“I imagine it might be something to do with insurance. But whatever, when Detective Brooks and her colleagues were on the premises in May 2020, they were reassured by the explanation. But you have enough there to be legitimately suspicious about this family, without doubt. But please, Jane, promise me you’ll be careful, won’t you? Don’t do anything stupid.”
chapter forty
Jane heads back to the Vale of Health, her head spinning with all that Tobias has just shared with her. She knocks on the door of Spencer’s cream stucco cottage, and the tall boy called George opens it, holding his open laptop in front of him. He gives Jane a look that says, “Give me a minute,” and she hears him talking to the laptop. “Guys, I’m just going to mute myself, there’s someone at the door. Yeah. I’ll be right back.”
Jane catches a glimpse of the screen as George places the laptop carefully on a console table behind him. He appears to be on a Zoom of some kind.
“God,” she says, “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Oh, no,” he says. “It’s fine. It’s really boring—I needed a break.”
“What is it?” Jane asks. “Studying? Or…?”
“Kind of. I’m doing an industrial placement as a part of my degree. Working in marketing.”
Jane nods encouragingly, but really has no idea what he’s just told her. “I wonder,” she says, “if you wouldn’t mind giving me a few minutes of your time. Just about Daisy Black…”
He nods. “Sure, do you want to…?”
He steps to one side to let her into the cottage, and she follows him through into a widely extended kitchen at the back filled with sunshine and potted plants.
She takes a seat and says she won’t have a coffee, she doesn’t want to keep him, and he makes a dismissive noise to suggest that he’s perfectly happy to miss the rest of the meeting.
“OK, then, an espresso would be great.”
He makes it for her and joins her at the table, and she says, “I realized, after my last visit, that I didn’t ask you what Daisy looks like. I mean, how would you describe her? Do you have any photos? Selfies? Social media stuff?”
“Er…” He drops a sugar cube into his coffee and stirs it. “I don’t think so. No. But I can check. Hold on.” He pulls his phone from his back pocket and starts to scroll. “I would say she was kind of pretty? Small build.”
“Small?”
“Well, average height. Slim.”
“Not chubby?”
“No. I mean, she used to be a bit, when we were at primary, but not when we were hanging out. And her hair is kind of dark?”
“Oh,” says Jane. “Not blond?”
“No, definitely dark, though she might have dyed it, I guess. I haven’t seen her for so long.”
“Was it long? Short?”
He squints. “I mean, I can’t really remember? Both? Or, I mean, sometimes it was long, sometimes it was shorter, and I don’t know what it was like the last time I saw her but—oh!” He looks up from his phone. “Hold on! I do have a picture. I’d forgotten about this. It was one night when she was over and we were playing Fortnite, mucking about with the characters, like, cracking up. I was taking a photo of the screen of my laptop, but she was in the shot too. Here.”
He turns the phone to face her. There’s a strikingly pretty girl withdark hair cut to her chin, big eyes, a sweatshirt with some kind of graphics on it, a nose ring, her mouth open in the throes of laughter. She looks cool and cute and fun and everything that the girl described by Helen Yaxley and old Bill Newsome was not.
“That’s her?” Jane asks. “That’s Daisy?”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
Jane blinks slowly. Her head spins.
“Do you mind if I send this to myself? From your phone?”
“Sure,” he says. “Use WhatsApp.”
She sends it to the app and puts in her number, presses send. Then she knocks back her coffee, thanks George for his time, and leaves him to go back to his boring marketing Zoom.
