Lena had shouted to Deirdre that everything was ready. Eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans and mushrooms were all piled high on a plate, plus she had made fried bread, and was looking in the fridge for the tomato ketchup when Deirdre walked in.
‘Wow, this is a feast,’ she said.
‘Pour yourself another glass of wine, and do you want HP or tomato ketchup?’
‘HP for me, thank you.’
Lena plonked down both sauces and then drew out a chair to sit opposite Deirdre. The television set was turned down low, and Lena gestured towards it, saying that Doris Day was singing ‘Que Sera Sera’, and it was about her son being kidnapped, but she couldn’t really remember much of the plot. She picked up the remote and turned the TV off.
‘Agnes watches all the daytime soaps and the usual crap. Sometimes I come in here and cringe as it’s either somebody cooking, or somebody selling or buying a house, so I hate to sit down and eat when she’s around. She drives me to distraction, forever washing her hands, and I swear if you stood still long enough she’d put a plastic bag over your head and stick a label on you.’
Deirdre smiled and started eating as Lena banged the sauce bottle against the table, and then ate at an amazing rate, dipping the bread into the egg yolk.
‘I often think that this is the best dinner ever, and I love BLTs with loads of mayonnaise, and crispy fresh lettuce with thin-sliced tomatoes.’
‘My favourite too,’ Deirdre said and between mouthfuls asked Lena what her business was as she had never been told.
‘Oh I recently started a company called Kiddy Winks, it does themed parties for children, so I have people making up the costumes, toys and designs for the cake, tablecloths, balloons with their names printed on – all sorts of things like that.’
She pushed her half-eaten dinner aside. ‘I had hired a girl called Gail Summers to help me run it, and I really made her welcome, and I was so helpful explaining everything to her and do you know how she repaid me?’
Lena got up from the table and went over to the sink. There were numerous pans left on the draining board, as if she had used a separate one for each of the ingredients. She almost threw her dinner plate into the sink as she turned to face Deirdre.
‘Two-faced bitch gave Marcus details of my earnings, not just present ones but projected ones – he knew every single account. When I met with his divorce lawyer I was totally and utterly stunned he knew so much about my business.’
‘I’m sorry – that must have been dreadful to find out.’
Deirdre got up, intending to put her plate in the dishwasher.
‘Leave it, just leave it, Agnes can clear it all up in the morning.’
‘I don’t mind tidying up,’ Deirdre said.
‘I just told you to leave it!’ Lena snatched the dish and threw it into the sink. Turning back to face Deirdre, her face was twisted with anger. She was so tense and angry her fists were clenched and Deirdre was starting to feel very alarmed by the way she was behaving – from being very friendly she had become abusive and threatening.
‘I have faced the truth about my husband: he’s a loser, a bisexual leech dependent on his rich friend to pay his legal fees. He was only here because he had nowhere else to go and it was not for Amy, not for me, but for himself.’
‘I am sure your husband wanted to be here for you at this very trying time.’
‘Trying, TRYING? Have you any idea what it’s like to spend day after day waiting for news, hoping and praying she will come home?’ she cried, and swept out of the kitchen, leaving the counsellor not exactly cowering, but nevertheless very unnerved. Deirdre followed the sound of banging doors coming from the master bedroom. She tapped and entered but Lena appeared not to even hear her as she was dragging clothes from the wardrobe and hurling them onto the bed.
‘Lena, I think we need to sit down and talk things through calmly,’ Deirdre suggested.
‘I have to select what I am to wear for the television broadcast. I want everyone to know what a disgusting deviant piece of shit Marcus is; he is going to pay for walking out on me today.’
‘I don’t think that will be a very good or productive attitude to take, Lena. This will be your opportunity to ask the public to assist in any way possible in tracing Amy. If you are antagonistic or belligerent about your husband, it might not do your image any good, and I am certain it will not help find Amy.’
Lena made no reply; she was unzipping her trousers and kicking them away, and then pulled her sweater over her head, throwing it to one side.
Deirdre could see clearly the many thin red circular scars on both arms. Down the inner thighs of both legs were strange butterfly-shaped red scars, from her knees up to her crotch. It was obvious that Lena was self-harming.
She took a dressing gown from the hook behind the bedroom door and held it out to Lena.
‘Slip this on, Lena, and we can talk through what clothes you will feel confident to wear, but as we don’t have a time schedule as yet, we can maybe choose a few and put them to one side.’
Lena nodded and allowed Deirdre to hold up the dressing gown as she slipped her arms inside the sleeves. To the counsellor’s relief she quickly calmed down, and then she began to refold the clothes she had flung across the bed. Suddenly she gave a soft low sob and turned to Deirdre, holding in her arms the maroon cashmere sweater that they had used for the reconstruction of Amy’s last sighting.
‘Amy and I both bought one – look, it’s got these pretty frilled edges on the sleeves, with the matching maroon ribbon threaded through. I let them take this for the girl who acted as Amy when she was last seen on the Fulham Road; she was wearing hers but I have not been able to even really look at it.’
She gently stroked the soft wool and then held it to her face.
‘Please don’t let her be hurt, I ache all the time as I miss her and want her to come home.’
Deirdre gently put her arms around Lena and really felt for her as she cried with such heartbreaking muffled sobs, repeating over and over that if Amy were never coming home she would not want to live.
As a Victim Support counsellor Deirdre had dealt with numerous tragedies, giving parents and loved ones a means of knowing they were not alone in their grief. She knew from her training to never get too personally involved, but to be a consistent calm presence. Deirdre could relate to the anguish of Lena’s situation. She also felt exceptionally angry towards Marcus Fulford, who was not helping his wife – to the contrary – and she thought his behaviour deplorable.
‘I’m here for you, Lena, I’m not going anywhere, and I won’t leave you.’
‘Will you pray with me?’ The woman’s voice was like a child’s and hardly audible.
They knelt together side by side; Lena had her hands clasped together in prayer and her eyes tightly closed.
‘Please God, bring my Amy home safe and sound, Amen.’
Chapter 34
The next morning DI Reid was anxiously awaiting the toxicology reports on both Simon Boatly and Harry Dunn. The incident room were all aware of the possibility they might have been poisoned, but DCI Jackson, much to Reid’s relief, had not let the error over the poison mushroom recipes in the journal be known to the team. Reid had contacted the vet who had dealt with Boatly’s dog Wally and was somewhat relieved when the vet said blood tests had confirmed the dog had eaten rat poison.
There was still no sighting of Amy, and even the crude time-wasting calls had diminished to a few ‘sickos’. The mass of publicity had drawn a blank, and DCI Jackson was forced to reassess the next stage of the inquiry. The death of Boatly and Dunn was an obvious concern, but without the toxicology evidence to prove they had died from poison it was a waiting game, or, as Jackson described it, ‘a fucking unexploded time bomb’.