The Woman in the Wood Read online

  She hurried out of the ward and down the corridor to get to the car park where she’d left her van with Toby in it. She wasn’t altogether surprised to hear that Alastair had a mistress; it explained why Maisy was so down on him. The girl had certainly come to the point quickly today – but then Maisy was feisty, she’d want to deal with that head on.

  As she stepped out of the hospital doors into the forecourt, cameras flashed and three or four journalists pounced on her.

  ‘Miss Deville, can you tell us how you came to find Maisy Mitcham? Is it true you’d searched all the way along the coast from Bournemouth? What made you search for her? What is your relationship with her and her twin brother?’

  Grace was frightened by these people shouting at her, and putting one hand over her face, she pushed through them and fled to her van. They followed her so she started it up and pulled out, waving her arms to warn them to get out of the way.

  She had been so happy she’d found Maisy. It seemed like the biggest achievement in her life, and as she had waited for the ambulance with the girl folded into her arms, she’d felt something akin to a mother’s love for her. A wonderful, warm feeling she doubted she’d ever experience again.

  But now those newspaper people would spoil everything, she knew. They’d hound her, question her motives, and if she didn’t give the answers they wanted, they’d brand her as mad.

  It seemed ironic that Duncan and Maisy, with their sweet, innocent interest and friendship, had led Grace to joining the outside world, but now as a result of what had happened to them, the peace and seclusion she once had and treasured so much was going to be shattered.

  She didn’t think she could bear that.

  Maisy looked angrily at her father. She had remained silent while he explained to her as he had to Duncan the truth about their mother’s condition. She could accept that, and how hard it must have been for him, but still the thought of him having a mistress made her blood boil. She couldn’t let it go.

  ‘You marry for better or worse, in sickness and in health,’ she snapped at him. ‘You were a lousy father and a lousy husband who has betrayed our mother.’

  ‘I agree I wasn’t a great father to you, but in my defence I would say that I was working long hours and away from you a lot of the time. In normal marriages the parents do things together with their children – go to fairs and museums, trips to the seaside. Because of the way your mother was, we didn’t do that. I so much wish I’d made an effort to do it alone with you, but you and Duncan didn’t appear to need anyone but each other.’

  Maisy pursed her lips. That last bit was probably true.

  ‘That still doesn’t excuse you being unfaithful.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we all need someone, Maisy. Can you imagine what it’s like to never be told you are loved, never a kiss or a pat on the back? I had no one to laugh with, no partner to share things with, take out to dinner or to the pictures. I was so very lonely, and then Jenny became my secretary and she understood how things were for me.’

  ‘I bet she did,’ Maisy retorted.

  ‘She did, Maisy. Her husband had been very badly wounded in the war, and he was never the same man again. We didn’t start the affair until two years ago, when he died. By then we’d become so close we just couldn’t help it. You might not understand that now, but you will one day.’

  Maisy sat for a little while picking at the fingernails of her right hand, which still had dirt beneath them from scrabbling at her prison door. The way he’d explained it, she could understand, she even felt sorry for him. But all those years of not talking to him about anything made it hard to know what to say now.

  ‘Can we try and rebuild our lives together as a real family?’ he asked.

  His voice was so soft and tender it made tears come into her eyes.

  All at once she didn’t mind what he’d done or hadn’t done. Thinking she was going to die had clarified what was important and what wasn’t. ‘Yes, Daddy,’ she said, for the first time in over ten years dropping the title ‘Father’. ‘I think we should try that.’

  Alastair had only just got back to Nightingales and was in the sitting room with his mother, Janice and Duncan, telling them about Maisy, when they saw a police car draw up outside.

  ‘Not more questions?’ Violet Mitcham said grumpily. ‘They know more about this family now than I do!’

  ‘A case like this will take some time to investigate and bring the guilty to trial,’ Alastair reproved her.

  Janice grinned at Alastair and jumped up to answer the door.

  When she came back in, she was accompanied by a thickset, red-faced policeman who introduced himself as Sergeant Williams. It seemed that he had taken over from the kindly Sergeant Fowler, who had recently retired. After asking Duncan how he was feeling now and saying how glad he was that Maisy was safe, Sergeant Williams turned to Alastair and shook his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry after all you’ve been through to give you something further to concern you, but the man Miss Deville locked into that gun emplacement was not Donald Grainger.’

  ‘What?’ Alastair exclaimed. ‘So who was he?’

  ‘Hugo Fairbanks. He lives in Bucklers Hard. We understand he is one of Grainger’s clients, and the owner of the boat which Grainger presumably escaped in.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. How did that happen?’ Alastair asked.

  Sergeant Williams shrugged his shoulders. ‘I haven’t yet spoken to Miss Deville, but from what she told the police at the hospital, both men were wearing similar black oilskins and sou’westers because of the heavy rain, so she didn’t see their faces clearly. She had only ever seen Grainger fleetingly anyway. We know she was in hiding until they opened the locked door and she told us that while she attacked one man with her stick, her dog got the other man. All she cared about then was getting Maisy out of there to safety. She assumed the man being attacked by her dog was Grainger, and the one who fled to the boat was the owner of it.’

  ‘So where is Grainger now?’ Duncan asked.

  They all turned to look at him and saw that he’d turned ashen. Janice sat down beside him and put her arms around him.

  ‘We don’t know, son,’ the sergeant said. ‘We are assuming in France. As soon as we knew we hadn’t got Grainger, we alerted the French police. Hopefully we will hear from them soon, telling us they have him. But you mustn’t concern yourself with this, Duncan. He won’t dare come back to England, and even if he didn’t sail to France he wouldn’t come anywhere near here.’

  ‘What are you doing with this man Fairbanks?’ Alastair asked.

  ‘We have him in custody, of course. A doctor was called to stitch up his face where Miss Deville’s dog attacked him, and he’ll be appearing in court tomorrow charged for the moment with aiding and abetting a serious crime. We will make sure he is held in custody until his trial. He is claiming he was being blackmailed by Grainger, but is reluctant to tell us why. Once we’ve investigated that, there may be further charges to be added.’

  ‘So far the real detective work has all been done by amateurs.’ Alastair’s voiced dripped with sarcasm. ‘Can we hope that we could have a few professionals on the case now?’

  The sergeant’s ruddy face became even redder. ‘I’m told that Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset police are all joining forces on this now,’ he said. ‘Grainger’s office is being searched meticulously as we speak. But I must be off now, as I have to find Miss Deville.’

  ‘Can’t you leave her alone today?’ Duncan spoke up indignantly. ‘She must be exhausted. It isn’t fair to plague her when she’s already done so much.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m just following orders,’ Williams said. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  ‘It isn’t right to keep pestering Grace,’ Duncan exploded when the sergeant had left. ‘Her little home in the woods has been her sanctuary, she’ll hate people charging in there. It was almost like that sergeant was blaming her for getting the wrong man! Surely anyone with any sense could unde
rstand what it took for a woman of her age to take on two big men alone. If she’d stopped to check which one was being chewed by Toby, she might never have got Maisy out.’

  ‘You are quite right,’ his grandmother said. ‘She was brave and clever, and it isn’t right for her to be pestered now, after all she’s done. I can’t bear police and newspaper people coming here either, and I don’t even claim to be a—’ She stopped short, uttering a warning yell and pointing to a couple of men with cameras on the garden path. ‘Look, there they are now!’

  Alastair got up and drew the curtains shut. He ignored the banging on the door and continued walking around the house closing all the curtains.

  ‘They should take the hint at that,’ he said when he came back into the sitting room. ‘At least it’s late afternoon now and it will soon be dark. I’ll write a warning note saying we have nothing to say to journalists and put it on the gate for tomorrow.’

  ‘And I’ll go and get supper ready,’ Janice said.

  ‘Let’s have it in the kitchen tonight, it’s cosier,’ Violet said. ‘And less work for you, Janice.’

  Alastair caught Janice’s eye and raised an eyebrow. She stifled a giggle. She couldn’t remember the last time her employer had been so thoughtful.

  As Janice went out into the kitchen she felt like doing a dance of joy that Duncan was home and soon Maisy would be too. She had had a long chat with Duncan last night, and his only concern had been his sister; he passed off what had happened to him with a shrug.

  Clearly he wasn’t really over it – no one could go through such a long and terrible ordeal and not be scarred by it – but this morning, when they heard Maisy had been found, he’d been so happy. He had wanted to go to the hospital to visit her himself, but he was still too poorly.

  Mrs Mitcham had been so much nicer too – so very different to how she’d been when Maisy had been taken. Then she’d shut herself up in her bedroom and wouldn’t come out. It was obvious that she felt a huge burden of guilt at bringing Grainger into the house. She admitted that Alastair had warned her several years ago that Grainger wasn’t to be trusted, but she’d put that down to jealousy and ignored him. But whether the solicitor was trustworthy or not, no one could have predicted he was a murderer and a pervert. What on earth must his wife be feeling now, knowing that she was married to such a man?

  The only person Janice could discuss her fears with was Mr Dove. He’d been her rock, just as he had been to both her and Maisy when Duncan disappeared. It never ceased to amaze her that he wasn’t bitter about his disability, or that his wife had left him. He was a good man with a big heart.

  Janice just hoped this bad news that Grainger was still at large wasn’t going to set Duncan and Maisy’s recoveries back.

  ‘So it wasn’t Grainger that Toby attacked?’ Grace asked Williams. She had been nodding off in front of the fire she’d just lit when the policeman came crashing through the bushes, setting Toby off in a frenzy of barking. ‘Well, I thought it was, and my thoughts were all for Maisy. Anyway, I’m glad that man got his face chewed by Toby. He was obviously up to his neck in it too, or he wouldn’t have brought his boat.’

  She didn’t ask the policeman to sit; she wanted him gone as soon as possible. ‘Well, I’ve already told you everything I can, so please can you go now and leave me in peace.’

  ‘I want to take you down to the station,’ he said. ‘We need a written statement.’

  ‘You can whistle for that today,’ she snapped at him. ‘I am tired and hungry and I’m not going anywhere. I haven’t forgotten all that nastiness when you came out here practically accusing me of killing Duncan and burying him in the woods. So forgive me if I’m not rushing to make statements or help you further.’

  ‘I can arrest you for obstruction,’ he warned her.

  She turned to him, her eyes sparking fire. ‘Just try it, sonny! I’m not scared of you. I’ll make a statement when I feel like it and not before. Now scram!’

  If she hadn’t been so tired, Grace might have laughed to see the overweight sergeant floundering across her garden. He slipped in mud at one point and wobbled around until he got his footing again. As he disappeared into the bushes he glanced back fearfully.

  ‘You ought to be afraid,’ she said aloud. ‘If the children in the village are to be believed I could turn you into a toad.’

  19

  Deirdre Grainger lay on her bed sobbing. She’d taken the phone off the hook and disconnected the front doorbell, but still people kept coming to the front door and banging on it.

  People had always said that she looked like a model with her long, glossy auburn hair, perfect 36, 24, 36 figure, and such a pretty face, but she didn’t think she’d ever dare show that face anywhere ever again.

  At twenty-two, fifteen years ago, she had been swept away by Donald’s charm and looks. He was perfect husband material, she thought: ambitious, hard-working, generous and kind, and when he proposed she accepted joyfully. They lived in two rooms in Southampton at first; he was still doing his articles then. But as soon as he became a qualified solicitor they moved to their first house. It was only a two-up two-down terrace, but Donald promised it was only temporary, and he kept his word, buying the house they lived in now within a year and having work done on it to make it a modern, beautiful home.

  She didn’t have to work, but she had a little part-time job in the mornings as a secretary at the local primary school. Donald liked her to have dinner nearly ready when he got home.

  With expensive clothes and shoes, and a generous allowance for hairdressers and manicures, Deirdre had nothing to complain about in her marriage. Well, except that he did have some odd ideas about lovemaking. He was always asking her to put on a schoolgirl’s gymslip and plait her hair. She didn’t mind doing it now and again, but it gave her the creeps that he pretended she was just twelve. She also hated that he made her kneel down and take his penis in her mouth. He did that a lot, and it always seemed to her that he wasn’t thinking about her at all, but had some strange fantasy going on.

  But she had never considered there was anything seriously weird about him – not the kind of stuff the newspapers were saying he’d done. Most of her girlfriends had admitted their husbands had some little quirks, though they didn’t actually reveal them. As one of them once remarked, ‘As long as they want to do it with you, you don’t have to worry about other women.’

  But now it seemed other women weren’t his thing, however much he flirted and charmed clients, his friends’ wives at the golf club, and in fact almost any woman of any age with a pulse. Though now that she’d really had time to reflect on the past and the women he took a particular interest in she would change that last statement from ‘with a pulse’, to ‘with a healthy bank balance’.

  Still, charming women to leave him money or property was one thing; abducting, raping and killing young boys was in a different league. A woman could stand by a bounder – there was even a bit of a thrill knowing he was bringing back the spoils to you. But what he’d done was beyond understanding; it was vile, cruel and perverted.

  ‘You must have known,’ was what one detective said when she was taken in for questioning. But she didn’t. She had had no idea.

  She would admit he sometimes went out at odd times of the evening and night without a good explanation. She would admit too that sometimes he seemed very distant or distracted. But wouldn’t any wife say that about her husband?

  Everything they owned was in his name, and Deirdre suspected that once he was caught and tried, his estate would be seized. So she’d have nothing – no home and nothing to live on. She’d already had a phone call to ask her not to come back to work, and she wouldn’t even be able to stay in the area. That was so unfair when she’d done nothing. Not one friend had contacted her to say they would stand by her, but then on reflection the only friends she had were wives of his friends and colleagues. Donald had long ago encouraged her to ditch the friends she’d had from her single days, saying
they were all small-minded and boring.

  She got up off the bed and opened the drawer in her dressing table where she kept her jewellery. Donald had bought her some lovely pieces, but then, as she could see now, it wasn’t out of love for her, but merely to show off to other people.

  Catching a train to London seemed a good idea. She could sell this lot there and maybe find a cheap place to live and a job where no one knew anything about her. She certainly had no intention of standing by him. He could rot in hell as far as she was concerned.

  While his wife was planning to sell her jewellery, Donald Grainger was looking back, wishing he’d had the presence of mind to grab that stick from the old witch who’d attacked him, knock her and her dog out with it, then go through Hugo’s pockets to find the money he’d promised him.

  But he’d fled down the beach to the boat without thinking. When he looked back, the old girl was hauling Maisy out and locking Hugo in. It was once he’d started up the boat and chugged out into the Channel that he realized he was in deep trouble. He could handle a boat along the coast on a warm summer’s day, but crossing the Channel in choppy seas required far more experience. He had found a small stash of French francs in a drawer in the cabin, presumably left from the last time Hugo went to France, and about ten pounds in change. There was some food in the cupboard too, and some clothes. But he wasn’t stupid enough to think you just pointed a boat towards France and eventually arrived there. Strong currents could take him up the Channel towards Belgium or down towards the Bay of Biscay. Either way, he couldn’t even be sure there was enough fuel to get him to shore.

  In view of all this he felt the only thing to do was hug the English coastline and go down to Cornwall. His French was dismal anyway; at least in England he had a slim chance of being able to talk someone into helping him hide until he could get out of England safely.

  On the way down the coast he had what he thought was a brilliant idea: to abandon the boat to make it look as if he’d been washed overboard. In fact he could easily have been washed overboard several times because the waves were so high, but he wished he knew more about currents to have some idea where the police would look for a washed up body.