Page 54 of Then She Vanished

He scrunched up his nose and shrugged. ‘How do I know I can trustyou?’

‘Okay.’

‘Do we have a deal then?’ He held his hand out.

Gina let out a long breath through puffed up cheeks. ‘Get out of my house, fix this, and go back to Devon. I never want to see you again. Do all that, then we have a deal. Agreed?’

‘I want exactly that, partner.’

‘Get out, and we are not partners,’ she yelled. ‘I will never partner up with a piece of shit like you.’

He shrugged, turned his back and left.

Gina had no option but to let Pete help her and she knew it. That very fact made her want to cave a wall in with her bare fists. She also felt for the new woman in Pete’s life. Once this was all over, she had to help her see what kind of a man she was living with. But first, she had to do everything she could to save herself, otherwise she was no good to anyone. Pete would have his time; it just wasn’t now.

THIRTY-FOUR

Gina tossed and turned. Every time she nodded off, she thought she heard a creak in the house and her mind kept telling her that Pete Bloxwich might come back. Her cat purred next to her, totally unaffected by a stranger coming into their house as she sprawled across the side where Briggs normally slept.

Gina knew that trying to sleep was pointless. She’d had no choice at all but to tell Briggs, and he, too, was on tenterhooks now. Gina had made the decision: if Pete double-crossed her and she was exposed, she would take the hit and do whatever it took to protect Briggs.

She threw her quilt off her body and stretched, before checking her phone again – it was only two thirty in the morning.

She needed coffee. Green tea or chamomile wouldn’t help in the slightest; it was all too much and she needed full-on caffeine because she didn’t want to sleep.

For now, she had to trust that Pete Bloxwich was actually going to hold up his end of the bargain, because she had a job to do. Luna was out there somewhere – if the girl’s name was even Luna – and she needed to be working around the clock to find her. She pictured this young girl, trying to imagine her pointof view in the photo of her on the mattress, the shadow of the photographer cast on the wall, her hiding beneath her fringe.

After walking downstairs, she flicked the kettle on and grabbed her clumped-up old coffee in a jar and spooned a block into a cup. She’d missed coffee more than anything but needed to keep off the caffeine due to her heart scare. As it boiled, she peered out into her dark garden and checked that her door was locked – again.

Marie, Colson and the Moore family kept whirring away in her mind as she struggled to find the links between them and the girl in the photo, and they still couldn’t identify John Doe.

She thought of Luna again. Was she alone right now, or was she being tormented by the accomplice who tried to kidnap Keeley? Was Colson a part of it all? There was no evidence so far that his van was used in the attempted kidnap, but he was capable of theft and making threats, from what Keeley had said.

Her work phone began to buzz in her pocket. She answered. ‘Jacob.’

‘Guv, despatch just called. A woman called in earlier. She recognised the scarf from the press release and ended the call abruptly. She claims her daughter, Elissa Pritchard, who went missing in 1994, had one exactly the same. They’ve been trying to call the woman back, but her phone went offline about ten thirty last night.’

That was four hours ago. ‘Did they get her address?’

‘Yes, Five Hollyhock Crescent. An officer headed to hers, but there was no one in. There was no car on the drive, but we can see she has one registered to her. I checked in with Wyre to see if the name Elissa Pritchard came up in her searches and it hadn’t for some reason, but it was a long time ago. None of us were working in Cleevesford at the time, and the station was small back then. The filing system was apparently a bit chaotic, but I think that’s an understatement.’

‘Do we know where the files are kept for Elissa Pritchard’s disappearance?’

‘In the archives. Kapoor was still at the station when I left. She’s going through them all now, but I’m not anticipating her finding them anytime soon.’

‘Do you think Elissa’s disappearance has anything to do with the girl in the photo?’ Gina wondered if Elissa had a birthmark.

‘I don’t know. We really need to get hold of her mother. We’ve managed to trace her phone to its last-known location.’

‘And where is that?’

‘The car park at Cleevesford Nature Park.’

‘That’s where Colson had been staying in his van.’

Jacob murmured in agreement. ‘I still wonder if he’s involved in some capacity with the recent goings-on, but he was in custody all last night. It’s too soon to dismiss him yet. Can you sleep?’

Gina exhaled and sipped the coffee that she’d just made. ‘No.’

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