The Flower Girls Read online

‘OK’, Hillier says, raising her voice above the steady gun-fire sound of the rain drumming on the windows. ‘Mr Lamb, think carefully, please. Are there any other places you know of that Georgie might have crawled into? If she was exploring, could she have found a secret hiding place? The hotel’s so old, surely it has crawl spaces that might be attractive to a five year old?’

  ‘I’ve racked my brains,’ he says, his voice edging towards contained hysteria. ‘I’ve told you everywhere I can think of. The coal hole, I told you about. The outbuildings.’ He shakes his head, eyebrows pulled down deep together. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t think of anywhere else.’

  Hillier nods and squares her shoulders. ‘Right then,’ she says. ‘Let’s go and see Mr and Mrs Greenstreet.’ She turns to leave, pulling Ellis to one side. ‘In the meantime, run checks on all the staff’s and guests’ timings. Especially the sous-chef, Marek Kaczka. He’s the last person to have spoken to Georgie. And then I want to see all the hotel guests for a chat.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The rain continues its arrhythmic drumming as the police search the hotel. They bring the bitter wind inside with them, which mingles impudently with the warmth of the reception and the smell of pine needles. The piano ballad playing softly through the speakers is drowned out by their damp hustling. It is as if the legs of Balcombe Court have been shoved out from beneath it and now it lies flat on its back, struggling to right itself in the eye of the storm.

  Max Saunders watches the police from his observation point in an alcove a little way down the hall from the reception desk. He sits there with a whisky and ginger and a copy of The Times, studying the activity over the rims of his glasses.

  He looks on as the hotel staff usher the police through, under the medieval stone archways of the reception hall, into the lounge where velvet curtains hide the ice clouds outside, poised and waiting, thick and furred and cold.

  Balcombe Court.

  First a Saxon hall then a nest of the Bubonic plague, later a coaching inn then jewel of the English Riviera. And soon-to-be location of The Buccaneer’s Daughter. What was it his agent had called it? Historical fiction with a twist. Everything has to have a bloody twist these days, Max thinks, folding his paper and getting to his feet. Why, in God’s name, can’t he just write a good old-fashioned story and be thanked for it?

  He heads in the opposite direction from the police, into the billiards room where low lights do nothing to assuage the force of the Devon dark. He wraps his arms around himself, feeling the shape of his mobile phone in his shirt pocket. He should call home, speak to Alison. Wish them all a Happy New Year. It feels wrong though somehow, with the child missing. He looks at his watch. She’s been gone for three hours now. He feels sick at the thought of it.

  He paces around the billiards table, his glass dangling in his hand. Where are you, Georgie? Max thinks. Are you still alive, or are you floating somewhere in the deep cold waters of the Devon coastline, reaching down to the ghosts of pirates who lie on the bottom of the sea?

  He’s seen the little girl only a couple of times. She’s a spritely thing, always jumping around, never still. She has a younger brother, a chubby blond baby who always seems to be sucking on a piece of soggy toast. But Georgie is dark-haired with eyes like black almonds and a mouth like a red bow tied on top of a present. Her parents are nice enough, with the ubiquitous purple shadows under their eyes of those with very young children. They’ve got that anxious quality about them, Max has observed. Forever second-guessing which ornament Georgie might crash into or which tablecloth the baby might make a grab for. Parenthood seems to Max to be a constant attempt to corral the wind. He and Alison had been through it with Polly and Grace, but now the girls are teenagers and as condescending as alms-giving courtiers (them) to peasants (he and Alison).

  He shivers although the room isn’t cold and moves to the window for some reason, searching beyond his reflection into the cold of the night. He holds his hands up, fingers touching the glass, tracing the rain as it gushes down in an endless stream. He feels the warmth of his breath, the sound of his exhaling ominously calm. It is as if time has stopped for a millisecond. There is a fraction of silence in the midst of the rattling on the glass. It seems as though the downpour might have eased, that the weather has exhausted itself, turned in and gone back home. Then the sky is ripped from corner to corner, with a blistering light and a tearing sound.

  Now he understands.

  The ice comes slowly at first. Deliberate, with pointed teeth. It strikes the ground like spears. Max’s breathing catches as he watches it fall indiscriminately, shattering through the dark like crystal shards. He presses his fingers against the glass as if he’s reaching for outside, feeling for the cliff top where the coastguards search with their sweeping beams. He shuts his eyes briefly, flashes of his own daughters’ faces shooting through his mind, realising how desperate the situation is. Because if that little girl isn’t found soon, she will be dead.

  Trapped under frozen rain in the ice storm.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There is a faint bellow of foghorns on the wind. Then the sound of ships tussling with the waves, doing battle with the ice falling from the sky in sheets. The noise engenders a terrible sense of claustrophobia in Hazel and pinpricks of fear pinch at her as she and Jonny make their way down the staircase to the hotel lounge.

  Outside, a world of white that has transfigured the garden. Ice debris covers everything in sight. A water barrel resembles the bottom half of a snowman, and intricate webs of snow and remnants of hail are strung together like diamond necklaces between the bare branches of the apple trees.

  The tension in the air crackles like cellophane. But despite this the lounge clings bravely on to the mellifluous calm of a cosy room on New Year’s Eve. Hazel’s hand is clamped in Jonny’s. If she could shut her ears and ignore the sound of the storm, try and swallow down the fearful bile that burns in her throat, she might be able to pretend that this is all just as they’d planned, Jonny and she: a trip to Devon for her birthday, to the hotel where he’d come as a boy. Bringing Evie with them, hoping that the holiday would draw them closer together, because the fact that Hazel is only eleven years older than Jonny’s daughter is an itch everyone acknowledges but no one dares to scratch.

  Evie has followed them into the room, fully made up, tottering on heels that only a fourteen year old would wear for an interrogation by the police. Hazel and Jonny sit quietly on a love seat underneath one of the ice-battered windows. Balcombe Court is fully booked for New Year’s Eve. Forty guests have gathered, sombre and grave-faced. Before them stands Mr Lamb, hands linked behind his back, swaying to and fro on his feet, waiting for them and the staff to settle like birds onto branches at sundown.

  Max has wandered into the lounge from the billiards room. He fingers a packet of cigarettes in his trouser pocket and leans on a wall at the back, his eyes moving from staff member to guest, observing their muted anxiety, their nervous chatter. He is the first to notice DC Hillier when she enters, her notebook tucked away, her eyes bright and keen. She is in her late-forties, he surmises, with curly brown hair scraped back into a tight knot. Energy buzzes from her as she surveys the gathering, gazing at each of them as acutely as Max has done.

  ‘It is our view,’ she begins, ‘that Georgie Greenstreet is no longer in the hotel.’ She waits a second to let that sink in. ‘We’ve searched the building thoroughly but I’m afraid to say she still hasn’t been found.’ Hillier lifts her head towards the window as a crack of thunder splits the sky above. ‘As you can see – and hear – the weather is abominable. I’ve been told by the coastguard that the search will have to be abandoned until morning.’

  A wave of concern breaks through the room at this. A spark flies from the fire and lands on the rug by Hillier’s foot. She grinds it into the carpet with her black lace-up shoe, eyes never leaving her audience. ‘I know that you are eager to help in any way you can,’ she continues. ‘At present, however, there isn’t much
that can be done until daylight returns and the storm dies down. Right now, all we need is for you to provide myself and PC Ellis with your details and an approximation of your movements this afternoon and evening. Then all we can do is wait.’

  ‘How is Mrs Greenstreet?’ an elderly lady asks from a corner of the lounge. ‘The poor woman . . .’

  A sympathetic murmuring breaks out among the guests and Hazel grips Jonny’s hand, her thumb rubbing his in a compulsive pattern.

  ‘She is very grateful for your concern,’ Hillier answers. ‘And doing OK under the circumstances.’

  ‘Officer,’ a man in a colour-blocked rugby shirt cuts in. ‘Look, I’m ex-TA. The weather’s fierce, sure, but this is a little girl we’re talking about. You can’t call off the search. If she’s out there in this . . .’

  Hillier holds up her hands, palms facing out, to stop him talking. She looks calm but Hazel can see a gleam in her eyes. It’s an expression she recognises. A drive deep within, with tentacles so fierce and probing that they will reach into dark places, secret places that once were thought well hidden. It makes Hazel catch her breath, this look. At once she feels unutterably exhausted, beaten to the quick. She drops Jonny’s hand, feels him glance at her uneasily but cannot meet his eyes. It’s all she can do to remain upright and still, and try to keep invisible.

  ‘As I say,’ Hillier goes on, ‘we do appreciate your concern but we would ask that you do as we advise. We don’t want any more people outside, getting lost in this storm. It’s treacherous. Please leave the searching to the professionals. We would also request that no one departs from the hotel at present.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the man in the rugby shirt interrupts again. ‘Are you saying we can’t leave?’

  Hillier smiles at him. ‘The weather wouldn’t permit it in any event, sir. But I would ask that if you need to check out of the hotel tomorrow, you do so only after you have been questioned and provided us with full contact details.’

  Hazel’s hand searches again for Jonny’s and clutches it tightly.

  Hillier looks around the room, taking in their faces one by one. ‘Right then,’ she says brightly. ‘PC Ellis and I will call you in one at a time. Thank you.’

  As she spins round and leaves, Max is reminded of a soldier and wonders briefly if Hillier is ex-military. He studies the guests as they sink back into random disquiet. The man in the rugby shirt is gesturing to his wife, a disgusted look on his face. A group of older women sitting together in a huddle seem close to tears. The couple on the window seat are motionless and silent. Their teenage daughter appears bored by the whole occasion, chewing gum and studying her fingernails.

  Something about the woman by the window seems familiar although Max can’t place what. It niggles at him like a prickle on his skin. There is an almost childlike quality about her, the way she clings to the man beside her. She’s pretty but with the kind of delicate, petite appearance that he has never found wholly attractive. She’s got a freckled, snub nose and dark brown hair cut like a boy’s. But her eyes are those of a Cinecittà heroine and her lips have the warm, pendulous pout of an Ingrid Bergman. She seems sweet, a slight person; the type Alison would immediately pin down as a girly girl.

  Alison is very much the opposite of a girly girl, with her Scandinavian genes and her strong-boned looks of a milkmaid. She’ll be at the farm in Coventry now. He looks at his watch. They’ll be sitting down to dinner, Alison raising her eyebrows if she sees his number light up on the screen of her phone. She’d probably show it to Rachael, and her sister would give her a sad look, rub her arm and pour her more wine. His name will be mud there tonight.

  He’s said sorry a thousand times. Explained that if he doesn’t meet his deadline, he won’t get his money. And then they’ll be late on the school fees and that will incur a penalty. And, no, he can’t write at Alison’s parents’ farmhouse because it will be filled to the rafters with a horde of family members, yelling and arguing at all hours of the day and night, and he unable to hear himself think. Despite the (tax-deductible) expense, he has to come to Balcombe to write here, where The Buccaneer’s Daughter is set. It was all obvious to him, but unfortunately not to Alison, who sets family above all other concerns, including, it appears, keeping a roof over said family’s head.

  And so, on the day after Boxing Day, Max packed his case and hoisted his laptop bag over his shoulder and took the three trains required to travel from the terraced house he and Alison live in just outside Birmingham to this remote edge of Devon. Now he sighs, abandoning the pointless rehashing of it all. He feels for his cigarettes again and decides to brave the freezing cold for a smoke.

  Hazel barely notices him go; she sees nobody else in the room, so immersed is she in her thoughts. She stares down intently at her thumb circling Jonny’s, over and over again.

  That look.

  That look the policewoman had given her right before she left. It’s a look that takes Hazel straight back to the old canal path.

  And, at once, it is as if a chasm has opened up beneath her, and all the castles in the air she has built over the years – with Jonny, with her job, her colleagues – are minutes away from being dashed to smithereens. Like the pirate vessels on the rocks down from the headland where the hotel sits, her treasures will be discarded, tossed out, picked over . . . and then the vilification will begin.

  And Jonny. Is he brave enough for this? Can he see it as she can, what’s to come? She stays small and tight, curled up like cigarette paper, her heart warm and beating, but damaged. She comes to this place tonight with all of that inside her. But Jonny? He can’t understand what it’s like. How can he? Can he really know that he will stay, when everything is out in the open, trickling down, carving its mark in the rocks forevermore?

  That look.

  Down in the gully behind the garden.

  By the willow trees above the bank, spouting leaves onto the ground like a lime-green fountain. The far-off laughter of children running in the playground, the sun on their faces, wind in their hair.

  That’s the look that started it all. The look that meant everything from then on must be hidden. Tucked away in secret.

  Her secret.

  Her past.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The guests file one by one into the room where Hillier and Ellis sit behind a stack of paper and two cooling cups of coffee. They sit down. Some are nervous, some brash. Most of them have inexplicable guilt washed over their complexions, a desperate need to convince Hillier that they are not the ones responsible, that they have not taken the child.

  Hillier recognises this misplaced reaction from the fifteen years she has spent on the force and the seven years before that serving as a lawyer in the Royal Navy Court Martial. She knows it well: that foreign and dirty beast that comes unwarranted to the entirely innocent because – and this is the bit she has never completely understood – it actually represents the thoughts these people are beyond relieved never to have acted on themselves. Hillier is certain that criminal impulses lurk unbidden in everyone. But it is only the people who act on those impulses that guilt can claim as its victims. The rest of us feel it but shake it off, thankful to God, or whatever it is that guides our moral compass, that we are able to control it.

  Thus Hillier is confident that most of the guilty-looking guests who come before her and Ellis have no knowledge of what has happened to Georgie Greenstreet.

  Most of them.

  There are two, however, who interest her.

  The first is the sous-chef, Marek Kaczka. It is now nearly midnight, and the witching hour, compounded by the fact that it is New Year’s Eve, means normal response time at Brixham police station is slower than usual with a skeletal overtime budget meaning a skeleton staff. The rest of her colleagues will be tied up dealing with the drunken fights and skirmishes that dominate proceedings this time of year. Instinctively, Hillier feels that Kaczka will have a record, some kind of infraction in his past, but she is not going to be able
to trace that tonight. So she bides her time and leaves him to sweat a bit. She interviews him cursorily, suspecting that anything he says will be tainted with untruths in any event.

  Her second point of interest is the petite, pretty woman who comes into the room with her partner and can’t look Hillier in the eye.

  Hazel Archer.

  Something in her face is familiar to Hillier. It buzzes at her, exasperatingly out of reach, like a troublesome fly. The woman has an unusual quality about her. Hillier can’t tell what it is. Either she is entirely cold, or she has buttoned up her feelings and is in fact completely paralysed by fear. She and her partner, Jonny Newell, claim to have been together all afternoon, either as a couple or with his fourteen-year-old daughter, Evie. They arrived at the hotel yesterday morning and today is Hazel’s birthday. They have come here to celebrate that, and the New Year, and they are terribly, awfully worried about Georgie and where she could be.

  But something in all that they say rings hollow for Hillier. A glimmer in Hazel Archer’s eyes sparks a feeling in her. It’s an instinct born of hundreds of nights spent dealing with drunks and tramps and burglars, sifting through them to find those people who are truly worthy of her attention: the real criminals. Hillier has refused any promotion up the ranks, has deliberately remained as Detective Constable for the majority of her career. And the reason for that decision is because this exact moment, that dances around her now, is what thrills her, rare as it is. She can leave management evaluations to her superiors, along with budget concerns and staffing problems. As DC, her chief responsibility is to get to a crime scene first and this is the moment she relishes. That flash in time when a hunter trains her rifle sights on an animal quivering in the bush. When she faces the mask of innocence and knows, right down to the marrow in her bones, that it is a lie. Whether Hazel Archer is guilty of the disappearance of Georgie Greenstreet is yet to be determined. But Hillier can feel that Archer is, without a doubt, guilty of something.