The Secret Child (A DI Amy Winter Thriller Book 2) Read online

  Lillian’s smile broadened as her words hit home. ‘She shouldn’t be in the police, not with her genes. It’s an insult to the victims.’ Leaning forward in her chair, she invaded Adam’s personal space. ‘Do you know she visited the families of Jack’s murder victims and said how sorry she was for their loss? What a cheek, knowing her father had killed their kids! And they call me dark.’ A gentle chuckle left her lips. ‘Believe me, you had a lucky escape.’

  Adam fought the urge to recoil as the sickly-sweet scent of deodorant vented from her body. ‘I can’t imagine news like that would go down easily.’

  Lillian snorted in response. ‘What they say about me – it’s all lies. I was in an abusive marriage. Jack was a monster who forced me to take part. I tried to get out, but back then Amy – or should I say Poppy? – told social services it was all my fault. Nobody would listen to me after that. And then the police set me up.’

  Adam’s mind reeled. Jack was a monster? A minute ago Lillian had been talking about how her husband would have loved to watch them in bed. Something was very off about this conversation. But Lillian’s story was a gift handed to him on a plate. Could he turn down such an opportunity?

  ‘It’s all documented,’ she said, catching the mistrust in his eyes. ‘One of the officers admitted to planting evidence. It’s been the basis for my appeal. My solicitor said we have to reverse all the bad publicity in the press. I don’t want the public to think I’m some kind of beast. I mean, look at me.’ Lillian smiled graciously. ‘Do I look like a monster to you?’

  Adam decided not to answer. True, in her tracksuit and trainers she did not appear threatening, but there was something chilling about her presence. So far, he was reluctant to believe a word that came out of her mouth. ‘So you’re after some positive publicity?’ he said, edging back in his seat.

  ‘It’s only fair you put my spin on things after all the damage you’ve done. And when it’s printed I want you to personally hand it to Amy. Those are my terms. I want you. Nobody else.’ She delivered a devilish smile. ‘Believe me, it’s juicy. You’ll be known as the journalist who got the inside story on Lillian Grimes. You could even write a book about it. What do you say?’

  ‘I need to speak to my boss,’ Adam said, but his thoughts were with Amy.

  ‘Shame she let you go for such a minor indiscretion,’ Lillian said, picking up on his contemplation. ‘If I were twenty years younger . . .’ Her eyes roamed his body. ‘Amy must be mad, fancying that DI Donovan instead of you.’

  Adam wanted to ask what she meant about DI Donovan, but he could not get away quickly enough. He checked his watch, feeling his skin crawl. ‘I’ll run things by my boss and let you know as soon as I can.’

  ‘Don’t delay,’ Lillian replied. ‘I’ve got stories that will make your hair curl.’

  ‘Right, I’d best be off,’ he said, eager to escape.

  Adam forced a smile before walking away. He had never been so desperate to be out of anyone’s company in his life. He wanted to have a shower. To scrub his face and hands. To get any semblance of that woman out of his thoughts. Yes, he relished the prospect of such a huge story, but it would mean spending more time in Lillian’s presence. What a horrible thought.

  A pang of regret prickled his conscience as his impulses played tug of war. Only now could he see why Amy had been so upset when he broke that last story on Lillian Grimes a few days after her father’s death. How hard it must have been, coming to terms with it all. And then he’d waded in, thinking only of himself.

  Still wrestling with his conscience, he left the building. Lillian had presented him with a fantastic opportunity that any other journalist would snap up. It was mind-blowing. But this would affect Amy’s career. What if she lost the respect of her colleagues – or, worse still, respect for herself? She wasn’t as strong as she led everyone to believe. Beneath that icy exterior lay the heart of a damaged, vulnerable little girl. And now he knew why. If he could not bear to sit in Lillian’s company for more than ten minutes, what had it been like being brought up by parents like the Grimeses? In that house, with bodies buried beneath the basement floorboards. Seeing her sister murdered before her own eyes. It did not bear thinking about.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, looking both ways before crossing the road. Lillian had said she would give him an exclusive. But why him? And that comment about Amy seeing someone else. It was obvious she wanted to twist the knife. Hadn’t Amy been through enough?

  Deep in thought, he mulled over his options, oblivious to the drizzle of rain. For once in his life he could be selfless – he owed her that much. ‘Easy come, easy go,’ he muttered. He would bury the story for Amy’s sake. It would never see the light of day.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Amy cast an eye over at the clock on the kitchen wall. As far as she was concerned, 2 a.m. was a perfectly respectable time to sit with a gin and tonic in hand. Outside, the wind howled a wintry chorus, but with the lights off and the radiators still warm, their kitchen was a cosy nook. Cast in the orange glow of the street lamps, Amy watched, entranced, as the rain fell in rivulets against the windowpane. It would have been hypnotic had she not so many thoughts racing around in her head. In times like these, with the world asleep and the dog curled up on her bed, Mr Gordon was the best solution to a long day.

  She tipped the bottle of gin towards her glass, topping it up with a measure of tonic until it was full to the brim. ‘Whoops.’ She chuckled, watching it slosh over the edges. Drawing the glass towards her, she took an unladylike slurp.

  ‘Oh! You frightened the life out of me.’ Flora’s left hand splayed across her chest as she switched on the kitchen light.

  Amy squinted as the flash of the sixty-watt lightbulb temporarily blinded her. Before her, Flora stood in her full-length white nightgown, a smearing of cold cream giving her face a deathly appearance.

  ‘You’re pretty bloody frightening yourself.’ An impromptu giggle escaped Amy’s lips. Her mother was the old-fashioned kind, out of place in the modern world.

  ‘Amy, don’t swear,’ Flora scolded, approaching her for a closer look. ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’ Amy took another swig from her glass. She usually tried not to drink on a work night, but she needed a respite from her thoughts. A wisp of a memory bloomed – her adoptive father sitting at this very table with a tipple of brandy, weary after a long day.

  ‘Is that why you’re sitting in the dark?’ Concern was etched on Flora’s face. ‘What’s happened?’ Taking a glass from the cupboard, Flora slid it across the table before pulling up a seat. Amy couldn’t help but smile. Her mother was always willing to keep her company, no matter what time it was.

  She sat in Flora’s presence, her worries tugging at her consciousness once again. ‘I’ve had a pig of a day. It started with the kidnapping of a four-year-old child and ended with her mother being poisoned.’ She rubbed the base of her neck, her shoulders stiff from hunching over her computer as she reviewed the investigation. Having exhausted their inquiries, Amy had sent her team home to get some sleep. With the custody clock ticking, Dr Curtis had been bailed pending further reports, and a search of his premises had turned up nothing new. Unfortunately for them, the iPhone seized at the address had been invaded by a virus that had wiped it clean.

  At least the phials seized should produce something of value, and they were awaiting lab results. But from whom did they originate? The so-called walking ghost of Luka Volkov, or the equally mysterious Dr Curtis? Some would say the doctor had been through hell, almost losing his wife and his child in one fell swoop. But how much of it was of his own making? Was he trying to silence Nicole before she implicated him in whatever he was trying to cover up? Having located one of Curtis’s ex-wives, Amy was pleased to discover she did not live far away. She would call round in the afternoon. And what about Luka Volkov? Would he ring her, as promised? The thought of him made Amy take another sip of gin.

  ‘I saw the appeal
on the telly,’ Flora said, cautiously eyeing her. ‘It was good. You didn’t look half as nervous as you used to.’

  ‘I’m getting plenty of practice.’ Amy drained her glass. She reached for the bottle of Gordon’s, a slight sway in her hand. Good. It meant she would get some sleep. ‘You know what really upset me?’ She gave her mother a knowing look as she topped her gin up with tonic. ‘Work, I can cope with – it’s my personal life that drives me to drink. Ever since that woman got in touch, memories of my childhood have come flooding back.’ Amy wasn’t talking about the comfortable time she had spent with her adoptive parents in their upmarket London home. Nor was she talking about the private education she had been granted or the numerous after-school clubs and trips out with friends. She was referring to a dark and seedy past. Violence that a four-year-old child should never witness, much less be able to comprehend. The scars were embedded deep in her psyche, along with the actions of Jack and Lillian Grimes.

  It was when Amy had been scrutinising Dr Curtis that she realised why she was so proficient in recognising the signs of fear. It was not from the hundreds of victims she had dealt with during her time in the police. It was from faces in her past, flashbacks of the victims dragged back to Jack and Lillian’s lair.

  She looked at Flora, her eyes glistening with emotion. ‘I can’t keep her out of my head. It’s got to the point where I hate going to bed at night.’

  ‘Oh.’ Flora’s voice was small as she cradled her glass. She didn’t need to ask Amy who she was referring to. ‘I’m sure things will improve with time.’

  An alcohol-induced smile played on Amy’s lips. Being both tipsy and annoyed was a novel emotion and she gave it free rein. ‘But it won’t. The more time passes, the more I remember. It sickens me to think I was there when . . . when . . .’ She hung her head as another flashback played on a loop. She was four-year-old Poppy Grimes, the palms of her hands sticky against the black leather seats of her father’s car. The radio playing ‘Living Doll’ on a scratchy frequency. Lillian emitting high-pitched laughter as the lyrics referred to locking someone up in a trunk. Amy could almost taste the boiled sweets her daddy had bought her for being a good girl and keeping quiet. She was their bait. A projection of innocence for lost souls wandering the streets.

  She could feel the judder of the car as it came to a halt by the kerb, hear the creak of the rusted car door as an unsuspecting young girl slid inside. A runaway, lured by the promise of a babysitting job and a roof over her head. The girl was hesitant, her hand still on the inside door handle as the car picked up speed. Then came the look Poppy had seen many times before. Eyes that burned with the need for reassurance. It’s going to be OK, isn’t it? But no reassurance was forthcoming. Poppy’s lips stayed tightly shut as she rolled her sweet over her tongue.

  Reaching across the table, Flora squeezed Amy’s hand, making her jerk away in response. ‘Maybe you should see a counsellor. You’ve been through so much. You can’t expect to deal with it on your own.’

  ‘And relive it all over again? No thanks.’ She gave her mother a watery smile, feeling guilty for snatching back her hand. No one else knew the gory details occupying her mind, and she was going to keep it that way. ‘I’m fine, it’s just the gin talking. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘You could talk to me . . .’ Flora looked at her dolefully. They both knew that she would not be able to deal with the horrors of Amy’s past. She bit her lip. ‘Or Adam. He came for a visit today.’

  ‘Adam? Ugh. And you let him in?’

  ‘What else could I do? I could hardly close the door in his face.’

  Flora had received many visitors since her husband’s passing, but this was one friendship that did not need cultivating. What was Adam up to now?

  ‘If Charles Manson called, would you let him in for a little chat?’ But Amy’s joke fell flat as she recalled her heritage. How could Flora bear to have the daughter of serial-killer parents beneath her roof at night?

  ‘He’s a sweet boy who made a mistake,’ Flora replied. ‘He still loves you, you know. He’d do anything to get you back.’

  ‘You call sleeping with someone else the night before our wedding a mistake?’ Curled up at her feet, Amy’s pug snored, having joined their conversation halfway through. Dotty would have been far more comfortable on her bed, but her beloved pet didn’t like to leave her side when she was at home. Amy took comfort in her presence, the warmth of her fur tickling her toes. Who needed a man with devotion like that?

  Flora toyed with her glass, having barely touched its contents. ‘He misses you. He wanted to check that you were all right.’

  ‘Proper little comrades-in-arms, aren’t you?’ Amy sighed as the visit played out in her mind: Adam wrapping Flora around his little finger as he tried to worm his way back in.

  ‘I’m sorry, love.’ Flora sighed. ‘All I want is for someone to look after you.’

  ‘I’m well able to look after myself.’ Knocking back the last of her gin and tonic, Amy rose unsteadily to her feet. But her words had been sharp and she caught the hurt expression on her mother’s face. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got you, haven’t I?’ she said softly.

  ‘And Sally-Ann,’ Flora added.

  It had not been easy telling Flora about Sally-Ann. Her mother had looked at her with a mixture of surprise and concern at the time. ‘But she’s dead,’ Flora had said.

  ‘That’s what everybody thinks,’ was Amy’s reply. ‘But Sally-Ann came to after Jack dumped her body that night. He thought she was dead. So did Lillian. They never spoke about her again.’

  Once Flora had got over the initial shock, she had insisted on meeting Amy’s biological sister. At first, Sally-Ann was nervous and, suspicious of Sally-Ann’s motives, Flora was a little cold. But after a heartfelt chat the two most important women in Amy’s life were soon acting like old friends.

  After depositing their glasses in the dishwasher, Amy lightly patted Flora on the back. With Amy, hugs were in short supply. With long-buried memories of her childhood working their way to the forefront of her mind, it was easy to see why – but she still loved her mum with all her heart. ‘Night night,’ was all she could think of to say.

  Waggling her rear end, Dotty followed Amy out of the door. Had he been alive, Robert would have been wary of Adam’s presence in their home. Right now, Amy missed her adoptive father so much it felt like a physical pain in her chest. Hoisting Dotty on to the bed, she stripped off her clothes and snuggled under the duvet, the faint tap of rain against her window lulling her to sleep. But her slumber provided little respite as her mind processed the day’s events in the form of a disjointed nightmare. Nicole Curtis, her blue-painted toenails poking out from behind the sofa. Ellen Curtis being dragged through a derelict house. Moaning in her sleep, Amy could hear the echoes of Ellen’s screams. At the end of a long, narrow corridor, her captor’s laughter was dark as they forced the child down basement steps. But the face of Ellen’s kidnapper was not that of Luka Volkov. It was Lillian Grimes.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Since moving in with her mother, Amy had already established her favourite haunts. The Hummingbird Bakery, where she met her sister once a week, as well as the Notting Hill Bookshop and the Ladbroke Arms pub, to name but a few. Then there were her mid-week trips to Portobello Market to stock up on fresh fruit. Her routine and her job underpinned her daily existence and kept her sane.

  ‘Don’t say I never give you anything.’ She gently laid a tray of freshly baked cupcakes on a table near the office door. The sugary snacks brought a much-needed morale boost; she had picked them up from the bakery on her way to work. Nicole Curtis’s poisoning had added an extra layer of intensity to the investigation and everybody was feeling the effects.

  ‘Red velvet, my favourite.’ Molly’s eyes were lit up as she plucked one from the tray. Her desk was awash with paperwork, as she preferred printing off investigation updates to reading them on-screen.

  ‘You deserve them.’ Amy took one
for herself. ‘If anyone would like to make a round of coffees to go with these, I won’t say no.’ She handed a cupcake to Paddy, casting an eye over the crossword-puzzle tie hung loosely around his neck. ‘How’s it going? Have you got five minutes to fill me in?’ It was quicker than reading through the vast number of updates uploaded to the system.

  ‘How are you doing? Lillian still hounding you?’ Paddy bit into his cupcake as he followed her. He was one of the few people she allowed an insight into her personal life. Given he was living with her sister, it was not something she could avoid.

  ‘Oh, you know, some people are just beautifully wrapped boxes of shit.’ Amy’s tone suggested that they should leave it there.

  Within a couple of minutes they were ensconced in her office, cups of coffee in hand. Her head was still spinning from last night’s nightmare. Mentally, she shut the door on her past and homed in on Paddy’s words.

  His update was as expected. Extra officers were being drafted in to assist with the groundwork, such as viewing CCTV and reviewing automatic number-plate recognition data. As for Luka . . . they may as well have been looking for a ghost. If he was alive, they had no evidence of it. It wasn’t as if they could exhume his body. Amy had printed off copies of the paperwork obtained and pinned them to the board in the briefing room. Luka and his mother had died in the fire and then been cremated before officials had the opportunity to examine their remains. And with little family to fight Luka and Sasha’s corner, their deaths had been quickly swept aside. The early cremation had been put down to a mix-up in paperwork at the time, but Amy was sceptical. Assuming Luka had escaped the fire, how had a six-year-old boy been able to fend for himself in a strange country after his mother’s death?

  ‘Where are we situated with the data on the seized phones?’ Amy asked, remembering how shifty Dr Curtis’s wife had been when she’d spoken to her at the house.

  ‘The iPhone was wiped clean. Nicole’s mobile is still with the tech department. If we’re lucky, we’ll have it back later today.’ He paused to finish his coffee. ‘Do you really think Curtis set all this up? Ellen, Nicole – it’s got to be connected. But why do it like this? It makes no sense.’