Page 29

TWENTY-EIGHT

Gina kept staring at her phone while Jacob drove them to Droitwich to speak to Keeley. Twenty minutes had passed and Wyre still hadn’t called back. Darkness had fallen and the only sound in the car was the swishing of the wipers. She answered her work phone as soon as it rang. ‘Wyre.’

‘Sorry, guv. There is no one at all called Luna who is registered as missing in the whole of the UK, and I still haven’t come across any misper with that very distinctive birthmark.’

She sighed. ‘Thanks for looking. Back to the drawing board with finding out more about the girl, then.’

Gina shivered as she thought about the man in the ski mask who had tried to kidnap Keeley. Why?

They needed to find Luna fast. John Doe was dead. Their attempted kidnapper was dangerous and violent. They had to find him before it was too late.

‘Can you update the system with the name? Our missing girl is Luna, or is known as Luna. I’ll get Jacob to message you his notes in a minute.’

Wyre paused for a moment as if in thought herself. ‘I’ll definitely bear that in mind. I’ll do a bit more searching on the name Luna.’

‘Oh, and Wyre?’

‘Yes?’

‘Any news on finding Marie?’

‘O’Connor has just come in with updates. He found out where she used to live, but she’s no longer there. The team has spoken to some of the neighbours and left notes for those who weren’t in. A couple of people remembered her and her family from back then, but no one knows where she moved to once her nan died.’

‘Thanks. Keep me updated. Oh, and can you send me all the misper files, too, when you get a moment?’

‘Will do.’

Gina ended the call.

Jacob turned into the road the satnav was leading them to. ‘This is it.’

He stopped outside the small chapel, surrounded by scaffolding and vans. Gina gazed alongside the house and all she could see were fields and trees in the darkness. A message popped up on her phone.

I’ve just arrived back at the station after the family asked me to leave. Thought I’d check in with you as I just heard you were on your way to speak to them.

Orla

‘Looks like they dismissed the FLO.’

As they stepped out, a security light dazzled her. After another step, two more security lights came on and a camera that had been attached to the gothic-looking frontage swivelled to face them. Gina pulled the huge bell rope and it made a deep ding-dong sound.

Morgan opened the door. ‘Come in,’ he said, standing to the side.

The double-height building was quite a spectacle, the space echoing the children screaming and running around upstairs. A spacious new kitchen stood at the far end, but they’d stepped into the lounge side where two plump couches had been positioned around an inglenook fireplace. The walls looked freshly plastered, but not painted.

‘Keeley is just getting the kids to sleep. As you can imagine, they think all this is an adventure.’ Loud giggles and footsteps came from above.

‘This is a beautiful property.’ Gina spoke louder, over the children.

‘It is. My parents are property developers.’ He continued. ‘Normally, they just fix a place up, but they love this one so much they’re staying here. They’re just getting the roof fixed, hence all the scaffolding. Such a big job. Take a seat by the fireplace. Can I get you both a drink? We’ve got some cappuccinos, hot chocolate or latte pods?’

‘A latte, please.’ Gina’s stomach rumbled. A milky drink might just stave off the hunger for a while. Jacob asked for the same.

As Mr Moore headed over to the kitchen and began making the drinks, Gina turned to Jacob and whispered, ‘There were three vans outside this property – one of them was white. I just can’t work out a motive, and white vans are common.’

Keeley entered from the back, walked over to her husband and said something that Gina couldn’t hear over the spluttering of the coffee machine. She grabbed two cups and brought the drinks over, placing them on the hunk of tree that was the coffee table.

‘Sorry about the chaos. We were just about to get the boys to bed which is proving to be impossible. Have you found him, the man who tried to kidnap me?’ She sat opposite Gina and Jacob, and her husband came to join them, passing his wife a glass of red wine and keeping one for himself. One of the children chuckled and ran up and down the stairs.

‘We are following some leads and we have made an arrest.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that.’ She turned and shouted, ‘Boys, can you give Mummy a break?’

Gina spoke louder. ‘We’ve made an arrest.’

‘Who is he?’

‘We are still investigating. The suspect hasn’t been charged, but I’ll keep you updated when we know more.’

Mr Moore sank back into the cushions and sipped his wine. ‘But it’s probably him? That’s good. He’s off the streets and hopefully once you’ve got your evidence, we can go home. I love my parents and all, but we need our own space.’

‘Where are they now?’

‘Oh, they’ve gone out for the evening. They knew you were coming, so they said they’d leave us to talk.’

‘There are a lot of vans outside.’ Gina wondered if Mr Moore would happily talk about them.

‘Yes, as I said, my parents are property developers. They use the vans, and my dad is a brickie, too.’ He scrunched his brow. ‘Wait, you don’t think my dad tried to take Keeley, do you? He didn’t. That’s ridiculous. You can take a look in the vans, if you like. Keeley would recognise the van, wouldn’t she?’

Keeley guzzled her wine down in one go. ‘The van from this morning was a lot older than my father-in-law’s fleet, and a bit longer, and he doesn’t have chess pieces dangling from the rear-view mirror. It wasn’t his.’ She placed her empty glass on the table.

‘Do you want another one, love?’

‘No, I’m okay,’ Keeley replied to her husband.

Gina knew that her next line of questioning might be sensitive. ‘Would you mind if we speak to your wife alone?’

Keeley tilted her head and linked her hands in her lap.

‘I’ll go and try to read the boys a bedtime story.’ He placed his glass on the table and headed towards the back of the room. ‘Call me when you’re done.’ He went up the stairs.

Gina glanced up, wondering if Mr Moore could hear them, but the boys began to shout and scream again. They’d be lucky to hear each other. She edged forward a little in the hope of hearing better. ‘Do you know a man called Colson Ferguson?’

Keeley began to bite her nails. ‘I don’t want to talk about him, not now, not here.’

‘We have him in custody.’

She stopped biting her nails and held both hands out, palms up. ‘Why? He has nothing to do with this,’ she replied, glancing at the stairs at the same time.

‘Mrs Moore, someone tried to kidnap you earlier. We’ve had to explore all avenues, and Mr Ferguson is an avenue.’

‘How did you even find out about him? I didn’t tell anyone.’

Gina didn’t want to use the word coincidence, but then again, she didn’t believe in coincidences – Ferguson had come up in the investigation for a reason. ‘Tell me about your relationship?’

‘There is no relationship.’

‘There was though, wasn’t there? We’ve spoken to Mr Ferguson.’ Gina could just tell. Mrs Moore’s body language was screaming affair .

Her eyes began to water up. ‘This is going to kill Morgan. I should have come clean and told him, but I didn’t want to be the person to ruin everything. Please can we not do this?’

‘We have to, I’m sorry. There is a dangerous person on the loose and that person might strike again. What we haven’t mentioned to the press is that we believe someone else’s life might be in danger, and time is against us. You need to tell us what you know.’

Keeley stood and walked all the way back over to the kitchen area. She grabbed the bottle of Valpolicella, came back and topped her glass up. She gripped the stem of the wine glass and took another sip. ‘It was a good month ago, at least. My in-laws were away, Morgan’s mum was visiting her sister and his dad was at some property seminar in London. When we came over for dinner a few days before, one of the boys had left his favourite teddy behind and I said I’d swing by to get it. Morgan stayed at home and I drove here. We have an emergency key, so I thought I’d just nip in and nip out.’ She paused and glugged the wine again.

‘What happened when you got here?’

‘I let myself in and Colson was here, standing in the kitchen, wearing my father-in-law’s dressing gown. I didn’t know who he was at that point. My father-in-law, Tristan, used his name when he called down for Colson to hurry back, and I knew straight away that they’d been sleeping together. That’s when he saw me. I ran upstairs to Tristan and he begged me not to say anything. Colson followed, grabbed his clothes and left.’

‘Did you see him after that?’ The children began running around upstairs and another one cried, protesting that he wasn’t tired.

‘No.’ She frowned as she ignored them. ‘Wait, I’ve seen him once since getting a pasty from the café, when I was going to the hairdresser’s on the high street in Cleevesford. He came out with it and went straight into the bookies. I must confess, I ducked into a doorway because I didn’t want to see him again. I had this awful dilemma: Tristan is a great man and if I said anything, it would blow our family apart and I don’t want that. My husband is also a great man and I hated keeping something so big from him. I decided not to say anything and I don’t want to say anything. My father-in-law was going through a hard time of it. He’s been stressed and, I guess, a bit lost.’

‘You’ve discussed this with Tristan Moore?’

‘Yes, after Colson left that day, he came down looking all sheepish and ashamed. We had a long chat about how he felt my mother-in-law, Moira, had seemed distanced from him, that I didn’t understand what it was like to feel invisible. He said he’d met Colson at the Angel Arms one night when my mother-in-law was away visiting family. He’s been a bit depressed lately. I actually felt sorry for him. Please don’t break up their marriage. It’s already on thin ice. They’ve both cheated on each other in the past.’

That wasn’t what Gina had been expecting.

‘Are you sure they didn’t see each other again after that?’

‘My father-in-law was devastated, so I think it was over after that.’

‘We will need to speak to him down at the station.’

‘Can I tell him? When they get back?’

Gina glanced at Jacob and nodded. ‘First thing tomorrow morning, I need him there.’

‘Okay, I’ll bring him myself.’

Gina pulled the artist’s drawing of John Doe from her bag. ‘Do you recognise this man?’

‘I’m not sure.’ One of the children started shouting and the running around started again. ‘Sorry, they’re a nightmare to get to sleep.’ She half glanced back at the drawing, then looked up at Gina. ‘He could be anyone my in-laws use for their projects but I don’t think so. I see so many people come and go around here.’ She leaned towards the stairs. ‘Mummy will be up in a minute.’

‘Sorry, love,’ Morgan called down the stairs, then the kids started shouting and giggling as they ran up and down the stairs.

‘Do you know of a girl called Luna…’ Gina almost wanted to put her fingers in her ears to block out the mayhem as a piercing scream made them wince.

‘Mummy. I want Flopsy and Daddy has lost him,’ one of the kids yelled.

‘… or anyone with a large birthmark on her left cheek?’

‘Birthmark on a cheek, sorry, I can’t say that I do. There is something else about Colson, though, and this will embarrass my father-in-law, but I think it needs saying.’

‘Go on.’

‘Colson tried to ask him for money. They barely knew each other, and Tristan knew Colson was going through a hard time because he was living in a van. Colson asked to borrow two thousand pounds for a deposit on a flat.’

‘Did Mr Moore lend him the money?’

Keeley shook her head. ‘He said no. I mean, apart from the obvious of what they did, Tristan barely knows Colson. That day, when I caught Colson here and left him in the kitchen while I went upstairs, he took some money. Tristan didn’t report it because he didn’t want Moira to know. He had five hundred pounds for the scaffolder in the kitchen cupboard and Colson stole it. Tristan called Colson later that day, saying he wanted it back, and Colson said that if my father-in-law bothered him again, he’d tell my mother-in-law about their really long and passionate affair – that didn’t happen, by the way. He made it all up. There was no really long affair and I believe my father-in-law when he said it was a one-off.’ A crying little boy with a red face ran into Keeley’s arms. ‘I’m sorry, can we do this tomorrow? As you can see, we are dealing with a lot. I will come in tomorrow morning. What I will say is, Colson is dangerous and nasty.’