Page 51 of Worse Than Murder

‘Not much. A few of the battens on the roof had come loose. All sorted now.’

‘Horses okay?’

‘They’re fine. A little unsettled. Your Lauren has already been up this morning to check on Oliver.’

Gill gives a whisper of a smile. ‘I sometimes wonder who she loves more: me or him. Erm, is this a good time for us to have a word?’ she asks, looking towards Lynne who is already wiping her eyes with a tatty tissue.

‘Yes. Fine.’

‘Lynne,’ Gill begins. ‘As you know, a car has been discovered on the bed of the lake. We’re waiting for a specialised recovery team to come up from Birmingham to help us pull it out. However, a couple of items have floated to the surface. We believe they’re items belonging to a child. I was wondering if you’d look at them for me and let me know if you recognise them.’ She talks in a delicate tone, hoping her soothing manner will make the horrifying situation less shocking. It doesn’t work.

‘What kind of items?’ Lynne asks. She’s sitting rigid on a wooden chair, knees drawn together, fingers interlocked on her lap.

‘There’s a shoe and a piece of jewellery.’

‘Do you think Celia and Jennifer are in the car?’ Iain asks.

‘We don’t know if there is anyone in there at the moment. I’m keeping an open mind. However, the only local missing children we have on our records are your daughters.’

‘Oh my God!’ Lynne cries. She bows her head and seems to crumble in on herself.

Iain crouches down beside her and wraps his arms around her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Lynne, it’s all right,’ he whispers to her. He holds her close and kisses her on the top of her head.

She nods and slowly sits back up. He hands her a fresh tissue from his pocket.

‘Have they been there, in the lake, within spitting distance of my house, all this time?’

‘We don’t know anything at the moment, Lynne. Until we can get the car up, everything is guesswork.’

Lynne wipes her eyes with the sodden tissue. ‘I understand.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Can I see what you’ve found?’

Gill looks to Alan who brings the plastic evidence bags from behind his back. He hands them to Gill. She passes the one containing the shoe to Lynne first. Years of it being submerged in water has dulled the trainer. It’s difficult to guess what its original colour had been. It’s dirty and scuffed and the laces are missing, but it’s clear what the item is.

Lynne holds it in shaking fingers. She turns it over, looks at the worn tread. Her facial expression doesn’t change.

‘I’m not sure,’ she says. ‘They had shoes like this, but… I’m not sure.’

‘What shoes were they wearing on the day they went missing? They were playing in fields, weren’t they?’ Gill asks.

Lynne nods. ‘I can’t remember what shoes they were wearing. I know Celia was wearing pink shorts and a white T-shirt. Jennifer had on a purple short-sleeve shirt and a white skirt. I can’t… I can’t see their shoes. I’m so sorry.’

‘Iain?’ Gill asks him.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see them that morning so I couldn’t say what they were wearing.’

Lynne closes her eyes tightly shut as she takes herself back to that day, thirty years ago. She feels sick. She opens her eyes and streams of tears roll down her cheeks. She hands the shoe back to Gill who swaps it for the second bag from Alan. When Lynne takes it, it looks empty. There doesn’t seem to be anything in there. Right at the bottom is a small, tarnished silver chain. There are three tiny daisies linked together in the middle. Lynne runs her fingers gently over the flowers through the plastic.

‘They both had one,’ she eventually says. ‘Their grandmother bought them one each for Christmas the year before they… They had an argument and one of the necklaces ended up losing two of its flowers. Of course, they blamed each other. I don’t know who this one belongs to,’ she says, squeezing the evidence bag tightly between her fingers and crying.

Iain leans down to her, kisses her on the top of her head again and makes soothing noises as he tells her everything is going to be all right. They’re just words, though. They’re meaningless. Nothing is going to be all right ever again.

‘But the necklace definitely belongs to one of your daughters?’ Gill asks.

It’s a while before she receives confirmation. Lynne looks up. She seems to have aged a decade since Gill walked into the small office. She nods.

Gill allows the silence to grow. When nobody says anything more, she continues. ‘Lynne, looking back at the original investigation, it was thought your daughters were kidnapped and taken away from the area. If that’s not the case, if your girls never left the area, it’s possible you might have known the kidnapper. Is there anyone from that time who might have done something like this to your family?’

Lynne is holding on tightly to her husband. She’s leaning into him for support. She can’t do this on her own and is close to cracking completely. She squeezes his hand even tighter.