The Devil's Chair by Priscilla Masters Page A

is, erm, this is Sophie,’ he said with more than a hint of embarrassment. The girl’s eyebrows lifted and she watched him with an amused expression. Hughes drew in a deep breath and finished the sentence with resignation. ‘My fiancée,’ he said.
    Randall felt his mouth twitch. Last he’d heard Roddie Hughes had been married to a teacher and had two teenage kids. As he shook the girl’s hand and congratulated his colleague, Randall still felt bemused. Did no one stay married for the long haul anymore? The hollow answer returned like an echo, to mock him.
No one except you
,
Alex
. He felt his mouth tighten primly. Of all life’s little ironies, this one dropped a bright red cherry right on top of the cake. As the happy couple busied themselves collecting samples, measuring distances and taking a hundred and one more photographs, stills and movies, DI Alex Randall felt he could have stood there, on that big damp hill for a long, long time, pondering life matters, particularly his own, but he was distracted by a shout. Someone, at the bottom of the valley, was holding something high, like a trophy. Randall quickened his step and slid down the bank. Please God, let it be something that leads us to the child, he prayed. Had he been a Catholic he would likely have crossed himself too. He almost did anyway.
    As he got nearer he recognized the officer as PC Gethin Roberts, who was holding something small, sodden, grubby and pink in his hand, rivulets of stream water trickling down his arm on to the grass. It was a child’s sodden slipper with wet nylon fur. Roberts looked pleased with himself. They had the Jellycat squirrel and now they had a slipper. Both were signs that the child had been here. Holding it in his gloved hand, Gethin Roberts approached Randall. ‘Sir,’ he said.
    Randall studied it. It looked about a four-year-old’s foot size, as far as he was an expert on the size of children’s feet.
    Don’t go there, Alex.
    On the front was a worn plastic moulding of a Barbie doll. He took out his phone and connected with DS Talith.
    â€˜Are you still with Mansfield?’
    â€˜Just left, sir,’ Talith replied. ‘We’re on our way back to Shrewsbury. Not that we learnt anything,’ he enlarged grumpily, ‘except that Tracy and Neil were a dysfunctional, miserable, drunken couple. And,’ he added bitterly, ‘it sounds as though Mr Mansfield is up to his old tricks again.’
    â€˜You mean …?’
    â€˜Doing a bit of decorating, if you get what I mean, sir.’
    The way Talith had uttered the words Randall
got what he meant
all right.
    â€˜We’ve found something, Talith,’ he said. ‘A little girl’s slipper that looks about the right size for Daisy. I want you to go back,’ he instructed. ‘We’ve only found the one – so far. Don’t tell him it’s turned up. Just ask him what Daisy’s slippers were like. This one’s pink with a Barbie doll on the front.’
    â€˜Righto, sir. Yes, sir.’
    â€˜Don’t tell him that we’ve found it,’ Randall repeated, although he knew Neil would guess. ‘Just ask and then get back to me.’
    The sodden slipper was placed in an evidence bag and the team began to search for the other. As they focused on the area along the stream an orange flashing light strobed up the valley. The recovery truck had arrived. Noisily beeping its intention it reversed into position, the driver climbed out and started talking to the officers. The wrecked Polo would now be winched on to the low loader then taken to the police pound – every inch of it scrutinized and analysed to yield its story. Randall watched it gravely. He had his doubts that any evidence from the car would tell him the whereabouts of the little girl. A drunk driver falling off the Burway – Tracy wasn’t the first and she wouldn’t be the last. He wanted to