Stolen Read online

  ‘I don’t know why he sent us this way, there’s no one about,’ Peggy Wainwright said testily to Kim Moore. ‘And in this rain too!’

  When the two sets of parents met up with the boys at Itchenor, David suggested the two women took the footpath, and talked to any dog walkers or hikers they met. It hadn’t been raining then, though it was overcast, but they both had raincoats and sturdy shoes. Carrina went with her father and Ted Wainwright.

  ‘A drop of rain won’t hurt us, and the whole point of sending us along here is because it’s a regular route for dog walkers and hikers,’ Kim pointed out. ‘They are the sort of people who would probably remember anything out of the ordinary.’

  At that moment, a middle-aged couple walking their golden Labrador came along the path. Kim stopped them to show pictures of Lotte and Dale and explained what danger they were in.

  Five minutes later the couple walked on. They hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual.

  ‘They didn’t even know what day of the week it was, much less remember anything they’d seen in the past,’ Peggy said waspishly. ‘And my feet are beginning to hurt.’

  Kim stopped dead, put her hands on her hips and turned to Peggy. ‘You are a truly remarkable woman,’ she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I doubt there’s another mother in the whole of England with as little concern for her daughter. I would walk with bare feet on red-hot coals to find Dale, but you don’t even want to walk along a pleasant footpath.’

  ‘I think this kind of thing is better left to the police,’ Peggy responded, clutching her big navy-blue plastic handbag to her chest. ‘Why would anyone tell us anything?’

  ‘Because they feel for us?’ Kim suggested. ‘Because most people actually want to help with something like this? Has it even occurred to you that your daughter may already be dead? Do you care one way or the other?’

  ‘Now, look here!’ Peggy replied with indignation. ‘Of course I care.’

  ‘Well, damn well show you do then,’ Kim snapped. ‘And keep on walking till your feet bleed, without complaining.’

  Kim knew David had put her with Peggy in the hope that she might defrost the woman, but she didn’t have an iced-up heart, it was made of granite. Everything Peggy had said today proved she actually felt she was right to have no time for Lotte. Kim might have understood such an attitude if Lotte had been responsible in some way for Fleur’s death, or indeed done something terrible later on, but there was absolutely no excuse for the woman’s behaviour. The most surprising thing in all this was that by all accounts Lotte had turned out to be such a good, kind person despite the lack of love shown to her. Kim thought she could very well have turned to drink or drugs or had children and ill-treated them the way she had been.

  David and the other boys had been elated when they met up with them because at last the police really were pulling out all the stops to find the girls. On the drive from Brighton they’d been astounded by the huge number of police cars around, and it seemed reinforcements had been called in from all over Sussex and Hampshire. Right now they were crawling all over Selsey, Chichester and on both sides of the harbour. There had been another appeal for information on the television last night and today the story was front-page news in all the nationals. As David had pointed out, there couldn’t be anyone left in England who didn’t know about Lotte and Dale.

  David had received a call from DI Bryan that morning to say the American police had drawn a blank in finding the Mr and Mrs Ramsden who had flown back to New York on 16 March 2002, immediately after the cruise ship docked at Southampton. The cruise company had given them the couple’s home address in Long Island, but it was a false one. A banker had lived there for twelve years with his wife and children. It seemed the Ramsdens had booked and paid for the cruise while in London some six months before embarking, and they had picked up their tickets from the cruise offices too, so no correspondence had to be sent to Long Island. Howard had settled his bar bill on the ship with cash, so they were unable to track him with his credit card either.

  Bryan was now waiting on details of all passengers flying from New York to London during the week after 16 March, as it seemed likely the Ramsdens returned to England almost immediately under another name. Meanwhile, police officers with photographs of the Ramsdens were calling on sailing clubs, ship’s chandlers, supermarkets, chemists and even estate agents in the area in the hope that someone would recognize them and know the name they were using here and where they were living.

  A police officer had brought some of these leaflets with pictures of the Ramsdens over to David for him and his party to show around. David just wished they could have had them with them on the previous day, as they might have had a better response from people they called on.

  ‘There is something far bigger behind this than just abducting Lotte,’ Bryan told David in a very grave manner. ‘I think we’ll find the identity of Ramsden is just a throwaway one for holidays and the like as they don’t appear to have a credit card in that name. In my experience people who live with dual and treble identities are almost always serial criminals. The identity they used to fly back here from the States is probably their main one, and we should be able to track them better once we know it. They might have bought property here in that name, maybe even run some sort of legitimate business. But I’ll ring you when I have more news.’

  By seven that evening, when the group met back at the pub in Itchenor to compare notes, they were all disheartened and damp with the rain. Between them, including Peggy Wainwright who was grumbling about her sore feet, they had called at every house in the village and the surrounding area down to West Wittering, and every single person out walking had been spoken to. All without producing one lead.

  Of course, there were dozens of houses where no one answered the door, and possibly some of the people they did talk to would remember something later. Five people thought they had seen Fern before, but couldn’t remember where. No one remembered Howard at all.

  ‘It was just a wild goose chase,’ Peggy said dismissively as she downed a large gin and tonic. ‘The girls obviously aren’t around here. I didn’t expect they would be. It’s far too upmarket an area for such carrying-on!’

  Scott and David exchanged glances – they were both looking forward to the moment when Peggy and her husband went home. Ted was OK, he’d gone off with Clarke and Carrina and willingly walked miles without complaint as they knocked on doors. But both Scott and David felt he ought to be a real man and stick up for his daughter.

  Kim looked as if she was going to dissolve into tears at any minute. Clarke was sitting next to her, holding her hand and talking to her in a low voice, no doubt trying to comfort her by saying that any minute the police could have some new evidence. Carrina looked desperately sad and troubled, and kept looking to her parents as if willing them to find a happy solution to all this. Simon and Adam looked worn down too. It had been a long and fruitless day for everyone.

  ‘I think you should all go home now,’ David said. ‘We can’t do any more tonight, and to be honest I’m not sure if there is anything more we can do.’

  A little buzz of conversation went around the table, Simon suggesting other villages, Adam asking if they should look as far away as Southsea. Once again, Peggy said they should leave the police to find the girls and looked accusingly at Kim and Clarke as if they’d dragged her into something which had nothing to do with her.

  Clarke got up first. ‘I think today has been very hard for Kim and Carrina. I’m taking them back to the hotel now.’ He looked across at Ted and Peggy. ‘Are you ready? I’ll drop you off.’

  Kim stood up, her face pale and drawn. ‘Can I just thank you all,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Clarke and I appreciate so much that you are all trying so hard to find the girls. Maybe tomorrow there will be good news!’

  They left the bar just a few moments later, Peggy and Ted behind them, with Peggy still wittering on about her sore feet.

  ‘I don’t envy K
im having to put up with that harridan in the car with her all the way to Brighton,’ Adam said.

  ‘Kim admitted to me she nearly decked the woman,’ Simon said. ‘I don’t actually believe Lotte is Peggy’s daughter.’

  Adam laughed mirthlessly. ‘Surely no one would be cruel enough to leave a baby on her doorstep?’

  Simon smiled. ‘Oh, she belongs to Ted all right; his eyes are the same as Lotte’s and he’s got her gentle way. I think he got two women pregnant at the same time and switched the babies at birth.’

  Adam grinned. ‘I’d forgive any man for screwing around with a wife like that.’

  David and Scott smiled at this exchange between Simon and Adam. They were all overwrought and Kim and Clarke’s presence today had made them all even more tense and afraid. It was good to see some of that tension disperse with a joke.

  ‘I don’t think there’s much to be gained by coming out again tomorrow,’ David said with a sigh. ‘Maybe you’d better both get back to work. And you too, Scott,’ he added.

  David knew all three were willing to go on searching for as long as it took, but their jobs would be at risk if they didn’t get back, and now the police were investigating fully, they weren’t really needed and might even be in the way. As he glanced at their faces he sensed a faint suggestion of relief, though Adam was quick to suggest that if the girls hadn’t been found by Sunday, perhaps they could widen their search.

  ‘What about you then, David?’ Scott asked.

  ‘Well, I’m going to go back to the houses we got no reply at earlier in the day,’ he said. ‘And anywhere there’s still no answer, I’m going to get the police to check up on who lives there.’

  ‘You want us to help?’ Simon asked.

  David shook his head. ‘No, I can do this alone, and you’ve got a long drive home. Just drop Scott at my house on the way so he can pick up his car.’

  After they had said goodbye and driven off, David set off up the road, away from the harbour, to knock on doors. With some dismay he suddenly realized that he could very well have called at the place the girls were being held, or had been held, already today.

  He didn’t know why this hadn’t occurred to him before, but the fact of the matter was, if the person who answered the door was pleasant and tried to be helpful, he and the others would immediately assume they were good guys. So basically all they had done in the last few days was a kind of canvassing job, letting people know about the case. They hadn’t really done anything to find the girls.

  ‘You could go crazy thinking that way,’ he murmured to himself, remembering that he had after all been asking neighbours to keep an eye on one another, and report anything suspicious. Then there was Margaret Foster in Birdham; it was she who described the woman with Lotte, and that led the investigation to Fern Ramsden. But he could see he’d been somewhat naive to imagine guilt showed up in people’s faces.

  He looked at his watch. It was half past seven, which meant he had just two hours at most to knock on doors without disturbing people. He thought too that he ought to try to get into the mindset of the people holding the girls, for that would help him to know what to look for.

  ‘They’ll be jittery with so many police around,’ he murmured to himself.

  He thought that it was very likely they intended to dispose of the girls at sea. Lotte might have survived before, but that was a real fluke, and provided the victim was killed first and weighted down, it did appear to be the easiest way to dispose of a body. Once out at sea in the dark there was little chance of being observed; the only danger period would be getting the girls on to the boat.

  At four of the houses he was making return calls to, the owners were in this time. Each of them knew the story of the girls who’d been abducted, though none of them believed they could be held here in their village.

  When shown pictures of the girls and then Fern and Howard, all of them took a second, much closer look at Fern, as if she initially looked familiar, but then said they didn’t think they’d seen her.

  This had happened a few times during the day too, and as David walked on up the road to the next house he mused on this, wondering if it could be that Fern’s hairstyle or even the colour was different now. She was a striking-looking woman, but the picture from the cruise company was a particularly glamorous shot of her in evening dress, with titian wavy hair loose on her bare shoulders, and wearing a diamond necklace. If she’d had her hair tied back, or she’d even worn a hat, she’d be much less memorable.

  He felt very flat and disheartened, and now he wished he’d gone back with Scott and had a couple of pints. He wondered too if he was a fool getting hung up on a girl he hardly knew. When he’d phoned home and told his parents about her they’d been a bit chilly, as though they thought he shouldn’t get involved.

  But how could he not get involved? He’d found her on the beach, stopped that guy from throttling her, and when he’d kissed her at Simon’s flat he’d felt there were fireworks going off in his head. It was like she was meant for him.

  Just as he was on the point of turning round and walking back to where he’d parked his car by the pub, around a hundred yards ahead of him, on the other side of the road, he saw a blue van coming out of a drive. His heart quickened, for it was the first blue one he’d spotted since being told one was seen waiting in the alleyway by Simon’s flat. Only today he had pointed out to Scott the comparative rarity of them.

  The van was turning his way, going down towards the harbour, and David stood at the kerb as if waiting to cross the road. As the car passed he got a fleeting look at the driver, and to his astonishment he thought it was the same man he’d chased at the hospital.

  A white-hot flush of excitement washed over him. He couldn’t be certain of course, after all he’d only seen that man’s face for the briefest of moments when he’d turned from throttling Lotte as David came into the room. It could just be wishful thinking.

  But put this man in a blue van near the harbour and it suddenly seemed very likely.

  He pulled the photograph of Howard Ramsden from his folder and studied it closely. Howard was clean-shaven, elegant, polished, wearing a dinner jacket and bow-tie, and with very well-cut hair. At first glance he had nothing in common with the man David had just seen, except they were both slender with thin faces, but if he was to add longer hair to the man in the picture, some stubble on the chin and ordinary clothes, it could be the same man.

  David got out his phone to ring Bryan, but had second thoughts and decided to check out the house the man had come from first.

  He was confused when he saw the narrow drive with ten-foot-high hedges on both sides. He thought the van was coming from the grounds of the huge, half-timbered cottage on his left where he’d called that morning. But the drive didn’t belong to that house or to the house on the right; it clearly led to another house altogether which he hadn’t realized was there earlier.

  He felt strangely nervous walking up the gravelled drive. It felt like trespassing, because it was so enclosed by hedges, but as he walked and saw the house at the end of it, he stopped short in surprise.

  It was one of the ugliest houses he’d ever seen, and he wondered if the neighbours had purposely grown their hedges so high to hide it. It reminded him of the house in Hatter’s Castle, a creaky old film based on the book by A. J. Cronin. The crenellations around the top, the narrow windows and the awful grey stone gave it a bizarre appearance, like a mock castle. It might have looked at home in Scotland, but certainly not in a pretty Sussex village.

  He rang the bell several times but no one answered. He peered in through the front windows. There were vertical blinds but they hadn’t been shut completely and he could see one room was a study or office with filing cabinets and a desk, the other was a lounge. There was nothing very remarkable about either room, except that the decor was sombre and dark.

  David stood with his back to the front door for a moment, looking at the narrow driveway which led into the property. I
t was barely seven feet wide and about twenty yards long before it opened up to an oblong plot of land perhaps twenty-two yards wide on which the house was built. The high hedges continued right around the plot. It was apparent that the owner of the house on his left had sold some of his land for this house to be built, though it beggared belief that the buyer had managed to get planning permission for such a monstrosity. But it was probably built in the late Thirties when planning laws were very lax.

  Both houses on either side were so far away that David could only see the top of their roofs above the hedges. This ought to have given the house a comfortingly private feel, and if the architect had had any imagination it could have been a deliciously secret hideaway. But instead, austere was the word which sprang to David’s mind. No money had been wasted on frivolity, just a gravel drive and then a stone-built raised flower bed to separate the drive from the rest of the front garden which was just concrete slabs.

  There were plants in the raised bed, but it looked uncared for and full of weeds. He walked to the left-hand side of the house and saw there was a side gate to the back garden set in a wall. The gate was wood, some seven feet high, with a great deal of barbed wire fastened to the door frame and across the wall. This seemed a case of security over-egging as the house looked forbidding enough on its own.

  For a minute or two he considered braving the barbed wire just to take a look at the back of the house, but it was nearly dark, and if he got caught he might be charged with breaking and entering. He would ring Bryan and tell him about it as he walked back to his car.

  Howard Ramsden was severely rattled as he drove away from his house. Ever since that little bitch stabbed Fern he hadn’t had a moment’s peace of mind and things were getting worse every day. He so much regretted not chucking her in the sea tied up and heavily weighted. No one had missed her in a year and no one cared about her, and if she hadn’t been found alive by now she would have been entirely forgotten by everyone who ever knew her. But Fern had felt very strongly that her death should look like a simple suicide by drowning and that her body would be found with that of the baby. Even though Fern was dead, he had felt compelled to honour her wishes.