Some days were a struggle.
Actually, Josh Frendy thought he’d had far more than his fair share of difficult days. One of the biggest, of course, was the day his wife was finally taken from him by a malign mass of cells wreaking havoc in her brain. Josh had lost count of the number of times he’d offered his soul to prevent that outcome, but the powers that be had never considered it a worthwhile proposition.
That day had been merely the first in a long series of unbearable days – days in which it seemed the agony would never fade. Alcohol offered a convenient escape route, the only saving grace during that dark period being that most of the suffering did not stay in his consciousness. Huge chunks of time were lost to him forever. But not nearly as lengthy as the time that had been stolen from Emma.
Today had been especially difficult for a number of reasons.
First of all, it was their anniversary.
It struck him how much the death of a soulmate changed the calendar. Days that had once been causes for celebration – birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, New Year – were now sources of foreboding and sadness. They were constant reminders of how much he had lost.
He had worked damn hard today, as he did every day, partly as a distraction. It had been his recognition of the power of the job to do this that made him give up the booze and become a 273workaholic instead. But now he was home, and he was alone, and it was his wedding anniversary. He made a prawn korma, because it had been Emma’s favourite, and he sat at the table with a white cloth over it and candles and a crackled stem vase with a single red rose in it, and he drank sparkling water because alcohol was no longer allowed in the house even though days like today seemed to whisper to him to start drinking again, and he raised his glass and made a toast to the woman who had been everything – was still everything – and he cried as he pictured her opposite him in that lacy red dress he’d always loved on her, raising her own glass and smiling that heart-breaking smile and telling him how she would never leave him, not ever, and he wished with all his might that he could see her in the flesh again, just one last time, to hold her, to kiss her, to tell her all the things he wished he’d said while she was alive, because that’s the only chance any of us ever has, and he’d wasted it like the fool he was.
After the meal, he played some episodes of Friends on the television. They’d always enjoyed Friends; it never got less funny, and they often reminded each other of their favourite moments. Josh remembered how the pair of them had once blasted the competition out of the water that time they took part in a quiz based on the programme.
Good times. Happy times. The memories made him smile. But then he picked up a framed photograph of Emma, taken when they were on holiday in Egypt, when her tan emphasised the whiteness of her eyes and her teeth, and the waiters kept hitting on her because she was so extraordinarily beautiful, and she made him dance constantly, and she proved how much faster she could swim, and she nursed him when he got food poisoning, and it all made him cry again.
God how he missed her.
He wondered what it was about Izzy that reminded him of 274Emma. He wasn’t sure he could pin it down. Something in the voice, maybe, or that slight downward slant of her eyes; he wasn’t sure. She’d hit the nail on the head, though. How had she done that? How had she been able to tell him something that he hadn’t fully admitted to himself, which was that it wasn’t so much her crime-solving potential that had endeared her to him but rather that she had the uncanny effect of bringing Emma alive again?
And that wasn’t the only uncanny thing Izzy had said at the park. She knew that Emma was dead, and she knew that he had turned to drink. Was all that really based on just a few throwaway remarks he had made? Was Izzy that good?
And if she was that good, what did that say about her opinions on the fate of the missing women?
Because that was another crappy thing about today. Working like a demon is one thing, but when you have nothing to show for it despite your best efforts …
The investigations had hit a dead end, both for Rosie and Melissa. Not to mention Heather. Those three aside, he had an exemplary record in tracking down ‘mispers’, as police jargon would have it. But a string of failures like this was beginning to make him think he’d lost his touch, and he hated that self-doubt. The work was all he had left, which is why he detested days off, and tomorrow was his day off, not through choice but because his boss had insisted on it. Josh had been told that he needed to take a break before he burned himself out, which was probably meant as it was said, but which Josh, sensitive soul that he was today, took to mean that he simply wasn’t up to it.
So today was a struggle.
They’re in those woods, Josh. The girls are in there somewhere.
What if Izzy was right? What if the answer to all this had been right under his nose all this time? She had been right about so many other things today, so why not that?275
Made no difference. He was home now. No work tomorrow either. Let someone else find those women. Someone more capable.
He looked at the photograph of Emma again and thought he saw Izzy looking back at him.
I don’t think he’ll have gone back to the woods last night … But he will soon. Tonight, tomorrow night, but definitely soon.
It couldn’t wait, could it? If Izzy was right, something had to be done about it now.
It wouldn’t do any harm, he thought. A bit of surveillance on my own time. Why not? It’s either that or sit here wallowing in misery.
About half an hour later, he was sitting in his parked car on Kenneth Plumley’s road.
He was still sitting there when it turned eleven o’clock, which is when he started wondering why, yet again, he had allowed Izzy to persuade him to go on another wild goose chase. He actually laughed when he realised that it probably had something to do with the fact that he would have done the same for Emma, especially when she was adamant, and especially when she believed she was right, which was always.
He was tired, but there’d be plenty of time for sleep tomorrow, it being the day off he didn’t want. He’d done stakeouts before, knew how deathly dull they could be, particularly when you didn’t have a partner with you to talk about crap. The difficult part was staying awake and alert. A colleague of his had once slept through the emptying out of a whole house by burglars while he was sat in front of it on surveillance.
Josh was rewarded for his diligence at 11.30. Kenneth Plumley’s white van pulled out onto the lane and headed directly towards him. He lay down across the front seats of his car until it went past, then started up his engine, turned the car around, and began following.276
As he drove, he felt the adrenaline kick in. This was an odd time for anyone to go out on a drive. He felt in his bones that Kenneth was up to something.
He kept his distance, the red tail lights of the van mere dots ahead of him, but if Izzy was right, then he knew where Kenneth was going.
They reached the road with the woods on each side. There was hardly any other traffic.
‘What’s it to be, Kenneth?’ Josh muttered. ‘Are you stopping or not?’
The van kept going, past the point at which they’d begun their search for a body last night.
‘Come on, Kenny. Prove Izzy right. Go off-road.’
And then brake lights.
Josh slowed down his own vehicle. ‘Oh my God. You’re doing it. You’re actually doing it. No dog as an excuse this time, Kenny.’
He pulled his car onto the verge and killed the engine and lights, then waited, his eyes focused on the point where he thought Kenneth had come off, even though it was pitch black out here and seeing anything was almost impossible.
He waited a few minutes, giving time for Kenneth to get involved in whatever it was he was doing. Like burying a body, for example.
When he thought an appropriate amount of time had passed, he started the car again and drove at a crawl along the road. He kept the headlights off to avoid alarming Kenneth, relying on the car’s running lights to guide him. When he thought he was close enough, he turned into the woods and parked.
From his glovebox he took out a torch and a police extendable baton, then he got out of the car and started walking. It didn’t take him long to find the van, its big white backside wedged between the trees. He approached cautiously, baton at the ready. There was 277no sign of life, but he was taking no chances. He risked a peek through the driver’s window and saw that it was empty. The door was locked. Kenneth Plumley was out and about and quite possibly up to no good.
Josh plunged into the woods. The words of a song came to him as he trekked:
If you go down in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise.
Yeah, except it was going to be Kenneth getting the big surprise on this occasion unless he had a damn good story to tell.
The woods thickened, became difficult to penetrate. Josh began to wonder if he’d come the right way. He pressed on, alert for sounds.
He pushed through into a clearing, but there was no sign of Kenneth, and from here there were about a dozen trails into different sections of the woods.
He cursed under his breath, wondering what the chances of finding his quarry were if he simply chose a path at random. He stood silently and listened for clues, but could hear nothing. He even switched off his torch for a few seconds and turned on the spot, his eyes straining for any residual light from Kenneth’s own torch finding its way through the branches. He realised it was a bad idea when he switched his torch back on and was unable to pick out the way he’d come into the clearing.
He cursed again.
The sound he heard next wasn’t the one he was hoping for.
Kenneth’s van was being started up.
More expletives escaped Josh’s lips as he raced towards the sound. How had Kenneth completed his task so quickly? Had he just dumped a body and covered it with a few leaves instead of burying it properly? Or had Izzy got it wrong about him again, and there was no body?
He prayed that Kenneth might just sit in his van for a while, 278perhaps getting warm or listening to his favourite song that had just come on the radio or contemplating his success at outwitting the police or any damn thing that might keep him there a minute or two until Josh got to him.
Using the engine noise as a homing beacon, Josh moved as swiftly as he could, ignoring the branches that clawed at his clothes and his skin. Knowing he’d be covered in a multitude of scratches when he got there, he thought, This better be worth it, Izzy, this better not be another of your ridiculous errands. If I appear out of the blackness in front of Kenneth and he asks why the hell I’ve just followed a man who was on a perfectly legitimate journey, then I am going to feel like the biggest arsehole in the world, and you, dear Izzy, are going to feel the force of my wrath even if you do remind me of my wife for some reason I haven’t quite yet pinned down.
But then he heard revving, and he knew he wasn’t going to make it. The van whined in reverse gear, then sputtered as it accelerated away.
Shit.
By the time Josh broke out of the woods again, there was no sign of the van, either in the trees or on the road. His mind struggled to formulate an alternative plan. Go after Kenneth or stay here and search for whatever he might have dumped?
He decided he could always come back here and search later. Right now it might be worth trying to catch up with the van in case it wasn’t going straight home. Get back in the car, floor the accelerator, and he might just be able to get on Plumley’s tail again.
He ran along the road to where he’d hidden his car. He jumped behind the wheel and slammed the door. He started up the engine, checked his rear-view mirror.
He wasn’t expecting the face that stared back at him.
But by then it was too late.279
The cord was whipped over his face and pulled into his neck. Josh felt instant pain, and his fingers reached up in reflex, clawing to save him, but all they found was a furrow where the cord had already bitten deep into his flesh, and so his nails tore at his skin, trying to find and stop the invader that was slicing into him, cutting off his air, the blood supply to his brain. He opened his mouth to scream, but he could find no noise, no breath, and then he began to flail instead, his arms lashing out wildly, his legs kicking and stamping. And then sparks began to flash across his eyes and all sound disappeared, and knowing it was dying, knowing it could carry out only one more act, his brain gave him the most precious gift it could find, which was Emma, and he saw her smile and heard her laugh and was ecstatic beyond belief that he was finally getting his wish to be with her again.