The Girl Who Stole the Apple

She ignored the question. ‘We’ve got a head start on Reid, and we need to make the most of it. But we’ve also got to meet up with Sam. So when his majesty has finished on the loo, we need to get him in the car and make a move.’

‘Do we have to take him? Won’t he just be a hindrance?’

‘He’ll be a pain in the arse. But he’s also a trump card if Maggie doesn’t cooperate and we need to apply a bit of pressure.’

Elgar said nothing. He knew he wouldn’t win the battle, so there was no point arguing. In any case, much as he hated to admit it, Bridget was probably right.

‘Besides,’ she said, ‘he’ll be a pain in your arse, not mine.’

* * *

Beth was silent as they drove. She sat in the left-hand back seat, her magazines on her lap, sometimes looking through them, but more often staring out of her window. Occasionally Maggie would adjust the mirror to check on her. At one point the girl seemed to have fallen asleep, but the next time Maggie checked she was awake and busy plaiting the hair of the princess doll from Frozen.

After nearly three hours of driving, Maggie pulled off the motorway. It felt like an achievement to have made it this far without some police car tearing up the road behind them with blue lights flashing. It was cross-country from now on. The girl hadn’t said a thing, but Maggie needed a comfort break and an injection of caffeine. As luck would have it, a lay-by, populated by half a dozen lorries and a caravan serving food, came into view. No CCTV here. No ANPR. Despite the change of number plates, she felt that discovery could be just round the corner. She parked and the two of them headed for a dirty grey building which apparently housed toilets. Inside it proved more sanitary than she had feared.

The man and woman in the caravan both spoke with cheerful Yorkshire accents, and when Maggie opted for a bacon and egg roll and a cup of coffee, Beth said she would have the same except she’d rather have an orange juice. She smiled at them with all the skill of a practised charmer and when the woman brought the rolls to them at their red plastic table, Beth was rewarded with a bag of sweets which the woman produced from the pocket

of her apron. ‘Special treat, love. On the house.’

‘Thank you kindly,’ the girl replied, the words gleaned from one of her cartoon fantasies.

The woman grinned with delight and turned towards Maggie. ‘Ah, your daughter’s a real sweetie, isn’t she?’

‘This is delicious, Mother,’ Beth said, moments after swallowing her first bite of bacon, tomato sauce and bread. ‘Thank you so much!’

Maggie frowned at the ridiculous accent. But underneath she was beaming with absolute delight. She wanted to jump up and dance a jig. She wanted to sing an Abba solo very badly, at the top of her voice. Most of all, she wanted to hug the girl and never let her go. ‘Mother!’ The word and the way the girl had said it made tears brim in her eyes. How could Sam not want to look after the child?

Back in the car, as Beth sat quietly in her own world, Maggie found herself thinking about her own father. Ever since Sam had smashed her mobile, she had tried to put him out of her mind. What Sam had done made sense. They had kidnapped her father as a way of forcing her to cooperate, but the fact was that her father’s life was drawing to an end anyway. She knew that the relentless creep of dementia could have only one outcome. Already his life was poorer than it ought to be. How aware was he of what was happening to him now? Was he worried about her, or was he happily oblivious inside his own cocooned world? Perhaps he wasn’t much different from Beth in the back of the car, content with the here and now and vaguely excited by the unexpected things that were happening to her. Except of course, she told herself savagely, Beth had lost her mother and was desperate to hang onto whatever replacement mother turned up — in this case herself.

Maggie wanted to hang onto her father too. He had been a good and supportive one, especially during and after her mother’s slow death from ovarian cancer. She owed him so much. She couldn’t just leave him to his captors. Maybe when they realised he wasn’t the bargaining counter they had hoped he would be, they would turn him out of their car somewhere and leave him to be rescued by a passer-by. Or maybe not.

She shivered. Back in the real world, a lorry hooted at her for some reason or other. She pressed her horn and held it for a couple of seconds. If Beth hadn’t been in the car, she would probably have sworn violently.

She released the horn and with it some of her anger. Not that it was anger which had gripped her, it was fear. It had coiled itself round her as tight as a boa constrictor. Who was she kidding? They wouldn’t just let her dad go. Of course they wouldn’t. They would kill him and dump his body some place where it would never be found.

* * *

It was going to be one of those days when absolutely nothing went right. The quagmire of depression was sucking Reid into its depths even before they arrived outside Sinead Parkinson’s flat. When she failed to respond to her bell, it only confirmed his negative thoughts.

‘Doesn’t look like her car is here either. She could be anywhere.’

Reid tightened his jaw. Ashcroft was a past master at stating the bloody obvious.

He looked around. There was a woman coming up the path to the flats. Dark grey three-quarter-length coat, matching grey scarf, white hair, flat black shoes.

Red waited until she was near. ‘Excuse me, madam. Do you live here?’

She looked him up and down. ‘I do.’

‘So you know Sinead. Got a little boy and—’

‘Course I do. I know everyone in the flats. I make it my business to. The boy stays with me sometimes, watches TV.’

‘You don’t happen to know where she is?’

‘If she’s not in, she’s out.’ She laughed, evidently pleased with her quip.

‘Do you know where she works?’