You’re mad to get up so early when you don’t have to, her mother had told her, more than once. It’s not like you’re breastfeeding. Let Dita do it. But Casey, smiling and shrugging, would never give up those first waking moments. She enjoyed the delicious warmth of the baby snuggled against her body, his dark eyes fixed upon hers as he sucked furiously at the bottle.
She didn’t envy Dita, though, stumbling back to bed through the early morning dark to her bedroom next to the nursery. Casey would have gotten up herself to take Charlie from his cot when he cried for his food, but Nick needed his sleep, and it seemed to work out better all round for Dita, so close to the cot anyway, to bring him and the bottle into the bedroom instead. That’s what I pay her for, Nick had said, when she’d suggested getting up herself.
But this morning there was no Dita, sleepy-eyed in rumpled pyjamas, standing by the bed. There was no Charlie. Casey sat up sharply, wincing as her stomach muscles pulled at the scar. She looked over at Nick, fast asleep next to her. Sleeping like a baby. But where was her baby, her Charlie?
She got up and padded across the soft, expensive, sound-muffling carpet, not bothering with her dressing gown, too anxious now to delay. It was almost full daylight; she could see clearly. The bedroom door was shut, and she opened it to a silent corridor outside.
The door to Dita’s room was standing open, but the door to Charlie’s nursery was closed. Casey looked in Dita’s room. Her nanny’s bed was empty, the room in its usual mess, clothes and toys all over the floor. She must have gone into Charlie’s room. They must both be in there. Why hadn’t Dita brought him through? He must be ill, thought Casey, and fear broke over her like a wave. Her palm slipped on the door handle to the nursery.
She pushed the door. It stuck, halfway open. Casey shoved harder and it moved, opening wide enough for her to see an out-flung arm on the carpet, a hand half-curled. Her throat closed up. Frantically, she pushed at the door, and it opened far enough to enable her to squeeze inside.
It was Dita she saw first, spread-eagled on the floor, face upwards. For a split second, Casey thought, crazily, that it was a model of her nanny, a waxwork, something that someone had left in the room for a joke. Dita’s face was pale as colourless candle wax, but that wasn’t the worst thing. There was something wrong with the structure of her face, her forehead dented, her nose pushed to one side. Her thick blonde hair was fanned out around her head like the stringy petals of a giant flower.
Casey felt her heartbeat falter as she looked down at the body. She was dimly aware that her lungs felt as if they’d seized up, frozen solid. She mouthed like a fish, gasping for air, but it wasn’t until she moved her gaze from Dita to look at Charlie’s cot that she began to scream.
Chapter One
Kate Redman stood in the tiny hallway of her flat and regarded herself in the full-length mirror that hung beside the front door. She never left the flat without giving herself a quick once-over—not for reasons of vanity, but to check that all was in place.She smoothed down her hair and tugged at her jacket, pulling the shoulders more firmly into shape. Her bag stood by the front door mat. She picked it up and checked her purse and mobile and warrant card were all there, zipped away in the inner pocket.
She was early, but then she was always early. Time for a quick coffee before the doorbell was expected to ring? She walked into the small, neat kitchen, her hand hovering over the kettle. She decided against it. She felt jittery enough already. Calm down, Kate.
It was awful being the new girl; it was like being back at school again. Although now at least, she was well-dressed, with clean hair and clean shoes. It was fairly unlikely that any of her new co-workers would tell her that she smelt and had nits.
Kate shook herself mentally. She was talking to herself again, the usual internal monologue, always a sign of stress. It’s just a new job. You can do it. They picked you, remember?
She checked her watch. He was late, although not by much. The traffic at this time of day was always awful. She walked from the kitchen to the lounge – living room, Kate, living room – a matter of ten steps. She closed her bedroom door, and then opened it again to let the air flow in. She walked back to the hallway just as the doorbell finally rang. She took a deep breath and fixed her smile in place before she opened it.
“DS Redman?” asked the man on the doorstep. “I’m DS Olbeck. Otherwise known as Mark. Bloody awful parking around here. Sorry I’m late.”
Kate noted a few things immediately: the fact that he’d said ‘bloody,’ whereas every other copper she’d ever known would have said ‘fucking’; his slightly too long dark hair; that he had a nice, crinkle-eyed smile. She felt a bit better.
“No drama,” she said breezily. “I’m ready. Call me Kate.”
When they got to the car, she hesitated slightly for a moment, unsure of whether she should clear the passenger seat of all the assorted crap that was piled upon it or whether she should leave it to Mark. He muttered an apology and threw everything into the back.
“I’m actually quite neat,” he said, swinging the door open for her, “but it doesn’t seem to extend to the car, if you see what I mean.”
Kate smiled politely. As he swung the car out into the road, she fixed her mind on the job ahead of them.
“Can you tell me–” she began, just as he began to ask her a question.
“You’re from–”
“Oh, sorry–”
“I was going to say, you’re up from Bournemouth, aren’t you?” Olbeck asked.
“That’s right. I grew up there.”
“I thought that’s where people went to retire.”
Kate grinned. “Pretty much. There’s wasn’t a lot of, shall we say, life when I was growing up.” She paused. “Still, we had the beach. Where are you from?”
“London,” said DS Olbeck, briefly. There was a pause while he waited to join the dual carriageway. “Nowhere glamorous. Just the outskirts, really. Ruislip, Middlesex. How are you finding the move to the West Country?”
“Fine so far.”
“Have you got family around here?
Kate was growing impatient with the small talk. “No, no one around here,” she said. “Can I ask you about the case?”
“Of course.”
“I know it’s a murder and kidnap case–”
“Yes. The child – baby – belongs to the Fullmans. Nick Fullman is a very wealthy entrepreneur, made most of his cash in property development. He got married about a year ago – to one of those sort of famous people.”
“How do you mean?” Kate asked.
“Oh you know, the sort of Z-list celebrity that keeps showing up in Heat magazine. Her name’s Casey Bright. Well, Casey Fullman now. Appeared in Okay when they got married, showing you round their lovely home, you know the sort of thing.”
Kate smiled. “I get the picture.”
She wouldn’t have pegged DS Olbeck for a gossip mag reader, but then people often weren’t what they seemed.
“And the murder?”
“The nanny, Dita Olgweisch. Looks incidental to the kidnapping at this point, but you never know. What is known is that the baby is missing and as it – he’s – only three months old, you can imagine the kind of thing we’re dealing with here.”