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‘Yes, sir.’
* * *
The cottage was exactly as she remembered it. The front door was still painted a pale Cambridge blue. Wild flowers jostled with grasses and weeds in the narrow strip of garden which separated the building from the lane. She eased the car into the parking space just beyond the cottage and turned off the engine.
In the silence which followed, she was suddenly struck by the enormous stupidity of what she had done. As long as she had been driving, she had been able to put off the obvious question. But now that she had got here, it reared up like a gigantic cartoon punctuation mark. Well? What on earth was she going to do next?
Behind her, the rear door clicked open. She turned to see Beth slipping out of the car, her doll in one hand and her pink rucksack in the other. Maggie got out herself. The girl made her way to the square window to the left of the porch. Maggie followed her. The girl stood on tiptoes, doing her best to see inside. Maggie did the same, though not on tiptoes. The cottage looked unoccupied. No newspaper lying on the floral print sofa, no abandoned mug on the coffee table, no items of clothing draped over the back of any chairs.
What now? The question hadn’t gone away. But an answer of sorts was right in front of her. Attached to the inside of the window was a small white card announcing that the cottage was available as a holiday let. There was a mobile phone number for enquiries and next to it a name, Mrs Sandra Sidebottom.
* * *
Sandra Sidebottom lived in the village and within five minutes she was marching up the lane like a sergeant major leading a platoon of recruits, arms pumping like pistons. She was older than Maggie, late forties maybe, but she was lean and exuded energy, the sort of woman who thought racing up to the top of the local peaks was fun with a capital ‘F.’
‘You’ve struck lucky,’ she said. ‘Someone cancelled a few days ago, so the cottage is available for the next ten days if you are interested.’
‘I came here several years ago,’ Maggie said, trying to make a bond.
‘Before my time, dear.’ But Mrs Sidebottom wasn’t looking at her. She was scrutinising Beth.
‘What’s your name, girlie?’
‘Beth.’
‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you? I never forget a face, not me. Not so long ago with your mum.’
Beth nodded. Her eyes were wary and she looked at Maggie for reassurance.
‘So who are you?’ Sidebottom said. She put her hands on her hips as if to make clear that she needed an answer before she could possibly allow them into the property.
‘I’m an old friend of her mother, Ellie. She’s away on business, so we decided to have a little holiday. A sort of spur of the moment thing.’
‘I should say.’ Sidebottom was still studying Beth as if looking for the answer to the meaning of life.
Finally she turned. ‘So, how are you going to pay? I don’t have a card machine thingy. We’ll have to ring up the agency and for all I know they won’t like it and—’
‘I can pay cash.’ Maggie turned back to the car, grabbed her bag from the passenger footwell and extricated her purse. ‘How about two hundred pounds?’ she said.
It’s amazing what a fistful of cash can do. Mrs Sidebottom’s reluctance evaporated. She took the money, counted it and thrust it into the pocket of her padded jacket. She fished out a key and led the way in.
‘So that’s it, then. The beds are made up. There’s kindling and logs round the back for the wood burner. I’ll come back in a few minutes and bring you some groceries to keep you going. No extra charge. After that, I run a little store out of the back of the pub. You can call round any time you need something.’
‘Is there any paperwork to sign?’
Sidebottom smiled. ‘No need, darling. It just complicates things.’
* * *
Reid was just two bites into his very late breakfast — a large bacon sandwich washed down by a takeaway cup of heavily sugared coffee — when Ashcroft’s mobile rang. Reid kept chewing. It had been a long wait and he had no intention of not enjoying his breakfast to the full. Even so he watched with anticipation as Ashcroft, who had just stuffed a huge wedge of oversized burger into his mouth, sprayed bits of it across his side of the table while trying to speak coherently into the phone. Ashcroft nodded and grunted, grunted again and nodded more, and finally hung up. On the verge of choking, he took a slug of his tea before swallowing the rest of his mouthful.
‘Bingo!’ he said, grinning inanely across at his boss. ‘Got the mother’s car. North Yorkshire. Headed into the moors. Not many cameras there, but there aren’t too many roads either.’ He stood up and stuffed the rest of his breakfast inside a paper napkin.
Reid snarled, ‘Sit down, man. I’m going to finish my breakfast in peace first. Then we’ll go.’
* * *
The urge to ring her father had been growing inside Maggie all the way up to North Yorkshire. She knew it would be a risk. Once her phone was turned on, there was the possibility — more of a probability really — that they would track the signal and come running. She could try and keep it short, switch on the mobile, make the call and then power off. If she kept it brief, maybe the risk of being traced wouldn’t be so great. She hoped so. She wasn’t really sure about the technical side of it.
