Stranger Child Read online

  ‘Oh. I see what you mean. No, the body isn’t Natasha Joseph. She’s turned up at home. Just walked in the door, apparently. Yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday!’ The word burst from Becky’s lips as she spun round to face DC Tippetts. ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t they tell us?’

  ‘Don’t shoot the messenger,’ Ryan said, holding his hands up. ‘That’s all I know. Oh – except that the kid’s refusing to speak to the police. She says that if we’re involved she’s going to do a runner.’

  Becky shook her head in disbelief. ‘Oh that’s great. Thanks, Ryan.’ She turned back to Tom. ‘Well, bugger me. That’s a bit of a turn-up. What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m wondering where the hell she’s sprung from after all this time. We find a body we think might be hers, and then she suddenly comes back? That’s quite a coincidence!’

  Nothing about this felt good to Tom. The Joseph girl had been missing since she was six years old, so somebody had been sheltering her. Why had they let her go now?

  ‘How do you want me to play it?’ Becky asked.

  ‘You need to pay the Josephs a visit. We need to be certain she is who she says she is. If she refuses to speak to you, tell the Josephs we’ll give her a couple of days to settle in, but then we’re going to have to talk to her. And take a family liaison officer with you – one that’s been trained to interview kids. We need to know where the hell she’s been, who’s been hiding her for all these years, and why.’

  12

  It felt safe in the bedroom now the door was barricaded shut again with a chest of drawers. She hadn’t known if she would be strong enough to shift such a big piece of furniture, but somehow she had managed, and it got a bit easier each time. She had found somewhere to hide stuff, but she still couldn’t risk them coming into the room whenever they wanted.

  David – he wanted her to call him Dad but he could dream on – had given her an old mobile of his so she could ‘call her friends’. That had almost made her smile. It was a bit of a crappy old thing, but he seemed very pleased with himself for his thoughtfulness.

  She wished he wouldn’t touch her. It made her flesh crawl.

  She knew Emma had searched the pockets of her duffle coat when she had finally taken it off the night before. She had slammed her bedroom door but sneaked out to watch Emma glancing guiltily over her shoulder as her hands delved deep into the pockets of the coat where she had hung it in the hall. Emma probably expected to find a phone. As if Natasha would have been stupid enough to bring one into the house yesterday.

  Emma wouldn’t have told David what she’d done, though. He would have thought it was a terrible thing to do. But Emma didn’t trust her. And that might be a problem.

  Last night, when everybody was in bed, Natasha had crept downstairs. She had switched a lamp on and looked at the painting in the hall. She had forgotten what her mum looked like.

  How could she have forgotten?

  She was beautiful. And she had loved Tasha so much. Tasha could just about remember how that had made her feel, but she hadn’t felt like that in a very long time.

  Now David had called the police and she was going to have to think on her feet. It wasn’t supposed to happen. She knew there were policemen who would pass on anything that they were told to, and she knew that would mean trouble. She had tried every trick she could think of to make David change his mind, but Emma wouldn’t budge.

  David would have been easier to manipulate on his own. He was a man with guilt hanging over him, weighing him down. She might have managed to persuade him to keep the police out of it. Emma was much tougher. She said they had to tell the police because of the girl – the dead girl. Tasha stifled a sob. Could it be …? No. She mustn’t even think that.

  Emma had won the battle, though, and convinced David to make the call. Emma thought she knew the difference between right and wrong.

  She might know about right, but she knew nothing about wrong. She hadn’t the first clue about wrong.

  Tasha smiled to herself. It was only a matter of time.

  13

  Becky looked at the open fields surrounding David Joseph’s home. The red-brick house itself was attractive in a solid kind of way, but she wouldn’t want to live out here. The idea of living in the countryside didn’t appeal to her at all, and if she ever changed her mind it would have to be for a house with stunning views. This was all a bit flat and featureless for her taste. And as she was a city girl, the vague whiff of manure didn’t do much for her either.

  The front garden of Blue Meadow House looked pretty much like all gardens in March – generally quite drab but with some cheerful yellow daffodils offering a promise of the warmer months to come. In spite of their burst of colour, as she surveyed the shadows cast by the dark clouds that had chased away the brief morning sunshine, it seemed at this moment that Grey Meadow House might have been a more appropriate name. At least it had stopped raining.

  Becky pushed the doorbell, glancing sideways at the quiet, confident profile of Charley Hughes, a young DC who was specially trained in questioning children. She had cropped blonde hair and her features appeared to have been skilfully sculpted, with sharp cheekbones, wide-set hazel eyes and a generous mouth. It was one of those faces that on first sight seemed merely attractive but which became increasingly interesting.

  ‘I’m really keen to see how you handle this one, Charley. It’s hard to believe Natasha Joseph has been missing for over six years, and nobody has seen hide nor hair of her in all that time.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Charley responded. ‘But I gather she doesn’t want to talk to us at all, so we may get no further than checking that she is who she claims to be.’

  Any further conversation was brought to a halt as a woman with a pale face who looked to be around forty opened the door. Her eyes had the haunted look of a person under stress.

  ‘Good morning,’ Becky said. ‘Mrs Emma Joseph? I’m Detective Inspector Becky Robinson, and this is Detective Constable Charlotte Hughes.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Please come in.’ She held the door open so Becky and Charley could step into the wide hallway. At the far end was a beautiful antique wooden table with a bowl of fresh flowers adding a touch of brightness against a pale beige wall. But it was the portrait above the flowers that drew Becky’s eye. It was a painting of a lovely young woman, little more than a girl really, sitting on a chaise longue with her feet tucked up next to her. Emma Joseph intercepted Becky’s gaze.

  ‘That’s my husband’s first wife, Caroline. Tasha’s mother.’

  Becky glanced at the woman standing before her in the hallway, looking to see if there was any trace of resentment that the portrait of the former wife was still hanging in pride of place, but she saw none. Just a hint of sadness.

  ‘Tasha’s with her father. I’ll take you to them.’

  Becky didn’t move. ‘Before we meet her, Mrs Joseph, can you fill me in on yesterday? I gather you just found her in your kitchen? ‘

  Emma Joseph lifted her hand to tuck away some stray strands of hair that had escaped from a loose ponytail behind her ears.

  ‘It was very odd. I’d been upstairs with Ollie – my little boy. I came down to the kitchen, and there she was. Standing there, saying nothing.’

  ‘How do you think she got in, Mrs Joseph?’

  ‘She must have gone round the side of the house and come in through the back door. I never lock that door when I’m in all day. Maybe not the brightest decision, stuck out here, but …’ She shrugged as if to say ‘That’s just the way it is.’

  ‘And what has she said to you – about how she got here, where she’s been?’

  ‘Nothing. We can’t get anything out of her, other than the fact she didn’t want the police involved.’ The woman shook her head and looked Becky in the eye. ‘She just appeared – from nowhere. How did she find her way to us?’

  ‘She hasn’t told you?’

  ‘Not a word. She won’t even talk to her dad.’
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  ‘Okay, Mrs Joseph. One more thing, if you don’t mind. Before you came downstairs and found Natasha in your kitchen, do you remember hearing anything at all out of the ordinary outside?’

  For a moment, Emma Joseph look puzzled, but she was a smart lady. ‘Oh, you mean like a car or anything?’

  ‘Well, you’re quite a long way from a bus route here, and with all these lanes I am struggling to think how she would have got here on her own.’

  ‘Me too,’ Emma said. ‘I didn’t hear a thing, though. The tractor in the next field was making so much noise I wouldn’t have heard if a Sherman tank had rolled up, to be honest. But if you think somebody brought her here, why would they keep her for six years and then bring her back?’

  Becky took a deep breath.

  ‘I’ve no idea. It doesn’t make any sense at all, as far as I can see.’

  *

  Emma Joseph pushed open the kitchen door and Becky caught a quick glimpse of a wonderfully comfortable-looking kitchen and living room – something she would expect to find in a style magazine – before her eyes came to rest on a man with his back to them, hands in his trouser pockets, staring out of a floor-to-ceiling glass door into the back garden. Although of average height and slender build, his hunched shoulders gave him the air of a person much older than the attractive, confident man Becky had been introduced to just the day before.

  What a twenty-four hours he had had. Becky could still remember how the colour had seeped from his skin as he had slumped back into his chair at the news that a girl’s body had been found. It should be a time for celebration now, but all Becky could feel around her was confusion and disappointment.

  The only movement in the room came from the little boy in the high chair. He turned his head as they came in, and his baby face lit up when he saw his mum. He was playing with some brightly coloured plastic eggs and banged one on his tray with delight at her appearance. Becky looked at Emma and saw her worried frown soften as she smiled at her son briefly, before turning back to her husband.

  ‘David,’ she said gently. ‘The detectives have arrived.’

  Tearing his gaze away from the garden, David Joseph turned his head, then with one last lingering look into the garden turned round and walked towards Becky and Charley, reaching out to shake them both by the hand.

  ‘Thank you for coming. I know we should have called you sooner, but Tasha seems so fragile and she was adamant that the police mustn’t be told she’s here. She said she’d disappear again if we called you.’

  ‘But she’s still here?’ Becky asked.

  David nodded. ‘I locked all the doors while we talked to her and explained why we had to call you. We told her about the girl – the one you found yesterday. That seemed to upset her a bit. I promised her that you only want to check that she really is my daughter – even though I don’t have a single doubt myself – just so you can close the case.’

  Becky knew it wasn’t the time to argue, but if David Joseph thought this case was closed, he was way off the mark. Wherever his daughter had been, she had been somebody’s secret for more than six years. In Becky’s experience, that painted pictures of a life she didn’t want to imagine for this child.

  ‘We’ll keep it simple for today, Mr Joseph, if that helps. Where’s Natasha now?’ Becky asked.

  He turned and walked back towards the window, the three women following him. Through the glass they looked out at trampled flowerbeds and a muddy lawn that looked as if the local football team had recently played a match on it. But there was one patch of grass that was intact at the far end of the garden, and in the middle was a child’s swing. Becky could see a slight young girl hunched up, pushing herself backwards and forwards with one foot on the ground, her arms hooked around the chains. She appeared to be staring into the distance, her eyes unfocused, her mind somewhere else entirely.

  ‘She’s been out there since we told her we were going to call you. I’ve been watching her to make sure she doesn’t run off. When she was little, she spent hours on that swing. She used to say that one night she was going to swing so high that she would touch a star.’

  ‘May we speak to Natasha?’ Becky asked.

  Before he had a chance to answer, Emma interrupted.

  ‘David, if you don’t mind, I think I should take Ollie somewhere else. He must be wondering what on earth’s going on.’

  He glanced at his wife vacantly and gave a slightly bemused shrug.

  ‘Yes, of course. I don’t think you’re needed here.’ He looked from Becky to Charley. ‘Is she?’

  Becky saw the expression on Emma’s face and felt the other woman’s sense of rejection.

  ‘I think it’s fine,’ Becky said. ‘But we will need to talk to you again to make sure we’ve got all the facts. And I think you’re going to be vital going forwards, so if your baby has a nap any time soon, do come back and join us.’

  Emma flashed a brief, grateful smile to Becky as she left the room with Ollie shouting his indignation at being taken away.

  David slid open the door and stepped out into the garden, picking his way through the mud to approach his daughter. Becky and Charley gave him a moment alone with her. He crouched down so he was level with her face; they could see he was speaking but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Natasha didn’t look at him. They saw him reach out a hand to touch her arm and couldn’t miss the fact that she flinched and jerked her arm away.

  ‘What do you think, Charley?’ Becky asked.

  ‘If I’m honest, I don’t get it. She’s come back, but she’s rejecting everybody – especially her dad, from the look of things. Until we know why she’s suddenly come back now, I don’t think it’s going to make any sense.’

  ‘Come on. He’s fighting a losing battle. Let’s see if we can get a DNA sample and follow Tom’s advice – leave them in peace with all the contact numbers they need. At least for a day or two.’

  The two women followed David across the garden. As they approached the child on the swing, Becky focused on Natasha, who seemed too small and slender for a girl who had just turned thirteen. Where her arms stuck out from the sleeves of her jumper, Becky could see wrists that were so narrow they looked as if one squeeze would break them. But then she looked at the eyes, and they told a whole different story. These weren’t the eyes of a child. There was a hint of bitterness in her hard gaze, a knowing kind of resilience. Despite that, Natasha’s pupils were slightly dilated – a classic symptom of fear.

  What’s she frightened of?

  ‘Hi, Natasha. My name’s Becky, and this is Charley. We know you don’t want to talk to us. Your dad’s explained, and we’re not going to push you.’

  Natasha had found a loose thread in the sleeve of her slightly grubby red jumper and was pulling it and watching with fascination as it unravelled.

  ‘It’s very quiet round here, isn’t it?’ Charley said. ‘You can hear the birds singing now the rain has stopped. Could you hear the birds where you’ve been living?’

  Becky detected a small movement of the mouth, but it wasn’t to speak. It was a smirk of derision. Charley laughed gently.

  ‘I guess from your expression that’s a no, then, is it?’

  The girl remained mute.

  ‘Do you think you could tell me a bit about where you were living?’

  No answer. David made a move to put his arm around his daughter, but she pulled away.

  ‘Sweetheart, these ladies want to help you. You’re not in trouble at all. They just need to understand a bit about where you’ve been and how you got here.’

  Natasha’s eyes flicked from Becky to Charley and back again. For a moment, Becky thought she was going to tell them something – something important. But David reached out to touch her again and the spell was broken. She put both hands on the seat of the swing and pushed herself off, turning to her father.

  The low tone of Tasha’s voice seemed to echo around the quiet garden.

  ‘I told you not to call the police.
You should have listened to me.’

  As the girl turned and walked towards the house, Becky raised her hand and rubbed away the tingling sensation at the back of her neck.

  14

  Emma looked in the cloakroom mirror and was dismayed by the pallid, blotchy face that stared back at her. What a mess they all were. David had looked even more ravaged by emotion since Tasha’s behaviour in the garden. Two deep lines were carved into his cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Poor David. She knew he must be alternating between the delight of having his daughter back and the agony of her rejection, but Emma had no idea how to help. She was failing them.

  Even Ollie was affected. He was fascinated by his new sister, but the constant feeling that they were all on the edge of a precipice was changing her placid, happy son into a slightly fractious baby. He cried more readily and seemed too conscious of Emma’s own distress.

  After the police had left earlier, gaining nothing but a DNA sample from Tasha, Emma had tried to do all the right things. She had nipped out, taking Ollie with her, to buy some new clothes for her stepdaughter, trying to think what girls of that age liked to wear. She was going to play it safe with skinny jeans and baggy T-shirts until maybe Tasha could come with her to chose for herself.

  When she took them up to Tasha – once more isolated in her room – she had tried to talk to her about the clothes she had chosen, and how they could go shopping together in the future. Nothing elicited a response and Emma wondered if maybe the girl resented Emma’s intrusion into their lives. In Tasha’s eyes, this was Caroline’s house, not Emma’s.

  She had sat down on the side of the bed, but Tasha had immediately swung her legs over to the other side, her back to Emma.

  ‘I know it must seem strange, Tasha, finding me in this house, married to your dad. But we didn’t get together until a long time after your mum died.’

  In spite of the fact that she had shown no interest in what Emma was saying, Tasha hadn’t rushed from the room, so Emma kept talking, hoping she could break down some barriers.