her concerns. “He’d made out with his daughter’s girlfriend, and for all we know he may have gone much further.”

“That’s not a capital crime,” said Filmore, his sights still solely on Frank Randall. “And it’s not a natural progression that he would do something with his own daughter.”

“I agree, but I don’t like the fact that he went AWOL the second Tilly confronted him about this. With his kind of wealth and connections, he could become a difficult man to find. I’m trying to spare us some issues in the long term.”

Filmore’s sigh was audible down the phone line. “Fine, but let me know the second he returns to the house so we can take it off the system.”

Laurie hung up. In the rush to reach the house, she hadn’t asked Tilly where she’d found the diary and where it was now. As was procedure, a thorough search of the house had been undertaken when Grace’s body was discovered, but no diary had been uncovered. Laurie called the station, where Tilly had been taken on possible assault charges, and arranged to speak to the girl on the phone.

“Are you alone?” asked Laurie, when Tilly answered.

“The officer from before is here but no one else. You said I wouldn’t get anything more than a slap on the wrist.”

“You probably won’t, but Mia’s mother has insisted you be processed, and to be honest at this moment, Tilly, I have more pressing concerns. Where did you find Grace’s diary?”

“It was in her locker at school.”

“What? When did you retrieve it?” Like the house, the school had been searched, including all the contents of Grace’s locker.

“When she first went missing. No one noticed.”

“And where is it now?”

“In the spare room where I’ve been staying, in the bedside table drawer.”

“Stay on the line.” Laurie took the phone upstairs to the spare room, where she retrieved the diary. Shutting the bedroom door, she asked Tilly softly if Glen Harrington had ever tried anything on with her.

Tilly’s laugh in reply was cold and mirthless. “I’m not his type,” she said.



Laurie didn’t understand why, but she was fixated on what Tilly had said. She glanced at her short, stocky legs as she made her way downstairs. Like Tilly, her shape was a stark contrast to Mia’s, and to the long-limbed Harrington women’s. Glen clearly did have a type but Grace Harrington, like Annie Randall, hadn’t been sexually assaulted. Maybe Glen hadn’t been able to go through with it, or maybe he’d had nothing to do with his daughter’s death. Either way, it was imperative that she speak to him.

As she reached the kitchen, Sandra Harrington was opening a bottle of wine. “Please, Sandra, you’ll be much more use to us sober.” Shooting Gemma a fierce look, she took the bottle away from the woman. “Come and sit down. Maybe Gemma could make us some coffee?” said Laurie, holding Sandra’s arm as she guided her to the sofa.

Laurie wasn’t shocked by the situation Sandra found herself in. Loveless marriages, particularly ones where the female spouse felt trapped, were all too common. Even Glen’s predilection for teenagers didn’t feel that uncommon and she’d met many women over the years who’d turned a blind eye to such behavior, and sometimes to things even worse. “Did you ever try to leave?” she asked Sandra, sitting next to her.

“I certainly made a lot of noise about it. That’s why we ended up getting the place in Houston. His little fuck pad. Out of sight, out of mind, that’s what they say, isn’t it?”

“Did Grace know?”

Sandra shook her head. “Not until she saw him kissing Mia. Jesus Christ, what a night that was. All three of them crying. Glen begging Grace’s forgiveness. She worshipped him, you see. Well, they worshipped each other. I could never have said a bad word about him. She would either not have believed me or taken his side anyway. You know how it is.”

Laurie thought about Milly. Would she have turned out to be a Daddy’s girl? David had so looked forward to being a father that it broke her heart even to think about it. “And after she found out about Glen and Mia?”