Deadly Lies by Ann Girdharry (read me a book .TXT) 📕

and was beyond reasoning with. Ruby waited and slowly, Alice uncurled. Ruby was frightened in case it was blood or flesh. She held her breath as Alice opened her hand. She seemed to be clutching a piece of material. It was pale pink with pink fairies on it.

‘Oh God it’s Lisa’s pyjamas,’ Joan said.

Alice was breathing heavily and staring at the people around her as if they were her enemies.

‘I’m not going to take it from you. We’re here to help,’ Ruby said. ‘Please can you show me?’

Reluctantly Alice opened her hands to reveal more of the material. It didn’t look like a whole pyjama. Rather, someone had hacked off a leg. It was terribly difficult for the mother to let go of it and Ruby understood why. It was as if Alice was clutching her own child. Ruby held out an open evidence bag and when Alice finally blinked and the crisis ebbed, she seemed to sag. With a shaking hand she dropped the pyjama in the bag. Ruby passed it to Tom.

‘Thank you, Alice,’ Ruby said. The pyjama leg did not seem to have blood on it.

‘You’re certain this is from Lisa?’ Tom asked.

Alice nodded and she started moaning. Joan hugged her daughter as Alice rocked backwards and forwards and they all understood the question no one could answer for her – are my children dead?

12

On his way back from Brighton, Grant got the news about the pyjama leg. Forensics would be examining every millimetre of it and of the envelope and the team would be tracking the delivery back to where and who it was sent from. For sure, the abductor would have been clever and covered their tracks but they might get lucky. Meanwhile, he wanted to speak to Alice Glover. The poor woman, he felt for her.

Grant helped Alice walk to the hothouse. She was in bad shape. Grant cleared his throat. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve got results on the pyjama.’

Alice let her head loll back on the chair and she stared at him with lifeless eyes. ‘Have you found my babies? Are they dead?’

Her hair was a mess. He suspected she had not bothered to remove her make-up nor shower since the abduction, neither of which were surprising. And now, after the pyjama, the poor woman was a wreck.

‘Don’t give up hope, Alice. Stay with me on this one – I need your help.’

She gave the briefest of nods.

‘A few queries have come up which I need to run by you and some of them might sound a bit odd except please bear with me. First of all, I understand your father didn’t spend much time with you when you were a child. When Ronnie got attached to Emily and Lisa it must have felt strange.’

‘So what if it did? I wasn’t jealous if that’s what you mean.’

‘As far as I understand it, when Ronnie’s will is enacted you’ll own a third of Hardman Construction.’

‘It’s meaningless. I can’t sell or do anything without the agreement of the other directors. And Dad is in charge of everything.’ Alice’s voice trailed off. ‘Or he was.’

‘I’ve a couple of more delicate questions,’ Grant said. ‘Please don’t read more into this than there is only I understand there were a couple of incidents when Lisa was injured?’

Grant had checked the records and as Sylvie told him, an ambulance had been called on two occasions. Once, when Lisa had almost drowned in the bath, and the second time, when she had been injured falling onto a cactus in the hothouse.

Alice sat up. ‘Did Jack tell you,’ she hissed. ‘The bastard.’

‘What happened?’ Grant asked.

‘They were accidents. I don’t remember because I wasn’t feeling well. The doctor had given me some tablets.’ Alice wafted her hand in the air.

Grant already knew the details. After Lisa’s birth, Alice had suffered from post-natal depression and her doctor had prescribed medication.

‘You were on anti-depressants,’ Grant said. ‘They affect memory and recall and you told the doctor you had a memory blank.’

‘Exactly. I just remember finding her… it was all a blur.’

Grant consulted his notebook. ‘On your statement you said Lisa slipped under the water during bath time and you found her unresponsive. She was revived by paramedics.’

‘I only left her for a few seconds! When I came back, she’d gone under and I panicked.’

‘And she was twelve months old at the time.’

‘I know it was too young to leave a child on her own but I’m sure I only left the room for a second, I swear it.’

‘And the second incident was when Lisa had inch-long cactus spines embedded in her thigh after falling in the hothouse. The doctors removed seven spikes. She was eighteen months old and it was a serious injury.’

‘I didn’t even know she’d gone in there! Jack blamed me, which wasn’t fair. He’s always blaming me for everything but where was he! Why was it only my fault!’

‘It says in the paramedic’s records you were the one supervising the children that afternoon.’

‘Jack lied. He was home too.’

‘I believe it was Jack who heard Lisa scream and he called the ambulance,’ Grant said. ‘Jack told the social worker at the hospital he thought you weren’t fit to look after Lisa. He later changed his mind although he insisted on employing an au pair.’

‘What a fucking joke! Can’t you see how Jack is trying to blame me for everything? And the au pair thing was his idea, sure, except it wasn’t for me it was so he could ogle young girls and have them come half naked into our kitchen and give him an eyeful. Have you any idea what it’s like having them live here? They wear practically nothing and parade around like they own the place and Jack encourages it behind my back. The au pairs aren’t for me they’re for him!’

Alice was shouting. Grant nodded and kept his voice calm. She really was close to the edge.

‘I understand.’ He took a drink of water.