Then She Vanishes(28)

‘And while Flora was recovering,’ Leo continued, winking at the girls when Margot wasn’t looking, ‘Heather helped me with Saba.’

Heather was terrified their mother would be able to see the real reason for her elder daughter’s state, even if it was now dark.

‘She’s fine,’ Heather said hurriedly, moving her sister away and heading towards the house. ‘I’ll help her to bed,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Make sure to put on that supportive sock,’ Margot called after them.

Heather was gratified to see that her sister was limping. So she was playing along. She couldn’t be that drunk or drugged. It was okay, she thought, breathing a sigh of relief. It was all going to be okay. She just needed to keep her sister away from Dylan. Just for a few weeks, until the fair moved on. That was all. And to do that she’d need Jess’s help.





15


Guns. They were such a big part of our lives, weren’t they? First at the farm in Kent, and then later, when we moved to Tilby. We were never scared of them, even as kids. We’d learned to handle them when we were young. Our father had made sure of that.

Guns. We’ve caused so much destruction with them. And as I lie here, questioning whether I’ll die, I wonder if Mum and Dad ever regretted showing us how to use them.





16




Margot


It’s been nearly eighteen years since Margot saw DCI Gary Ruthgow but as soon as she spots him from across the field she recognizes him straight away. Her stomach drops. Why would someone as important as him come all this way? She doesn’t think she could bear more bad news.

As he strides towards her she can tell he’s put on weight, and now walks with a slight limp, but he still has a good head of hair, although it’s peppered with white now. He’s always held himself well, upright and commanding, as though about to address the room. He’s wearing a thick wool coat that reaches his knees, with a navy suit underneath. He’ll get his shoes mucky walking across the grass, she thinks, as she steps down from the caravan. Her green Hunter wellies are thick with mud. She brushes imaginary horse hair from her gilet as she swallows her panic. She knows everything’s okay with Heather. She was only with her a few hours ago and there was no change: she’s still in a coma but stable. So what horrible life-changing news is he here to impart this time? She thinks of everyone she loves, mentally ticking them off on her fingers: Ethan is at nursery, Adam is catching up with some book-keeping, and her brother, Leo, is at his partner’s house in Bristol, although she hasn’t seen him for a while. She thinks it’s yet another girlfriend. One she hasn’t met. She’ll probably be the same as the others, though: tall, pretty and young. Too young for him, most likely. Yet she doubts Gary Ruthgow has come all this way to talk about her brother.

Margot will never forget the dreadful day when she first met Ruthgow. Before that, before he came on the scene, there were other officers. The first was a woman who took notes while Margot cried on Leo’s shoulder, pleading with them to do something, anything to find Flora and that, no, she wasn’t the sort of girl to run away from home and, no, she’d never done anything like this before. And then a detective – a man this time – had questioned everybody, those staying on the campsite as well as Leo, Heather, Jessica, Flora’s friends – not that there were many – and the boy she’d been ‘seeing’, Dylan Bird. This had shocked Margot. She’d told the male officer, DC Lovelace (she’d never forgotten the name, mainly because it didn’t fit with the square-jawed, gruff young officer), that she hadn’t known Flora had a boyfriend. That was a mistake, of course, because then it was assumed that Flora was the type of girl to keep secrets from her mother, her family, that she was precocious, up to no good and had probably run away. But her savings account hadn’t been touched, her passport hadn’t been taken from where Margot kept it, along with hers and Heather’s, in an old suitcase on top of the wardrobe in the spare room. Her clothes and possessions were untouched. There were no signs that Flora had run away. And Margot knew, in the sixth-sense way only a parent can, that something bad had happened to her daughter.

And then, after Flora had been missing for three agonizing days, when Margot had thought she’d go out of her mind with worry, Gary Ruthgow had turned up.

He was a detective sergeant then and had sat in her living room, next to a female detective, who looked like Anita Dobson, on her shabby old sofa with the dog hairs and the threadbare arms and told her they’d made ‘a significant discovery’. Flora’s bloodstained blouse had been found in the undergrowth at the end of the lane, which turns onto the high street, sniffed out by a dog. It was the blouse she had been wearing the day she disappeared.

Margot had had to stuff her whole fist into her mouth to stop herself screaming and the woman officer had placed a hand on her arm, her blue eyes full of warmth and sympathy. Leo had come in then, and he’d held her as she sobbed, telling her it didn’t mean anything. That Flora could still be alive. It was only a blouse, he’d said. Only a blouse.

But she knew. She just knew. Flora was dead.

Flora, her firstborn, her beautiful, dutiful, intelligent daughter, who’d never put a foot wrong in her life, wasn’t the sort of girl to go off without telling her family. The three of them were tight-knit, even more so after Keith died. And, okay, maybe Flora hadn’t mentioned this boy, this Dylan Bird, but that was probably because it hadn’t been serious. It had only been a few weeks or so, according to Heather, who’d eventually had to spill the beans, even though Margot could tell she felt disloyal by doing so.