Father Ed nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and make sure no one’s burning down my church. All those candles are a health and safety nightmare.”
He strode back into the candlelit interior. If he was their killer, he was damn good at hiding it.
47
Jo caught the 20:55 train back to London. Staying in Manchester overnight wasn’t appealing, not after the conversation with her mother. The train was preferable to an empty hotel room. Alone with her thoughts. Besides, she had everything she’d come for.
After she’d left the home, she’d gone to the storage unit where her mother’s belongings were kept and had a good root around. Eventually, she found what she was looking for.
A taped-up cardboard box with Rachel written in black marker pen across the top. It was all she had left of her sister.
She remembered packing the box with her grandmother. In her sister’s room with the pink chandelier and matching curtains. Her mother had been “resting”, which Jo had later learned was the code word for sedated.
“Is there anything here you’d like to keep?” her grandmother had asked her.
The ten year old Jo wasn’t into girly things, so her grandmother had packed what she thought Jo might appreciate one day. Books, drawings, magazines, some items of clothing, a fluffy pillow, a favourite teddy bear her sister had been loath to part with.
Jo knew, because she’d unpacked the box when she’d first looked into her sister's disappearance. Back then, she’d been a nearly qualified DC, passionate and idealistic. She’d opened the box hoping to find a journal or a diary, some clue as to where her sister had gone or who she’d met the evening she vanished. There had been nothing, so Jo had taped the box back up again and left it in the storage unit.
Now, she was looking for a reference to Michael, the mysterious boy who’d befriended her sister in her time of need. The boy who’d been by her side when she’d turned her back on her friends. Who the hell was he?
Instead of lugging the box with her, she’d bought a cheap pull-on suitcase at the station and transferred all the books, papers and magazines into it. The clothes, fluffy pillow and teddy bear she’d left in a charity recycling bin. Maybe they’d bring comfort to some other lost soul.
As the train raced through the night, Jo went through the contents of the box. She took each piece of paper, smoothed it out and studied the picture. Rachel had talent. Most of her drawings were of pastel wildflowers, fantastically green trees or picturesque landscapes, but they were good. She might even frame one.
One in particular caught her eye. It had religious overtones, which was surprising. Rachel had never been spiritual. An angel with large fluffy wings rose above a field of flowers. Spring flowers. The sun shone around her, or maybe it was a halo, she couldn’t tell. The expression on the angel’s face was one of blissful serenity.
She continued browsing. It was weird looking at the world through her sister’s eyes. Everything was perfect. The books were teenage romances with happy endings, the magazines were old favourites like Just Seventeen and Smash Hits, and the photographs were family snaps. She peered closer at the characters, hardly recognising them.
Her father, tall and proud at the back, his hand resting on Jo’s shoulder. Next to him stood her mother, resplendent in a white bathing suit with a sarong wrapped around her waist and a wide-brimmed hat. She was dressed for the south of France, not Brighton. And between them was Rachel. Tall, leggy, beautiful. Her long brown hair catching the breeze, a serene smile on her face.
Looking at these, Jo couldn’t believe what had become of them. Rachel was dead. Her father was too. And her mother was in a home, pumped full of tranquilisers, too afraid to feel.
She was the only real one left.
Jo shook her head. She bought a small bottle of wine from the drinks trolley. As she watched the dark countryside flash by, she made two decisions. One, she was going to find out who killed her sister, and two, when all this was over, she was going to track down her Uncle Hubert and make him pay for destroying her family.
Rob jumped at the sound of Trigger’s high-pitched bark. He’d just dozed off in his favourite chair and was floating somewhere between reality and dreamland. The voice of the television presenter. Studio laughter. Shadowy faces. A girl screaming.
He sat up, his pulse racing. Trigger darted to the door, then back again.
“What’s up, boy?” That was his excited bark.
A moment later, the doorbell rang.
Rob saw Jo’s blurry outline through the frosted glass panels.
He eased himself off the chair and went to get the door.
“This is a nice surprise.” He stood aside to let her enter. “What are you doing back so soon?”
She moved silently into his arms and he held her for a long moment savouring her warmth, the feel of her. “Is everything alright,” he murmured into her hair.
“It is now,” she breathed. Slowly, she detangled herself. “I didn’t feel like staying in Manchester overnight.”
He grinned. “Well, you’re always welcome here.”
She followed him into the living room. “Still working, I see?”
A pile of case files lay on the floor.
“Until I dozed off.”
She laughed.
“How was your trip?”
“Awful. Mum was like a zombie, but she did tell me the truth about Rachel.”
He studied her. “And?”
She sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Would a glass of wine help?” Rob asked. “I’ve got a bottle of red on the go.”
“Sure.”
He poured her a glass while she started her story.
“Poor kid,” he said when she’d finished. “It’s a pity she didn’t report him. She could have got him locked away.”
“At fourteen you don’t think about that.” Rob had moved to the couch and she sat beside him, cradling her wine glass, her legs curled up beneath her. “At that age, you’re just
