and One
Jake was all smiles, his happiness contagious. Josephine was watching him drawing pictures and, as he finished each one, he showed them to her with a flourish.
‘That’s you and Granddad eating your dinner!’
Josephine couldn’t help but laugh – he had captured them perfectly. She looked at the drawing and saw herself and her husband sitting on her bed together, with plates on their laps. Then she saw that Jake had drawn himself on a chair all alone, watching them. He wasn’t smiling. He looked sad.
‘Why do you look so sad, Jake?’
He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I’m waiting for my mummy, of course. But she didn’t come.’
Josephine felt so sorry for her little lad. ‘I told you, Jake. Your mummy has to work a lot.’
He carried on drawing, but he didn’t answer her. She could slap her daughter sometimes for the worry she caused. And now she was missing, and it was worrying them all. She had heard nothing from her daughter for nearly four days and, like Michael, Josephine was beginning to be seriously concerned.
Dana came into the room beaming, and when Josephine saw the way that Jake reacted to her, she felt a stab of jealousy.
‘Come on, you. It’s your bath time, mister.’
Jake got up from the floor, abandoning his drawing without a thought. ‘Can I play with my toys?’
Dana picked him up effortlessly. He was a big child for his age, but Dana didn’t seem to notice that; she still treated him like a baby. ‘’Course you can! They are all there waiting for you!’
‘See you later, Nana!’
Josephine waved to him, and watched as they left the room together. She knelt down on the rug, and busied herself tidying his paper and pencils away. Then she carefully picked up his sweet wrappers – fun-size Snickers and a Milky Way – and folded both of them neatly, before placing them into one of the boxes scattered around the room.
Glancing at herself in the mirror of her dressing table, she checked over her appearance. She looked perfect, which pleased her. She picked up her lipstick from the dressing table, and ran it over her lips quickly. The action alone calmed her, made her feel better in herself. She gained a lot of comfort from doing familiar things. Her doctor said it was about control, but she couldn’t see that herself. She just liked the feeling of ease it gave her; there was a lot to be said for order, having a routine. She couldn’t cope without it.
She sat down in her chair once more and glanced around, mentally counting the boxes in her room, and running through their contents in her head.
She picked up her glass of red wine from the small antique table beside her chair and sipped it, savouring its warmth. She didn’t see clutter around her or chaos – what she saw was her possessions, things she loved and needed. Today she needed the comfort more than ever. But no matter how hard she tried to calm herself and tell herself that Michael was right, she didn’t need to worry, her daughter’s disappearance did worry her – greatly. She knew that Jessie wouldn’t do this to her mother without good reason.
Chapter One Hundred
and Two
DI Timothy Branch was annoyed. He had been told in no uncertain terms to use every resource at his disposal to locate Michael Flynn’s daughter. Easier said than done – the girl had been around the turf more times than a Grand National winner.
He had put the word out, but she was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t relishing telling that to Michael Flynn – the man seemed to think he could somehow conjure the girl up from thin air. If only it was that easy. He now had the unenviable task of admitting to the man who had been paying him shedloads of money for a lot of years, that he couldn’t help him. Jessie Flynn was, without doubt, a missing person.
Michael Flynn’s minions had already questioned everyone in his daughter’s orbit – and not in a nice way. Branch’s men had been called out to disturbances by concerned citizens many times over the last few days. He had been expected to ensure that the people concerned didn’t have to deal with the police on top of everything else. Not that any of the victims were willing to press charges, but it was still very stressful. It had been a hard few days for him in particular. He had been forced to show his hand as a bent copper. He hadn’t meant it to be common knowledge. But what could he do about it? As Michael Flynn had so forcefully pointed out to him, this was what he had been paid so handsomely for – even he couldn’t argue with that.
Chapter One Hundred