Then She Vanishes Page 17

  Margot takes a deep breath and perches on the chair next to Heather’s bed. She deposits the glossy magazines and Maltesers on the table but Heather gives them only a cursory glance.

  ‘You put him in nursery a few months ago. Just one and a half days a week. Don’t you remember? You thought it would be good to socialize him and give you a bit of a break.’ Margot had been the one to suggest it. With the post-natal depression, Heather had needed some time to herself. She was such a good mother. Ethan always came first – sometimes, Margot felt privately, to the detriment of her daughter.

  ‘I don’t need a break from my son,’ says Heather, her voice rising.

  Margot places a soothing hand on Heather’s leg. The blanket under her fingers feels coarse, as though it’s been washed too many times. ‘I can bring him in later, if you like. I can pick him up early from nursery.’

  This seems to mollify Heather and she sits back against the pillows, the frown disappearing. The doctors said this might happen: that Heather will find it hard at first to keep a lid on her emotions.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about something,’ begins Margot, gently.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Do you remember your old friend, Jessica Fox?’

  She looks surprised. ‘Yes. Of course. Why?’

  ‘She’s been in touch. She’s a journalist now. Working for the local paper. She’s been concerned about you.’

  Heather examines her hands where they lie in her lap. ‘Right.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure about her, at first, but she’s been … well, a comfort to me in a way, I suppose.’

  Heather lifts her head and her eyes lock with Margot’s. ‘A comfort?’

  ‘I’ve been out of my mind with worry.’

  Heather averts her eyes.

  ‘And Jess has warded off the other journalists.’

  Heather smiles. ‘She probably just wants the story, Mum.’

  ‘I thought that, too. At first. But I don’t know. There’s more to it than that. I think she is, well, fond of you. Still.’

  Heather shakes her head. ‘It’s been eighteen years.’

  ‘I know. It’s a long time. But you were so close, once.’

  ‘We were children.’

  ‘I know … I know. But … would you like to see her? She’s asked if she can see you. Not straight away, of course.’

  Heather fiddles with a loose thread on her blanket. ‘I suppose. It would be interesting to see her again. But …’

  Margot inches forward in her chair. ‘But what?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s all water under the bridge, now, I suppose, but she was weird with me after Flora disappeared. It really affected our friendship.’

  Margot’s puzzled. ‘I thought you fell out over a boy.’

  ‘No. There was no boy. I just told you that to stop you asking so many questions about it. The truth was, she just stopped being my friend, which was weird because she used to love being with us all. She’d practically moved in that last summer. But she began to avoid me, started hanging around with that horrible Gina McKenzie again. I felt she was hiding something from me and also, I could be wrong but it was almost …’ she hesitates and Margot has to prompt her to continue, and when she does it sends goosebumps all over Margot’s body ‘… it was almost as if she was scared of me.’

  29

  Jess

  Tuesday, 20 March 2012

  BRISTOL DAILY NEWS

  TRAGIC SISTER’S EX REVEALS SEASIDE SHOOTER’S VIOLENT PAST

  by Harriet Hill

  The suspect in the murder of Deirdre and Clive Wilson once attacked her sister’s boyfriend.

  Dylan Bird, 37, alleged that the sister of his girlfriend at the time – tragic missing teen Flora Powell – flipped out and struck him ‘numerous times’ with a riding crop during a jealous rage.

  Heather Underwood, now 32, was only fourteen when her older sister, Flora, dated Dylan in the summer of 1994.

  ‘It was obvious Heather never liked me,’ said Dylan. ‘She was over-protective of Flora and I think jealous of our relationship. Then, a few days before she went missing, I’d gone over to the caravan park to see her one evening, but Heather wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. And then she started screaming at me, spouting loads of lies about how I was a bad influence and that I was no good. And then she took her riding crop to me, hitting me with it so that I actually had lacerations to my back.’

  Dylan refused to report the ‘unprovoked attack’ to the police, saying he didn’t want to ‘antagonize things further’.

  Later that same week Flora vanished, leaving behind all her possessions and passport. A few days after she went missing her blouse was found covered with blood. It is a case that has shocked and baffled the local community of Tilby for nearly twenty years, and even though a body has yet to be found, police suspect ‘foul play’.

  Dylan said: ‘I was a suspect in Flora’s disappearance at the time, of course, being her boyfriend. I was one of the last people to see her alive. But I was with my mum’s boyfriend at the time. I was only with Flora for a month, but she was special to me. I still think of her.’

  Heather’s family have been contacted and refuse to comment.

  The landlord of the Funky Raven looks up in surprise when we enter. He’s standing behind the bar, buffing an empty pint glass with a cloth. The small, old-fashioned pub is quiet, just two men in their sixties standing by the jukebox, chewing the fat over a beer.

  Jack strides to the bar, his camera slung over his shoulder. ‘Are you Stuart Patterson?’ he asks confidently, causing the two men to stop talking and watch him with interest, as though he is a rare animal at a zoo.

  ‘Who wants to know?’ the landlord replies, in a thick Bristol accent.

  Jack will, no doubt, mistake it for West Country or ‘Farmer’, as he calls it. It might sound the same to non-locals, but a pure Bristolian accent is harsher than West Country, all accentuated rs and ls.

  I step forward, adopting my friendly, non-threatening expression, to introduce myself and Jack. I clear my throat. ‘We understand Clive Wilson was barred from this pub.’

  Stuart has very thick, dark eyebrows that remind me of Burt’s in Sesame Street, and are a contrast to his white hair. ‘That’s right, he was.’ He glances towards the men by the jukebox: they have now resumed their conversation. ‘He was caught trying to sell drugs to a group of teenagers.’

  Clive Wilson was a drug-dealer? That doesn’t sound right.

  ‘What sort of drugs?’ asks Jack.

  ‘Pills mainly. Es, I think. I told him I didn’t want him dealing in my pub.’ He’s still cleaning the pint glass and it squeaks as the cloth rubs against it.

  ‘Did you inform the police?’ I ask.

  ‘I did. But I couldn’t prove anything. The kids were too scared to come forward. So the police did nothing. Clive didn’t have a criminal record of drug-dealing or any history so they picked him up but had to let him go again.’ He sighs regretfully, and places the glass on the counter. ‘Do you want a drink while you’re here?’

  I turn to Jack, who nods. ‘Sure. I’ll have a lager shandy,’ he says.

  ‘Do you have any elderflower cordial?’ I ask, expecting him to say no.

  He looks triumphant as he reaches for the fridge behind him and places a bottle of sparkling elderflower on top of the bar.

  I try to pay for the drinks, but Jack won’t let me. He orders a couple of packets of crisps as well, and I open them, my stomach rumbling. ‘Do you know anything else about Clive? Or Deirdre?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m afraid not. Before that I always thought he was all right,’ says Stuart. ‘He’d come in from time to time, have a drink by himself. I didn’t take him for a drug-dealer, but you just never know what goes on behind closed doors, do you?’ He blows air out of his mouth. It makes a whistling noise. ‘His mother, Deirdre, seemed like a sweet old thing. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Can’t see why anybody would want her dead.’

  Jack sips h
is pint thoughtfully while I take the opportunity to shove a crisp into my mouth. ‘Do you think it’s weird that a woman killed them?’

  Stuart shrugs. ‘Women kill too – although it was particularly violent. A gun. I don’t know.’

  ‘But it’s quite unusual for a woman to break into someone’s home and shoot two random people, isn’t it?’ he presses.

  ‘Unless it wasn’t random,’ says Stuart, his eyebrows wriggling up and down as though they have a life of their own. ‘But I’ve never met this Heather Underwood,’ he adds, wiping away non-existent stains on the bar with the same cloth he used to clean his glass. ‘She never came in here, although her husband has a couple of times.’

  ‘Adam?’ I ask, surprised. I would have thought his local would be The Horseshoe in the high street. It’s much nearer to where they live.

  He nods, his hands making large, circular movements as he sweeps the cloth back and forth along the mahogany. Can’t the man stay still for two seconds? ‘Yep. Nice bloke. Keeps himself to himself. Actually,’ he pauses mid-swipe, ‘I’ve seen him talking to Clive.’

  I’m so shocked I almost choke on my crisps. ‘What? When?’

  His caterpillar eyebrows knit together as he remembers. ‘A while back now. Probably a month ago. Before I barred Clive anyway. Yes, they met up a few times and they always sat over there.’ He points to a table in the far corner, by a fireplace. ‘It looked a bit hush-hush, to be honest.’ He taps his nose. ‘A few times I wondered what they were concocting. But I recognized Adam because he used to go to the shooting range, where I’m a member.’

  ‘Do you recall anything else?’ asks Jack, when it’s obvious I’m unable to speak. I’m reeling. Adam hasn’t once mentioned any connection to the Wilsons. In fact, I remember him categorically denying any prior knowledge of them.

  ‘No. Sorry. I only saw them together a few times. Adam never came in again. And then not long after that I caught Clive trying to deal drugs and, well, that was the end of that.’ He lifts his shoulders into a half-hearted shrug.

  ‘And how long ago was all this?’

  He frowns, remembering. ‘The drugs thing happened a week or so before he died, so … yes, before that.’

  I push my business card towards him, asking him to call me if he remembers anything else. Then Jack and I take our drinks and crisps and go to sit at a quiet table.

  Adam knew Clive. Does that mean Heather did too? And, if so, what were they involved in?

  We’re walking up Park Street towards the newsroom when I see it. The headline jumps out at me from the stand outside the newsagent’s. TRAGIC SISTER’S EX REVEALS SEASIDE SHOOTER’S VIOLENT PAST. The bloody Daily News. Again.

  Jack, who has only just noticed I’ve stopped, retraces his steps to join me. He’s eating a Brie baguette from a paper bag. ‘Shit,’ he says, through a mouthful of food, his eyes scanning the article over my shoulder.

  ‘I was friends with Heather when this happened. It’s not as bad as it sounds.’

  It had been the night we’d gone back to the fair to find Flora. It wasn’t long before she went missing. We’d bumped into Dylan on the Waltzers and he said Flora had already left. But on the way home we found her slumped in the field, absolutely off her head on God knew what. Looking back now she was experiencing a bad trip. She must have taken some kind of hallucinogenic. But in 1994 we were just kids and knew nothing about drugs. We’d managed to help her home and avoid Margot finding out, mainly because Leo had come to the rescue, helping us put Flora to bed. I’d stayed over that night and we’d taken it in turns to watch Flora, to make sure she didn’t choke on vomit or do anything stupid. As far as I’m aware, Margot never had a clue, but when Dylan turned up the next evening to see Flora, Heather went absolutely ballistic, striking him with her riding crop – although I wasn’t there, she told me about it later. And I didn’t blame her.

  It was only a few days afterwards that Flora went missing for good.

  And all these years later I’m still not convinced that Dylan had had nothing to do with it. He had an alibi in his mum’s boyfriend, apparently, but that doesn’t mean anything. His alibi could have been lying too.

  I’ve often wondered if maybe Dylan accidentally gave her a drug overdose, then had help in covering it up; maybe he thought he could convince everyone she’d simply run away. Until it was obvious that she hadn’t: no money had left her account, her passport was still at home and none of her clothes or belongings had been taken. And we all knew that Flora wouldn’t have left her family. She was close to them.

  I’ve tried to hunt down Dylan Bird since this all happened but I couldn’t turn up an address for him. ‘How did fucking Harriet Hill find him?’ I spit, stabbing at the paper with my finger. ‘Shit, Ted’s going to go mental. He’s still pissed off that they got the Sheila story.’

  Jack swallows his sandwich. ‘Yes, but we’ve got this drugs thing. That’s good. The News don’t have that. And you’ve got the interview with Heather’s uncle later.’

  I groan, knowing that won’t be enough for Ted.

  ‘And they printed the Margot exclusive today. Nobody else has got that either. Jess,’ he places a hand on my shoulder, ‘don’t sweat it.’

  ‘She must have bloody good contacts. Better than me.’

  There’s nothing Jack can say to that. Harriet Hill not only works for a more successful newspaper but it’s a daily and has a wider circulation. She’s been there for years and probably has hundreds of contacts in all the right places. Whereas I – a recently disgraced national news reporter – am still finding my way.

  Jack takes my arm and leads me along the street. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It won’t be that bad.’

  It is that bad. Ted rants at me, Jack, even Ellie the trainee, although she hasn’t done anything apart from sit at the computer typing up press releases.

  ‘Dylan Bird,’ he yells. ‘Such an obvious one. We should have this story. Not the fucking Daily News.’

  I want to tell him we can’t have everything, that we’re doing our best. And what about the reporters at HQ? I don’t see them helping us out with this.

  ‘You,’ he says, rounding on me. ‘You know the family. You have an in, for Christ’s sake. Use it to your advantage, would you?’

  Before I can reply he storms back to his desk behind his partition. If he had a door I know he would have slammed it.

  I don’t get the chance to tell him that at least we have a story about Clive’s drug-dealing past.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon with my head down, typing up the story about Clive being barred from the pub, although I’ve missed the deadline, which means it won’t go in until Friday’s paper. I want to tell Ted that it’s not my fault the Daily News has one over on us – mainly the fact that they’re daily. Their stories will always hit newsstands first, and their website is plusher and more modern than ours.

  Our front-page story today was that Heather had come around from her coma (something the sodding News hasn’t got, although did Ted focus on that? No. He’s too busy worrying about the stories we don’t have). I asked the subs at HQ to keep my by-line off the story. I’m sure Margot will suspect it’s me, but equally it won’t be long before the other papers get hold of it. I kept it brief and to the point so as not to antagonize Margot – or, more particularly, Adam.

  I haven’t heard from Margot since I saw her at the hospital on Friday. But I need to make contact – I don’t want us to lose touch now that Heather is awake.

  As Jack leaves the office for the day he touches my shoulder in sympathy as he passes but doesn’t say anything. We’re all conscious of the black cloud hanging over the office, like cigarette smoke, and I’m sure Ted’s watching my every move. I was always worried that he thought I was a liability after what happened at the Tribune. But now I realize he hired me because of that. As long as I stay on the right side of the law he’s obviously happy for me to push boundaries. But how can I when I like Margot and don’t want to upset her? She�
��s like … I gulp, realizing how true this is. She’s like family to me. She’s been more of a mother to me than my own. How will she react when I tell her about Adam being seen with Clive? And then another thought hits me: does Margot already know? Is she pretending she has no idea why Heather killed the Wilsons? Is she protecting her?

  30

  Jess

  The café is empty, apart from a young couple sitting in the window holding hands, and Leo. He’s at a table in a corner, stirring a latte in a glass cup. He looks up as I walk through the door and I recognize him straight away. He still has his dark brown David Essex-style hair, with just a few greys threaded through the front, and his tanned skin, which has always been craggy, appears to have just a few new lines. It strikes me – probably for the first time – how handsome he is. I didn’t notice it back then: he was just my best friend’s uncle. I thought of him as ancient, although he wouldn’t have been much older than I am now.

  He stands up when he sees me and his smile lights his sparkly green eyes. I go over to him and he pulls me into a hug. ‘It’s so lovely to see you, Jess,’ he says, grazing my hot cheek with his lips. He smells musky. Then he moves me gently so that I’m at arm’s length from him and his eyes sweep over me. ‘And look how beautiful you turned out to be.’

  Still a charmer. No wonder he always managed to get the women. I remember the rumours about him even then, whispers of how he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

  I know a secret about him. Heather does too. I doubt she would have forgotten it.

  We saw him once snogging a girl from Flora’s form at school when she’d been in year eleven. Her name was Deborah Price and she’d only just turned fifteen. They’d been down on the beach, almost hidden behind one of the dunes, when we’d stumbled upon them. She had a bikini on and his hands were all over her. Leo would have been thirty-six. And, okay, she had a reputation for sleeping around and looked older than her years with a very curvy figure. But still. He should have known better. She was under age. We never told anyone although even then we’d known there was something unsavoury about it. He’d leaped away from her when he spotted us and tried to pretend it wasn’t what it looked like. But we’d seen too much.