The Devil's Chair by Priscilla Masters Read Free Book Online Page B

unspoken, floated around the room, insubstantial as bubbles blown from a wand:
Daisy is dead, Daisy is not dead. Daisy is hurt. Daisy is OK. Daisy is lost. She will be found. Someone has abducted her. Daisy is frightened but Daisy is alive.
    Talith gave it to him straight, with a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘The truth is, Neil, we don’t know.’
    Perhaps the true awfulness of the situation was just beginning to penetrate. Or maybe not. A spasm of revulsion jerked Neil’s body. ‘I won’t ever forgive Tracy for this,’ he announced. ‘If harm’s come to that little girl it’s
finished
between us.’ His eyes bulged. ‘
Finished
. She can do what she likes with ’erself. That don’t matter. But to put little Daisy through all that … It’s unforgiveable. Besides, all them rows, all that drinkin’… I thought everything’d be great,’ he bleated. ‘Not like this. It’s not how I thought it would be.’
    â€˜Nothing ever is,’ Tinsley muttered under her breath, the self-pity nauseating both officers equally.
    There was nothing to be gained by continuing the conversation. Tinsley and Talith moved towards the door. As they opened it, Lara Tinsley couldn’t resist turning to confront him. ‘And would you say you’re happy now, Mr Mansfield?’ she challenged. ‘Was it all worth it? Eh?’
    Mansfield said nothing, but he shook his head and chewed on his lip so hard a drop of blood appeared, which he licked away as quickly as a frog swallows a fly.

SIX
Monday, 8 April, 3 p.m
.
    A lex Randall had returned to the Long Mynd and was standing on the Burway, looking down into the crash site and Carding Mill Valley. An icy wind seemed determined to pierce his coat so he held it tighter around him as he studied the area. It was all too was easy to follow the trail of destruction the car had left: broken bushes, deep furrows in soft, muddy turf ending three hundred feet below at the bottom in a large oil slick. The wrecked car, which had been treated by the fire service with as little respect as a tin of baked beans, lay drunkenly on its side. Jagged shards of metal showed where Tracy Walsh had been cut out of her eight-year-old, post-office red VW Polo. Police tape fluttered everywhere, keeping the general public out though they peered from all four sides of the valley, curious. The area was as alive and busy as an ant hill but the Burway was firmly shut and would remain so until they had extracted every single piece of forensic evidence from the area and found the child. Found the child? Randall’s face froze.
    What was the hope, realistically? That they would come across a small body thrown from a car wreck? A body? It had always been a dim possibility and even that was fading fast. No. That wasn’t the answer. In his heart Randall had little hope of finding Daisy Walsh alive and a cold, milky sun did little to lighten the proceedings and give him hope. He observed the scene from the top and felt a heavy misgiving which was almost a dread. He could not erase his image of the child, injured and frightened, crawling in the cold and the dark through the terrain, unseen by the officers, who from this vantage point looked as small as pygmies, combing every bush and tree until they found her. Or some sign of her. A few officers in fisherman’s waders paddled up the stream, lifting stones and pulling water weeds out of the way. The general public would be excluded for a little while longer yet. Daisy had now been missing for thirty-six hours and the truth was that however thorough the search was they were unlikely to find a frightened child shivering behind a bush. If Daisy had been in the car the search now was for a body. Randall frowned. Or else she had been abducted from the scene, probably by their mystery caller. His underlying dread was that they would find nothing. Ever. They would never be certain what