Twisted

Chapter 43

Anna had been sitting outside the cottage on an old wooden bench for hours. She had lit a night-light in a lantern and the mosquitoes gathered above it like a small black cloud. Jo had looked out from the window numerous times, but could not or refused to interrupt or go and sit beside her. She had begun packing the few things they had brought, and the canvas bags for their paintings and books were ready to be put into the Land Rover. Anna’s rucksack was almost full, the top left open for anything else she wanted to take.

Earlier that morning Anna had frightened Jo as she had driven off without saying a word. She had been gone for over two hours, and unbeknown to Jo, had spent the time in an internet café discovering all she could about her father and mother. She had read the newspaper coverage of her own disappearance, and had even been able to bring up the footage of a few of the programmes that had been broadcast on British network television.

Jo had not seen her cry. Her reaction had been one of utter silence when she had told her about the visit to the jewellery store in Mexico City, the phone call to London and how she had subsequently gone to the internet café. Anna had shown little reaction to the news that her father was dead. However, when she had herself read about him and that the police were no longer searching for her, and no other suspects had been arrested, she had bowed her head in shame. By the time she returned to the cottage she was aware of the consequences her disappearance had created, and was almost overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. She had not discussed with Jo the need to uproot and find somewhere else to hide. She was even uncertain that she would agree to it; for herself she had found peace and had been happy for the first time in years. She was realizing the implications and cost of what she had done, and was now contemplating returning to England, but was intelligent enough to realize that she would have to face a barrage of questions from the police and might be charged with wasting their time for not coming forward earlier. Nowhere had she read of the poisoning or the threats that had been made, so she was unaware of exactly how her father had died. The article simply stated that he had not recovered after collapsing while being questioned and the police were no longer looking for a suspect connected to his daughter’s murder.

Jo heard the scrape of the bench and knew immediately that Anna had moved from the yard. It was so dark outside, the small lantern the only means of light; even the moon seemed to have paled into insignificance. She stepped outside, and could see Anna standing by the hosepipe they used as a shower. She was bending down a few feet away from it, and Jo walked softly towards her.

‘The new crops are coming up well – they like this damp earth and being in the shade.’

She was pointing to the old wooden crates filled with woodchips and wet newspapers from where the growing mushrooms’ white heads were beginning to sprout.

‘My mother taught me how to grow the most edible ones, and how to recognize the dangerous ones, the poisonous ones. She was an authority on all the different species and helped me write an essay about the poison that possibly caused the death of the Roman Emperor-’

‘We need to talk, Anna.’

‘Not yet, Jo, give me a little more time.’

‘We might not have it. I wish to God I had never made that call to London.’

Anna turned to stare into Jo’s concerned face, and then looked away, her voice hardly audible.

‘For God’s sake, let me mourn for Daddy; he did not deserve to be accused of abusing and killing me. He was a stupid weak man, but not a bad one.’

‘I know, dear.’

Her voice grew softer still. ‘No, you don’t know, you don’t know at all.’

‘Then talk to me, because I need to know. I am so scared I am losing you, Anna, I don’t think I could bear it.’

She wanted to hold out her arms and hug Anna tightly, but was incapable of doing so because she was afraid she would be rejected. Instead she looked on hopelessly as Anna continued to press her foot down onto the trays of mushrooms. The void between them felt impossible to bridge and to stop herself from crying Jo walked into the cottage and closed the door.

The small bed of wooden planks cobbled together covered with a straw mattress was not exactly comfortable, but was just about adequate and the duvet was feather-light. Two candles lit the stone-walled room and the shutters closed out the cold night air. Jo could hear footsteps on the old wooden porch floor, the scrape of the chair, and lastly she heard the low sound of sobbing as Anna entered the cottage.

At some point in the night Jo had fallen into a restless sleep, waking before the sun rose and creeping to open the bedroom door to see into the main room of the cottage. Anna was sleeping in front of the fire she must have lit, her head resting on a quilt pillow and her long tanned legs lazily crossing each other. Her slender arms were resting in a ballet pose and her skin shone as if oiled, her white-blonde hair like a child’s framing her perfect face. Placed beside her were pages and pages of her scrawled looped writing and Jo noticed that she had printed her own name on the first page. She hesitated for only a moment before she eased them away and took them back to the bedroom.

My darling Jo, I have tried to make the right decision, and as much as I believe it is the only thing to do, it is also difficult for me to even contemplate returning to England. I know how much you love me, and love living here in our little home and find the environment perfect for your painting. However, the time has come for me to go my own way and sadly without you. I will be forever grateful for what you have done for me and you have more than likely saved my life, but I now have to face reality as I cannot continue to live in our make-believe world. I am not Anna, but Amy, and I feel a terrible guilt about what happened to my father. I suspect my mother may have brought about his death and in many ways I feel I should return home to get the answers I so desperately need. As you know, I was subjected to my mother’s madness for many years, but it was when I was thirteen that things began to get really bad and she and Daddy started to argue all the time, so much so I actually hated being around them. When they decided to separate Mummy still had her mood swings, but she found solace in her work and life became a little more bearable for a short while, but I soon began to realize that every weekend I spent with Daddy was like a knife to her heart. The point came when I knew I would have to do something drastic to get away from her or I might be killed. Whether or not she intended hurting me, she did, and perhaps sometimes without even being aware of what she was doing. I often used to feel physically sick and had fevers and attacks of vomiting without realizing she was feeding me her deadly concoctions. She rarely cooked, but she sometimes made a spaghetti bolognese, which she knew was my favourite, and always just before she would drop me off to stay with Daddy. He was such a sad creature, so dominated by her, even frightened of her because he refused to acknowledge his own sexuality. He would attempt to portray himself to me as such a virile sexy man, believing his prostitutes and girlfriends were proof he was heterosexual. He so wanted and needed to know I loved him and preferred to be with him instead of Mother. I knew about his rent boys, and his love for Simon, as the way he spoke and smiled about him made it obvious. Mother would never let him go, I knew she was often outside Green Street spying on us, calling poor Daddy on his mobile, she would never leave us alone, and life with her was becoming impossible.

Daddy was so unintelligent, so incapable of being anything but a plaything for Mother, that I began to detest his weakness, and sadly found him to be a wretched failure. Every weekend I spent with Mother was an interrogation of who he was seeing, and I was forced to tell her about the peephole in the wall, his women, his wretched drawers of underwear; he kept them as some kind of trophy, I even knew he wore them and pranced in front of the wardrobe mirror, and she would insist I described every detail. It was horrible, she was impossible and I begged her not to tell Daddy.

I am not like my father, I am not like my mother, but between them they smothered me and my life was spent constantly trying to please them. To live at home and be afraid to spark her rage if there was so much as a tissue left out of place in my bedroom was torture. She selected my clothes, she inspected my room, and my life was constantly checked for imperfections. I was made to appear as Miss Perfect. She employed Agnes, a hideous woman who would sift through my personal things, a driver who constantly tried to touch my thighs. The hope I could get away from both of them was always close to the surface, the only thing that kept me going. I behaved appallingly when I was with Daddy as I always felt so sick, and had constant bowel trouble, and I was so tired I couldn’t be bothered to clean up after myself. I knew if I was to continue staying with him I would become as inept and spiritually vacant as he was.

My time with you proved that I am not wicked, that I am not incapable of loving, and if it had not been for you, my life would have continued to be unbearable. This has been a joyous and life-enhancing time and I feel I am strong enough to face whatever I need to do. I have to do it by myself, and I don’t want any arguments and pleas for me to change my mind. Amy.

Jo lay back on the pillows and the fear she had of being abandoned made her feel physically ill. She would try and persuade Amy to stay, but if necessary she would return to the UK with her and face up to her crimes and any punishment meted out by the law. They had committed a serious theft of valuable property and Jo had instigated that, and she would take the responsibility, particularly since Amy was only sixteen years old. They had celebrated her birthday together in the cottage, but nevertheless when they had begun their relationship she was underage.

Jo began to dress, pulling on jeans, T-shirt and leather sandals with an old leather jerkin – although it was extremely hot in the daytime the nights could often become cold. She brushed her hair and stood staring at her reflection in a small cracked mirror on a table they used to put all their cosmetics and sun creams on. She was as deeply tanned as Amy, and her hair was also bleached almost white by the sun. Unlike Amy’s, her hair was very curly; she ran her fingers through it and then looked round for her old straw sunhat. She picked it up from where it lay beside the bed, looking sadly at the crumpled duvet and creased pillows. She patted them straight and stood back as the tears filled her eyes, but wiping them firmly away she refused to allow herself to become emotional. They had spent many hours curled around each other in this small roughly made bed, professing undying love, enjoying their closeness, gentle and considerate of each other’s naked bodies and sensuality.

She went quietly to the door, not wanting to wake Amy if she was still sleeping. But the room was empty and panic began to rise as she ran to the small makeshift kitchen annexe, her heart beating so rapidly she gasped for breath. Pushing open the back door to the small yard where they kept the chickens, she ran to the hutch, but it was empty; the caged door left open.

Jo ran back to the cottage and, standing outside the door, called out, ‘Anna!’ and then, ‘Amy!’ but received no reply. She checked their few bags and discovered that Amy’s rucksack she had packed in readiness to leave had gone. Left on the old worn chair was the empty plastic bag that had held the tiara, and all Jo could do was run this way and that, still calling out for Amy, but it was obvious that she had left.

Jo hurried out to the flattened area they had cleared to park the Land Rover but it was still there. She hurtled down the pathway with its lines of seashells and stood in the narrow lane, shading her eyes, desperate to catch sight of Amy, but there was no sign. Berating herself for panicking, she knew she had to calm down. Amy could not have gone far on foot, and so she returned to the house to find the car keys they always left on a hook by the door. They were not there. Sobbing, she searched everywhere, trying to remember if she had brought them into the cottage. She looked for Anna’s passport, but couldn’t find it anywhere. All she could do was repeat, ‘Oh my God, oh my God’, as, between sobbing and gasping for breath, she continued searching for the Land Rover keys, until she discovered they were still in the ignition.

Fifteen minutes later Jo was driving at a frantic pace in an attempt to catch up with Amy. The girl was not on the dusty sand track and Jo presumed she must have caught a lift from one of the locals and been driven into Mazatlan. Just as she reached the tarmac road the engine began to splutter and she closed her eyes, praying that it was not true, because the petrol gauge didn’t work, but the spluttering and shuddering of the old engine signified it was empty.

There was nothing for it but to return to the cottage to get her wallet as she had simply run empty-handed from the place in the hope of catching Amy. She then had to go on foot, carrying a petrol can, on the long trek to the nearest gas station on the outskirts of town. The sun was blistering hot as Jo eventually got to the petrol station and filled the can after hitching a ride in a farmer’s run-down truck. He took her back to the Land Rover and she finally drove into town. She was sweating heavily, alternating between crying and angrily cursing that she had not woken Amy sooner. She drove to the bus station and made enquiries there, and then headed for the beach in the hope of catching sight of her, but by noon, struggling beneath the over-powering heat of the midday sun, she eventually turned back towards the cottage. The hens were clucking around waiting for their feed, but she couldn’t even think about tending to them as she hoped that she was wrong and Amy would come back.

Jo walked around the empty cottage, too exhausted to even cry, then lay down on the bed and tried to think what she should do next. She picked up the letter and read it again and again, and the more she read it the worse she felt. She debated returning to England by herself in the hope of seeing Amy there, but then she had to also accept the fact that she didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket.

Over and over she tried to think of what Amy would be doing, and if she was heading for an airport, if she would go to Mexico City and fly from there, but she had made enquiries at the bus station and no one had seen the blonde English girl. It was depressing and frustrating, and hard to believe that after all they had been through Amy would have chosen to walk away and leave her. At some point she did acknowledge that Amy had left her parents and without any thought of the repercussions; now she had done the same to her. She started to grow angry. She remembered her saying that Jo did not know her, and she began to think that it was true, groaning at the terrible sense of betrayal. For the second time in her life she had loved deeply and profoundly and the rejection this time felt even worse.

After a long flight on which he’d scarcely managed to sleep, DI Reid arrived in Mexico City and hired a vehicle. This had not been without its problems as the Hertz at the airport had no cars available, and so he had eventually agreed to rent a camper van, which cost more, but he was eager not to waste any more time. It had been a hair-raising few hours as he had attempted to circumnavigate the thronging mass of traffic in Mexico City. He had, with great difficulty, eventually traced the jewellers and they had confirmed when shown the photographs of Josephine Polka that it was without doubt the woman that had attempted to sell the tiara. They didn’t recognize Amy Fulford as the woman had been alone. The jewellers impressed him, seeming well-established and very successful, although whether they would have paid the right price for the tiara was questionable. He had told them only that he was working for an insurance company for a ‘finder’s fee’, and that the tiara although not stolen was part of an inheritance.

With little to go on, Reid made the journey to Mazatlan. The only clue he had was so tenuous that he hoped it wasn’t going to be a fruitless costly journey. The drive was over eight hours, but he had stopped only to fill the petrol tank twice and grab a bite to eat. The heat was oppressive and he had stripped off his shirt to wear only a vest and a pair of shorts he had thrown into his case at the last minute. He had even taken his socks off, as the air conditioning in the camper van was faulty. It was getting dark by the time he eventually saw the road signs to Mazatlan, and it was with great relief that he neared the beautiful beach-side town. The air was not as stifling here and with the windows open, he was feeling less uncomfortable. He had driven through the main town, passing glorious white stucco-fronted hotels and was on the main road when he realized he needed to fill up once more, so he pulled over to a gas station. As he picked up a six-pack of bottled water and was paying for it at the counter he casually asked if they would look at a photograph as he was there searching for some friends.

Reid returned to the camper van and opened a bottle of water; he could hardly believe that he had hit the jackpot so soon. It had taken a while for the station attendant to understand his enquiries but a twenty-dollar bill had helped. The man had drawn the directions on a scrap of paper and had managed to convey that the lady he was hoping to meet lived in a farmer’s cottage on the outskirts of the main town a further twenty or more miles north. Reid was warned that the roads were not lit, and in some areas still unfinished, and when he reached the end of the main tarmac road he would need to drive carefully as the track became uneven, with gravel-filled potholes.

Reid took the wrong turn over and over again; the camper van was spluttering and the springs made each dip in the uneven road painful on his backside. Coming to a barred broken gate, he was going to carry on, but his headlights picked out small white pebbles that appeared to indicate a path. He turned in and his lights caught the parked Land Rover, and now he could see the white pebbles were seashells marking out the narrow path to a run-down cottage. The shutters were drawn, but chinks of light indicated someone was inside. He parked up and walked towards the wooden door, swearing as he twisted his ankle in the dark.

Almost at the door, he ran his hands through his hair and buttoned up his shirt, and was about to knock when it flew open. He recognized her immediately but before he could say anything she shouted at him to go away and slammed the door.

‘Miss Polka, please, please LET ME TALK TO YOU.’

She inched the door open and there was no recognition on her face but rather fear as she asked what he wanted.

‘Do you remember me? I came to meet you at the school in Ascot, I’m DI Reid.’

She stared dumbfounded as if unable to comprehend what he had just said. What happened next caught him completely by surprise, as she literally collapsed in front of him and he had to push the door further open to pick her up. He carried her in his arms as he looked round for a suitable place to put her down, and noticed there was a pile of cushions by the unlit fire.

‘Miss Polka, Miss Polka.’ He propped her head up in the crook of his arm.

She slowly opened her eyes and he took a cushion and placed it beneath her head. She seemed to be totally incapable of speaking or acknowledging him, but just lay there, her eyes open. He glanced around to see if there was a kitchen or running water to fetch her a drink. The two candles gave only a faint light to the room and he knocked his shin on a stool before he found, in the small annexe, a plastic gallon water bottle. He poured some into a tin mug and carried it back to her.

‘See if you can sit up and sip this.’

He lifted her by placing his hand under her shoulders and held the mug out for her to drink. She took a couple of sips and then rested her head against his chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured as he encouraged her to drink some more. It seemed to revive her, as she moved away from him, and then cradled her head in her hands.

‘Do remember me?’ he asked gently.

‘Yes of course I do,’ she said weakly.

‘I’ve come a long way to talk to you. I got lucky at the gas station in Mazatlan and they directed me here.’

He slowly got to his feet; after such a long drive he felt stiff all over. He walked to a low wooden carved chair with a cushion and sat down, rubbing his thighs and knees. He couldn’t help but notice that she still wore the ballet shoes and her hair, which had reminded him of Marilyn Monroe’s, was even more blonde and she was deeply tanned. He was slightly embarrassed that he was wearing tatty baggy shorts and lace-up shoes without socks, while he knew he must stink of body odour as he had been sweating most of the day and night.

Slowly she stared at him, then sat up further and reached for the tin mug to finish the water.

‘She’s not here,’ she whispered.

‘Are you referring to Amy?’ he asked and she looked at him as if he were an idiot.

‘Who do you think I am talking about? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

She turned away from him and rested both hands on the stone floor before she eased herself up.

‘You have a lot of explaining to do,’ he said. ‘However, I’ve had a very long drive and I wouldn’t mind taking a shower first before we talk.’

She didn’t answer, but lit a candle and put it inside the small glass lantern. She went into the bedroom and returned with a cheap worn beach towel, informing him they had no shower, but a hosepipe was rigged up outside and he could wash with that. She tossed the towel to him and said there was soap and shampoo by the hosepipe. As she led him there, she moved in the way he remembered, like a ballet dancer gliding lightly across the ground. He asked if she minded getting him a clean shirt and underwear from the camper van.

He stood like a teenager, wearing his jockey shorts and nothing else as he held the hopepipe over his head. She held up a shirt and underwear then tossed them beside the beach towel and asked if he was hungry.

‘I am, in fact I’ve only had a sandwich since-’

She didn’t listen to what he was saying and returned to the cottage. Self-consciously he realized he was standing half naked, and the gathering mosquitoes were beginning to bite the hell out of him. He dried himself off as fast as he could, got out of his wet jockey shorts and into his dry crumpled ones and then pulled on the cotton shirt that he had bought on arrival at the airport. It was typically Mexican, wide-sleeved and full, with embroidery around the collar.

Heading back into the cottage, he found she was frying up some bacon, and coffee was bubbling in a tin jug. She had set out plates and mugs on a wooden table with a lit candle in an old wine bottle.

‘You said she’s not here, so where is she?’

She turned with a wooden spoon in her hand. ‘I don’t know, Detective Reid.’

She finished frying the bacon and used the same pan for some eggs. She placed a hunk of rough home-made bread on the table and poured two mugs of coffee. Yet again he was very aware of how beautifully she moved, very light on her feet, swaying as she deftly returned to spoon out the eggs from the frying pan onto two decorative plates.

She carried both plates to the table; he had three rashers of bacon and two fried eggs. She had one egg, saying she wasn’t very hungry, but she jabbed her fork into the yoke.

‘I thought my hens might have run off this morning, but they are back in their hutch and these are freshly laid,’ she said, as if making polite conversation.

They ate in silence; she hardly touched her food, but he was so hungry he could have eaten twice the amount. He was trying to think of how he should approach asking her the multitude of questions he needed answers to, but she took the dirty plates into the kitchen and came out with the coffee pot to top up their mugs. She crossed to the fireside and began heaping bundles of tied twigs into the grate and placing logs around them before she skilfully brought a lit taper from the candles to light the fire.

She was very adept at blowing the kindling until it caught fully alight and began to burn while he remained sitting at the table, his hands cupped around the mug of black coffee. He loved the way she moved, and she turned, catching him watching her.

‘I didn’t lie to you when you questioned me at the school,’ she said. ‘I truthfully had no idea where Amy was, and I was shocked by what you told me and was frightened that something terrible had happened to her.’

‘When did you know?’

She shrugged and said that it was after she had been told to leave, and just before she had arranged to travel on a group tour with other artists to Peru for two weeks.

‘She called me, and made me promise to keep silent, or she wouldn’t tell me where she was, and so I agreed.’

‘Where was she?’

‘She’d been staying at a house in Henley as she knew the owner was abroad and where a spare key had been hidden.’

‘Simon Boatly’s?’

She nodded.

‘But he came back to the house not long after Amy went missing?’

‘I know, she told me when I saw her. It really frightened her as she had to hide in a wardrobe until late at night and then sneak out of the house.’

‘Hang on a second… if you went and saw her, where and when was this?’

‘The weekend after you first spoke to me at the school. She’d gone to a youth hostel in Oxford. She knew the place a bit because her mother had taken her there before to show her round the old colleges she studied at.’

‘Did she see the TV and newspaper appeals about her?’

‘Yes, but she’d changed her appearance with fake glasses, tied her hair up and dressed scruffy. She figured with so many students in Oxford she’d just blend in and no one would recognize her.’

‘But if she saw the TV appeal and the state her parents were in, why didn’t she make contact to at least say she was alive and well?’

‘I tried to persuade her to get in touch with them or you, but Amy was adamant that she would not do that and refused to explain why. She only said that she wanted to go away, stay away from them forever.’

‘What about money? She’d made no withdrawals from her bank.’

‘Because she didn’t want anyone to be able to trace her. I tried to make her change her mind, but she was very strung out and insisted that she would be able to finance herself to go abroad. I asked how, but she wouldn’t tell me.’

‘But she left her passport at her home?’

‘I know that,’ Jo snapped.

He lifted his hands in submission as she turned away and remained silent for a few moments before she continued.

‘My full name is Josephine Poliakoff, I started using Polka years ago as a surname as it sort of sounded to me more like a dancer. I had a younger sister who died just before I became an art teacher at the school.’

‘The girl on the beach in the picture in the hallway of your school cottage?’ he recalled and she gave him an odd smile.

‘Yes, you have a good memory. Her name was Anna and I still had her old passport. She was barely older than Amy.’

‘I thought at the time she looked similar to Amy, but her hair was much shorter.’

‘Amy cut her hair short so there was even more of a similarity between them and the passport was still valid. Then I had Miss Harrington walking into the cottage and it was just awful as she looked around and then implied that she had received some anonymous information about me – I told you. Anyway, she asked me if I was lesbian and said that I was unsuitable for my position with the girls, blah blah, and I didn’t wait to even explain anything but gave her my resignation – the relief on her face! But as to who would have written to her – God knows, probably that little bitch Serena.’

He could hardly believe it, but he didn’t want to interrupt as she described booking and paying for a flight online for Amy, who downloaded and printed off the e-ticket at an internet café. Amy’s flight was a one-way trip to Santa Fe and so as not to create any suspicion, she herself left for Peru and they had a tentative plan to reunite if Amy succeeded in leaving the UK.

‘So when did she fly to Santa Fe?’

‘About a week or two after I left the school. You have to understand that for Amy there was no going back, so she stopped reading the papers or watching the news. She genuinely didn’t know about what happened to her father and mother since she ran away.’

‘So how did you end up in this godforsaken place?’

‘When my art tour finished I took a flight from Peru to San Francisco, bought the old Land Rover and, not even knowing if she would still be there, I drove to Santa Fe. It took me a week or so to find Amy. She was working in a restaurant, living in a commune with other kids, hippie types, junkies and runaways like herself.’

She gave a long sigh and seemed defeated as she quietly explained how they planned a trip to Mexico City and subsequently decided to keep on the move to Mazatlan. They had agreed to not use any mobile phones or even her laptop; they had wanted to be completely free of any possible contact from England.

‘We found this place, and together made it habitable, and this is where we have been living since Santa Fe.’

He looked around and gave a half-smile: it was not in any way luxurious but with the lit fire and the warm glow of the candles it was comfortable, albeit with no electricity.

‘I suppose you want to know how we financed it all?’

He nodded and she continued.

‘To start with, my savings, and then Amy had numerous bits and pieces of jewellery she said she had been given, and we prised out the stones and I would drive into town and sell them, but she never accompanied me. We were very careful not to create any suspicion, but had more than enough to buy the hens and the furnishings and obviously groceries, in fact everything we needed.’

She rubbed at her curls and began twisting one round and round in her forefinger. He remembered her doing the same thing when he had interviewed her in England.

‘Go on,’ he said quietly.

‘At some point we were starting to get a bit worried as funds were low and she wanted me to use the tiara to raise cash. She wanted to prise out the stones, but it seemed to me to be too destructive as it was such a beautiful art deco design and I knew it had to be worth a lot of money undamaged.’

‘Did she tell you where she got it from?’

‘She said she had been left it all in a will, that it was hers to do whatever she wanted with. The other pieces had been a couple of rings, a bracelet and a pearl necklace.’

She sucked in her breath and sighed. ‘Stupid, it was so stupid of me, and I ruined everything by trying to sell it in Mexico City. I had created too much interest as the men in the jewellery shop wanted me to show them something to prove I owned the tiara and I think they thought it was stolen.’

He decided to let her finish her story before telling her he suspected the jewellery was stolen from Simon Boatly, and that the use of her passport to fly out of London had been the reason he had been able to trace her. She rubbed her head, making her curls stand up on end, and then got up to place more kindling on the fire. She drew a cushion to sit beside it and told him how she had read the advert in the New York Times from the lawyers.

‘I was even more stupid because I called them from the jewellery shop, and that was when I found out that Amy’s father was dead.’

She sniffed as the tears welled up in her eyes and she used her shirt cuff to wipe them.

‘Did they mention that Amy as her father’s beneficiary was possibly in line to inherit three million pounds?’

She gasped. ‘Three million?’

‘Whether or not she would be able to claim it is doubtful because her father had been left it in Simon Boatly’s will on condition that he divorced her mother. As he died before the divorce was actually agreed it is legally very questionable, but the lawyers seemed to be treating it as a possible legacy.’

‘Three million? My God, she doesn’t know. I am a bit confused about Simon Boatly, what happened to him?’

‘He died a few days before Marcus Fulford.’

‘Oh my God,’ she said and drew up her knees to rest her head against them.

‘I think the jewellery Amy told you was inherited belonged to Simon Boatly and she stole it.’

‘Oh Christ,’ she muttered, still with her head on her knees.

‘She must have taken it when she was hiding out at his house in Henley.’

‘Did he know she had taken it?’

Reid shook his head, saying he doubted it and that Boatly was a very wealthy man who had probably not even looked at the jewellery for many years, as he had not even bothered to renew the insurance. He was by now aching with tiredness. Although so many unanswered questions had now been ironed out, the most important one remained: where Amy was now? It was as if Jo had read his mind because she looked up and stared at him before turning back to the firelight.

‘I don’t know where she is. She took the tiara and left early this morning.’

She got up and walked into the bedroom, as his head dropped forward and he jolted up.

‘This morning?’ he said loudly, getting to his feet.

She came out with the letter.

‘For Christ’s sake, I took it that she had left a while ago, but this morning?’

‘Yes,’ Jo snapped and pushed the letter towards him. ‘I have been out searching for her. I don’t know where she has gone, but they had not seen her at the bus station. I asked everyone and searched all the roads but she was nowhere to be seen. I don’t know where she has gone, she could have hitched a ride. She’s broken my heart, just walked out on me as if all we have been through together stands for nothing. I don’t know how she could do that to me.’

He was not even listening as he stood by the lit candle reading the letter. Finishing it, he folded it and held it out for her to take.

‘Well, what she has written certainly answers many of the questions I have wondered about for so long, especially over Amy’s state of mind and why she ran away from her parents. Question is, do you believe everything she has written is true?’ he asked.

Jo pressed the folded pages to her chest. ‘How do I know if anything she has told me is the truth any more?’

‘Do you remember when I saw you at the school I said that we suspected Amy was prostituting herself…?’

‘Yes, I asked her about that.’

‘And…?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.

‘She’d seen her father with prostitutes and wanted to know why and how long he’d been seeing them, but was scared to ask him. She was confused and thought that if she dressed up in her school uniform she could get closer to the girls and talk to them. A man pulled up in a car and asked her something but she didn’t hear him so she asked what he wanted and he drove away. One of the prostitutes threatened her, she was scared and ran off.’

Reid smiled ironically, realizing the actual innocence of the situation, and thought to himself how crass it was that DCS Douglas was convinced from the CCTV that Amy treated prostitution as some sort of hobby. He took a deep breath and sat down. ‘Listen, I am really exhausted. I mean, part of me wants to go out and drive around to try and find her, but I think it will be more beneficial to search in daylight. I also think I need to tell you what has happened in the UK and the shockwaves her disappearance has caused.’

‘Oh God, if I go back will I be arrested?’

He suddenly lost it, glaring at her. ‘I should have arrested you for having a sexual relationship with an underage teenager when you told me about your lesbian affair with Amy.’

‘Well why didn’t you?’ she snapped.

‘I don’t fucking know, and you have no bloody idea what this investigation has done to me.’ He could keep in his anguish no longer. ‘While you and that girl lived in some fantasy world of secrets and make believe, I went through a nightmare that I have been caught up in ever since. I nearly lost my mind and my job while trying to get to the bottom of it all. I believed an innocent young girl had been murdered, then wrongly accused her father of sexually abusing her and disposing of her body. You are a teacher, you’re supposed to act responsibly, and now all you seem to care about is your bloody self and whether or not you might get arrested!’

The slap caught him off guard and he lost his balance; it infuriated him to such an extent he lurched forward and grabbed her by the wrists.

‘Instead of bleating about the possibility of being arrested you need to realize that Amy’s running away was a major factor in tipping her mother over the edge, causing her mind to become possessed by a maniac bent on revenge and poisoning anyone perceived as an enemy.’

‘You can’t blame Amy for that, you can see from her letter to me that her mother was already mentally disturbed.’

‘Had you persuaded her to come forward at the beginning of this sordid mess, then the journal would have been exposed as being written by her mother. I could have got medical help for her, but above all three innocent men would still be alive, so yes I can in some ways blame Amy and you for that!’

Jo backed away from him, dragging her wrists free. He lifted his hands in a submissive gesture, recognizing she was genuinely frightened.

‘I’m sorry, but this has obsessed me for so long, and just so you know I am not here with any connection to the police, I’m here because I needed to prove…’ He couldn’t find the right words and stood shaking his head because he had an overpowering feeling he was going to break down and cry. He turned from her, hating becoming over-emotional and disliking the fact she seemed scared of him.

‘I was one of the casualties, believe it or not. I’ve lost my way and I’ve had to take sick leave due to the stress.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He held out his hand and asked her to sit with him. She truthfully did not understand and yet she held his hand as they sat in front of the fire.

‘Let me start from the beginning. Lena and Marcus Fulford reported Amy missing, and it was my job to investigate her disappearance. They brought to my attention a journal purportedly written by Amy.’

‘The journal, I know she told me she had been given it as a birthday present from her father. She did want to write short stories and I think had begun to write something but found that the journal had been opened so tore out the page because it was, I suppose, yet another indication that her mother pried into everything – she even said that at one time she had kept diaries but her mother read them… I think she just left it in her bedroom at her mother’s house.’

‘It was her mother who actually wrote in it.’

‘But why?’

He kept it as brief as possible; she made no interruption and only released her hand from his to put another log on the fire. Quietly he told her about the sessions at the secure unit between Professor Cornwall and Lena Fulford and how her emotional breakdown and the appalling revelations of her abuse had affected him. Lastly he described how Lena had admitted to using poison to eliminate her so-called enemies. He made little reference to the decision by DCI Jackson to close the case, with Marcus Fulford more than implicated in abusing his daughter and disposing of her body.

‘Oh my God,’ she said softly.

‘The most incriminating evidence against him was the discovery of the maroon sweater that Amy was last seen wearing, which was found in his rented flat. Plus the Cartier watch that had been in his car.’

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ she said sadly.

‘It did to the inquiry, because it meant that Amy had to have returned to his flat, as she was supposed to be going to see her father to collect the watch.’

Jo got up and stretched, in an attempt to detract from how she was feeling. She guiltily realized that she had unwittingly played a part in encouraging Amy to never make contact with her parents again.

‘What has happened to her mother?’

Reid shrugged and explained that after the last session she had become virtually catatonic and was now held in a secure mental facility. He added that he suspected she was perhaps better off being unable to remember, and due to her condition she would be deemed unfit to plead and there would be no trial.

‘Approve or not, it meant the case was closed – well it appeared that way to everyone else – but I have to live with the truth and it hurts me.’

‘Why?’

He gave a long sigh and his eyes felt as if they were burning with tiredness.

‘I honestly don’t know, apart from the fact that I had a lot of interaction with Marcus Fulford, and he was a weak man, but I could never get my head around the accusations that he had abused Amy,’ he confessed. ‘He seemed genuinely distressed about her disappearance and even when all the information about him being bisexual and hiring prostitutes and rent boys started to surface he never tried to lie his way out of it, he appeared to me to want to find his daughter. I also had to deal with Lena, and not until I witnessed the sessions did I realize that she was severely mentally ill. Now in retrospect, if I play out all the numerous times I talked with her, she virtually telegraphed her different personalities. They surfaced time and time again, but I was predominantly so intent on finding her daughter I just accepted that she was behaving oddly due to stress.’

Jo was now lying on a small sofa, with one arm resting across her chest, and her eyes were closed.

‘Well, now you know it all,’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘Do we?’ she said. ‘I am trying to imagine what it must have been like to live with Lena, how Amy had to become Miss Perfect, afraid to leave so much as a tissue loose in her bedroom. Then having the complete opposite when she stayed with her father, his sexual antics, and if it is true that her mother was feeding her poison to make her sick, then it’s no wonder she wanted to run away.’

He yawned, stretched his arms and looked at his wristwatch. It was almost five in the morning; the sun had started to stream through the wooden blinds.

Jo shook her head. ‘The way Amy had to be perfect at school, even after the times she spent with me, I am guilty of never really understanding the incredible pressure she must have been feeling. I am not excusing myself for what I did, but she told me that Serena Newman was blackmailing her, posting the disgusting comments on her Facebook page, and that she had found out that Amy had been with me in my cottage at the school, and she had wanted her Cartier watch to keep quiet about us. I am even more sure that the anonymous tip-off to Miss Harrington came from her.’

He had moved to lie on the cushions in front of the dying fire, and he was too tired to even reply as Jo went on.

‘She did go to her father’s that afternoon; she changed into an old hoodie and jeans and then caught the train to Henley and hid there. She told me she made the decision to run away when she got to Serena’s. She’d lost her Cartier watch and thought it might be somewhere at her father’s; it was expensive and she intended to sell it for cash to run away, not give it to Serena.’

She got up and went to the big bag she had put their paintings in ready for them to take when they left. She began to sort through various canvases, and then opened a big artist’s sketch-pad and flicked through it.

She turned as she heard him snoring, and went to pick up an embroidered Mexican rug to lay over him; he was out for the count. She carried the sketchbook into the bedroom, closing the door and opening the shutters. She intended finding the particular drawing she wanted to show him, but resting back on the pillows she couldn’t keep awake.

Reid woke a few hours later. Disorientated, he sat up and then flopped back, hardly able to believe he had fallen asleep. He took a few deep breaths and got to his feet, and then wondered in panic if Jo Polka had taken off. He pushed open the shutters, but the Land Rover was still there, the hens were clucking frantically and as he opened the door to look out he discovered the sun was already blistering hot. He walked round to the hosepipe and stripped off to shower again, but paused to look into the window of the bedroom. She was fast asleep. He turned on the hose, making the most of the relative privacy.

Feeling more refreshed, but his body still aching, he went to his camper van to take out his washbag, then used the small cracked mirror in the kitchen while he shaved. He had lit the gas ring to heat up the remains of the coffee in the pot. There was no fridge, only an ancient cold box as there was no electricity. He opened the back door and noticed potted geranium plants with brilliant red flowers and, beyond, rows of fig trees and cactus plants.

Shaved and showered, he still did not attempt to wake her, but went to the hen hutch and found three freshly laid eggs. He returned to the kitchen and searched for the frying pan to make breakfast. She had left it in a bucket of water, and he wiped it dry and placed it on the Calor gas stove. The coffee was soon hot and he dried off the plates from the same bucket of water and wanted to fry the eggs, but couldn’t find oil or butter. He opened a green-painted cupboard with a worn mesh door and found a small jar of honey and the remains of the loaf of bread.

He knocked on the bedroom door and, getting no response, pushed it open, but the room was empty. In panic he ran to the front door and opening it he saw her standing naked under the makeshift shower. She had the most perfect body, an all-over tan, a neat muscular frame and pert breasts with heavy dark large nipples, and he had to catch his breath because he was so aroused. He stepped back into the cottage and with embarrassment called out to her that he had made breakfast.

She came in with just a cheap threadbare towel wrapped around her body, her hair wet and her shoulders glistening as she had not bothered to dry herself.

‘Well, isn’t this a treat?’ she said and smiled, and did her little dance steps around the table before she went into the bedroom. She re-emerged after only a few moments wearing a white cotton shift dress with embroidered flowers around the neck, barefoot and her hair still damp. She carried a large sketchpad, and placed it down on the table.

‘I was looking through this last night and must have fallen asleep, but I wanted to show you something – they’re some of Amy’s sketches, she is becoming very adept, really quite talented.’

She hesitated and bit down on her lip, then shook her head, not wanting to cry. Instead she smiled and poured herself the very stewed coffee, and prodded the rather over-cooked egg. He found her utterly endearing as she complimented him on his culinary endeavours.

‘I went into the hen house,’ he said boyishly.

‘Well clever you, and perhaps you’d like to feed them as I didn’t get around to it yesterday.’

She was trying so hard not to show how deeply unhappy she was, and he couldn’t think of anything to say that would make it any easier. She constantly made him feel awkward and inadequate at small talk, so he ate his eggs and reached for the sketchpad.

‘I remembered something last night,’ Jo said, ‘something Amy told me about a holiday she had been on with her parents to Antigua. She said that Simon Boatly had turned up in a speedboat and wanted her to go water-skiing. Her mother had got into a terrible rage and it was hideous as she had spoiled the entire holiday. Amy had overheard her parents arguing. I am not sure if she knew then about her father’s relationship with Boatly, but she was forbidden to ever see him again, or go to his home in Henley, although her father used to take her sometimes on the condition she never told her mother.’

He wiped the remainder of his eggs with the bread, which was now somewhat stale.

‘I saw some pictures and video of the Antigua holiday.’

Jo began to flick through the sketchpad; he leaned over and put his hand out to stop her.

‘What’s that one?’

‘Oh that’s one of mine, a sketch from the amazing desert in Sonora – it’s always desolate and the sky and sand make it feel as if you are on the edge of the world. Sonora was used as a location for the movie Catch-22.’

He looked at a couple more of the same sketches; they were as she described, as if depicting the edge of the world.

‘You get the most indescribable feeling of peace,’ she went on. ‘I went there when my first partner left me; it felt as if I was on the brink of despair, but then after walking mile upon mile on the incredible soft sand, and with the brilliant blue sky touching the horizon, I knew I would be able to forgive, not forget… just forgive.’

Again he wanted to say something, but was silenced by the same inadequacy, as if his brain would not function or allow him to say what he felt.

‘I loved her as I love Amy, and I still can’t believe she won’t be a part of my life. Have you ever loved…?’ She stopped and laughed and leaned forward. ‘I don’t even know your Christian name.’

He flushed and said that his name was Victor, although no one ever really called him that, but mostly Vic for short.

‘Victor, have you ever loved someone with a wild unexplainable passion?’ she said softly and gave him the sweetest of smiles.

He had never loved anyone in the way she had described, but not wanting to answer her question, he said he would like to go to the desert while he was in Mexico.

‘You should, it will open your heart.’

She sifted through the many sketches and then withdrew two and placed them side by side in front of him.

‘I never met him, but that is Simon Boatly.’ She tapped with her index finger.

Reid nodded and remembered meeting him, being aware of his handsomeness, his suntan, his blond bleached hair, and even recalled his ankles and feet with the soft Moroccan slippers.

‘Yes, it’s a very good likeness.’

She nodded and tapped the second sketch. It was a self-portrait of Amy, with a sad expression and downcast eyes. He cocked his head to one side.

‘Keep looking at it, and you tell me if what I think is true.’

He looked from one sketch to the other, and then moved them closer together.

‘Her mother hated him, was incandescent with rage when he turned up in Antigua, she forbade her to see him, and counted him as an enemy. I think he was Amy’s father, and if she can prove she is Simon Boatly’s illegitimate daughter, surely she would also be his heir. How much did you say he was worth?’

Reid was curious about the manner and tone in which she asked about Boatly’s wealth. ‘I don’t recall mentioning an exact amount. Why do you ask, is it important?’

‘Oh I see, we are back to being the detective now, are we? But what if I am right?’

He stood up and went to pick up his shoes, the good feelings he had had towards Jo now spoiled by her interest in the inheritance. She was becoming angry as she held up the sketch.

‘Look at their faces, they are identical, the same eyes.’

He sat down to pull on his shoes. ‘Then it would make sense for you to find her and give her the good news, maybe also fill her in on the repercussions of her actions that I spent half the night telling you about. Maybe she’d even like to apologize to Harry Dunn’s grieving widow.’

‘You can’t blame her, for God’s sake, she was driven to the brink by her mother, and if you had been a good enough detective you would have discovered at the outset Lena Fulford was insane.’

He turned on her and his face twisted with anger. ‘You want to slap me again? The reason I am here is to trace that tiara, because I will be in line for a big finder’s fee, which would set me up nicely and get me out of feeling that I am on the brink of fucking madness like Lena Fulford. I ate and slept months of, as you rightly say, incompetent detective work, but right now I don’t give a shit if Amy is ever found – all I care about is my own self-preservation, and it seems to me that all you care about is getting your hands on your precious girlfriend’s inheritance.’

It was like a red rag to a bull. Jo grabbed at one of the knives still left on the table and came at him with the blade raised to stab him in the chest. He was able to not only twist the knife from her grasp but at the same time draw her arm up behind her back, almost pulling it out of the socket. She screamed and he relaxed his hold, turning her round to face him, and pulling her close, he kissed her. She struggled and he loosened his grip to drag her head by the hair to kiss her again. She stopped attempting to get away, her body deflated, but she did not respond to his kiss, and he released her and watched as she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her dress. She looked disgusted, yet still ferociously angry, and he felt if he even attempted to move closer she would spit in his face.

Flushed with impotent frustration, he strode past her into the kitchen, picked up his washbag and tossed his razor into it. She was still standing in the same position and he had to brush past her to collect his keys before he walked out. He was throwing his things into the camper van when she came to the front door.

‘Where are you going?’ she shouted.

He paid no attention and got in the van; she ran down the path and gripped hold of the van door.

‘Where are you going?’ she demanded.

He said nothing as he fumbled to insert the ignition key.

‘You can’t leave me here.’ She repeatedly hit the door of the vehicle with the flat of her hand as the engine ticked over. She started crying as he put the gearshift into reverse.

‘Move away,’ he said angrily, and she ran to stand behind the camper van. If he reversed he would knock her over, and he turned off the engine. She came further round as he wound down the window.

‘Where are you going?’ she begged and started crying.

‘I am sorry for what I did in there, but you should not have tried to stab me.’ He was struggling to get the words out. ‘And if you really want to know, I have wanted to do exactly what I did from almost the first time I met you, so I apologize, but now I just want to leave.’

‘Are you going back to England?’

He shrugged, and was astonished when she asked if she could come with him.

‘No, find your own way, Jo; maybe even more importantly, find Amy, then it’ll be up to the pair of you to decide what’s the right thing to do.’

‘But what if I can’t find her?’

‘Not my problem.’

‘But will you report back to your boss that she is alive?’

He sighed and shook his head. In reality he was uncertain what he was going to do, and even if he did report his findings he had no idea of what the outcome would be.

‘I don’t have any money to buy a ticket.’

‘Sell your paintings, or the Land Rover,’ he suggested.

‘What about the tiara – you said you were hoping to get a finder’s fee if you found it.’

‘According to you, Amy has it and is the rightful heir to it. Anyway, as far as I am concerned it’s over and she’s probably sold it by now. Did she take your sister’s passport when she left?’

‘Yes, but can’t you trace her now you know what name she is using?’ she persisted.

‘It’s possible, but that will mean reporting it to the US border police as well as Interpol and London, which will also implicate you as assisting her in the possession of a false identity document and using it to travel.’

‘But will you report it when you get back? I mean, will I be under arrest?’

He looked at her; yet again he found her concern for her own welfare irritating.

‘Like I said, I’m not here working for the Met, and I seriously doubt I will consider returning to work for them. I just needed answers for my own peace of mind.’

She stepped back as he turned on the engine again, and stood watching him as he reversed slowly down the track, turned at the gates and drove off. Going back to the cottage, she picked up the sketches, stacked them together and placed them into the folder. She sat and counted out what money she had left, and calculated how much she might make from selling the Land Rover. She alternated between crying and feeling rejected and angry, but with most of her possessions already packed she decided she would leave – maybe she’d get a few dollars if she sold the hens. Just as Reid had said, it was over.

Reid drove for hours, aimlessly at first, but gradually he began to enjoy the freedom of having no pressure and no deadline. He decided that he would make his way to the desert and take in the atmosphere – if nothing else it was a place to go before he returned to London. He stopped by a roadside market and bought some hand-made leather sandals with thick black soles made of discarded tyres, a pair of loose white drawsting trousers and a white cheesecloth shirt. He even bought a wide-brimmed straw hat and laughed at his reflection in a parked car’s window.

He headed through Culiacán, on to Guasave, and then parked alongside the roadside in Los Mochis, sleeping in the camper van for the night. He kept on driving the following day, in no kind of a hurry and not worried about the passing hours. Every now and again he consulted a map and ate from roadside food stalls as he passed through Navojoa and Obregon until finally he saw the signpost to Guaymas. Stopping only for gas, he drove onto the toll road 15D and then headed onto route 15N. The whole journey had taken ages, but at last he was close to his destination, the Sonoran Desert.

He parked the camper van in what appeared to be a makeshift car park, where wooden boards warned about the lack of any cover, to not to go walking in the heat of the day and to carry plenty of water. There was no other vehicle around and it was as Jo had described, desolate. The one landmark was the sign pointing to the original location of where Catch-22 was filmed, and it was covered in windblown sand. Taking out a rolled-up straw mat and a bottle of water, he began to head towards the massive stretch of desert sand. The heat of the day was fading, but the sand even through his rubber-soled sandals was hot and made him walk with a high step. He paused frequently to take a few deep breaths. Closing his eyes he could feel the most extraordinary emotional release and a satisfying sense of calm and peace enveloped him. He continued for about an hour, hardly able to believe that there was not one other person visible and gradually, as Jo had predicted, the sand and the sky became perfectly divided as if there was a crystal ocean beyond and he belonged there.

Something sparkled as if caught by the sunlight. He blinked in uncertainty but drew his hat lower, kept up his high-step walk and then paused to drink some water. He had never experienced such an expansive feeling, every muscle seemed to relax and his eyes slowly became accustomed to the brilliance ahead, and then he saw the figure nearly a mile away in the distance.

As he got a little closer he could just about make out that there was someone under a black umbrella with their back to him. He watched as the umbrella was raised then lowered slightly, and suddenly a shaft of light appeared to reflect on something that sparkled and created a glistening white streak that shot across the horizon in front of him.

The distance was distorted like in a mirage and he was closer than he had realized, and as he moved silently nearer he felt an incredible excitement. Unable to see who was sitting beneath the umbrella, he continued, the black silk shifted sideways and again there was that shard of light, and he was within a few feet before he came to a halt, standing directly behind the umbrella. A delicate suntanned hand and arm moved out from beneath the shade and then pulled back in. He leaned forward until he could see who was beneath the umbrella.

The white-blonde hair was short and silky, the tiara was worn low and the sunlight hit the central diamond, making it appear as if an electrical current had lit it. She was wearing a white smock, her sandals lying side by side on the bright rainbow cotton rug. He was shaking and unable to speak, as she turned without any sign of surprise, rather child-like and inquisitive. Her eyes were thick-lashed and a vibrant blue, and she stared up towards him.

All the months, all the searching and wretched consequences faded into a quiet acceptance. He had found Amy Fulford, and the sense of relief was overpowering, because he knew now that it really was over.