‘Hey there, is this Marcus?’
‘Who is this?’
She sounded so friendly that he almost regretted snapping so rudely but she said she would be willing to meet with him and discuss having an exclusive and she would be prepared to pay him a considerable amount. He cut the call, stupefied as to how the press had got his mobile number. When the same caller rang back he said he’d recorded the calls and would be reporting it to the police, who were also monitoring his mobile, and this time the caller cut off. He fought hard to contain the rising feeling of panic.
Lena came downstairs, an expression of dread on her face, and said she’d been watching out of the bedroom window. She had an awful foreboding feeling. ‘Have they found her?’ she said pleadingly.
‘I don’t know, sweetheart, I’m just trying to find out what’s going on. Let me talk to Detective Reid. Why don’t you go back upstairs and stay in the bedroom?’
Lena drew the bedroom curtains and then sat waiting, certain that it was bad news. Eventually Marcus came back up.
‘They’ve not found her. Reid just called. Apparently there was a press conference, in the hope of getting an update – by that I mean they are hoping it will help trace Amy.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘I’m not letting the bastards in though. Don’t answer the phone, we don’t talk to anyone, do you understand?’
‘NO, I don’t,’ she said shrilly.
‘Detective Reid said he would get officers back over here.’
Marcus went round the house, drawing the curtains, and could see that by now there were even more journalists outside the gates. He thanked God he had padlocked them so they couldn’t get in, but it meant they couldn’t get out.
En route to the station Reid received a call from the handwriting expert who had been examining the journal.
‘Due to the many different styles I can’t say for definite who exactly wrote the entries in the journal. There is much variation in the handwriting so it’s possible more than one person wrote in the journal.’
‘Amy has DID, it’s a multiple personality disorder, so that may be the reason for the different writing.’
‘That would explain it. I’ve never seen it myself, but I have read an expert forensic article on the subject where the subject’s different personalities made the entries in different handwriting styles. I would say though that some bits of the journal were similar to Amy’s handwriting on the diaries and cards.’
‘Well thanks for looking at the journal…’
‘Actually there is something about the entries at the back of the journal that is quite worrying.’
‘As I recall it was just a bunch of recipes and the handwriting looked the same,’ a bemused Reid said.
‘It is the same, but not Amy’s, and every recipe was for some form of meal containing either poisonous, deadly or hallucinogenic mushrooms and some appeared to be for specific people who had upset the writer.’
Back at the station Reid gave Jackson a rundown on the entries in the journal and schoolbooks which mentioned the poisonous mushrooms. At first Jackson laughed dismissively until Reid told him about his conversation with the handwriting expert and Simon Boatly’s sudden death. Immediately Jackson’s attitude changed as he demanded a full forensic post mortem on Boatly’s body and that everyone in the journal must be told to check every bit of food in their house. Anything suspicious was to be collected by forensics officers and examined for traces of poison.
Reid was almost enjoying seeing Jackson squirm and actually take notice of what he had to say for once, but the moment was short-lived.
Jackson flicked through all the pages of his photocopy of the journal. ‘There’s no mushroom recipes in the copy you gave me, DI Reid?’
‘I hadn’t realized the importance of them at the time, sir. I thought it was just maybe something to do with Amy Fulford’s cookery classes.’
Jackson smirked. ‘Like you thought the mention of mushrooms in the journal were to do with her biology classes?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Reid replied nervously.
‘If you’d bothered to read the bloody thing properly in the first place you’d have seen all the poisonous recipes at the back, wouldn’t you?’
Reid nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘You failed to inform me of the existence of the journal when I took over this investigation. You also failed to give me a full copy of the journal, and had I had one I would have spotted what you so clearly missed.’
Reid doubted Jackson’s assertion, but had no choice other than to eat humble pie. ‘I’m sure you would have, sir, and I’m sorry if I’ve let you and the team down.’
‘You’ve let yourself and the police service down, but much more serious is that you may have let a dead man down!’ Jackson said forcefully.
‘Sorry, sir, I don’t see what you mean.’
‘It’s now Thursday and you’ve had the journal in your possession since Monday when you met with Simon Boatly and he was still alive. He dies four days later and it if it turns out to be from mushroom-poisoning you may have committed a most heinous error of judgement. Do you see what I mean now?’
Reid felt as if his legs were going to give way. He knew he’d made a big mistake, but to be so harshly accused of neglect and inadvertently causing the death of Simon Boatly was shattering. There was nothing he could say as he knew he was in the wrong. He expected to be suspended from duty there and then.
‘I’ll keep this between us for now,’ Jackson said menacingly, ‘but let’s hope to God no one else in the journal has unwittingly eaten anything with poisonous mushrooms in it. Your career is on the line at the moment, DI Reid, and it hangs on how this Boatly died. Now get out there with a roll of bin bags, visit every person in that fucking journal. Warn them to be vigilant and clear out their fridges and freezers.’
Reid felt totally humiliated and couldn’t believe he’d made such a monumental fuck-up. However, Jackson seemed to be giving him another chance, though he wondered if as the lead investigator the DCI could be in trouble as well. Reid knew he had one last chance to redeem himself and didn’t dare mention the fact Serena Newman was sick, but decided her family would be his first port of call before revisiting the Fulfords.
Standing outside the Newmans’ house, Reid’s anxiety continued to mount and his hand was shaking as he rang the doorbell. He was praying that Serena had recovered and was dreading the possibility she’d been taken to hospital in a serious condition, or worse still was dead.
So he couldn’t help but let out a gasp of relief when Serena, who looked far from sickly, opened the door. ‘You don’t know how absolutely fantastic it is to see you looking so well, Serena. Are you fully recovered from your tummy bug?’ he asked with enthusiasm.
Serena looked at him as if he was nuts as she invited him in, shouting for her mother, who came down the stairs. Serena explained who he was.
‘Good evening. I’m sorry to disturb you and your family, Mrs Newman, but I wonder if I could just have a quick chat with you, your husband and Serena,’ he said, as always being very diplomatic.
‘My husband’s still at work. Have you found Amy?’
‘No, but I do need to talk to you about something that is of urgent concern.’
Harriet Newman gave a nod of her head and gestured for him to go ahead of her into the drawing room. Mother and daughter sat side by side on the sofa as Reid asked that the conversation they were about to have remained confidential for the sake of the investigation. Mrs Newman agreed, as did Serena, but Reid had no doubt she’d be on the phone to her school friends as soon as he was out of the door. Without going into detail, he explained that Amy was psychologically a very ill girl and in many ways not responsible for her actions. Mrs Newman got the gist of what he was saying, but Serena sat with her mouth wide open, not having a clue what Reid was implying. He then got straight to the point and expressed his concerns that they might unknowingly have food poisoned by Amy on the premises.