Lost Souls by Jenny O'Brien (android e book reader txt) 📕

would have anything to do with that missing girl? It’s absurd. Ronan would be the very last person to …’ She stopped again, her cheeks flooding red with some emotion Gaby could only guess at.

Janice weaved to the front of the chair to sit down as if her legs were suddenly too weak to take her weight.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said eventually, her voice a thin thread of sound.

‘That’s why we’re here. To try and make sense of it all.’ Amy leant forward, her hand clutching on to a brown envelope. ‘Where is your son, Mrs Stevens?’

She lifted her head, a very different woman to the one who’d opened the door only a few minutes ago. It was as if all the fight had drained out of her when she allowed the possibility of Ronan doing wrong to sneak over the tender walls she’d encased herself in.

‘Somewhere in Llandudno. I have no idea where. After … after everything that happened, he decided for whatever reason that he needed some space. He left at the start of June and has been living rough ever since.’

‘Are you in touch?’

She shook her head. ‘Not since he walked out the door.’

‘So, if you’re not in touch how do you know that he’s still in the area?’

‘Detective, you must understand something about my son.’ She linked her fingers in her lap, the knuckles white against the stark simplicity of her navy shift dress. ‘He’s intelligent, absurdly intelligent – some would say gifted but that’s a label we’ve … I’ve always tried to avoid. Too much to live up to at a young age. But intelligence in his case is coupled with a lack of common sense. He was fine at home but school was a trial. He doesn’t relate well to others and, in a way, I can see that the idea of running away to some utopian place to live a hermit type of existence would have appealed. If I hadn’t been so caught up in my own problems, I might have managed to prevent it from happening but it is what it is.’ She paused, staring down at her fingers only to spread them flat across her lap. ‘While Ronan doesn’t want to live at home it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to protect him in the same way I’ve always done.’

She tilted her chin, finally meeting their gaze. ‘I got in touch with Reverend Honeybun over at St Luke’s, almost as soon as Ronan left and he agreed to keep an eye on him. He’s even employed him on an ad hoc basis to help clear parish land and in return he provides me with the odd update as to how he’s doing.’

‘And how is he doing?’ Gaby interjected.

‘Better, I think. It’s taken careful nurturing but he’s even starting to talk about the future.’

‘But you haven’t been in touch with him since?’

‘No, although it’s more the case that he hasn’t been in touch with me.’ She wiped her fingers under her eyes. ‘I don’t know if he blames me for what happened but the truth is we were barely on speaking terms in the days and weeks leading up to him leaving.’

Amy removed a picture from the envelope and, stretching out her hand, said, ‘If you could tell us if this is an image of your son or not?’

Janice’s jaw dropped. The A4 piece of paper barely touched her fingers. It fluttered to the floor by her feet, as her fist pressed into her mouth.

Gaby looked across at Amy, the reality of the situation slamming home to them both the seriousness of what they were about to ask her next but they had little choice.

‘Mrs Stevens, in light of you not being able to inform us as to the whereabouts of your son and, taking into account that he was spotted on a CCTV camera very close to your home earlier on today in the company of Elodie Fry, I’d like your permission to search the house?’

‘You’ll need a warrant for that,’ she said, a glimmer of her sparky personality finally reasserting itself.

‘Yes, and, as a lawyer, you’ll know that it will be easily obtained under the circumstances.’

Janice Stevens stood, taking a moment to smooth her hands down the front of her dress. ‘Get it over with then. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me and’ – she raised her head, her eyes lifting to meet Gaby’s full on – ‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t disturb my boys. They’re asleep upstairs and, as they’ve either been here with me or at summer school, I doubt they’ll have anything that they can tell you.’

Chapter 30

Gaby

Monday 3 August, 11.10 p.m. Rhos-on-Sea

Gaby dropped Amy off before returning home to a kitchen full of dirty plates but, instead of tackling them, she pushed them to one side of the worktop and poured herself a glass of water. She’d have much preferred a glass of the wine Rusty had brought but not until she’d cobbled together the sort of CV that DCI Sherlock would be expecting.

With a box of assorted papers in front of her, she was soon up to her neck in trying to find details of courses and copies of past appraisals. Gaby wasn’t the most organised of individuals when it came to keeping up with her personal documents and, like most people, became easily distracted by old school reports and the odd photo that had crept into the box, which added little help but lots of reminiscing. She finally pressed send, seconds before the midnight deadline she’d been given, with a renewed promise to take the time to sort out her affairs once and for all. A promise she was destined to break.

Resting back against the sofa, she was trying to pluck up the energy from somewhere to climb the stairs when her phone rang. She muttered a curse under her breath. It could only mean one thing. More trouble.

‘Darin speaking.’

‘How did I know that you’d still be