‘It doesn’t look like they’re in, gaffer. No car. No sign of life.’ Bev talked into her phone as she took another nose through the front window; Mac was having a shufti round the back. They’d hammered the door loud enough to wake the dead.
‘We could do with getting in there, Morriss.’
You don’t say? ‘Did you that hear that, gaffer?’
‘What?’
‘Sounds like a fire alarm. I’m thinking someone inside might need a hand?’
‘Good thinking, Morriss.’ His voice held a smile. ‘Best do your Fireman Sam act, pronto. And, no, I didn’t hear it.’
Mac caught her mid eye-roll, slipping the phone in her bag. She gave him the gist.
‘Gaffer turning a deaf ear? Fancy that. No worries, boss, there’s no need to break in.’ And break the law. ‘Follow me.’ He beckoned her with a finger. The kitchen window looked a tad on the small side to Bev. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a leg up.’
She snorted. ‘I don’t think so, mate.’
‘Don’t be soft. You’re half my weight.’
‘And the rest.’ Cheeky git.
Getting up was a doddle compared to the descent which – hands first into the sink – couldn’t have been ladylike, though a damn sight quicker. She had the door open in seconds.
The place had a touch of the Marie Celeste. Empty Heinz baby food jars were drying in the drainer, a couple of pink bibs were slung over a radiator, dirty plates and crumbs still lay on the table.
‘Have a scout round down here, mate.’ Bev took the stairs. She gave the bathroom and what looked like a spare room a cursory once over. The next bedroom stopped her in her tracks. Two walls were plastered with posters, magazine articles, CD sleeves all showing Rayne in his boy band heyday. Chloe, once upon a time, had clearly worshipped her father – from afar. Until the fairy tale ended. Bev narrowed her eyes. It looked as if some of the memorabilia had been signed. In a way it had: most images were scrawled with the words Die, bastard, die.
Chloe’s handiwork?
Bev found the answer several minutes later in the third bedroom. Tennis gear and trainers littered the carpet, but Tom Howard’s night-time reading lay on the pillow. A suicide note. And exam pressure had nothing to do with her death. Chloe had made contact with Rayne not long after Daisy’s birth. The agony when he rejected her was laid bare and recorded in her own hand. The neat script bore no relation to the scribble in the other room. As Bev read, one line leapt out:
The pain’s like a knife in my heart. Why can’t he love me as well?
A knife in the heart like Lucy Rayne? Love me as well … as well as Daisy?
Had the idea of Nathan Rayne having a new baby he adored twisted the blade further for Chloe? Was that Tom and Rachel’s warped thinking for exacting revenge?
‘Boss. Come and have a butcher’s.’
There was another room yet, but she nipped down to see what was what. Mac had spread a load of documents across a table: marriage licence, birth certificates, divorce papers. She’d started reading when he said, ‘She’s not his mum, sarge.’
‘I can see that, mate.’ Tom was one of two children from Greg Howard’s first marriage. He was twelve when his parents split in 1998. Four years later, Rachel, who already had daughter Chloe, became the second Mrs Howard. ‘So Tom and Chloe aren’t blood-related?’
‘Meaning he could’ve been in a relationship with her?’
‘Christ, Mac, he could be shagging her mother for all I know.’ Talk about family affair.
‘Think we’ve got enough to get forensics in?’
‘Yeah, but we’d best run it past Powell. Give him a bell while I finish off upstairs.’
A shaft of light streamed in through the window of the fourth bedroom. A sun, moon and stars mobile suspended from the ceiling swayed gently as she pushed the door wider. Once inside, she gave a low whistle as she took everything in. There was pink everywhere: walls, carpet, curtains, cot. Cot?
She opened drawers packed with dinky pink clothes, a linen chest full of pristine sheets, clocked the rocking horse in the corner and enough stuffed animals to keep Toys ’r’ Us afloat. Why kit out a complete nursery for a kidnapped baby?
Daisy was about the only thing missing. In the flesh.
Bev clocked the photograph on top of a dresser. It showed the baby gazing up at an adoring Rachel. The pink babygro had big lettering across the chest: I ♥ Mummy.
The words sent a shiver down Bev’s spine. Had they snatched Daisy not just to punish Rayne, but as some sort of replacement for Chloe? So why had their last message said they were letting her go because she wanted to be with her mum? None of it made sense, and it seemed to Bev that until the Howards showed their hand, the cops were pissing in a gale force ten.
Blowing her cheeks out on a sigh, she replaced the photograph. The movement of air set the mobile swaying; silver stars twirled and glistened in the shaft of light. With a wry smile she watched for a few seconds before turning to leave. It was then that a brighter cluster of sparkles caught her eye. She turned back, took a closer look, didn’t even hear Mac come in the room.
‘The gaffer’s not convinced, boss.’
‘He is now.’ She tilted her head at the mobile. ‘Tempest didn’t kill Lucy, Mac.’
And he certainly didn’t steal her rings.