Behind Closed Doors Read Online Free PDF

takes herself off to the Entertainment Centre or over to the funfair. With it being the summer holidays we’re not so strict about what time she has to come home.’
    Andee nodded. ‘So the last time you heard from her was this text, sent last Thursday? Nothing since?’
    His face turned greyer than ever as he shook his head again. ‘As I said, we keep trying to get hold of her, but she’s either ignoring our messages or . . .’ His breath caught. ‘I don’t know why she’s doing this. It’s not like her to stay angry for so long.’
    Andee’s eyes dropped to his hands, resting emptily on the table. They were oil-stained, strong and touchingly helpless. ‘The job you were on,’ she said. ‘It took you to France, you say?’
    ‘That’s right. I was carrying aircraft parts down to Toulouse.’
    Knowing how much traffic went between various West Country manufacturers and the main Airbus factory in the Haute Garonne, Andee said, ‘And you got back last night. Is it usual for a trip to take so long?’
    ‘It’s about normal for a delivery like that. There are lots of restrictions on the hours we can spend at the wheel and the speed we can go . . . Well, you’d know all about that, being a police officer. Everything’s in my log. They’ll have it at the office.’
    Andee nodded and sat back in her chair. ‘OK, so she’s taken her computer, some clothes and toiletries. Would she have had any money?’
    As Heidi started to answer a loud wail swept down the hallway like a lasso claiming her attention. ‘She might have had something left from her wages,’ she answered, getting to her feet. ‘She works around the camp sometimes, you know, cleaning, or serving meals at the caff or the carvery. I’m sorry, I’d better go and see to him.’
    ‘Of course.’
    After the door closed behind her, Gavin said, quietly, ‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of her, but before I left there was fifty quid in the pocket of my good suit.’
    When he didn’t continue, Andee said, ‘And it’s gone now?’
    He nodded.
    ‘Why don’t you want your wife to know?’
    He shrugged. ‘I suppose I ought to tell her. It’s just . . . I don’t know, I guess neither of us is thinking very straight at the moment. I keep getting it into my head that she’s gone off and won’t ever come back. You hear about that, don’t you, how some kids disappear and aren’t ever seen again . . .’
    Andee’s heart contracted. Yes, she knew all about that.
    ‘. . . I don’t think we could bear that,’ he ran on. ‘She means everything to me. She’s my princess, my special girl . . . I’m not saying she doesn’t have her faults, show me a child that doesn’t, and I don’t mind admitting there have been times lately that I could blinking throttle her . . .’ His eyes widened with alarm as he realised what he’d said.
    Holding his gaze and speaking very gently, Andee said, ‘Have you ever been physical with her, Gavin?’
    He shook his head vehemently. ‘No,
never
,’ he cried in a tone that sounded very like the truth. ‘It was just one of those things you say, you know, like you could murder a burger, when what you really mean is you’re hungry.’
    ‘It’s OK, I understand, kids can be maddening, especially teenagers.’
    Clearly reassured by her reply, he said, ‘I don’t know what happens to them, I swear it. One minute she’s singing and dancing about the place like an angel, all skinny legs and freckled nose, the next she’s stomping about with an attitude big enough to fall over, and flirting . . .’ His voice cracked with despair. ‘. . . flirting with blokes like she knows what it’s all about.’
    Taking the simplest part of that first, Andee said, ‘So would the photograph you gave my colleague this morning be a true representation of how she looks now?’
    He shook his head. ‘Not when she’s out of school, anyway, and she’s gone and put purple streaks in her lovely blonde hair. She thinks it