Kate’s head is thumping as she’s helped up from the floor and sat back in the chair she can’t even remember falling out of. Lauren takes hold of her hand as they sit huddled on the sofa, watching the officers retreat.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ asks Lauren breathlessly. ‘What are they trying to imply? That Dad’s got something to do with it?’ She laughs nervously. ‘As if. Surely all fingers have got to point to the woman’s husband. He’d been violent before – their neighbour told me that the police were called several times.’
The more Lauren’s talking, the more claustrophobic Kate feels.
‘We need to find Jess,’ croaks Kate, almost to herself. ‘We need to get to her before the police do.’ She turns to Matt. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘She called in sick this morning.’
‘Call her, Lauren,’ says Kate authoritatively, standing up and striding unsteadily towards the revolving doors. ‘Find out where she is.’
Lauren rings her number as they rush across Cabot Square. Engaged. She tries again. Engaged.
‘Shit!’ says Kate, as they reach the station. ‘What’s the quickest route to Hackney?’
‘DLR to Stratford,’ says Matt.
‘She doesn’t deserve this,’ says Lauren as they scramble down the escalator of Canary Wharf station. ‘She feels alone and lost enough as it is, but if the police tell her what they’ve just told us . . .’
‘That’s why we need to get to her first,’ says Kate, as Matt takes hold of her hand, making her feel more secure, both literally and figuratively.
‘And what are we going to say to her?’ asks Lauren.
‘She doesn’t know what we know,’ says Kate, breathlessly. ‘So, we have that advantage.’
Kate’s phone rings just as they reach the platform and, seeing that it’s Jared, she slides to answer it. ‘I need to take this,’ she says, as they all stop for breath.
‘Hey Kate, it’s only me,’ he says. ‘I just wanted to get back to you with what I’ve found out about your girl so far.’
Kate can’t help but wonder if it’s even relevant anymore.
‘So?’ she snaps, without meaning to.
‘So, she was adopted when she was six by Mr and Mrs Oakley down in Bournemouth and it appears she kept their name even though she went back into the foster system a short while after. It seems that the ill health of her adoptive parents brought that on.’
‘Okay,’ says Kate, not hearing anything she doesn’t already know. She can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.
‘But her papers show that up until she was adopted, she was living with various foster parents across the north of England.’
‘Yep, that seems to add up,’ says Kate. ‘And do you have the name she was living under?’
‘Yeah, it seems she kept her birth name until she was adopted,’ says Jared.
‘Which was?’ asks Kate, feeling as if there’s something lodged in her throat.
‘Which was . . .’ says Jared, without any sense of urgency. ‘Ah, here it is . . .’ Kate can hear the rustle of paper at his end and doesn’t know whether she wants him to hurry up or slow down. ‘Woods,’ he declares, oblivious to its significance. ‘Her birth name was Harriet Woods.’
She ends the call and looks to Matt who, judging by the fact that he has his hands on his head, is one step ahead.
‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ he says.
Kate types Woods Murder Harrogate into her phone’s search engine. A flurry of archived articles flood her screen.
Woman murdered – husband and baby missing.
Husband prime suspect in woman’s murder.
Baby found abandoned.
Wood’s murder – husband cleared.
The salacious headlines are mainly from Yorkshire’s local newspapers, but ‘Killer on the loose’ ran in her own paper. ‘Shit!’ she says before reading the body of the article to Lauren and Matt.
‘Frank Woods, the husband of Julia Woods, who was found murdered in her home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, two years ago, has been released without charge. Mr Woods was the prime suspect for his wife’s murder since absconding and being traced to Spain. But following his extradition and subsequent questioning, Yorkshire police have said that he is no longer part of their inquiries. The hunt for Mrs Wood’s killer goes on.’
None of them say a word. Their expressions say more than enough.
48
Lauren
Now that Lauren’s stopped moving, sweat is springing to her pores, making a track down the length of her spine. She fans out her shirt with one hand, whilst the other trembles as she dials Jess’s number again, not sure whether she wants her to pick up or not.
She answers on the third ring, but now that she has her, Lauren doesn’t know what to say and looks to Kate wide-eyed.
‘Find out where she is,’ hisses Kate under her breath.
‘Listen, where are you?’ starts Lauren. ‘I need to see you.’
‘Did you see the article?’ asks Jess, ignoring the question.
‘Yes, I did,’ says Lauren.
‘It’s caused quite a stir,’ says Jess tightly.
Lauren wants to ask how, but she doesn’t want to alert her to anything she doesn’t already know.
‘I’m sure,’ she says.
Kate nods at her and rolls her hand over to encourage her to get to the point.
‘Look, I really do need to see you,’ she says. ‘We need to see you.’
‘We?’ asks Jess, and Lauren grimaces. She should have kept it simple, not made it out to be the big deal that it is. Kate looks as if she’s holding her breath. ‘Me and Kate,’ Lauren goes on. ‘Are you at home?’
‘Aren’t I the popular one?’ Jess says. ‘First the police and now you and Kate.’
Lauren’s sure her heart’s stopped beating. ‘The police?’ she says numbly, and Kate closes her eyes, letting her head fall backwards. ‘What did they want?’
‘They think they might have some news on my mother,’ says Jess.
Lauren goes into fight or flight mode; her head battling against itself to do the right thing. Does she offer this young girl solace in a world that has been so cruel to her? Or does she protect her family, at all costs, no matter what they may have done?
‘Wow . . . that’s amazing news!’ she says, trying her
