As far as I was concerned, life imprisonment for Darren would be too short.
‘So you can keep him while the search is on for Amanda?’
‘Almost certainly, but that will be up to my inspector. Depends on how long the search takes.’
The policeman stood up to go.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here for now. We’ll report everything to our inspector in the morning, and I expect it will then be passed to CID. They’ll be here with a search team in the morning.’
The two policemen walked out of the kitchen towards the front door, and James went with them.
Georgina looked at me in despair, with tears in her eyes. ‘Where is our little girl?’ she asked quietly.
Where, indeed?
Would Amanda really go off on her own volition during her party? Surely not. But what was the alternative?
I didn’t want to think about that and tried to banish such negative thoughts, but the mind is very powerful. As hard as I tried to bury them in my subconscious, they kept popping back to the surface to haunt me.
I had a vivid picture in my brain of Amanda’s lifeless body lying naked and bloodied, half hidden in the undergrowth. I shook my head to try and throw the image away, but it persisted and sent shivers down my spine.
How could this be happening to us?
I was finding it hugely difficult to control my own emotions, mostly the terrifying prospect of having lost Amanda forever. What had been one of the best days of my life had suddenly developed into its worst night.
‘I’m going out to look for her,’ I said, fighting to control my voice so as not to make Georgina’s distress even worse.
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know, but I can’t just sit here doing nothing.’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
‘No. You stay here in case the police call. I gave them the landline number because the mobile signal is so poor. I’ll take James with me.’
‘I don’t want to be left on my own,’ Georgina said quickly, the tears now flowing freely.
‘All right. James will stay here with you.’
‘But are you okay to drive?’
‘I think so. I’ve had nothing to drink for the past two hours and not an awful lot before that. I must be fine.’
‘The last thing I need right now is for you to be killed hitting a tree.’
‘Then I’ll walk. I have to do something. I’ll just go around the village. Then I’ll come back.’
James came into the kitchen.
‘I’m going out to search in the village,’ I told him. ‘You stay here with Mum.’
‘I’d rather come with you,’ he said.
‘But your mother needs you here. I’m going up to change.’
I had just reached the bedroom when there was a sharp knocking on the front door. I instantly started to go back down, but James beat me to it.
As he opened the door, I was halfway down the stairs, and I could see two uniformed policemen standing there, silhouetted against the headlights of their car.
Georgina came out of the kitchen and saw the same thing.
‘Oh God, no!’ she screamed, and sat down heavily on the hall floor.
Ever since it had happened to Georgina’s parents, when her sister had been killed in a car crash, at just eighteen years old, it had always been our worst nightmare that police would also arrive at our door in the middle of the night. We had discussed it often. Almost always, it meant only one thing.
One of the officers stepped through the door and I now saw that he was one of the two that had been here earlier. He went forward quickly to my wife, who was now lying on the floor, sobbing.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Newton,’ he said, crouching down and laying a kindly hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ve come to tell you that your daughter is safe and well.’
Safe and well!
I sat down on the stairs, and now I was also sobbing — weeping tears of relief.
‘Pangbourne! But that’s miles away. How did she get there?’
‘We are still trying to establish that,’ said the policemen.
We were all back in the kitchen, sitting around the table.
‘It seems she banged on someone’s front door in Pangbourne, asking for help, and the homeowner called 999. We heard the report on our personal radios when we were not that far down the road, so we came straight back to tell you.’
‘Thank you. Thank you.’ I said it with meaning.
‘Where is she now?’ I asked.
‘She’s been taken to the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.’
‘Is she hurt?’ Georgina’s voice was still full of fear.
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said the policeman. ‘But it’s normal practice for missing persons who are found to be taken straight to a hospital. To check that they are well and that they have not been abused.’
‘Abused?’ Georgina asked.
‘Injured or ... anything.’
Raped, he meant, I realised.
‘Can we go and collect her?’ I asked.
‘In due course,’ he said. ‘She will need to be interviewed first. If it is believed she’s been the victim of a crime, she’ll have to be examined by our forensic team for traces of DNA. I assure you, she’ll be quite safe overnight in hospital. Security will be provided.’
‘But we want her home,’ Georgina insisted.
‘Mrs Newton,’ said the policeman quietly, ‘I understand your wish to have her back here with her family, but first and foremost, we have to determine her wishes.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Georgina demanded.
‘She’s over the age of eighteen, and therefore she is legally an adult. She may have left of her own free will. Perhaps she doesn’t want to come back.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Georgina said.
But I could see the strength of his argument, even if I didn’t believe it.
Surely she would have not left of her own free will without at least taking her phone with her. Unless, of course, she didn’t want it to help trace where she had gone.
For the moment, I was just so thankful that she had been found. I could happily wait until the morning to get the answers to the questions of how and why she had disappeared, only to turn up nine miles away.
And there were certainly some pressing questions in my head.
Had she walked to Pangbourne? Or had she been driven?
Walking nine miles in three hours was not particularly difficult for a fit nineteen-year-old. But she’d been wearing a party dress and high-heeled shoes. Or had she stashed a change of clothes and footwear close by, ready for use?
‘What was she wearing when she banged on this person’s door?’ I asked.
‘I don’t have that information,’ replied the policeman. ‘I am sure that all the questions will be answered in the morning.’
Probably not all of them, I thought.
‘So what happens to Darren Williamson now?’
‘He will probably still be detained overnight. Possession of a Class A drug is a serious matter. He’ll be interviewed in the morning and may be charged.’
‘May be?’
‘If it’s his first drug offence, he will likely be released with an official caution.’
‘A caution? That hardly seems enough punishment for supplying my daughter with cocaine.’
‘We have no evidence of that. It might have been the other way around. In fact we have no evidence that either Mr Williamson or your daughter took cocaine at all, other than what Mr Williamson said to us earlier, and he might not have been telling the truth.’
Now that wouldn’t surprise me for a second.
‘And accepting an official police caution is a formal admission of guilt and becomes part of the person’s criminal record. It’s a lot more than just a slap on the wrist.’