The Valley of Longing 22

‘I-I-I guess so, d-d-daddy,’ Tara half sobbed into her father’s chest. ‘It - it just really scared me, especially when you didn’t answer when I tried calling you.’ ‘What scared you? What’s going on, Venter, and where’s Amy? Cecil asked of Sergeant Mitchell over the head of his daughter. ‘She should be home, and dinner should be ready to go on the table.’ He sniffed at the air, as though searching for some sign of the dinner he was expecting. ‘All I can smell is something burned.’ He hoped that wasn’t the dinner. ‘We don’t know for sure what’s happened yet, but if you’ll come with me. I’ll tell you what I know,’ Mitchell said. ‘Would you stay here and look after Tara a little longer?’ he asked of Melissa. Mitchell led his friend from the living room and down the passage to the kitchen; only when they reached the smoke - blackened room did he speak, and then it was in response to a question from Cecil. ‘What the hell happened here?’ Cecil wanted to know. He crossed to the sinks so he could look down on the pots and pans encrusted with food that was too far gone to even be called WELL DONE; he knew straight away that it should have been the dinner he had spent the afternoon looking forward to. ‘We don’t know,’ Mitchell said. ‘But I’ll tell you what I do know. Tara came home a little after six, and found the dinner burned; she did the right thing and got the stove turned off and the pans in the sink, and she opened the back door to get rid of the smoke. Once she did that, she tried calling you while she looked for her sister.’ He led the way back down the passage and stared up the stairs. ‘She found the door to Amy’s room busted, as you can see.’ He had to hurriedly put out a hand to stop Cecil before he could go rushing forwards and into his eldest daughter’s bedroom. ‘Amy isn’t in there; we don’t know where she is. It looks - I’m really sorry - but it looks as though she’s been kidnapped. We’ve got the room sealed off, so the forensics people can make an examination of it when they get here; in the meantime, we’re trying to work out who could have taken her, and where,’ ‘What the hell d’you mean you’re trying to work out who took her?’ Cecil demanded angrily, his gaze moving between Mitchell and the broken mess that was all that remained of his daughter’s bedroom door. ‘You know who did it, that maniac down the road, the one you let go. If you’d kept him locked up, like you should have, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt my Amy. I blame you for this. ‘In his anger, he seemed to grow until he loomed menacingly over the sergeant. Mitchell opened his mouth to protest, but could not get any words out. Part of the problem was that he agreed with Cecil, up to a point, the point where he was supposed to take the blame for Jack Wild being released; he could not deny that if Wild had remained locked up, Amy would almost certainly not have gone missing, but he disagreed with the idea that he was responsible for Wild being released - that was solely down to Wild’s lawyer as far as he was concerned. ‘I didn’t want to let him go,’ he said once he was able to speak. ‘I didn’t have a choice. If I hadn’t released him, his lawyer would have had my job. don’t worry, I’ll get Amy back.’ Cecil ignored Mitchell’s efforts to reassure him, and instead glowered angrily at the older man. ‘You’d better get her back, quick, and unharmed, and you’d better put him away where he belongs, so he can’t hurt anyone else, because if you don’t …’ He didn’t get a chance to finish his threat, for just then Kerwin came through the front door. ‘What’s going on, dad?’ Kerwin called out in a worried voice. ‘It’s your sister,’ Cecil told his son as he slowly descended the stairs. ‘It looks as though Amy’s been kidnapped, by that sick bastard down the road.’ ‘What is it, Kerwin?’ Cecil asked, seeing the concerned look on his son’s face. ‘What’s the matter?’ Hesitantly, Kerwin said, ’I saw him, Wild, earlier, he was here with Amy.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Cecil demanded. ‘I saw him. My bloody car broke down, again, and I had to come back for a part; I was in the shed when a car pulled up in the yard, and when I looked out I saw his car, you know that Land Rover he’s got that looks like mine; he wasn’t alone, though, Amy was with him. I was about to go out and confront him when - when …’ Kerwin’s voice tailed off until he was prompted. ‘When what, Kerwin?’ Cecil asked of his son. ‘When Amy kissed him,’ Kerwin said. ’I was so surprised I just sort of froze where I was in the shed. I thought at first he’d made a move on her, was about to attack her or something, then I realised she wasn’t trying to stop it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. By the time I recovered and grabbed a wrench so I could sort him out, Amy was out of the car and in the house, and he was heading out of the yard and down the road.’ ‘So you did nothing, while the monster who killed your girlfriend and your ex attacked your sister. What the hell kind of brother are you?’ Cecil wanted to know. He glowered so angrily that Mitchell felt it prudent to place himself between father and son to keep Cecil from doing something he might regret later. ‘You should have protected your sister,’ Cecil said, fighting the urge to push past the sergeant and attack his son. ‘I thought she was alright,’ Kerwin protested. ’She was in the house, and he was gone. I was gonna tell you first chance I got, I wanted to confront Amy about what I’d seen, her kissing that sick bastard - I don’t know how she could do it when I know she knows what he did to Lynne and Lily, but you know how she is, she’d never have listened to me. ‘Since I knew she’d just tell me to mind my own bloody business, I went to get my car so I could come back and tell you everything. It took longer to get the damned thing going than I expected.’ His face fell in an expression of horrified dismay then. ’It’s all my fault. He must have realised I was there or something, waited until I left, and then came back. It’s my fault Amy was attacked,’ he all but wailed, ’If I’d just forgotten about my car and stayed here, I could have protected Amy, I could have kept her safe from that maniac, she’d still be here, and he’d be in handcuffs or hospital, where he couldn’t hurt anyone else.’ ‘It’s not your fault,’ Cecil said, reversing his accusation of just a minute or so ago. ’You thought Amy was alright, it’s his fault.’ he rounded on Mitchell, who retreated from every pore of the younger man’s body. ’He had that sick sonofabitch in custody, he had him in a cell, he knew what that bastard, Wild, did to Lynne and Lily, he arrested him for it, and then he let him go.’ ‘It’s not my fault,’ Mitchell protested. ’I didn’t want to let him go, I had no choice, his lawyer forced me to - I didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. If I hadn’t released him, she would have had me fired.’ ‘You let him go, and now he’s grabbed my Amy,’ Cecil snarled. ’If he’s hurt her, I’ll kill him.’ ‘You can’t talk like that, Cecil,’ Mitchell cautioned his friend. ‘I’ll talk any way I bloody well want,’ Cecil said angrily. ’Especially in my own home. Either you get my Amy back safely, and deal with that perverted murdering bastard, or I will, and if I have to deal with him, there’s no way in hell he’s ever gonna be able to hurt anyone again.’ Isobel could only stare when her client was escorted into the interview room and she saw the state of him, She had gotten the impression that something wasn’t right when she spoke to him on the phone, but she hadn’t expected what she was seeing. ‘Jesus!’ she said finally. ’What the hell happened to you? You look as though you’ve gone twelve rounds with MIKE TYSON.’ ‘I wish,’ Jack said through gritted teeth. ’At least then I’d feel better about being in this kind of shape.’ Limping around the table, he settled onto the seat next to his lawyer. ‘Sergeant Mitchell and his constables were a little overzealous when they came to arrest me.’ ‘A little overzealous.’ Isobel couldn’t keep the incredulity she was feeling from her voice. ’This is more than just someone being a little overzealous,’ she said, ’and you know it. You were a detective; you know how bad this is. It’s assault, Jack, they assaulted you, and if the way you’re moving is anything to go by, quite a bad one. Look at you, they’ve broken your nose, blacked both your eyes - you can barely see; you’ve got a split lip, a cut on your forehead and your cheek, and that’s just what I can see. And your arm’s bleeding, you must have pulled at least one of your stitches. ‘This is disgraceful. We’re going to sue them over this, they’re not getting away with it.’ Jack shook his head, slowly to try and minimize the pain the movement caused. ‘I don’t want to do that,’ he said. ‘Suing will just cause more hassle, and I’ve had enough of that the last couple of days. I just want to put all of this behind me as quickly as possible, so I can move on.’