Page 120 of The Half Sister

Kate’s head is thumping as she’s helped up from the floor and sat back in the chair she can’t even remember falling out of. Lauren takes hold of her hand as they sit huddled on the sofa, watching the officers retreat.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ asks Lauren breathlessly. ‘What are they trying to imply? That Dad’s got something to do with it?’ She laughs nervously. ‘As if. Surely all fingers have got to point to the woman’s husband. He’d been violent before – their neighbour told me that the police were called several times.’

The more Lauren’s talking, the more claustrophobic Kate feels.

‘We need to find Jess,’ croaks Kate, almost to herself. ‘We need to get to her before the police do.’ She turns to Matt. ‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘She called in sick this morning.’

‘Call her, Lauren,’ says Kate authoritatively, standing up and striding unsteadily towards the revolving doors. ‘Find out where she is.’

Lauren rings her number as they rush across Cabot Square. Engaged. She tries again. Engaged.

‘Shit!’ says Kate, as they reach the station. ‘What’s the quickest route to Hackney?’

‘DLR to Stratford,’ says Matt.

‘She doesn’t deserve this,’ says Lauren as they scramble down the escalator of Canary Wharf station. ‘She feels alone and lost enough as it is, but if the police tell her what they’ve just told us...’

‘That’s why we need to get to her first,’ says Kate, as Matt takes hold of her hand, making her feel more secure, both literally and figuratively.

‘And what are we going to say to her?’ asks Lauren.

‘She doesn’t know whatweknow,’ says Kate, breathlessly. ‘So, we have that advantage.’

Kate’s phone rings just as they reach the platform and, seeing that it’s Jared, she slides to answer it. ‘I need to take this,’ she says, as they all stop for breath.

‘Hey Kate, it’s only me,’ he says. ‘I just wanted to get back to you with what I’ve found out about your girl so far.’

Kate can’t help but wonder if it’s even relevant anymore.

‘So?’ she snaps, without meaning to.

‘So, she was adopted when she was six by Mr and Mrs Oakley down in Bournemouth and it appears she kept their name even though she went back into the foster system a short while after. It seems that the ill health of her adoptive parents brought that on.’

‘Okay,’ says Kate, not hearing anything she doesn’t already know. She can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

‘But her papers show that up until she was adopted, she was living with various foster parents across the north of England.’

‘Yep, that seems to add up,’ says Kate. ‘And do you have the name she was living under?’

‘Yeah, it seems she kept her birth name until she was adopted,’ says Jared.

‘Which was?’ asks Kate, feeling as if there’s something lodged in her throat.

‘Which was...’ says Jared, without any sense of urgency. ‘Ah, here it is...’ Kate can hear the rustle of paper at his end and doesn’t know whether she wants him to hurry up or slow down. ‘Woods,’ he declares, oblivious to its significance. ‘Her birth name was Harriet Woods.’

She ends the call and looks to Matt who, judging by the fact that he has his hands on his head, is one step ahead.

‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ he says.

Kate typesWoods Murder Harrogateinto her phone’s search engine. A flurry of archived articles flood her screen.

Woman murdered – husband and baby missing.

Husband prime suspect in woman’s murder.

Baby found abandoned.

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