Grey Stones
Joss Stirling

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Copyright © Joss Stirling 2021

Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Joss Stirling asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008422677

Ebook Edition © February 2021 ISBN: 9780008422660

Version: 2021-03-03

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Acknowledgments

Thank you for reading…

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About the Author

Also by Joss Stirling

One More Chapter...

About the Publisher

To Jamie and Clare

‘Silent, remote, for ages,

Weather beaten and grey,

Army and knights and King Stone

Have stood there to this day.’

The Rollright Stones: History & Legends in Prose and Poetry, F.C. Rickett

Chapter One

The Rollright Stones stood in their three-thousand-year-old circle waiting for the February sun to rise. Mist wound between them, slinking close to the ground. Muffled in a heavy coat, scarf and hood, a lone figure stood in their midst, as still as the limestone rocks. Some stones were as tall as a man, some huddled close to the earth like creeping beasts. No one ever managed to count their number the same twice because where one rock began and another ended was hard to fathom. Legend said they were the army of an ambitious king turned to stone, a punishment for his overweening ambition. His stone stood alone across the road on the next rise, frozen in place by a witch’s curse.

Or that was what the folk tale said.

The visitor now moved, turning slowly to revel in the silence after days of so much noise. This circle always drew you back, lodged inside you once visited. It was a place between things at this bleakest time of the year. A place of resolution. If you faced away from the road behind the trees, quiet at this hour, you could see was the sweep of the Swere Valley. That way lay Oxfordshire. Behind you, sprawled Warwickshire, birthplace of that critic of kings, William Shakespeare. The stones marked the border between the two counties, as well as the watershed between the Severn and the Thames. They divided kingdom from kingdom. Past and present. Living and dead.

The sun crept over the horizon, flushing the sky pink. If you stood here at the spring equinox, that light would fall straight through the hole bored on one of the circle rocks. Lying down, humbling yourself, to look through it, you would discover that it lined up like a rifle sight with another monument. This was a cluster of megaliths called the Whispering Knights, a field away, leaning in to plot treason, a second crime scene. The two stone clusters might seem unconnected but the traitors had also been hit by the witch’s curse – though that seemed unfair if their plans had been laid against a king who deserved petrification.

The grey stones could be read as monuments to ambition, betrayal, and collateral damage. The watcher walked back to the car. It had been an excellent place to come to terms with murder.

Chapter Two

Leo

What was the worst that could happen, wondered Leo, when he introduced Jess to his university friends? She could hate them. They could hate her. Being locked away for three days in a lakeside retreat would be an intense introduction to his old circle – some of whom, to be honest, he no longer knew that well. One of whom he had never even liked.

He flicked the indicator and pulled out to overtake a green-clad cyclist, giving her plenty of space. So why was he doing this? He found relationships like playing blind man’s buff in a field of open mine shafts: he never knew when he was going to make an irreversible misstep. He supposed he had agreed to bring Jess because he was trying hard to be more open with his girlfriend of two months, having had other relationships founder on the rock of his introverted nature. He wanted Jess to get on with them, particularly Freddie, Lauren, and Rainbow; but now he came to think of it, this was a huge gamble.

He glanced in the driver’s mirror, wondering if there was still time to do a U-turn and head back to Oxford. He could always say work had called him away. Life as a detective inspector in Thames Valley was never predictable so the excuse would be entirely believable. However, there was a Range Rover right on his tail, making a sudden brake impossible, and maybe Jess would think he was ashamed of her?

Relax, Leo. It was only for a weekend, he reminded himself. There was lots to do at the clubhouse if the lakeside cottage got too much. The two of them could always escape for walks in the Cotswolds countryside if it was really going badly. This was a beautiful spot even at the tail end of winter – rolling green hills, little woods, and clusters of thatched cottages and limestone churches. No wonder so many of the rich and powerful, from former prime ministers to media stars, chose to live and socialise around here.

A sigh came from his companion. It seemed he was not the only one anxious about the reunion. Jess was staring out as the frosted lanes zipped by. Bare oaks stood sentinel in scraped fields. Sheep huddled around feeding troughs. Brown hedges. Little birds seeking refuge. She pulled down the mirror in the sunshade and he saw her frowning at her reflection. Not that Leo could see anything wrong: Jess had a sweetly rounded face, shoulder-length blonde hair, currently kept back by Art Deco butterfly slides from the V&A exhibition they’d gone to last month. She had curves under her powder-blue lambswool jumper that he knew to be soft and inviting. All this packed into a small frame. She was only a few inches over five foot and refused to own up to exactly how many. His professional guess was three.

‘What if they take against me?’ she asked.

‘They won’t.’ Leo slowed for a junction as a supermarket lorry made a slow turn.

‘They will. I didn’t go to that fancy schmancy college of yours.’

‘You’ve got a master’s in Psychology from UCL. You’re probably the most academic among us.’

‘But I didn’t live in a castle while I did it, eating dinners in a hall that looks like Hogwarts.’

‘Castle is just like an Oxford college. You’re used to that, aren’t you?’

‘As a humble member of the admin staff.’ Jess worked in the Development Office of St Nicholas’ College, a temporary job while she established her missing persons agency as a going concern. Work had picked up lately, but she’d not yet felt brave enough to swap a reliable income for that of the self-employed.

‘Jess, you’re doing it again.’

‘Doing what?’ She nibbled on her bottom lip.

‘Playing down your own success. You got me to read Lean In. I know the signs of female disempowerment,’ he teased. Jess had been going through a Me Too self-education phase. Leo thought that a lot of quiet men like him could learn from it as well.

She perked up at the mention of the book on women in positions of power. ‘You think I just need to “lean in” to your friendship group?’

‘I think you just need to be yourself. They’ll love you.’

‘Aw.’ She smiled now at her reflection and snapped the sunshade back up in place. ‘Inspector George, I can’t wait to get you in our four-poster bed tonight. I think it’s my turn to be in charge?’

He grinned at that. ‘Only for round one.’

‘You’re on.’

Perhaps the weekend wasn’t going to be so bad after all?

They drove through the estate gates, following the gravel road past the stately home that was now the clubhouse, and drew up outside one of the lakeside cottages at eleven, an hour later than the agreed arrival time. Jess had inevitably been running behind when he collected her, caught up arranging for a willing neighbour to dog-walk her spaniel, Flossie. This meant Leo and Jess had missed the start of the weekend’s activities.

Jess’s mouth dropped open at the prospect before them. ‘This is a cottage? Sure you’ve got the right address?’ She wriggled out of her seat, grabbed her phone and opened the maps app.

Leo got out his side. ‘Definitely the right place. And I guess it is a cottage – just a super-sized one.’ Leo began laughing, as surprised as she was. The online photos hadn’t done justice to the scale of the place. It looked like a Nordic log cabin, but huge – more of a feasting hall – complete with a decking area that jutted out over the lake. Smoke rose from the two chimneys either end of the building. ‘I hope this gives me boyfriend points?’

‘You bet! You didn’t tell me it was one of those Birbeck clubs! Oh, my God: listen to this! “Stay in one of our luxury lakeside lodges, or in our woodland cabins. Then enjoy the five-star amenities in our clubhouse, where you can choose from our three restaurants, bar, casino, library, games room, swimming pool and spa.”’ She gave him a hug, then did a little boogie with her phone. ‘You’ve set me up with my dream, Leo. I know the Birbeck brothers have the reputation in the media as pretty ruthless business moguls but you have to admit that they know how to do luxury.’

Her delight made everything feel so much better. ‘I live to please my lady.’ Three cars and a club van were already parked outside their one. ‘Come on – I think we might be the last to arrive.’

‘I’ll murder your friends if they’ve stolen the four-poster.’ She grinned up at him. ‘I know that’s not fair, what with you being a murder cop and all, but I’m just saying. Prepare to arrest me.’

Leo got their case out of the back of the car. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t need to crack out the handcuffs. It was all agreed in advance.’

She pretended to be disappointed. ‘When we get home then?’

He laughed. Only Jess.

‘How can we afford this, Leo? Are your friends loaded?’ Her worried look had returned.

He shook his head. ‘Not really, but the manager of the club is a good friend of Freddie and Lauren. Rebecca – we’ll probably meet her too. It’s low season so she’s been able to upgrade us.’

‘So who’s sleeping where?’

‘Freddie and Lauren are at the far end. Janice and Phil are with us down this side, each taking one of the twin bedrooms. That leaves us the last double.’

‘We’ll have a view out over the water? Fabulous.’ They paused to take in the lake with its mercury-tinted surface, fringed by willows and brown sedge. Two swans flew overhead with their strangely squeaky wings. They skimmed the lake to land on the far side.

Leo held out a hand. ‘Ready to face them?’

She took it in hers and squeezed. ‘I’m sticking to you like glue.’

They went up the short flight of steps to the decking area by the front door. A jumble of walking boots already lay there. Leo opened the door and they walked straight into a noisy gathering around the dining table in a high-ceilinged living area. It occupied the centre of the lodge, going the whole height to the rafters, dividing the two bedroom areas from each other. The smell of bacon and coffee hit, making his mouth water. The counter that divided the dining area from the space-age kitchen was covered with breakfast dishes. A chef in a white hat was tossing pancakes over a steaming stove. A waiter in a green uniform ferried the food to the guests. An auburn-haired woman restocked plates of pastries and fruit – that was Freddie and Lauren’s friend, Rebecca.

‘Leo! You made it!’ Freddie bounded up from his place at the head of the table, almost spilling his orange juice in his hurry. Fortunately, Lauren was on hand to catch it. ‘And you must be Jess!’ He arrowed towards them, looking as fit as ever, his friendly blue eyes twinkling. The main difference from the rowing-mad twenty-year-old Leo best remembered from college was the receding nut-brown hair and slight softening about the jaw. Freddie wasn’t bald yet, but was certainly baring more of his forehead to the battering of time.

‘Sorry we’re a little late,’ Leo said, wincing slightly as Freddie gave him an enthusiastic hug. His friend had the energy of a Golden Retriever. ‘Jess, this is Freddie Forrester.’

‘I’d quite despaired of ever getting you to one of our bashes, Leo,’ Freddie declared, giving him an extra squeeze. ‘I’m so pleased the new lady changed your mind about that.’ He turned to Jess. ‘May I?’ He held out his arms.

Unlike Leo, Jess was the hugging kind so didn’t turn him down. ‘Nice to meet you, Freddie.’

Freddie broke away and beamed. ‘I like this one. We’ll try not to do anything to scare her off.’ He linked his arm in Jess’s and moved her to the table. ‘Jess, this is my wife, Lauren.’

Lauren greeted Jess. She still had her pale, elfin face, though she had chopped off the long hair of her twenties to a sleek bob, longer at front so it emphasised her cheeks by coming to a point either side. A straight fringe set off her dark-blue eyes. Slim to the point of painfulness, Leo found it hard to imagine she was the mother of three young children.

‘Hello, Lauren. What have you done with the children?’ he asked, accepting a kiss on the cheek.

‘At the grandparents’, no doubt being spoiled rotten,’ said Lauren.

‘Our tribe,’ said Freddie proudly. ‘Three children in eighteen months. What were we thinking, Lauren?’

‘Well, I certainly wasn’t thinking “twins” the second time around.’ She smiled up at Leo. ‘You’ve hardly changed, Leo – it’s not fair. Portrait in the attic? It’s so lovely to see you again. I was just saying to Janice that it’s been too long.’

Leo felt a little tightening in the pit of his stomach. First mineshaft. He’d meant to mention to Jess that an old girlfriend from college days was going to be at the weekend but had never found the right moment. To say something might’ve made it sound like it meant too much and now it was too late. He turned to his old flame who was sitting at the other end of the table. Her beauty hit him afresh. Had he really ever dated someone who looked like that?

‘Janice, how are you?’ he asked, aware he sounded a little too formal.

She gave him a wave. ‘Good, but jet-lagged.’ Her voice had a transatlantic drawl these days. ‘I flew in from LA yesterday and I’ve still not adjusted.’

Janice, an actress, was now building a career in American TV. She wore her black hair in a long, sleek mane curled over one shoulder. Big gold hoop earrings brushed shoulders bared by the boat neckline of her white top, a stunning contrast with her dark skin. She didn’t look the least tired. She looked catwalk ready.

‘This is Jess,’ Leo said gamely. He didn’t hold out much hope that the two women would like each other. They were too different.

‘Hello, Jess. I googled you.’ Janice popped a strawberry in her mouth. ‘When I heard you were coming.’

Jess’s hand twitched in his grasp as if she was thinking of running. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. There was some embarrassing stuff about her if you dug deep online, as well as the more recent involvement in a number of murder cases in Thames Valley. How much had Janice found out? Leo wondered.

‘I hope the pictures were flattering?’ Jess tried a brave smile.

‘They made you look younger.’ Janice dabbed her mouth with the napkin. ‘Missing Persons Agency? Is that, like, a job?’

‘Trying to make it into one,’ Jess said, leaning forward in a parody of their remarks in the car. Leo smiled. She was up to this battle.

‘Good for you.’ Janice flicked her wrist towards her breakfast buddy. ‘Phil, aren’t you going to say “Hello” to Leo and Jess?’

Leo steeled himself. He and Phil Harwood had never got on, even at college when they sometimes played squash together. They were the two remote planets either end of this solar system with Freddie, Lauren, Janice, and Rainbow in the middle, holding them together. ‘Good to see you again.’

Phil just nodded, barely looking at him.

Freddie clapped his hands. ‘Enough with the introductions. We’ve a whole weekend to get to know Jess. Pull up a chair and dig in before Phil and I eat all the pancakes.’

Jess wisely chose a chair next to Freddie. Leo sat next to her, which put him opposite Phil and closest to Janice. Not ideal but it was the only seat open next to Jess and he’d promised not to abandon her.

‘Where’s Rainbow? Isn’t she coming?’ Leo asked Janice. Rainbow was the one he was hoping Jess would really take to. She had developed to be very much like her fanciful name, always shining in cloudy moments, relentlessly optimistic and finding a kind word for everyone.

‘We’re going on a walk to meet her after breakfast,’ Janice said. She had the oddest ability to sound bored by herself and the person she was talking to. A sigh never seemed far off. ‘She’s driven here in a motorhome but they don’t have permission to park it on the club grounds.’

Leo selected a croissant from under the heavy white napkin that kept it warm. ‘Are you saying she’s finally living her dream of being on the road?’

Janice sipped her fizzy water. ‘Seems so. She’s got together with Lloyd. You remember him, Lloyd Rumbold? Freddie and Lauren’s Lloyd?’

Leo had a clear and not very positive recollection of the city broker who was a friend of Freddie and Lauren’s. After Durham, their close-knit college friendship group had been diluted with new additions from London, Lloyd foremost amongst them. Leo had met Lloyd at various dinner parties and clubs, always in the company of his old friends, never by choice. He couldn’t see the man’s attraction, never sought him out as a friend, finding him too brash and self-confident.

‘Rainbow and Lloyd? How did that happen?’ he asked.

‘The usual – Lauren and Freddie matchmaking again.’

Leo couldn’t think of a worse fit than Rainbow. Lloyd had joined their social circle in the early days of the Durham graduates all starting their first jobs, leaving the north of England for life in the capital. Leo was an exception, opting to join the police and train in Thames Valley, something they all teased him about for years. Of the new London friends, louder-than-life Lloyd had been known to splash his money around and brag about his earnings on the stock market. At that age (mid-twenties), there had still been that feeling that they were all really playing at being grown-up, half expecting a responsible adult to come in and tell them to behave. That moment had never come so they’d grown used to these new versions of themselves. Low-paid civil servant Freddie had been in awe of bullyboy Lloyd and that, Leo had often thought, was the real source of their friendship – Freddie as acolyte to Lloyd’s sun king. From everything Leo remembered, Lloyd didn’t seem the sort to live in a motorhome.

‘Isn’t he something in the city?’ asked Leo. ‘Where does the motorhome fit in?’

Janice laughed, throwing back her head with sensual abandon. He suddenly pictured her doing the same at eighteen and twenty-one – a disconcerting time-slip moment.

‘Of course it doesn’t fit with old Lloyd. But new Lloyd?’ said Janice archly. ‘He’s given it all up to find himself, if you can believe that?’

Phil, who had been eavesdropping, snorted and refilled his cup of coffee from the pot without offering it to anyone else.

‘Struggling,’ admitted Leo.

‘He’d fit right in in California,’ Janice smirked. ‘The new, bohemian, vegan-preaching Lloyd won’t come here, so we have to go to them. They’re parked up by the Rollright Stones, having bunged fifty quid at the farmer, living the good life, so I hope you’ve got your walking shoes with you?’

‘We have. But isn’t that taking principles a bit far?’

She shrugged. ‘I thought you were a detective. You should know it’s more complicated than that.’

Leo had little time for Lloyd’s complications. ‘Tell me, Janice, how’s the acting career going?’ he asked, changing the subject to safer territory.

Chapter Three

Jess

If Janice threw her head back and laughed in that orgasmic way one more time at the slightest joke from Leo, I was liable to do something drastic.

Stabbing a piece of blueberry pancake on the end of my fork, I shovelled it in and chewed vigorously to stop myself saying anything. Leo had neglected to mention that among the guests this weekend would be one of the most beautiful women in the world. I’d seen her on TV – not that I was going to tell her that – in an American series called Ann Droid, which you could find if you dug deep in the Netflix menus. As the title suggested, this was a programme about human-looking robots. She wasn’t the lead droid – Ann – but she played one of her best friends, another AI construct called Ava (short for avatar). It had run to three seasons and I’d found it thanks to the algorithm deciding my life for me.

Because you watched Westworld, why not try…

Who was the machine-controlled person in that transaction? Faced with such competition, my heart was down in my boots, jumbled up like the ones on the porch.

‘How did you meet Leo, Jess?’ asked Freddie.

Our first meeting had been over the dead body of a college bursar and I’d not been wearing any clothes at the time, just a few sheets of newspaper. With great difficulty, I restrained my usual urge to blurt out too much detail.

‘We met on a crime scene.’ I leant back to make room for my cup and thanked the waiter for the cappuccino he’d made for me.

‘It’s hard to imagine him as a serious policeman.’ Freddie’s smile turned thoughtful. ‘I always thought him too gentle for that line of work.’

‘But if you know Leo well, you’ll be aware that there’s a toughness to him. He’s a perennial, not an annual.’

Freddie chuckled. ‘Yes, he’s survived the frost. So nice to see him talking to Janice again.’

It really wasn’t. ‘Hmm.’

‘They didn’t get on very well for years after she ended things.’ – What? – ‘More pancakes, Jess?’

Lauren must’ve caught my deer-in-headlights expression. ‘Freddie, I think you might’ve put your foot in it.’

‘What’ve I done now?’ He looked around in all innocence.

‘I don’t think Jess knew – about Leo and Janice.’

Why didn’t I know?

‘Oh, that?’ Freddie waved it away. ‘Ancient history. It must be… what, fifteen years ago? I mean, I had wondered if they might… but you’re on the scene now and clearly he’s very happy with you.’ He beamed at me. ‘Another pancake?’

‘Er, no, thanks, I think I might unpack.’ I picked up my cappuccino to stage a strategic retreat while I came to terms with this new information. ‘Which room are we staying in?’

Freddie beckoned the manager. ‘Rebecca, this, as you’ve probably guessed, is Jess. Jess, Rebecca.’ He gave what was clearly another old friend a one-armed hug. ‘It’s all thanks to Rebecca that we’ve got these classy digs for the weekend. I keep asking her to sit down with us but she’s always on duty.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get her drunk later and make her relax.’

This had to be the woman Leo had mentioned, the friend of Lauren who had got us the discount. I gave her a friendly smile.

‘I’m off tomorrow,’ Rebecca said, patting Freddie’s shoulder. ‘Just let me do my job for now.’

‘We’ll keep you to that. Would you be an angel and show Jess to her room?’

‘Of course, Freddie.’ She helped me up by moving my chair back so I didn’t spill the coffee.

I followed Rebecca to the opposite end of the cabin. I grabbed the suitcase we’d abandoned just inside the door.

‘Let me take that,’ said Rebecca. She had a great voice, like a BBC programme announcer. Everything about her was classy, which I suppose fitted the job. Pale-skinned with blue eyes and tousled collar-length auburn hair, she was pretty but not very smiley. A few inches taller than me, she shared my tendency towards a fuller figure.

I kept hold of the handle of the case. ‘No need. You’re the manager. You shouldn’t be carrying stuff.’

She gave me a pinched smile. ‘Manager or gofer? Sometimes the roles seem very similar.’

‘No gofering for me, thanks. You’re a friend of Freddie and Lauren’s?’

‘That’s right. I met Lauren at a yoga class way back when she and Freddie first moved to London.’ She led me across an area given over to black leather sofas and low coffee tables.

‘Nice of you to get them this deal.’

‘My pleasure. I’ve been an honorary member of the Durham group for a few years, even though I didn’t go to college with them.’

‘You’re like me then?’

She gave me a patient half-smile. ‘I think you’ll need a few more years before you reach “honorary”.’

Ouch. Was that a little mean-girl coming through? ‘Meaning I’m at “plus-one” status?’

‘No bad thing to be.’ She opened the door at the far end of the corridor. ‘This is yours. Oh—’

I poked my head into the room. There was the promised four-poster, looking splendid, but on it lay an open suitcase with two others at the foot of the bed – a matching designer set in cream and tan, the kind that cost a couple of thousand even before you put anything in them. A silky nightgown lay on the covers and the bed had been slept in.

‘Just give me a moment.’ Rebecca went back to the table and whispered in Janice’s ear.

‘Oh, that was meant to be Leo’s room, was it?’ Janice said loudly and unrepentantly. ‘But when I arrived the rooms were all empty.’

‘Janice—’ Leo threw an apologetic look at me.

‘I’m in the middle of moving back to the UK, and I have so much luggage with me.’ She fluttered her false eyelashes at Leo. ‘You’re always so accommodating. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.’

The cow. But I was the plus one so I was hardly in a position to kick up a fuss. It wasn’t my reunion.

Showing she was used to dealing with awkward customers, Rebecca regrouped. ‘Well, that does leave one twin room free.’

She had to be kidding me. The big appeal of coming this weekend was a sexy time with my guy, not dormitory beds.

‘I’ll see if we have a mattress topper and can push them together.’ Rebecca walked away to pass on a message to housekeeping.

Janice placed a hand on Leo’s wrist. ‘Of course, I had imagined that maybe someone might like to join me. That was before Freddie broke the news that you were bringing a guest.’

Oh, no, she didn’t! Get your beautiful manicured claws off of my man! Before I could storm over and say something unwise, Leo pulled his hand away and stood up. Coming quickly over to me, he took the case from my grip.

‘Jess, are you OK with this? We can always just stay for the day and go back to Oxford.’ He sounded as if he very much wanted me to say ‘yes’.

‘Oh, Leo!’ protested Lauren.

‘That one backfired rather spectacularly, didn’t it, Janice?’ said Phil. He appeared to be relishing the upset.

Rebecca returned to calm troubled waters. ‘I’m sure you’ll find that there is no such thing as a bad room in this cabin. Phil, are you in the one facing the boathouse?’

‘Yes. Next to Janice. Not budging.’ He grabbed a piece of toast off a silver rack.

‘Then that leaves the one upstairs. It’s smaller but it does have the nice feature of a balcony. I think you’ll find it cosy.’ She led Leo, who was carrying our suitcase, up the open wooden stairs. I didn’t protest. It was just a room. And I still might get a chance to murder the bed-stealer.

Freddie rubbed his hands together, trying to dispel the bad atmosphere with his positivity. ‘Everyone eaten enough? Right, meet here in ten minutes, coats and boots on.’ Being a parent had obviously become ingrained.

‘Yes, Daddy,’ Janice replied, smirking. She glided to her room and shut the door in my face.

When I reached the upstairs room, Leo put the case down by one of the narrow twin beds and gave me a hug. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’ I rested my head on his chest. Janice might have the four-poster but she didn’t have this. ‘It’s just for two nights.’

‘Cosy’ was one way of describing what was clearly meant as the room for junior guests who didn’t require full headroom. There was a tiny en suite where the shower door would bang against the toilet if you pushed it all the way open and a handbasin rather than a full-sized sink.

I flopped back on the bed and looked up at the roof beams. Accentuate the positive. ‘Heidi’s attic.’

Leo opened the door to the balcony, letting in a draft of cold air. ‘Heidi, who?’

‘The Heidi, from the book. She lives in a hayloft of her grandpa’s chalet in the Swiss Alps. That’s what this reminds me of.’

Leo lay down next to me, staring up at the same view. ‘I’d forgotten about Janice.’

I turned to look at him – a much better view – my gorgeous officer of the law. Leo had an aquiline nose, dark brows, and a strong jawline. My very favourite feature though were his eyes. Slightly hooded, hinting at an Asiatic forebear on the family tree, his eyes always looked out at you as if he suspected you of doing something – that was until he smiled and then the suspicion vanished and he became almost boyish. That was a side of him that only a very select few saw, certainly none of his colleagues or the people he dealt with at work.

‘Forgotten as in, forgotten she existed?’ I asked hopefully.

‘No, as in how she can be so selfish. I think the lifestyle of an actor doesn’t help, but she was always like that even before she started to make a name for herself.’

I ran my finger over his chin, touching the little dent at the end. Not quite a Henry Cavill cleft but the suggestion of one. ‘How long did you date?’

He winced. ‘You heard about that?’

‘Within about five seconds from Freddie. That guy is a terrible gossip.’

‘He’s always had the tendency to just spill what he’s thinking without considering the audience.’

‘And you told me he works at the Ministry of Defence in procurement? That means he’s signed the Official Secrets Act?’ I dropped my hand and chuckled at that prospect.

‘I’ve not heard him spill any official beans. Probably because he doesn’t think about work once he goes home.’

‘Thank God, for the sake of national security.’

He caught my hand and kissed my knuckles. ‘He’s a nice person.’

‘I got that too.’ I left a pause. ‘You didn’t tell me?’

He clasped his palm to his forehead. ‘I know. That was stupid. I was going to but then I thought that would look like I was making too much of it.’

‘Basically, you wimped out?’

‘I wimped out.’

Was I going to make him pay or let him off the hook? I know Leo fretted about relationships. Sure-footed in investigations, he overthought his moves when it came to me because he’d had a few catty girlfriends tell him he wasn’t enough for them. I imagined Janice lay near the front of that short line of women who didn’t know a good thing when they saw it.

I kissed the place on his forehead that he’d squeezed, which had the nice side benefit that he could nuzzle my breasts.

‘It’s OK, Leo. She’s incredibly hot. I’m impressed you pulled that at college. Go, you.’

He tugged me on top of him so we lay sandwiched in a full body stretch. ‘She’s nothing compared to what I have now.’

Two months into our relationship and he still thought I was a good thing. I kissed him on the lips for that completely biased remark, then levered up to mock-scowl at him. ‘But if I catch you walking down memory lane with her, I’ll cut up your favourite suits, poison your plants, and push her into the lake.’

Chapter Four

Jess

Trying to incentivise me, Leo assured me that I’d like Rainbow. When I asked about Lloyd, Leo grimaced and said it might end up as an even hit and miss.

‘You need to aspire to a better hit rate for friends, Leo,’ I advised him, tucking my trousers into my boot socks.

‘Lloyd’s not my friend – only Rainbow. Making friends isn’t easy for me.’ He zipped up a dark-blue fleece with the Thames Valley police shield on the breast. ‘I appreciate that they’re loyal. Freddie never lets me feel left out, never gives up.’

I kissed him, understanding completely how you could just fall into unwise relationships in the hothouse of university first week. It was a lottery that could decide the rest of your life. ‘I’ll sort you out. I make friends easily.’

He smiled and brushed my hair behind my ear. ‘I’ve noticed – too easily, some would say.’

‘What?’

He tapped my nose. ‘Your boss, Paul, who still makes your life difficult at work? Kristie, your housemate, whom you won’t tell to shut up when she’s speaking loudly on her phone at night? The homeless man outside the supermarket who tells everyone you’re his girlfriend?’

OK, maybe I was a bit soft-hearted. ‘I don’t want to be rude.’

‘Occasional rudeness is necessary.’ He knotted my scarf, making sure I was going to be warm. ‘Somewhere between your extroverted “love the world” and my introverted “distrust everyone” attitude is the perfect human.’

‘I don’t love everyone. I have quite the talent for hating certain people,’ I said in my defence.

‘Oh, yes? And how long does that last?’

In my father’s case, a lifetime, but I didn’t want to dampen the mood by bringing him up. Early in our relationship, before we started going out, Leo had had to arrest him for stalking, or as I put it, being a terrible human being.

As urged by Freddie, we returned to the ground floor, wrapped up for a winter walk. We joined the others putting boots on outside.

‘I’m walking with Jess,’ said Lauren, curling her arm through mine. ‘Leo, please go and talk Freddie out of his latest madcap idea. I think it must be the looming big four-oh that’s getting to him. Forty? How did that happen to us?’

‘Please, it hasn’t happened yet,’ I replied with a mock-shudder. I was still comfortably at the other end of the decade.

‘Freddie’s a few years ahead of us,’ explained Lauren. ‘He had some years out before college, crewing, and that’s seeded some romantic delusions.’

Over by the clubhouse, I could see a string of ponies as guests went out for a ride. The building itself was a converted manor house, Georgian style with the obligatory accessory of an oversized portico with a frieze of mythical figures. Apparently there was a spa and swimming pool and a restaurant and several bars. A casino was open after dark in the basement if we wanted to pretend we were extras in a James Bond film.

Were me and a casino a good idea? It sounded like petrol and a match.

Leo stood up from tying his bootlaces. ‘What’s Freddie thinking of now?’

Lauren blew on her fingers. ‘His latest plan is that we should take a career break and sail around the world with the children.’

‘Seriously?’ I asked. I’d been expecting her to say he was thinking of getting a motorbike or growing a goatee.

She pulled on what looked like a home-knitted hat in gold and black stripes, turning herself into a queen bee. ‘It would be serious if he had the logistical skills to organise the home schooling and all the practical stuff. He’s a good sailor. Been doing long voyages since he was a teenager and could probably manage to get us through it alive. He says he wants the children to experience the freedom of the high seas while it’s still easy to take them out of school.’

‘And you?’

‘I get seasick on a boating lake.’ She gestured to a blue dinghy moored outside the house in case any of us wanted to freeze our butts off on the water. ‘Apparently I’d get over that.’ She laughed dryly. ‘Then I say, “Somali pirates, tropical diseases, storms, and missed schooling,” and he goes quiet. And he fails to take into account I’ve only just got back into my career after taking a five-year break for child-rearing. Hardly the time to hare off on a new adventure.’

I could tell there and then that there was no way the Freddie-Lauren clan were getting on board a yacht to cross the Atlantic.

Our walking party set off, OS map in capable hands (not mine). Freddie and Leo took on guiding us to the right footpath, tailed by Janice and Phil who seemed quite close in the dynamics of this friendship group. Had they ever been an item, I wondered? There didn’t seem to be any chemistry between them, but there was something intimate, almost conspiratorial. Lauren and I brought up the rear.

‘Ah, this is the life: no kids to worry about, outside in the fresh air, good company!’ Lauren smiled at me. ‘I love our reunions. They kept me sane when the kids were babies.’

I wondered how she could think like that when there were clearly tensions among so many members. Maybe she and Freddie skated by not noticing? That was my mother’s attitude to life. ‘It’s nice that you make time for it each year.’

‘I can’t see how you maintain real friendships if you don’t invest the time. Tell me about looking for missing people,’ Lauren urged.

Picturing my motivational Post-its on my computer, I reminded myself not to downplay my skills. ‘My research background is in psychology and I always loved behavioural studies. I guess this is a logical extension. I tend to be brought in when the police or social services have lost interest or reached a dead end. They very often don’t have the resources to devote to it.’

‘What do you do that’s different from the authorities?’

‘I usually start by drawing up a detailed profile of the person. I mine their social media for clues, follow up with interviews of friends and family, find out everything I can from open sources. The main thing is I have the time to really dig, to give the problem the attention it deserves.’

Lauren bounded over the stile. I followed more gingerly because the lower step rocked in the mud. The others were already ahead, entering a copse of skinny birch trees.

‘Do you track their phones?’ she asked. ‘Triangulate them from the nearest phone mast?’

I laughed. ‘I wish. You’ve been watching too much TV. I can’t do that – and I can’t hack into financial records either.’ Though I did have a few shady contacts who could for a price, but that wasn’t something to be admitted out loud. Leo would find it problematic as it wasn’t exactly legal. ‘Mostly, the breadcrumbs are there, if you’re persistent at asking the right questions. And you get a feel for it after a time, especially with the kids.’

‘I suppose they are the most likely to go missing, aren’t they?’

Passing under the birches, I unwound my scarf, warming up from the brisk pace. ‘You wouldn’t know it from the news, but children go missing with surprising regularity – older teenagers mostly. A lot of them these days are in care because they were trafficked into the country and ended up in foster care – then they just… poof!’

She frowned, brows almost meeting beneath the yellow and black stripes. ‘Where do they go?’

‘Regrettably, that’s the deal with the traffickers. Come find us once you’re in country or else. They end up in sweatshops, nail bars, prostitution, and so on. It’s happening all over the country.’

‘Sounds fascinating. I wonder if anyone’s ever done a programme about it?’ she mused. ‘Who asks you to find them?’

A light rain began to fall, cold on my hot cheeks.

‘Sometimes the social workers or foster parents, more often friends or concerned teachers from their school and very occasionally family from abroad if they get suspicious something is up. Then there’re the ordinary runaways.’

‘What counts as ordinary?’ She held back a bramble so it didn’t whip my jeans.

‘Good question. No one’s really ordinary once you look hard at them.’ I was embarrassed by how out of condition I seemed compared to everyone else on this walk. I really should be less relaxed about my fitness regime. ‘You sound very interested, Lauren.’

‘Hazard of my profession. Always on the hunt for ideas. I’m a series editor for Bellwether TV. We specialise in drama documentaries.’

The path widened so I moved up beside her. ‘What are you working on at the moment?’

I let her talk for a while, eager to turn the attention away from my very unimpressive little business. I wouldn’t want a TV person to get the wrong idea about me. ‘Leaning in’ was OK until you toppled over with the weight of your self-misrepresentation.

The path eventually emerged from the wood into a field bordering a country road. Freddie shook raindrops off the plastic cover of his map.

‘That was Whichford Wood. Covered in bluebells in the spring, apparently. A few more fields and then we’ll be at the stone circle.’

Our walking party shuffled after this pause and I found myself beside Phil. I had to make the effort, didn’t I?

‘What do you get up to, Phil?’ I asked. Leo had been very unforthcoming about this member of their group. Phil’s features were fine taken individually but didn’t quite add up to handsome. He had hard eyes, quite deep-set and a little too close together, like Ryan Gosling’s, and a clipped beard that had more red in it than his tawny hair. He styled his hair swept back, leaving his forehead very square, as if someone had ruled a line across the top. Comparing him to Leo, who was over six feet, I guessed Phil was a little shy of that.

‘I have my own construction company,’ he said, answering my icebreaker, a little Brummie in his accent.

‘You’re a builder?’

He looked peeved to be described in that way. ‘I develop new housing. We built forty executive homes last year.’

The pause he left suggested the correct response was ‘congratulations, housing magnate’, but he sounded like a builder to me. ‘That must be satisfying.’

‘Would be if I didn’t have to spend all day hacking through red tape. This country is so full of regulations, it’s impossible to get anything done.’

‘Apart from building forty executive homes.’

He frowned, not sure if I was teasing (I was). ‘Apart from that, obviously.’

‘I always have a problem with rules too. They usually appear to me as a great suggestion of things to try.’

‘Exactly.’ His expression became more open. ‘What gives society the right to make up our minds for us? We’re adults: we can assess the risks.’

‘Unless we’re drunk. I have to admit some of my worst decisions happen when I’m half-cut.’ A sheep bleated an agreement from a field away. My adult form of ADHD made me pro-risk so even without the alcohol my choices were often not the safest.

‘But you still can decide for yourself and take the consequences, can’t you?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Me? I like to think of myself as a sovereign citizen.’

‘Like super loyal to the Queen?’

He snorted. ‘The exact opposite. I was born here without any say in the matter so I don’t recognise the power of anyone over me – not the state, not my family, not the police.’ He cast a look at Leo’s back, now walking with Janice. They weren’t touching, I was relieved to see.

Quaint. Phil was an English survivalist. If he were American, I could just see him up in the hills somewhere with his assault rifle and ‘get off my land’ attitude. Hard to picture him in Birmingham though.

‘I guess you and Leo get on like a house on fire then?’ I made no effort to hide the irony.

‘Leo always liked his rules, even when we were at Durham and were at our freest. At nineteen, twenty, he hated to see anyone cutting corners.’

By which he meant ‘cheating’. ‘Hmm.’

‘I wasn’t surprised when he decided to join the police. That job was tailor-made for him. Finally he could do something when he saw someone breaking the rules.’

All of which had probably been a natural reaction to Leo’s chaotic upbringing. ‘You do need the police when there’s a violent crime involved, surely?’

‘Do you? What’s wrong with those that are wronged exacting their own punishment?’

‘Well, if you’re dead, you can’t.’

‘In that case then it’s left to the family or friends to hand out the punishment.’

‘Not so good if you’re a kid who can’t protect themselves from an abusive parent.’ I’ve been there, I added silently.

‘Then others should step forward and do it for you.’

It really wasn’t so easy. How would you even reach out for help at that age? Not everyone had someone in their corner. ‘That’s mob rule, Phil. Next stop, lynching.’

‘Instead, we get legitimised lynching by the police. Just look at America.’

He was enjoying this, I realised. His ‘no rules necessary’ stance had probably provided him with lots of lovely debates down the pub for years, but no one actually lived that way.

‘You are against the social contract then? “Down with Rousseau!” your rallying cry?’

He curled his lip. ‘Who?’

OK, he wasn’t coming at this from a philosophical stance after a careful consideration of the western tradition of human rights. I guessed this was something cooked up on conspiracy-fuelled social media. ‘What about speed limits?’

‘Infantile. I should be able to decide what’s safe.’

‘One-way streets?’

‘If it’s clear, go for it.’

‘Theft?’

‘If you try and take anything of mine, I’ll thump you.’

‘But if I’m bigger and stronger and have the bigger thump?’

He shrugged. ‘Then I suppose it’s my tough luck. It’s unrealistic to expect life to be fair for everyone.’

‘OK. I’ll send my biggest mates round to your depot and drive off with all your white vans.’

‘I’d like to see you try.’ He actually thought I was challenging him.

I burst into laughter. ‘That’s ridiculous, Phil, but I guess you know that in your heart of hearts. Even you don’t live in such a caveman society. I bet there are a million rules you obey each day without being aware of it.’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘Then you’re obeying your new rule of breaking rules. QED.’ I grinned at him and marked a point to me in the air.

He shook his head, not wanting to concede that I’d argued him to a standstill. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘But in your system, that’s good, right? No more rebellious person than the mad one.’

He edged away from me, annoyed and maybe a little scared that I’d called him on his bullshit. ‘Hey, Leo, did you know that your girlfriend is insane?’

Leo glanced round and smiled at me. ‘Oh, yes, completely aware of that.’

‘It’s the attraction between us.’ I offered Phil a mint from my pocket as a peace offering, which he declined. ‘Tell me about your executive homes. What is it that makes them so executive?’

Phil recovered a little talking about himself. We arrived at the spot where the motorhome was parked off the road, right by the ancient monument. The Rollright Stones stood in a huddled circle, about the circumference of a medium-sized roundabout, but obviously far older and nothing to do with ancient traffic regulation. In the daylight, their mystery was diminished. From what I read about them on the web, they could have served many purposes in the Iron Age, from ceremonial space to market place. Maybe all of the above. But we weren’t stopping to visit them just yet. Freddie went up to the door of the van and knocked.

‘Rainbow, Lloyd! Make yourselves decent. You’ve got company!’ he called.

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