The Secret Child (DI Amy Winter #2)(79)



‘We’ve offered Dr Deborah McCauley safeguarding,’ Molly piped up. ‘She already has CCTV, and we installed a panic alarm this morning.’ Amy knew she meant the collective ‘we’, as she was able to organise such things without leaving her desk.

‘What if we’re too late for Ellen?’ DC Gary Wilkes replied, scratching the back of his head with a pen. ‘He didn’t mention her in the interview. And then there’s the nightdress—’

‘We won’t be.’ Paddy’s response was firm as he joined in with the impromptu discussion. ‘Failure’s not an option as far as the children are concerned.’ A hush descended as his words fell like stones.

Amy glanced at her colleagues’ tired faces and crumpled shirts, heard their stifled yawns. ‘I know you’re working long hours, but we can’t afford to slow the pace today. Put yourself in Stuart’s shoes. He was prepared to drink poison to save his child, knowing there was no guarantee he’d be found alive.’ She turned back to the whiteboard, picked up a marker pen and wrote: Soon it will be our turn to triumph. ‘This is what worries me.’ She pointed at the words. ‘It’s the last thing Luka texted the courier, Jamie Richmond. Luka’s got a vendetta against Stuart Coughlan and it’s hardly any wonder, given what we know now.’ Amy glanced back at the whiteboard and the long list of outstanding tasks. ‘Steve, how are we doing with tracking down staff at the funeral home?’ She was talking about Sasha and Luka’s cremation after the fire. Someone had to know something, but paperwork was hard to come by, cloaked with an air of secrecy that had plagued them since day one.

Steve gathered his paperwork from the printer and returned to his desk. ‘We’ve managed to track down the funeral director. He’s a chap by the name of George Barber. There’s only one problem, though . . .’

‘What’s that?’

‘He’s got dementia. He’s in a care home in Shoreditch. We’re visiting him later today.’

Amy felt like swearing, but her bruised knuckles were testament to the fact that some frustrations were better off contained.

She rested her gaze on Gary, seeing a young man who was drunk with fatigue. She took a breath, signalling at Molly to open a window. It was growing increasingly warm, and the air was growing stale.

Her thoughts turned to Luka. He had taken his imprisonment hard, although it had been for just a few months of his life. What had happened to him after that? Had he gone underground? His mention of his excursions seemed odd . . . she imagined him as a child, desperate for the police to rescue him as he mingled with Londoners in broad daylight. She frowned, remembering their last conversation.

‘Molly,’ she said, knowing she was good with technology. ‘Do me a favour, find out when the gates were erected outside Number Ten Downing Street.’ Molly gave her a puzzled look but began tapping on her keyboard. ‘Got it,’ she said as she drew the Wikipedia page up.

‘That can’t be right . . .’ she added, peering at the screen. ‘The gates went up in 1989. But the fire . . .’

‘Was in 1985.’ Amy finished her sentence. ‘Which means that either our caller is lying about those trips or Luka survived the fire but remained a captive, somehow. He said he was captive, but who took him there? Did his mother keep him prisoner, allowing him out only on sightseeing trips?’ Amy turned to Steve. ‘Go back to Stuart. See if you can find any holes in his story about finding Sasha dead. What sort of mental state was she in? If we find her, we’ll find Luka. We haven’t a second to waste.’ Had Sasha been blackmailing Dr Curtis? Pulling Luka’s strings all along? But what about the bodies in the fire – who had really died that day?





CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Luka glanced in his car’s rear-view mirror, praying for the pain in his head to ease. The tablets he had taken to combat his migraine had yet to take effect. He shied away from his reflection. These days, he hated what he saw. From what he’d read, Amy Winter had experienced a horrific childhood, yet somehow she found the strength to carry on. Mother had told him not to listen, warned him the detective would get under his skin. If DI Winter had her way, he would be locked up behind bars by now. He could not afford to lose sight of the driving force behind his actions. He had tried to put the past behind him and live a normal life, but Luka was triggered each time he saw Dr Curtis’s gloating face in the media. After years of torment, he deserved to have the chance to start again – regardless of the cost. One way or another, this ended today.

Sighing, he answered his mobile phone. The car park was almost empty. Their conversation would be a private one.

‘All set?’ she said, as if sensing his last-minute doubts. ‘Because there’s still time to change your mind . . .’

‘I’ve not changed my mind,’ he said. She used to hold power over him, but he was not a child anymore. ‘We finish what we started and put an end to this for good.’

‘But they’re only little,’ she whispered down the phone. ‘They don’t deserve to die.’

‘Neither did I, but they set up that fire and left me to burn. Whose side are you on?’

‘After everything that’s happened, you really need to ask?’

‘We’re so close to ending this.’ He winced. His migraine was coming at the worst of times. ‘Have you forgotten what they put me through? We finish this and start again.’

Caroline Mitchell's Books