Behind Closed Doors by Susan Lewis Page B

entertaining as it was sometimes annoying. However, he was certainly the DC she preferred to work with, along with Jemma Payne, a newer recruit, though she had to admit she was privileged to be part of the entire Kesterly CID team. They watched each other’s backs in a way she hadn’t experienced with the Met, willingly weighed in on cases when further help was needed, and stood together whenever the proverbial hit the fan.
    Sinking into her chair, she sighed heavily.
    ‘For what it’s worth, I’m backing your instincts,’ Leo told her.
    Groaning in frustration she let her head fall into her hands.
    Since it was the end of the day most desks in the main office were empty. There were just a couple of other DCs poring over a map spread out between them, and an admin assistant talking to someone on the phone.
    She turned to Leo. ‘Do you know about my sister?’ she asked bluntly.
    His hands stopped on the keyboard.
    Of course he did. It had no doubt been the first bite of gossip to be chewed over when news had reached Kesterly CID that Andee Lawrence was being appointed as one of the new detective sergeants. And the reason they’d know her name was, in part, because her father’s family were from Kesterly, though he’d been a detective chief superintendent with the Met at the time Penny had disappeared. Those terrible days of searching, praying, constantly fearing the worst might have been pre-email, pre-computers as they knew them now, but stories of that time, and what had happened to her father as a result, had spread round the force as fast as any virus without cyber assistance.
    And like a grisly sort of heirloom they reverberated down the years.
    ‘Anything from social services?’ Andee asked, returning to the Sophie Monroe case.
    ‘Still waiting,’ Leo replied.
    Unsurprised by that, since social services were rarely speedy, she got to her feet. ‘OK, talk to CAIT,’ she said, referring to the Child Abuse Investigation Team, ‘find out if they’ve had any dealings with the Monroe family. I’m going home,’ and grabbing her bag and phone she swept out of the office.
    ‘On my way,’ she told her mother’s voicemail as she steered her car from the station car park on to the leafy quadrant where Kesterly Police HQ was located. A drink at the Melvilles’ might be just what she needed this evening. Better still would be a drink with Graeme, and a whole night with him would be best of all, but that wasn’t going to happen until Wednesday at the earliest.
    Would she really go through with it? She’d never slept with anyone but Martin.
    Slowing up behind the tourist train on Kesterly seafront, she found herself wondering what her father would advise were she able to discuss the Sophie Monroe case with him. In a way she was glad she couldn’t, since she knew only too well how deeply the subject would distress him. It was having much the same effect on her with all the memories it was bringing back, though this wasn’t the first time she’d been involved in a misper since joining the force. She could handle it, she felt sure of that, even though this was the first case of a missing fourteen-year-old girl to come her way.
    Penny had been only thirteen the first time she’d taken off without a word. They’d been living in Chiswick then, where they’d always lived from the time Andee was born, though not in the same house. They’d moved to the four-bedroomed semi, just off the high street, a year after her father’s promotion to DCS, which was about a year before all the problems began.
    Andee understood, now it was too late, that her sister had started to suffer from depression almost as soon as she’d hit puberty. The trouble was, as a family they were always so busy – her father with his job, her mother with her small estate agency, Andee, who was two years older, with studying, boys, socialising, all the usual mid-teen stuff – that Penny’s change of behaviour, if it was noticed at all, was