‘Like I said, I wasn’t around much.’ The satnav indicated a right turn, and Michael switched lanes. He was silent for a moment while he chose the correct exit at the roundabout, then began to speak again. ‘Anne said Jessica’s family was well off but she was a bit of a loner. I assumed that was the reason they’d connected.’
Bea could well imagine the awkward young girl, shoved from pillar to post, embarrassed about her past and confused that her new family wasn’t the catalogue picture she’d hoped for.
‘When Anne and Ruth started spending more time together, Jessica became hostile towards the other girl. Started sending her nasty text messages warning her to stay away from Anne. When she told us this, I told her to steer clear of Jessica, even suggested I go and see the head of the college, but Anne said there was no need. Jessica was harmless. Then one evening Anne came home in a state. I wasn’t there, but Emily told me about it afterwards. Anne said that Jessica had attacked Ruth. She took it badly, as though it was her fault. Emily tried to calm her down, but she locked herself in her room, stayed in there all weekend. Em thought she seemed scared of her so-called friend. I said I’d go to the college that Monday, but something came up, and when I got back, Anne was fine. She said she’d been to college and everything was being dealt with. Ruth switched colleges and Anne never talked about her or Jessica again.’
‘It sounds as though this Jessica has some problems.’
‘That’s not what I’m worried about,’ Michael replied grimly. ‘I’m concerned that Emily and I only got one side of the story. I called Jessica Hamilton before I spoke to you. The way she tells it, it was Anne who attacked Ruth because she started seeing someone and Anne couldn’t handle the rejection. Jessica Hamilton has been at university the past four years and has never moved back. My daughter, however,’ he grimaced as though it caused him physical pain to say the words, ‘has been living here all along. And from what Jessica told me, if she found out about Karen and me, God knows how she would react.’
Bea let his words sink in. God knows how she would react.
‘When you said you knew her patient’s identity I assumed we were going to see her. If Jessica doesn’t live here any more, then why are we going to her house?’
‘We’re not,’ Michael replied. ‘We’re going to find my daughter.’
79
Karen
Released pending further investigation. It was hard not to laugh at that. Everything in her life seemed to be pending further investigation. Her job, her relationship, now her freedom.
She’d called Michael from the station, unwilling to believe that their argument days ago would stop him from being there for her upon her release. She needed him. She needed him to explain, to tell her that ‘released without charge’ meant that the police believed she’d had nothing to do with Eleanor’s death; or better still that this was all part of Jessica Hamilton’s sick plan and Eleanor wasn’t really dead at all. Above all she just needed him to be there for her as though for that moment there was no wife, no other family, just her.
The phone had rung and rung, and just when she thought he’d picked up, she heard the familiar voice of the woman from the EE voicemail service. With a sinking feeling in her stomach she had stepped out of the station and on to the main road, on her own. It was obviously how she was going to have to face this now. No Michael, no Bea. No Eleanor.
The thought of Eleanor brought a black curtain down in front of her eyes and she stumbled, grabbed hold of the chipped blue railing outside the police station and retched into the greenery at its border. To anyone passing she must have looked like another reveller who had spent the night on one of the wooden slats with a sheet that passed for a bed, sleeping off a good time.
When her throat was sore and her stomach empty she paused for a second, trying desperately to catch her breath and wiping stinging water from her eyes. The town was a twenty-minute walk she knew she wouldn’t be able to make, but not wanting to call a taxi to pick her up from a police station, she forced her shaky legs to