The Attic Room: A psychological thriller - Huber Linda (бесплатная регистрация книга TXT) 📗

‘It still might. We know Wright has access to that house and we’ll keep it under observation in case he comes back,’ said David, lifting the bag again. ‘Nina - ’

‘I know,’ she said dully. ‘Go home and rest.’ And how impossible was that?

Back in Sam’s car, Nina called The Elms, only to be told that Emily was asleep and the warden didn’t want her disturbed. Nina sagged in her seat. They had run out of things to do.

‘Let’s go home, like he said,’ said Sam. ‘Have something to eat, and you can phone Bethany and Alan. And you know, maybe they’ll find something quite quickly now they have his car and that flat to investigate too.’

Back home, he made them BLTs, and insisted Nina finished hers and drank a full glass of orange juice. She didn’t have the energy to argue with him. She felt dead inside; the pain in her chest was gone and the agony she’d felt on looking at Naomi’s photos that morning seemed very far away. Would there never be any positive news? And talking of news, she should watch the appeal on television. It would be on after the bulletin at the top of the hour. Apprehensively, she stared as TV adverts for this and that danced across the screen. Perfect families, those soap powder people. All clean and smiling and Mum and Dad and the kids. Shit. They said you couldn’t miss what you’d never had, but you could, you could. How very much she missed being part of a family like that.

The sight of Naomi’s face filling the screen jolted Nina more than she could ever have imagined. First the smiling photo was shown, while a male voice read the text. Towards the end the jigsaw photo was substituted in, and Nina sobbed aloud. How sweet and serious Naomi was with her jigsaw, and right this minute no one could tell them if she was alive or not. No one except Paul. Impossible to imagine what she would do if she lost her child. The thought, the dreadful hope that Naomi might soon be found was all that was keeping her upright today.

Sam hugged her as the appeal gave way to the weather forecast. ‘Come on,’ he said briskly. ‘Millions of people are on the look-out for Naomi now.’

Nina swallowed. ‘I want to go back to the police station. If anything comes in I want to be there.’

‘Well – let’s call by, anyway. You can’t sit there all day. And don’t forget Emily – we should check on her too and that might be more useful than hanging around at the police station.’

Nina heard his mobile ring while she was in the bathroom, and came out to hear him say goodbye to David.

‘The police have your handbag, it was still in Paul’s car,’ he said, thrusting his phone into his pocket. ‘Nina, David says there are reporters camped out in front of the police station, so we shouldn’t go there. Thank God they don’t know you’re here.’

‘Hell,’ said Nina. ‘I suppose should be glad they’re publicising it but being hassled by the press is the last thing I need. I’ll phone The Elms again.’

She called the warden, and was told that Emily was up again sorting photos and they were welcome to join her. Nina smiled sadly. What a treasure Emily was, and what a great pity it was that they hadn’t known each other all this time. A desolate by-product of Claire’s lie.

Emily’s cheeks were pink and there were two rows of snaps on the coffee table in front of her. To Nina’s surprise most of them were from the ‘no-people’ selection; only a few had recognisable figures in them, and none were anyone she knew. Unless Paul was one of those indistinct children…

‘You’ve found something,’ she said, sitting beside Emily on the sofa without taking her jacket off.

‘I rather think I have,’ said Emily, gripping her magnifying glass and staring at one of the photos. ‘I haven’t thought about it for years. Your father and George Wright used to go fishing. It was always a ‘man-thing’, the women-folk stayed at home but sometimes the men took Paul. They went to an old farmhouse belonging to a friend of George’s – there was a stream with bass nearby. There are quite a few photos of the house, and some more with different youngsters and fishermen outside – look. You can see that’s the same building in the background here… and here. George was a keen photographer and the scenery was lovely, but there are… a lot of photos of the place. I’m not sure what to think.’

Nina bent over the coffee table. A couple of images were from the black and white selection, but the rest were colour. Five showed rural scenes, both with and without an old stone farmhouse in the background, and another handful showed various figures sitting around the garden in front of the house. Young Paul was there, and another boy. Had George taken these? Maybe the farmhouse was – what a truly horrible thought – a place where her father and Paul’s had taken children to be abused. Nina began to feel sick.

‘Emily, where is this farmhouse?’ she said, taking her great-aunt’s hand. And how difficult it was not to scream out loud, for this was certainly another place David Mallony would need to check out.

Emily rubbed her eyes, a distraught expression on her face. ‘That’s the stupid thing, I’m not very sure. I was only there once; we had a family picnic one Sunday. It was a long time ago, you were barely toddling around. It’s not far from Bedford, I know, less than half an hour in the car.’

‘I’ll call David. I’m sure they’ll have ways of identifying the landscape,’ said Sam, pulling out his mobile.

Nina listened to his side of the conversation, staring at the photos spread out on the table. How innocent it all looked, English countryside and people from decades ago. But the innocence might have been flawed.

Sam finished his call and gathered the photos together. ‘I’ve to scan them through from the office here,’ he said, leaving Nina and Emily looking at each other.

‘Scan?’ said Emily, and Nina thought how the world had changed since Emily was her age.

‘The computer system here can make copies and send them to the police computer,’ she explained.

Sam returned, having forwarded the images, and Nina hugged her great-aunt.

‘I’ll phone this evening and let you know the latest,’ she said. ‘Emily, thank you so much. I’ll probably see you tomorrow.’

For where else would she go if Naomi was still missing – and if Naomi was found, then Emily would be their first port of call, always provided that Nina didn’t have to keep vigil at her daughter’s hospital bedside.

It was two hours later when the phone call came. Nina spent the time on Sam’s sofa staring into the glass of juice he brought her, knowing how fragile her composure was. The thought of losing control was terrifying, and Naomi might need her soon. Please God Naomi would need her, please God Naomi was alive.

Sam grabbed his phone and held it between them, and Nina could see how his hands were shaking too.

‘We’ve found the farmhouse. It’s near Millburn, to the north of Bedford,’ said David Mallony.

Nina’s heart began to race, thudding behind her ribs. She pressed both hands against her chest.

David continued. ‘It’s called Cummings Farm. The land was sold off years ago, and an elderly couple called Wilson have lived in the house for years. It’s fairly outlying, a long way to the nearest neighbours. Anyway, the people at the bottom of the lane noticed a pale green car going up and down to the farm yesterday, but it’s not there now. The Wilsons aren’t answering their phone, so we’re going in to check.’

‘I want to come too,’ said Nina immediately. This was important, the best lead they’d had, was she wrong to feel convinced this was where Naomi was? Or had been…

‘Nina, there are literally thousands of pale green cars in the area. At the moment this is no more weighty than any of the other leads from Wright’s computer,’ said David. ‘You can’t rush around checking everything yourself, you’d be exhausted in no time.’

‘I want to come,’ said Nina. ‘Please.’ She heard David Mallony sigh.