Текст книги "Without a Trace"

Автор книги: Lesley Pearse

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

George Walsh put down the phone after speaking to Mrs Bridgenorth and stood for a moment considering what to do.

When he had got Molly’s letter the previous day the only emotion the contents had stirred was amusement. He felt that she’d swallowed a far-fetched yarn, a myth like the one spread around in this village about Enoch Flowers. It was said that his sweetheart had fallen into a threshing machine and he’d picked up her two severed legs and carried them and her down the high street.

It wasn’t true; his sweetheart had died of Spanish ’flu in 1920 but, somehow, this grisly story still circulated. There were even some who claimed that he had let Cassie have Stone Cottage because she looked like his sweetheart.

George knew that Molly was obsessed with Cassie’s death and Petal’s disappearance, so it was hardly surprising that she was willing to believe a story about a nutty widow and her formidable housekeeper who lived in a remote house on the marsh.

Now he knew she was missing, though, he wasn’t quite so ready to scoff at what she’d written to him. Mrs Bridgenorth had spent her whole life in hotels, so she wouldn’t scare easily, yet he had heard real fear in her voice. She had said that Molly was always so conscientious, that she wouldn’t have just gone off to see a friend without telling anyone. And none of her friends lived only a bike ride away.

George knew the correct thing to do was to go into the police station and tell Sarge all he knew, and that Molly had now been missing for nearly forty-eight hours.

He knew that Sergeant Bailey agreed with him that the investigation into Petal’s disappearance had ended far too quickly and hadn’t been very thorough. But he wasn’t going to like it that Molly hadn’t shared any further information about Cassie with the police.

Even if Sergeant Bailey went straight to someone senior to demand that they organize a search for Molly in Brookland, by the time the ball had been passed to the police in Rye, another twenty-four hours would have passed, maybe more.

Mrs Bridgenorth had already contacted all the hospitals in the area to check that Molly hadn’t been knocked off her bike and taken in for treatment. She’d also telephoned Molly’s friend Dilys, who worked at Bourne & Hollingsworth, and left a message for her, just in case Molly had gone to her. But George knew, as did Mrs Bridgenorth, that if by some chance Molly had felt compelled to go off somewhere, she would have telephoned the hotel. So it stood to reason she was in difficulties. And if the local gossip about Christabel Coleman and her housekeeper was true, it was even possible that they had been the ones who killed Cassie and took Petal away.

However, Sergeant Bailey and the rest of the local force weren’t necessarily going to believe any of this. They were likely to delay doing anything while they discussed it with the Rye police. Molly might be dead by the time they made a move, so George felt there was only one solution, and that was that he go down to Rye immediately to find her.

He was on three days’ leave, and he’d planned to spend it refelting the shed roof. But the roof could wait, and he’d write what he knew in a letter to Sergeant Bailey and get his mother to take it in to the police station. By the time Sarge read it, George would be almost in Rye.

Hastily, he grabbed a writing pad and wrote down as much as he knew, and his fears that the two women might have imprisoned Molly because they were afraid she might bring the police in to investigate them. Then he apologized for rushing off down there but pointed out that Molly was one of his oldest friends and that he was on leave.

His mother was very concerned when he gave her the letter and told her the gist of what was in it.

Janet Walsh was a typical countrywoman: plain, strong, hardworking and no-nonsense. She had always liked Molly Heywood; indeed, she had once or twice admitted that she’d always hoped that one day George would marry her. But she was very aware that, because George was a mere constable, his superiors would take a dim view of him riding off to rescue a girl he went to school with, just because he thought she was in trouble. That is, of course, if she was in trouble. For all Janet knew, and George, too, for that matter, she might have run off with some sweet-talking man.

‘Now, son, this is madness,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Why can’t you let the police down there investigate it?’

‘Because I could sense that something bad had happened to her the moment her boss told me she was missing. I’ve got three days’ leave, Mum, and how I spend it is my business. I couldn’t live with myself if Molly was killed while I sat on my hands, along with the local police force.’

‘Why should she have been killed, George? Aren’t you being a bit melodramatic?’

‘Cassie was killed, remember,’ he replied. ‘And Petal was taken away, Heaven knows where. If these two women were responsible for that, they wouldn’t have liked Molly turning up, would they?’

‘No, I suppose not.’ Mrs Walsh sighed. ‘But now you’ve given me something more to worry about.’

‘If you give that note to Sergeant Bailey a couple of hours after I’ve left, he’ll make sure there’s back-up down there. Now, please would you make me a couple of sandwiches and a flask of tea to take with me. It’s a long ride.’

‘You aren’t thinking of going all that way on your motorbike, are you?’ His mother’s voice rose in horror. ‘I thought you’d be going on the train.’

‘The bike is much quicker,’ he said. ‘There’s no direct train to Rye.’

He got together a few bits and pieces he thought he might need, including a map, a toothbrush and a change of clothing, a jemmy, a screwdriver and a bolt cutter, and put them into the pannier on his motorbike, then went in to put on his leathers.

When he came back downstairs his mother met him in the hall and handed him a sandwich box and his flask.

‘Drive carefully, son,’ she warned him. ‘Ring us when you get a chance. I’ll be praying you find Molly unharmed.’

‘You’d better tell her mum about this,’ George said reluctantly, as he put on his helmet. ‘She needs to be prepared, just in case.’

‘The poor woman.’ Mrs Walsh sighed. ‘Her husband’s such a miserable devil, and now both her girls gone and unlikely ever to return. And now this. It’s enough to crack her.’

‘I know you’ll do a good, diplomatic job,’ George said. He could see by the way his mother was biting her lower lip that she wasn’t far off tears. ‘Now, don’t go worrying about me. I’m a grown man.’

She shook her head and half smiled. ‘Not to me you aren’t,’ she said, then, taking a step closer to him, she patted his cheek. ‘But you are a brave, gallant one, and that makes me proud.’

It was around eleven thirty when George rode out of Sawbridge, and within the hour he was riding over Salisbury Plain, towards the south coast. It was no hardship to him to go such a long way on his bike. Under happier circumstances, he’d have loved it, as he rarely got to ride long distances. Thankfully, the splattering of rain that had been falling when he set out stopped soon after he bypassed Bath, and now the sun had come out.

‘I’m on my way, Molly,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Just hang on, and don’t do anything reckless.’

Molly had been busying herself from first light trying to find a long nail in one of the boxes. In over three hours she had only managed to gouge out three nails, and they were all short ones. But then she spotted one with a far larger head, which suggested it would be longer, and she worked and worked on it with the aid of one of the others.

It had rained quite hard in the night, and she’d stretched up and held out her shoe to try and collect some rainwater in it. She got about half a cupful, and nothing had ever tasted better, even if it was tainted with the smell of leather. Then the rain eased off to just drizzle and she couldn’t hold her arm out long enough to collect more than a few drops.

But it was something: just that small amount of water had made her feel a bit better and, without it, she doubted she’d have been able to stick at trying to get the nails out.

Her fingers were sore now, and she had several splinters, but when she finally drew out the nail and found it was one and a half inches long, and thick, she felt triumphant.

Picking locks always looked simple in films, but it didn’t turn out to be. She pushed the nail this way and that, but the mechanism didn’t move. After an hour working at it she’d had enough; she was dizzy and she had cramps in her stomach. In a moment of frustration she shoved a thin, wedged-shaped piece of wood from one of the boxes into the keyhole and banged it in with her shoe. To her surprise, she heard a dull click.

She couldn’t really believe she’d somehow managed to unlock the door, and when she tried to turn the knob she fully expected it would stay put. But, to her delight, it turned. She’d got the door open!

Her instinct was to just rush out, but she forced herself to take some deep breaths, to put her shoe back on, despite it being wet, and to gather her thoughts.

It must be around midday. The two women were bound to be in the house and she had no idea of its layout, not even whether the front door would be on her right or her left. She knew that, in most houses, the cellar was reached via a door in the hall or the kitchen, and that that door was likely to be locked, too.

Peeping through the open door, she found that there was some light in the cellar corridor because the other three rooms down there all had their doors open. The one opposite had a small, barred window like the one in the room she was being held in. When she crept out, she saw that the remaining two rooms were much the same, one a small store room for preserves. It was very tempting to grab a jar of plums or gooseberries to eat, but getting out was her priority.

The other two rooms held nothing but a few sticks of old furniture, and she passed on quickly to the stone staircase at the end of the corridor. She crept up it and paused to listen before trying the door.

To her right there was the sound of running water and a clattering of dishes, so she guessed that it had to be the kitchen and that someone, or perhaps both women, was in there.

That meant the front door would be to her left. But, as country people rarely used their front door and normally locked and bolted it, she didn’t think she should rely on that door. Even supposing the keys had been left in it, it might be swollen through lack of use and she could waste valuable time trying to get it open.

She continued to listen carefully and, just as she was almost giving up on hearing anyone speak, Miss Gribble did. She said something about needing to use up the stew.

Christabel responded, ‘She won’t eat that.’

‘If she doesn’t, she can go hungry,’ Miss Gribble said sharply.

Molly was crouching down on the stairs, her ear to the keyhole. She was so hungry she felt she would eat a boiled cat if it were offered to her, but the conversation she’d just overheard made her forget her hunger: it was evidence to her that Petal was not just alive but in this house.

She forced herself to stay still and think about it. They might not be talking about Petal, of course; the person who wouldn’t eat the stew could be a friend or a relative. She mustn’t go charging about half cocked. She needed a plan.

Yet the thought that little Petal could be alive and in this very house made her pulse race.

If she could get through this door, there was a strong possibility she could get clear away, as she could probably run a lot faster than the two older women. At least, she could have done before she had been starved for a couple of days.

But it wouldn’t be easy to escape with Petal, if she was there. First she had to find her and then, somehow, they’d have to get out without being spotted. The two women weren’t going to give up without a desperate fight: they must know that there would be a long prison sentence for them if Molly managed to get out and fetch the police. She’d already been on the receiving end of one blow to the head, so she could testify to Miss Gribble’s strength.

So the choice was either to flee on her own and get help or to find Petal and, with her, take a chance on outrunning and outwitting the two women.

The first seemed the more practical option, but if the women found out she’d gone they might take Petal and flee. They knew the marshes well and could probably remain hidden for a long time, but what would happen to Petal in that time?

Cassie’s heart told her that she had to find Petal and leave with her. If she was in this house, she’d been through enough. She deserved to be rescued by someone who loved her.

Gingerly, Molly turned the door knob, not for one moment thinking it would just open. But, to her shock, it did. Presumably, the two women had forgotten to lock it, or maybe they’d thought that, if she wasn’t already dead, she had no chance of getting out of the cellar room.

‘Well, I’ve got news for you two,’ she murmured to herself, opening the door just a crack. She could see she was in the hall: it had gloomy, dark, varnished wainscoting with dark-green wallpaper above it. Opposite the cellar door was a mahogany demilune table with a huge, hideous brass eagle perched on a fake log.

She could only see the kitchen doorway and about a foot into the room, but she could hear both women. It sounded as if one of them was chopping something on the table and the other was walking about. Molly opened the door a bit wider, and now she could see it was Miss Gribble chopping vegetables at the table and Christabel pacing around.

Then she had to pull the door almost shut, because if either of them looked her way they would see it was open.

‘Oh Christabel, do stop stalking around like that!’ Miss Gribble snapped. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you today.’

‘She won’t talk to me. She cowers away from me,’ Christabel burst out.

‘I told you right at the start that a child of that age remembers too much about her mother,’ Miss Gribble said impatiently. ‘Anyway, I think she’s half-witted.’

Molly seethed at that insult. It was all she could do not to charge into the kitchen and lay into both women.

‘Come into the garden with me. It’s lovely out there today, and I’ll push you on the swing. That always calms you down,’ Miss Gribble said.

At that, Molly’s eyes widened in shock. They had stolen a child and one was suggesting she pushed the other on a swing to calm her down! Were they both completely mad?

But, mad or not, it was the opportunity Molly had been waiting for. She listened to the women’s footsteps receding and opened the cellar door far enough to see the women go out the back door and into the garden.

She came out into the hall, shut the cellar door behind her and turned right towards the front of the house and the staircase, which she expected to be facing the front door. It was, in a central position, with a further two closed doors to the right and left of it across the hall. The staircase was polished dark oak, large and imposing, with a narrow, almost threadbare carpet runner on the treads fixed in place by brass stair rods.

Molly went up the stairs like the wind, not stopping at the bedrooms on the first floor, because she guessed they’d put Petal in an attic room.

The narrow staircase leading to the attic was bare wood, and food and drink had been slopped on it. A glance out of a back window revealed Christabel sitting on a swing hung on a big oak tree, and Miss Gribble pushing her.

As fast as she could, Molly ran up the last few stairs. ‘Petal!’ she called.

There were four doors up here, but she expected Petal would be in one of the two back rooms. She heard a scuffle, little more noise than a mouse would make, from the second of those rooms. The door was locked and there was no key.

‘Petal,’ she whispered at the door. ‘It’s Auntie Molly come to get you. This door is locked and I need to break it down. Stand away from it.’

The only reply was a little whimper.

Molly didn’t even stop to think of what injury she might do to herself but took a few steps back and then charged into the top door panel with her shoulder. It cracked, and so she did it again. This time it caved right in, and there was little Petal standing there, eyes swollen with crying, thin and very dirty, in a smocked dress which was several sizes too big for her and almost reached the floor.

She looked dazed and unbelievingly at Molly.

‘You’ll have to jump up and wriggle through this hole,’ Molly told her. ‘Come on, be quick! They’re out in the garden, but they might have heard me break the door.’

Petal came through the hole as quickly and smoothly as a cat and threw herself into Molly’s arms, her arms tightly around her rescuer’s neck.

‘We’ll talk later,’ Molly whispered, kissing the child’s head and trying not to cry with joy at finding her alive. ‘For now, we’ve got to be fast and silent. Can you do that?’

Petal nodded, perhaps too overcome by shock to speak.

Molly picked Petal up to hold her on her hip and crept down the staircase. She could see the front door was, as she had expected, locked and bolted. The chances were she’d be struggling with it for too long and they’d be caught.

When she’d glanced out at the garden, she’d seen that the swing was about twenty-five yards from the kitchen door and, if she remembered rightly, there were bushes between them which would shield her and Petal from view. She hoped they’d have enough time to run round the house, down the drive and away.

They had just reached the hall when, to her horror, Miss Gribble appeared. Molly’s blood ran cold, because she had a long poker in her hands and, judging by the ferocious look on her face, she’d heard the door being broken and had every intention of using her weapon.

Molly shook with fear. There was no doubt in her mind that this woman would think nothing of killing both her and Petal. She jabbed out with the poker at Molly, and Petal squealed and clung more tightly to her.

‘I should have dealt with you when you first got here, but I will now, and that brat!’ the woman snarled at her. She had big, yellow teeth like a savage animal.

‘Please let us go,’ Molly said. She knew that nothing she said would make any difference, but she hoped the woman would think she was docile and stupid enough to allow her to prod them down the hall and back towards the cellar.

The big brass eagle would make a good weapon if Molly could reach it and, even if Christabel appeared, Molly had the idea she was a bit thick, so Petal could probably run past her. ‘I told loads of people I was coming here, so the police will be here before long,’ she said, playing for time. ‘But if you let us go now, I’ll tell everyone I found Petal out on the road.’

‘Save your breath. You won’t have it for long!’ the woman roared at her. It was as if she was possessed: her eyes were rolling and she had spittle coming out of her mouth. She was lifting the poker up above her head ready to whack Molly with it.

Molly put her lips close to Petal’s ear. ‘Run when I put you down. Get help,’ she whispered.

Petal made a little grunt, which appeared to indicate that she’d understood, and as Molly jumped to one side as the poker came down to hit her, she let Petal drop to the floor.

The poker whistled past Molly’s shoulder by a whisker, but Miss Gribble was undeterred and lifted it again, at the same time pulling open the cellar door with her other hand.

‘Get in there!’ the madwoman shrieked, prodding out with the poker.

‘Please, please, not in there again!’ Molly screamed out. ‘It’s dark, there’s spiders and rats.’

Petal was clinging to her side, and Molly couldn’t tell her to go without revealing her hysteria to be an act. ‘Please, please, I can’t bear it!’ she yelled, and she grabbed hold of the demilune table as if to prevent herself being hauled back into the cellar.

Petal suddenly took off like a jack rabbit, through the kitchen and out the back door. Miss Gribble lifted the poker, but hesitated, as if unsure whether to catch the child or deal with Molly. In that instant Molly picked up the brass eagle, which weighed a ton, and flung it at the woman’s face.

It had the most dramatic effect. There was a crack, Miss Gribble’s nose splattered like a squashed tomato and she slid down the wall behind her like a drunk on a Saturday night.

Molly gave her only the briefest glance then ran for the back door. But, as she stepped over the threshold, she saw Christabel standing there, and in her hands was an axe.