AllFreeNovel
Share Us
two years and nineteen days missing
chapter 53
alex
I hold the photo up against my car window, comparing it to the landscape spread below me.
I’m in the right place; there’s the same distinctive rock, shaped like a camel’s hump, rising out of the sea a few hundred metres offshore. In the snap, which must have been taken on this same clifftop overlook, Catherine has her arm around the other woman – Ellie – and they’re both smiling at the camera.
I toss the photo onto the passenger seat and pull back out onto the road.
South Weald village is a small place. I don’t know Ellie’s surname but, if she lives in the area, I’ll find her. And it’s a fair bet she does, given that Catherine grew up here.
A light November drizzle starts to fall as I follow the winding cliff-top road down to the village. I peer through the rain-smeared windscreen, looking for the turnoff to South Weald House. Even though the B&B has been sold into private hands, it’s still as good a place to start as any. And I seem to remember it’s only a few doors down from the village shop. Somebody there might recognise the photo.
But when I pull into the circular gravel driveway outside South Weald House, it’s in total darkness. Clearly, no one ishome. And then I remember it’s Sunday afternoon: the village shop will be shut, too. I should’ve thought about that before I drove all the way down here from London.
Wearily, I park by the side of the road and get out to stretch my legs, which are stiff after five hours cramped behind the wheel. I tug the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head to protect myself from the rain, which is now coming down in earnest, and trudge down the road, wondering what to do next.
Jack was right: this is a wild goose chase. He told me last night not to come rushing down here. I should have listened to him. The police have Paul in custody; with all the evidence they have against him, surely it’ll be in his interests to do a deal and tell them where Lottie is?
Assuming he knows, of course.
I finally face a truth I’ve been refusing to acknowledge: Paul probably passed my daughter on to one of the other bastards in his paedophile ring after he was finished with her. Who knows how many hands my baby has passed through since she was stolen from me? Paul may have no idea where she is now.
A delivery van swooshes through the puddles, drenching my jeans. It’s not yet three in the afternoon, but it’s already getting dark. I should just go back to my car and drive home, but I can’t face leaving the village without getting some answers.
What if Paulisn’tthe one who took Lottie?
Given his proclivities, it’s logical to assume he’s guilty, but I can’t shake my doubts. Ellie was the woman I saw with Lottie on the train, and Ellie isCatherine’s friend. Maybe Catherine is the one who took her, though it seems hard to believe Paul wouldn’t have known.
The questions swarm in my head like angry bees.Who is Ellie to Catherine?
Why would she have Lottie? How did Catherine and Paul get my daughter back to the UK undetected?
And always,always, the only question that really matters:Where is she now?
I round a bend in the road, shoulders hunched against the rain, and see the delivery van parked outside a stone pub on the left with a commanding view of the sea. It’s the same pub my parents used to come every night when Harriet and I were secretly watching TV. I’ve never been inside, but my imagination conjures a cosy village inn with horse brasses and a roaring fire, an anachronistic blue fug of tobacco smoke swirling beneath its low ceilings. I could use some warmth and a bite to eat.
I push open the door. There is a fireplace, but it’s not lit. The ancient beams have been painted white, and the stark decor owes more to chilly Scandi noir thanMidsomer Murders.
It’s not busy. I show the photo of Ellie to the few customers nursing pints at the bleached oak tables, but none of them recognise her. Perhaps my idea of the close-knit village community where everyone knows each other is as outdated as my assumptions about country pub decor.
‘You could try the café,’ the girl behind the bar offers. Her accent is strongly Eastern European and a snake tattoo writhes from her shoulder to her wrist. ‘Louise knows everyone. She’s there every day. Just follow the road along the cliff for a couple of miles, and you’ll see it.’
I thank her and return to my car, not wanting to linger in the unwelcoming pub. It’s stopped raining and, as I drive towards the café, the low winter sun casts a haunting monochromatic light across the landscape.
The beach below is almost deserted, other than a few hardy souls walking their dogs down by the water’s edge. A biting wind crests the waves with white horses, bucking against the leaden sky.
It doesn’t take long to find the café, which, judging from the lone car parked outside, is as deserted as the pub. South Weald is a summer village; its population increases tenfold in the months of July and August, during which time it makes enough money from holidaymakers to see it through the year. On a wet Sunday in November, the only patrons are locals.
I prefer it out of season, windswept and desolate. It matches my mood.
Unlike the pub, the café is warm and welcoming. Mismatched but inviting armchairs and sofas take up the bulk of the space with a small children’s section in the corner filled with shelves of battered picture books and boxes of Lego. A small boy is kneeling on the floor beside two women sharing a squishy cinnamon sofa, writing his name in the condensation on the window with his finger.
Behind a counter, a young man with surfer hair is doing something complicated with a coffee steamer, all chrome pipes and frothing milk. He fills two thick-rimmed, chunky mugs with foaming liquid and takes them over to the two women.
There are no other customers and, when he returns to the counter, I order a thick wedge of homemade cheddar and asparagus quiche as much out of pity as hunger.
