Free In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward

detail was a crack widening into something large, something everyone else had missed. Sadler shook his head and brought his thoughts around to the present and back to Clive Mottram sitting across the room from him.
    ‘OK, so I’ve had your professional opinion. Now tell me about the events in January. You knew Yvonne Jenkins professionally. What were your thoughts when you heard about the missing girls?’
    ‘Well, the first interesting thing I remember hearing was that there had been no news about the abduction until after Rachel Jones had been discovered. The two girls were supposed to turn up for school and when neither of them arrived it had just been assumed by the school that they were both off sick.’
    ‘No one called home?’
    ‘I don’t think that anyone was unduly worried about two friends being off sick. Things were much more relaxed then.’
    ‘And then Rachel Jones was found in a distressed state about a quarter of a mile away from the school.’ Sadler poured the rest of the bottle into their glasses.
    ‘It was about midday. Rachel Jones was found, as you say, stumbling around in a dazed state off the Bampton Road. I think that there was something about her missing her shoes and socks, but I can’t really remember now.’
    ‘I’ll need to check the file – it might be important. And she could remember nothing about her abduction?’
    Clive Mottram looked at Sadler with keen eyes. ‘We’re on your territory now, Francis. I remember the papers saying that she had been chloroformed, or something similar. She could remember getting into a car with a female driver, with Sophie, and the next thing she remembered was being in Truscott Woods. And no Sophie.’

Chapter 11
    The house now felt pleasantly warm. Rachel sat cross-legged on the floor with her back to the hot radiator and looked at her notebook. The writing had become slightly blurred after the sleet of the afternoon and the pages had small ridges in them from the damp. She had files of all the material anyway, in case of accident, and they were sitting in her desk drawer, but she preferred to work from the notebook. There was a reassuring solidity about handwriting, something tangible that computer files couldn’t give her.
    She had often returned to these notebooks over the course of her career. She found other people’s family history absorbing but, early on, she’d constructed her own chart, fascinated by the maternal line that was often ignored by traditional history. Her grandmother Nancy had initially been dismissive about her work.
    ‘What do you want to be getting involved in all that for?’ she’d grumbled, but as Rachel went further and further back into the past, to the farming family in rural Wales, Nancy’s interest had grown and she even asked questions about long-forgotten ancestors.
    ‘You’re just like my mother,’ she kept repeating. ‘Only interested in the women of the family.’ But when Rachel had questioned her further about this, Nancy refused to say anything else. Suddenly tired, Rachel gently shut the notebook and placed it on top of the radiator so that the pages could dry out completely.
    The doorbell of her cottage buzzed and, surprised, Rachel got up to answer it, glancing at the clock. As soon as she opened her door, she realised her mistake. Journalists hadn’t really changed in the last thirty-odd years. The old ones had usually been men and usually very persistent. Now they were both sexes but still with that keen-eyed hunger. This one was a thin-faced woman with a long nose. Immaculately dressed, with a cherry-red trench coat that Rachel coveted immediately.
    ‘Can I have a word, Ms Jones?’
    Rachel went to shut the door and the woman made the mistake of putting her foot out. An old trick. And one the woman must have regretted when she saw the look of fury in Rachel’s eyes. She hurriedly withdrew her suede-clad foot and Rachel slammed the door shut and leaned back against it. Through the closed