Her Deadly Secret. Chris Curran

to inspect something on the path. Anything to stay away from her.

      She spoke as soon as he came in again. ‘Have you had a chance to talk to Hannah yet? Since yesterday?’ Leave it vague, don’t close off any options.

      He looked straight at her for once. ‘What do you think?’

      ‘Well, what about the boyfriend? Have you had any thoughts?’

      ‘I suppose if you could find her phone …’

      They hadn’t. Lily had texted her mum on that last morning to say she’d arrived safely at school, like she did every day. That seemed a bit OTT – Loretta could imagine what her kids would say if she asked them to do that. And in the end, it didn’t keep her safe, did it? The phone had been turned off after the text. They knew Lily had been at school all morning and for afternoon registration, but from then on no one had seen her. Apparently, her mum started worrying at about 5.30 when she couldn’t raise her on her mobile. Not surprising, as the girl was dead by then.

      She asked him about Monique and, apparently, she only lived in the next street. It might be worth trying to beat Davis to it by popping round there now. There was probably nothing to do here until Hannah woke up.

      There was a bad smell outside the house where some bunches of chrysanthemums had gone past their best. She wondered why people didn’t see how dreadful plastic-wrapped flowers looked propped up against walls and lamp posts once the dirt and damp of the streets had got to them.

      It was a relief to head along the street, although the whole area was looking grim in the bright sunshine. This was one of the council estates where they’d sold off a lot of properties in the 1980s, but many of the houses were now short-term rentals. Monique was at school, of course, but her mum, leaning on the side of her open front door, was keen to talk.

      ‘He’s one of that Children of Light lot. Never saw him myself and I don’t think my Mon has either, but his name’s Samuel, according to my neighbour.’

      Loretta looked behind her at the sound of a car drawing up, but it was only a delivery van for a house across the road. She needed to hurry this woman along, before any of Davis’s crew got here. ‘But he doesn’t go to Monique and Lily’s school, I gather. Is he older than them?’

      The woman shook her head. ‘Don’t think so. Monique’s friend saw him and told Mon that he looked about their age, but I think that Children lot teach the kids themselves, don’t they?’

      ‘Homeschooling? Yes, that would make sense. So do you know Samuel’s surname?’

      ‘Well, you’ve got me there, love. Barnes, was it? Something like that. No wait. On second thoughts, it was Barnet. Yes, I’m sure it was, cos I remember thinking it was the name of a place in London. But then so is Barnes. You could ask my neighbour, but she’s at her son’s for a couple of days.’

      At last she got away and called Davis, but he said he’d already sent someone to talk to Lily’s friends in school and they’d get the boy’s exact name – no bother.

      Still, she decided to go back to the station. With Hannah asleep she was wasting her time here.

       Chapter Five

       Joe

      Joe waited until Loretta’s car turned the corner then headed down the back garden to the gate at the end that led to the lane and the garages. They’d taken his van and Hannah’s little Fiat away, ‘just to eliminate them from the inquiry’, but had returned the car already. Hannah loved that car and, while his van had to sit on the drive in front of the house, she insisted on keeping the Fiat in the garage. He was always on at her to let him use the garage for a workshop, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Now he was glad because no one was likely to notice him leaving.

      He couldn’t sit about doing nothing any longer. The police weren’t telling him anything and Hannah wasn’t talking to him, but he had to find out about this so-called boyfriend of Lily’s.

      The Children of Light, stupid name, had its headquarters in an old farm, fifteen miles or so out of town. Seeing the fields flash by, and the white and purple flowers hanging off the roadside verges, he began to breathe more easily and was able to lean back into the headrest. With the window open to let in the breeze and the sun sparkling over the countryside it felt almost as if nothing had happened. His hand even hovered for a minute over the radio. He always used to listen to music when he drove. But that was before and he bit the inside of his mouth till it hurt, fighting the urge to say the name that circled endlessly in his head. Lily, Lily, Lily. Oh Lily, love, I’m so sorry.

      As the farm came closer the memories of his last drive here flooded in. The day he went to pick them up, all those years ago – Hannah and little Lily. His stomach had been churning, in case Hannah had changed her mind about leaving. He knew they’d been pulling out all the stops to persuade her to stay. Or maybe that arsehole, Jerome, the pastor as he called himself, would make it difficult. Joe hated confrontations, never knew what to say and always wanted to hit out, but that was exactly what the slimy bastard wanted.

      In the end, it had turned out wonderful, of course. Hannah was already waiting at the end of the drive, holding Lily’s hand, their two little bags beside them. When Lily raised her arms to be picked up and pressed her damp lips to his cheek, he thought his heart would burst.

      And then Hannah said, with a special smile at him, ‘Daddy’s taking us home, baby.’ How great that sounded. Especially when she gripped his knee and smiled again, her grey eyes all crinkled and her chin set as if to stop herself crying.

      Then Lily, in the new child seat he’d just fitted, began to sing. ‘The wheels on the bus go wound and wound.’

      That particular memory – her little voice so happy – was one he’d always treasured. But now … Stop it, just stop it.

      He parked in a quiet spot a few yards down the road from the driveway. Didn’t want to alert them, or be seen by the police if they were there, but he felt shaky and exposed in the sunshine as he walked up the track to the house.

      It was surrounded by fields, and a couple of the brethren, as they called themselves, were loading a tractor in the distance. One of them waved at him – they always made a big thing of being friendly.

      The porch was cluttered with boots and gardening tools, and a few chickens scratched in the dirt. He knocked on the immense front door and a girl came out, wiping her hands on the apron they all seemed to wear. She was thin as a rail, but her smile beamed.

      ‘Good morning, brother, how can I help?’ The standard greeting, yes, he recalled that too.

      ‘I want to see Pastor Jerome, please.’ He tried to make his voice pleasant.

      She looked around. ‘Can you wait?’

      After five minutes he lost patience. Avoiding the door the girl had gone through, he opened the one opposite – a big empty room with a couple of sofas and lots of easy chairs. The next two doors were cupboards, one full of cleaning stuff, another stacked with books and leaflets. Finally, an office, and there he was – Jerome. He looked a bit older, a bit balder, but otherwise much as Joe remembered, more like a businessman than a religious leader in his white shirt and blue tie.

      He looked up from the laptop he was using with a calm, ‘Yes?’

      Before Joe could speak, the girl he’d seen earlier rushed in only to make a sudden stop when she saw him, her hands at her mouth. She was followed by a plump older woman, who put her arm around the girl’s waist. Both women made a gesture that looked almost like a curtsy and the girl began to mutter, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ sounding close to tears.

      The older woman hushed her and turned to Joe. ‘You were asked to wait, brother.’

      Jerome