Marcus agreed, although he was not aware of any close friend, apart from Serena, and Amy had never mentioned anyone as a specific best friend. He recalled asking her shortly after she had started at boarding school if she had one. Amy had said there was no one special but she had made friends with all her classmates.
‘I never liked Serena, something about her – probably jealous,’ Lena remarked.
‘I should have shown more interest, but her reports were always brilliant and she appeared to be really enjoy boarding. I’ve never heard her complain about being sent there, and judging from all her reports she adjusted brilliantly from day one,’ Marcus said.
Lena picked up the journal and suggested he read it again, and to not just concentrate on the pages relevant to him, but to read about certain pupils and teachers Amy disliked.
‘What if she was sort of compiling notes for a novel, something like that?’ Marcus asked as he flicked through the entries.
‘She never mentioned anything to me about writing one or even thinking of doing so and the people in the journal are real and not given character names.’
Lena remained deep in thought as Marcus continued reading, watching him for a while, as he frowned and shook his head. ‘Christ, she doesn’t like anyone, does she? I mean some of this stuff is really vicious. And all these odd numbers and references to enemies – I can’t read any more.’
Lena put another log on the fire and stood with her back to it. He eventually shut the journal and stretched out on the sofa, closing his eyes.
‘According to you she’s never shown any signs of being unhappy or having trouble at school,’ she said. ‘It is the same for me, at no time has she ever discussed how she feels; she does often grow quiet, and she does spend a lot of time in her bedroom, but always says it’s to do her homework.’
‘Sometimes when she’s with me she works on her laptop, and yeah, she is sort of quiet, but there’s been nothing that’s ever alarmed me. If I do ask her about how she’s doing she always says that everything’s fine!’ He sighed.
Lena felt her back becoming too warm from the fire and she returned to sit beside him on the sofa.
‘I think something did happen, and it could be connected to the school.’
He stood up and stretched. ‘Well it’s possible, but you need to tell DI Reid your concerns. Get some sleep. We are in this together – whatever is going on, or has been going on between us, let’s put it to one side. I am sure we’ll find her, so you feel positive too.’
She looked up into his handsome face and kissed his rough cheek. ‘You have a shave and wear a collar and tie with that nice brown tweed suit.’ He put a finger over her lips.
‘I’ll look smart, Lena. I really need a good night’s sleep – I’ve hardly slept the past few days.’
After Marcus left the house, Lena didn’t bother washing the wine glasses or the soup bowls but left everything for Agnes to clear up in the morning. She put the fireguard round the still burning logs and made her way up the stairs, climbing them slowly, wishing she hadn’t let Reid take Amy’s old diaries. She worried Amy might have written about things that troubled her or nasty, disgusting stuff similar to what she’d poured out in the journal, constantly returning to focus on the horrible references to herself and ‘Daddy’.
Forcing herself to go to her home office, Lena checked her phone messages and emails and was irritated by how many were from Gail at Kiddy Winks. She couldn’t be bothered to answer any of them and told herself she would sort things out in the morning.
Lena changed into a pair of pure cotton pyjamas, cleaned her makeup off, brushed her hair with a hundred strokes, and moisturized her face, neck and hands. Slowly, as if on automatic pilot, she got ready for bed, and turned down the silk bedspread as usual, flipped back the purest Egyptian cotton sheets and eased her feet out of her cashmere slippers. She left just a low night-light switched on by her bedside as she lay back and let her mind wander over the time she’d spent with Marcus that evening. She was restless but didn’t want to take a sleeping tablet as it was becoming too regular an occurrence; at the same time she reasoned that if ever there was an excuse she certainly had one as she was so strung out. She’d forgotten to fetch a bottle of water from the small bedroom fridge so she got out of bed and took one, unscrewing the cap she returned to her bed, growing irritated that Agnes must have moved her pills and placed them inside the bedside cabinet. She tossed out various bottles of vitamins and packets of migraine tablets before she found the prescription bottle of Zopiclone sleeping tablets. She tipped them into the palm of her hand and after counting them was certain she should have had more. She wondered if Agnes had taken some and then it struck her that perhaps it was Amy?
Lena tossed and turned. From feeling almost paranoid about her sleeping tablets she next started to get annoyed with herself. Mr Henshaw had suggested that it had to be someone very close to her who had gained access to her private papers and bank statements. She had not even brought it up with Marcus – truthfully she had not even really thought about it, but now she did. Marcus’s solicitor, the obnoxious Jacob Lyons, had been able to assess her present earnings and current bank accounts, both business and personal, along with projections of future income. It had to be someone with access to her office at home or her business office that she used at her Kiddy Winks address. Why had she not asked Marcus while he was with her? She needed to know because she was beginning to think that perhaps it was Amy after all. She wondered if it might be Agnes, but then she doubted that the housekeeper would have been able to access the computer in her business office, as she could not recall Agnes ever being there. Then she reckoned that if anyone were computer-literate it would be easy to get hold of all the information from her computer here at the house. She returned to the idea that it had to have been Amy – would she have done it? Surely she wouldn’t have fed all the details to Marcus ready for the divorce meeting, especially not if what she had written about him in her journal was any indication of how she felt about him, but then she had also described Lena in unpleasant terms. It appeared that Amy disliked everyone she came into contact with.
Lena’s head started to throb; she began to think that she was about to have one of her migraines. Where was her baby, her little girl, her beautiful daughter? If she was upset, if she were in trouble, she would take care of it, and all she wanted was for Amy to come home. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, leaning over the bedside to reach for her migraine relief capsules, and was then unable to keep her balance. She fell face forwards onto the carpet, and slithered down to lie prone on the floor beside her bed. Curling into a foetal position she started to cry, and from a whimper her crying became awful gut-wrenching sobs. Lena had drunk too much white wine, eaten just a bowl of soup, and taking sleeping tablets had now aggravated her emotional turmoil. Pain and confusion assailed her from every quarter but dominating everything was a terrible underlying panic for Amy.
Chapter 15
Agnes could not open the front door as the safety chain was on, so she walked up the lane towards the garage in the hope that Harry Dunn was there. The garage doors were closed; frustrated and concerned, Agnes hurried back to the front of the house and dialled the landline. It rang for what seemed an interminable time before Lena answered.
‘Mrs Fulford, it’s Agnes, the safety chain is on.’
Lena was still in her pyjamas and looked dreadful.
‘What time is it?’
Agnes said it was eight fifteen; she was early because she felt she should be at the house at this time of crisis. She’d brought a carrier bag full of newspapers, and reported that the appeal about Amy had also been on the local morning news. Lena slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. She had woken up lying on the floor by her bed; the telephone ringing had made her heart pump as she hoped it was Amy. Agnes took out the papers and then busied herself putting on the kettle and filling the coffee percolator. She placed the wine glasses into the dishwasher along with the soup plates and rinsed the soup pan out. Lena meanwhile scoured every article, which featured headlines such as TEENAGER AMY FULFORD MISSING, PARENTS’ FEARS FOR FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD SCHOOLGIRL GROW and AMY COME HOME. There were requests for anyone with information to come forward and two papers included a photograph, and yet it had not made the front page in a single paper.