Cold Blood by Jane Heafield (great books to read txt) 📕

had led him here via the playpark not to make sure no one saw, but to let him see the crime scene in order to stoke emotion about her daughter’s disappearance. So that he would want to help her. And she still clutched that envelope in her hands. She needed a prompt and he gave it by asking what she held.

As if she’d long yearned for the opportunity, she opened the envelope and stepped close to him, and pulled out photographs and newspaper clippings. She held up a picture of a cute girl in black leggings under a short tartan skirt and a T-shirt with a sequined butterfly on the front. She was holding back tears.

‘This wasn’t taken the night she went missing, but this is what she wore. Her favourite outfit. She loved butterflies. She had a butterfly claw clip in her hair.’

She tried to smile at the photo, perhaps reminded of good times, but Bennet knew something else, beyond her daughter’s disappearance. ‘You talk as if you believe your daughter will be back. But you also mentioned her death.’

The tears started. ‘Nobody talks about her, you know. I only have a handful of friends, and we talk about my girl, but it has to be in secret. I wanted to officially declare her dead, but I’m not supposed to. Sally might return. That’s the theory. A lot of people think she’s alive, living a nice life somewhere. So we have to go with that. So, to the world, she’s alive. So there’s no grave. But I know she’s dead. And no one will help me.’

‘You say you have no one, but what about family? Sally’s father?’

‘Family are scattered. I meet them now and then, but not here, not where it happened. They wouldn’t be welcomed by the village if people knew they were here because of Sally. I go to them, instead. It’s a much-needed break for me. I don’t know why I don’t just leave this place forever. And Sally’s father… my husband and me drifted apart because of this. Perhaps Sally was the glue that kept us together, and without her… he left not long after she went missing. I don’t hear from him. I don’t want to burden him, because he’s in enough pain.’

She thrust another photo into his face. He could tell from the computer-generated image that it was an age-progression depiction. He was staring at somebody’s guestimation of how Sally would look today, aged twenty instead of ten. The creator had crafted Sally’s head, shoulders and upper torso, and he’d put her in the same butterfly T-shirt. The existence of this picture meant the police were still investigating, still cared. This photo could help someone recognise her as she’d look today.

But before he could say this, he saw other computer-generated images in her hands and he took them. Sally aged about fifteen. And twenty-five. And thirty. And forty.

It made no sense. But he was certain of one thing. ‘The police didn’t create these.’

‘No, Councillor Turner paid for them. Not long after she went missing. After Sally’s father ran away. He wanted me to know how she would look. To ease my pain. He’s very sweet. He looked after me in the first few days. The morning after Sally disappeared, he bought me a dress. A black dress for the TV, you know? So I would have the right look for appealing on TV and in papers to talk about Sally. And Sally liked him too.’

She thrust another photo at him. In this, Sally wore riding gear and was knelt by the front leg of a large brown horse with white markings. She seemed to be brushing the horse’s white feathering, which was so thick it seemed to wear pompoms.

‘Sally loved to ride one of Richard’s horses and one of his friends was teaching her. Not this horse, although she actually renamed it. This one was too big. There was another. She would go at weekends mostly. She and Richard’s son, one of her best friends, they were learning together. She had an ill cat and Richard helped it. He’s a vet. Will you help me?’

The sudden swerve from history into a plea for help threw him. There wasn’t much he could do, but the best detectives were people who cared for others and were desperate to help them find justice. It wasn’t his case, and he wasn’t a Derby sleuth, but he’d seen that possible crime scene, he’d seen photographs of the girl, and his mother had begged to his face. Now he was obliged by his own moral code to do at least something for this woman.

‘I can’t do much. I can talk to my boss and see if he’ll find out anything new from Derby police. Maybe I can prompt an officer to come talk to you, or to do another round of publicity. But I can’t investigate. I’m not allowed. But for now, I really have to go.’ He didn’t tell her he needed to pick up his own child, the same age the one she’d lost.

His agreeing to help seemed to satisfy her. She led him to the back door, but as he was about to step out, her fingers snapped around his wrist. ‘Do you have children?’

‘Yes, a ten-year-old boy. His mother left just a few months after he was born. She has a new life.’

‘Such a contrast. A mother who knows exactly where her child is, but doesn’t want to see him. And a mother who would do anything to know where her baby is. So you have some idea of what I’m going through. Will you promise to do all you can to help me? You know my pain. You have your boy, the same age as my girl when she was abducted. So will you promise to find my Sally?’

Agreeing to offer aid was one thing. But what she was asking was a step too far. ‘I can’t help you. I’m sorry.’

17

When he got