Behind Closed Doors (4 page)

‘Can I see it?’ Andee asked Gavin.

Opening up his phone he found the message and handed it over.

Dad, will you please stop looking for me, it’s embarrassing. I’ll be back when I’m ready, not before.

Glancing up, Andee said, ‘So you stopped looking?’

Heidi shook her head. ‘No, except . . . I mean, the problem was I didn’t know where else
to
look. Of course I asked people around the camp if they’d seen her, trying not to make too much of a fuss. I was afraid if I did and she found out she’d stay away longer.’

‘Had anyone seen her?’

‘Not since Sunday. Then Gavin got another text . . .’ She nodded to the phone.

Scrolling to it, Andee read,
I know you’re not really bothered, but just in case I’m staying with some friends that you don’t know, OK. They’re really cool and they’re going to help me get a job so I can take care of myself from now on.

Andee’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Do you believe this about the friends?’ she asked.

‘We don’t know what to believe,’ Heidi told her. ‘You only have to look at where we live to realise how many people she’s coming into contact with. She’s meeting new people all the time.’

‘Have you noticed her taking a particular interest in anyone lately, or vice versa?’

‘Not especially, no. I mean, she mixes with some of the punters, but most of the time she’s with Estelle.’

‘And what about Estelle’s parents? Have you spoken to either of them about where Sophie might be?’

‘To her mother, yes, and Sophie’s definitely not there. Which I realise doesn’t mean Estelle’s not covering for her, but . . .’

‘They do that, don’t they,’ Gavin came in raggedly, ‘make up stories or alibis for one another without realising how much worry they’re causing, or how much danger they could be putting themselves in.’

Andee could hardly deny it. ‘Do you think Sophie could be in any danger?’ she asked carefully.

He flinched. ‘I don’t want to think it, but it’s – it’s hard to make yourself stop when you don’t know where she is.’

Andee knew from experience that it was next to impossible. To Gavin she said, ‘So where exactly were you last week?’

‘On a job,’ he replied, sounding as wretched as he looked. ‘I do some driving now and then for Pollards, the haulage company, based out at Frimsey. I had a big load to take down to Toulouse last Monday, but I decided to drive to Portsmouth on Sunday night and sleep in the cab so I’d be ready to get the early ferry in the morning.’

‘Did you see Sophie before you left? I mean after the row.’

His misery was apparent as he shook his head. ‘I knocked on her door and shouted out that I was leaving, but she didn’t come out or turn her music down, so I realised I was still in her bad books. I know what she’s like when she gets in one of her moods, she won’t speak to anyone. You have to allow her time to get over it, so I told her to give me a ring when she was ready and I left.’

‘So you don’t know if she was actually in the room at that point?’

‘Her music was on, so I presumed she was, but I guess it’s possible she wasn’t. She thinks we don’t know how she sometimes sneaks out of her window and takes herself off to the Entertainment Centre or over to the funfair. With it being the summer holidays we’re not so strict about what time she has to come home.’

Andee nodded. ‘So the last time you heard from her was this text, sent last Thursday? Nothing since?’

His face turned greyer than ever as he shook his head again. ‘As I said, we keep trying to get hold of her, but she’s either ignoring our messages or . . .’ His breath caught. ‘I don’t know why she’s doing this. It’s not like her to stay angry for so long.’

Andee’s eyes dropped to his hands, resting emptily on the table. They were oil-stained, strong and touchingly helpless. ‘The job you were on,’ she said. ‘It took you to France, you say?’

‘That’s right. I was carrying aircraft parts down to Toulouse.’

Knowing how much traffic went between various West Country manufacturers and the main Airbus factory in the Haute Garonne, Andee said, ‘And you got back last night. Is it usual for a trip to take so long?’

‘It’s about normal for a delivery like that. There are lots of restrictions on the hours we can spend at the wheel and the speed we can go . . . Well, you’d know all about that, being a police officer. Everything’s in my log. They’ll have it at the office.’

Andee nodded and sat back in her chair. ‘OK, so she’s taken her computer, some clothes and toiletries. Would she have had any money?’

As Heidi started to answer a loud wail swept down the hallway like a lasso claiming her attention. ‘She might have had something left from her wages,’ she answered, getting to her feet. ‘She works around the camp sometimes, you know, cleaning, or serving meals at the caff or the carvery. I’m sorry, I’d better go and see to him.’

‘Of course.’

After the door closed behind her, Gavin said, quietly, ‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of her, but before I left there was fifty quid in the pocket of my good suit.’

When he didn’t continue, Andee said, ‘And it’s gone now?’

He nodded.

‘Why don’t you want your wife to know?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose I ought to tell her. It’s just . . . I don’t know, I guess neither of us is thinking very straight at the moment. I keep getting it into my head that she’s gone off and won’t ever come back. You hear about that, don’t you, how some kids disappear and aren’t ever seen again . . .’

Andee’s heart contracted. Yes, she knew all about that.

‘. . . I don’t think we could bear that,’ he ran on. ‘She means everything to me. She’s my princess, my special girl . . . I’m not saying she doesn’t have her faults, show me a child that doesn’t, and I don’t mind admitting there have been times lately that I could blinking throttle her . . .’ His eyes widened with alarm as he realised what he’d said.

Holding his gaze and speaking very gently, Andee said, ‘Have you ever been physical with her, Gavin?’

He shook his head vehemently. ‘No,
never
,’ he cried in a tone that sounded very like the truth. ‘It was just one of those things you say, you know, like you could murder a burger, when what you really mean is you’re hungry.’

‘It’s OK, I understand, kids can be maddening, especially teenagers.’

Clearly reassured by her reply, he said, ‘I don’t know what happens to them, I swear it. One minute she’s singing and dancing about the place like an angel, all skinny legs and freckled nose, the next she’s stomping about with an attitude big enough to fall over, and flirting . . .’ His voice cracked with despair. ‘. . . flirting with blokes like she knows what it’s all about.’

Taking the simplest part of that first, Andee said, ‘So would the photograph you gave my colleague this morning be a true representation of how she looks now?’

He shook his head. ‘Not when she’s out of school, anyway, and she’s gone and put purple streaks in her lovely blonde hair. She thinks it makes her look sophisticated, or trendy, or something, but when she’s all got up in her miniskirt and a top made for maximum exposure . . . I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t say it about my own daughter, but it makes her look, well, you know what I’m saying . . . and she’s not like that, not really. It’s just a front she puts on, like she’s trying to make herself seem more grown up than she is. I keep trying to tell her it gives the wrong impression.’

Knowing better than to take a father’s word for his daughter’s morals, Andee said, ‘Do you have any photographs of her when she is made up? Or some video, perhaps?’

He was shaking his head. ‘I don’t know. There might be something in her room, I suppose. Shall I go and look?’

Guessing if there was anything it would almost certainly be on Sophie’s phone, Andee said, ‘In a moment. First of all I’d like to ask about money again. Does she have a bank account?’

He nodded. ‘I don’t think she’s got anything in it though, she’s always broke.’

‘Does she have use of a credit card?’

‘No. I’ve told her she’s too young for that. Not till she’s earning her own money.’

‘And what about her passport? Have you checked whether she took it with her?’

The anguish in his eyes was terrible as he looked at her. Apparently he hadn’t considered the possibility that Sophie might have ventured beyond British shores. ‘Heidi keeps them in the drawer,’ he said, pointing to a dresser.

Realising he was afraid to know the answer, Andee went to open the drawer herself, and finding three passports she held up Sophie’s for him to see.

If he felt any relief it wasn’t evident as he rubbed a hand over his balding head and tried to steady his breathing.

Returning to her chair, Andee went on, ‘We need to talk about boyfriends. Do you know if she had one?’

As he looked at her he flushed with what appeared to be embarrassment. ‘I’m not sure she’d have told me even if she did. You’re probably best to ask Heidi about that.’

‘OK, so why don’t you tell me what you can about her as a person. What sort of changes have you noticed in her lately?’

Bleakly he said, ‘Like I told you just now, she’s suddenly trying to be all grown up, which I suppose is to be expected at her age, but her attitude . . . She can be as sweet as you like one minute, and the next she’s got all this hostility pouring out of her. If you didn’t know us you could be forgiven for thinking she came from a bad home, the way she carries on. She doesn’t seem to realise how lucky she is compared to some.’

‘When did all the hostility begin?’

His eyes drifted to nowhere. ‘About nine months ago,’ he said quietly. ‘We kept putting it down to changing hormones and all that, and I expect that’s a big part of it, but I can’t help worrying that her nose has been put out of joint since Archie came along.’ His eyes flicked to Andee. ‘She doesn’t ever bother with him,’ he sounded hurt and bewildered, ‘her own brother, and if we ask her to do anything for him . . . Anyone would think we’d asked her to pull out her own teeth.’

‘And before he was born, you were close, the three of you?’

‘Definitely. Well, me and her always were, and she got on brilliantly with Heidi when we were first together. Actually, right up until Archie . . . Heidi’s always been really good to her, and if Sophie was being honest she’d say the same. They were forever in each other’s pockets, went everywhere together, and when Heidi got the job managing this site . . . Well, you should have seen Sophie. Over the moon she was, thought all her Christmases had come at once to be living on a holiday park. I think she still likes it here, but it’s not so much about magicians and playgrounds now, as discos and crushes on the punters or the cabaret acts.’ He shook his head despairingly. ‘I should have listened to her more, tried to understand that Archie coming along was a bigger change for her than she knew how to handle.’ His eyes were wet with tears as they returned to Andee’s. ‘I just hope it’s not too late to put things right,’ he murmured brokenly.

Taking a tissue from a box on the table, Andee passed it to him and waited for him to blow his nose. On the face of it, this really was looking as though the girl had run away, but to where, and who she was with now were questions still very much in need of answers.

‘Tell me,’ she said, deciding to return to the deeper aspects of Sophie’s state of mind, ‘does Sophie talk about her mother much?’

His sadness was hard to watch as he shook his head. ‘Not really, but I know she thinks about her a lot. I have to admit, I do too. She was a lovely woman, good and kind right through to her soul.’

Andee was about to continue when Heidi came in with a teary-eyed, runny-nosed Archie perched on her hip. One glance at him was enough to confirm whose son he was, since he’d taken on his father’s features in a way that made him appear strangely old for a baby.

‘He needs a bottle,’ Heidi said, going to the fridge.

Andee smiled at the child and received a solemn stare in response.

‘We were talking about boyfriends just now,’ Gavin told Heidi. ‘I said you’d know more about that than me.’

Heidi sighed heavily as she planted a baby’s bottle into a pan of water to heat. ‘She didn’t confide in me any more,’ she admitted regretfully, ‘but I . . .’ She glanced awkwardly at her husband. ‘I never told you this,’ she said, ‘but I found some birth pills in her bedroom, a few months back.’

Gavin’s eyes closed as if he couldn’t take much more.

‘I tried talking to her about it,’ Heidi said to Andee, ‘but she went off on one about me snooping round her room.’

Having no trouble imagining the scene, Andee said, ‘Do you know if she took them with her?’

Heidi shook her head, and shrugged. ‘They’re not here any more, so I suppose she must have.’

‘Have you ever seen her with anyone in particular?’ Andee asked.

‘Not really. She messes about with boys around the camp, the ones here on holiday, and those who work at the club or the office, but I don’t think there’s anyone special.’

‘So you can’t think of someone she might have gone off with?’

As Gavin’s head came up, Archie started to wail.

‘All right, I’m coming,’ Heidi soothed, going to pick him up.

‘Why would she just run off with someone?’ Gavin demanded, as though the concept made no sense at all. ‘Especially someone we don’t even know.’

Andee watched him, waiting for him to answer his own question.

In the end it was Heidi who said, ‘We haven’t been keeping a close enough eye on her . . . I know it’s my fault. I wasn’t expecting motherhood to be quite the way it is. My job’s suffering, everything seems to be . . . I keep telling myself to spend more time with Sophie, but it just never seems to work out.’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ Gavin told her. ‘She’s more my responsibility than yours. I should have talked to her more, carried on doing things with her the way we used to.’

‘We weren’t prepared for the baby to take over our lives the way he has,’ Heidi added miserably. ‘I suppose that sounds naïve, but other parents seem to manage when a second one comes along. There’s not always such a big age gap though, is there, and Sophie was used to being the apple of her daddy’s eye.’