Maggie closes her eyes and, for a few seconds, is back in the coffee bar in Aberdeen. ‘She didn’t like me because I was fat,’ Zoe is saying as she clings to her older sister’s hand. ‘I let her down. Embarrassed her in front of the neighbours. She was always trying to get me to lose weight but somehow, when someone’s on at you all the time, it just makes it worse.’
Maggie wants to hold her hand too.
‘She used to weigh me before I went out. If I was over what she felt I should be, she wouldn’t let me go. She phoned Kevin to say I was ill. Some days, she just wouldn’t give me food.’
‘She made her sit at the table and watch us eat.’ Stacey says. ‘Kimberly and I sneaked food to her as often as we could, but it wasn’t always easy.’
‘Zoe met Stacey the night she disappeared,’ Maggie tells Hamish. ‘Stacey borrowed her boyfriend’s car and drove down from Aberdeen. Zoe threw the boots out of the car window, as they were driving through Cheddar Gorge. They realized it was stupid and went back for them, but only found one.’
‘And how are your two new best friends feeling about my serving time for killing one of them?’ says Hamish.
‘They feel bad.’ Maggie thinks a bit more, knows she has to be honest with him. ‘But as Stacey was quick to point out, you’d have been sent to prison just the same, if Zoe had still been living at home.’
‘If you knew this, if you guessed it before you got on a plane, why did you even bother going? I’m not paying you to swan round the country on wild goose hunts.’
She doesn’t point out that, for the moment, he isn’t paying her at all. ‘Two reasons. One, I had to be sure. I have very little to work with here and I can’t leave a stone unturned.’
He waits.
‘Two, I need you to trust me.’
He wasn’t expecting that. She can tell from the slight start of his head, the narrowing of his eyes.
‘I am very good at what I do, Hamish. A woman who has hidden, successfully, from the police for years, I found in a matter of days. I needed you to know that, so that you do what I tell you to and keep nothing from me.’
His head sways in what might be a grudging nod. ‘The trouble is, my one and only alibi vanishes like hot air when everyone realizes that Zoe’s disappearance was in no way connected to the murders of the other three.’
He’s right. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
‘So, what happens? Zoe stays in Aberdeen and I continue to get petitioned by her family to tell the world where her body is?’
‘If the time comes when the truth will help you, I won’t hesitate to tell it. In the meantime, I’m hoping they’ll tell it themselves. They’re planning to wait until the younger sister is old enough to move north and live with them, before they come clean.’
‘In the meantime, Zoe stays dead.’
‘I’m sorry, Hamish. It’s a setback, I can’t deny that.’
‘Actually, I’m encouraged. You’re right, it is very impressive that you found Zoe so quickly. It gives me every hope for—’
‘I’m not looking for Daisy.’ She checks her watch. ‘I have to go. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you better news.’
She gets up without looking at him, picks up her bag, fastens her coat. Only when she is turning to knock on the door for release does she look back. Hamish is staring at the tabletop. The lines of his face have fallen. He looks older, beaten. For the first time, she realizes, he has let the mask slip.
He lifts his head a fraction and their eyes meet. Eyes gleam. A tear starts to fall, then another. Then too many to stop.
She turns, bangs on the door and sets off along the corridor. Only when she is back in the cold, salt air, does she slow down. Still the tears flow.
They are hers, not his.
Chapter 62
Email
Sent via the emailaprisoner service
From: Maggie Rose
To: Hamish Wolfe
Date: 23.12.2015
Subject: Daisy
I simply do not understand, given everything else facing you, why you are fixating on a woman who hasn’t been in your life for nearly twenty years.
Daisy is an irrelevance, Hamish. If you can’t see that, I’m not sure I can help you.
I’m sorry I left abruptly just now. When I say I hope you have a good Christmas, please believe I mean it sincerely. I’ll be in touch after the weekend.
Best wishes,
Maggie
Sent from my iPhone
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
From the office of
MAGGIE ROSE
The Rectory, Norton Stown, Somerset
Thursday, 24 December 2015
No, Hamish, let me tell you something about Daisy.
She was eighteen, little more than a child, away from home for the very first time, at a university where the pressure to succeed is enormous. She was a young woman seriously self-conscious about her weight (fat women always are), a woman who’d been teased and bullied and despised from the age she first became conscious that body-size was even a thing.
She would not have believed her luck when she attracted the attention of a man like you. At the same time that she fell completely in love with you, she told herself it was too good to be true. She braced herself for the inevitable rejection. She steeled herself to deal with the sight of you moving on to prettier, worthier girls. She never imagined how bad it was going to be.