Simon suspected Marcus must have persuaded Amy not to tell Lena about staying at the Old Manor as she did not approve of their friendship and would have refused to allow Amy to stay there. They had slept together in the guest bedroom, and Marcus had come through to his room when Amy was asleep. Boatly now found himself wondering if there was something beyond the doting father image that Marcus portrayed. His mind was made up in an instant: he would sell the flat and distance himself from Marcus, as he didn’t want any possibility of becoming embroiled in the police investigation.
Chapter 24
The station was not exactly a hive of activity when Reid returned to type up his report. There were however two phone calls that had generated possible leads. A man had stated that he was certain that he saw Amy Fulford on the afternoon of her disappearance standing by a car on the corner of Fulham Road. He was unable to give any registration number but thought the car might have been a Jaguar and was a grey or silver colour. The occupant was a middle-aged man but he was unable to give a description and said that Amy had got into the car and it drove off. He only recalled the incident after watching the Crime Night programme and seeing the video of Amy. Reid sent DC Wey to interview the caller.
DS Lane had also been checking into a second possible sighting, this time from a woman. She was certain she had seen Amy in the Marble Arch underpass heading towards Park Lane. Again she had remembered the incident because of the TV programme, and that Amy had stopped by a street musician playing a guitar and was talking to him while tossing some coins into the boy’s guitar case.
Reid decided he would take off home and spend the evening reading through the journal Lena Fulford had given him. He wanted to preserve it for fingerprints and get it over to the lab the next day, so he put on a pair of protective gloves. Opening the envelope, he found that the leather-bound journal had a second envelope tucked inside. This was some birthday cards, and a note, plus a list of items for Christmas gifts. The card had large looped writing in a blue felt tip pen and from what was written it seemed to be the most recent card Lena received from Amy.
To my darling Mummy, have a wonderful birthday and I hope you like my present. It is obviously not as perfect and as expensive as my gorgeous Cartier watch, but it is by Cartier and it is I think very elegant and writes smoothly and is something you can use signing cheques. Haw, haw! From your adoring daughter Amy.
Reid put the card to one side and opened a small square of pink notepaper with tiny pink flowers at the corners.
Dearest Mummy, I cannot thank you enough for buying me exactly what I wanted. I love my watch, and it is the exact one I showed to you ages and ages ago, and I love you for remembering. Amy.
Reid next read a list written in the same large looped handwriting. It was a list of items including shoes, a Mulberry handbag, and an expensive brand of chocolates. Lena had enclosed on her business card a handwritten note that was underlined.
Please look at these examples of Amy’s handwriting. They are quite recent, and I kept them to have an idea of what Christmas gifts I should buy her. LF.
He neatly placed the notes together before he opened the first page of the journal. Here the handwriting was small, tight, and very different, with hardly a break between the words, and each line cramped up close to the next. He flicked through numerous pages like a pack of cards but not as yet reading. The pen had changed; there were a variety of colours, sometimes in biro, others in fountain-pen ink or from a felt tip. He noticed that occasionally the handwriting slanted to the right and then at times to the left. Other times it was so closely written and so small that it was difficult to read, but what surprised him, and it must also have been confusing for Lena, was that there was no thick looped script on any page as in the writing on the birthday card and list.
He took out his notebook, and made a comment about the note, the card and the gift list. He then turned to read page one.
Permission granted to insert or rewrite for all selected subjects.
He surpassed his usual tedious self and as a tormentor continues to play the bountiful but the strings attached place him high on the list. It must be determined whether or not he deserves the ultimate punishment, and perhaps trials should be conducted before the final decision is made. Access to both establishments is now completed, which enables the substances to be planted. Owing to neither subject being aware where the weekend is spent gives considerable freedom, but this must be carefully orchestrated. Movements are restricted due to the stupid bitch hiring a domestic slave that monitors everything but she is not on duty during weekends.
She has certainly surpassed herself hiring this bitch. A is obviously a woman with severe controlling impulses; she cannot stand to see anything that is not in a straight line. She cannot stand to have anything in its original container or package, but transfers everything into plastic boxes and then writes on them with a thick black felt tip pen in old=fashioned lettering. This will include cornflakes and sugar, flour etc. My abhorrence of this woman is such that I have told her never to enter the bedroom. I place hairs across the drawers so that I am aware when she had been sneaking in and nosing around. Her ugliness, her bad teeth repel me to such an extent I have decided that I might attempt to try out a couple of things on her before anyone else. She has square fingernails, stumpy nasty hands and a wide arse and feet in stinking tennis shoes, but worse than her hideous appearance is her ingratiating manner. She is a character worthy of a Dickens novel and I know she hates me. She is so envious of me, of everything I have, that she can hardly bear to look at me with her watery brown bloodshot eyes. The envy is down to the fact she has never had anything of worth in her flatulent tedious existence and she gave birth to an equally wretched creature that quite obviously loathes her and attempts to keep her at a distance. This creature is squint-eyed and has bitten stumpy fingernails, and gives me the shivers as she is forced to have this dragon visit her every weekend. All she talks about is her tedious boring past, her abusive husband, divorced for fifteen years and she still can’t stop talking about him. She wishes he was dead and buried but she will be gone before him. I guarantee that. It is just a question of exactly how to get rid of her without it becoming suspicious.
Reid sighed before turning over to the next page and continuing.
She has now acquired a driver, an ex-con, a small despicable little house-breaker who wears secondhand clothes that smell of mothballs and stale cologne. H thinks himself so dapper but he’s insidious and creepy, especially around her, and I would not trust him an inch. His sidelong glances to me, my breasts, my cunt, make me loathe to ever be in the car with him. He probably smells my seat after I’ve got out, he’s that repellent, and yet she puts up with him. A and the midget get along when they think she’s out, and if only on occasion she would check her groceries because the pair of them are thieving bagloads of food. M of the ‘Good morning, Fulford residence, how can I help you?’, when in reality she would like to say, ‘This is MY house, it’s MY residence.’ Her envy is constantly glittering in her oddly-shaped button eyes, and she knows that I know and so she will hardly ever look me in the face.