A Question of Guilt(81)

‘Mrs Burridge – Grace . . .’ I hesitated, almost afraid to ask. ‘I don’t suppose . . . would you let me look at them?’

‘Oh, I don’t know . . .’ She looked uncertain suddenly.

‘I know how precious they are to you,’ I said, ‘and private, too. But there might be a clue in what Dawn wrote, and if we’re both right, and her death was no accident, I’d really like to be able to get justice for her.’

I paused, wondering how far I could take this. Could I mention that Alice, who had also been frightened, was missing, and appeal to Dawn’s mother on the basis that if I could find out from the diaries what was going on it might give some clue as to her whereabouts? I really was seriously concerned about her. But bringing her into the equation was a risk. I didn’t want Grace to think I was doing this for any reason other than to get to the bottom of what had happened to Dawn.

I waited, saying nothing, and after a moment Grace’s eyes met mine.

‘You would . . . treat them with respect, if I was to let you have them?’

‘Of course I would. I just want to find out the truth of what happened, Grace. If she was killed because of something she knew. And I think you want that too.’

‘Very well.’ She got up and left the room, a slim, pretty woman whom Dawn would have resembled in years to come, I imagined, if she had lived, and I heard her footsteps on the stairs.

Rachel and I exchanged a look, but neither of us said a word.

A few minutes later she was back, clutching a silver-covered exercise book, but looking flustered.

‘This is really peculiar . . .’

I looked at her questioningly, and she held the book out so that I could see the date on the cover.

‘This isn’t Dawn’s latest diary – the one she brought home with her when it was finished, just before the fire. This is the one before. And the one she would have started just before she died isn’t there either. They’re missing. The diaries you wanted are missing!’





Seventeen


‘She must be making a mistake,’ Rachel said. ‘The poor woman is obviously in an awful state – of course she is. Why on earth would Dawn’s diaries go missing? They couldn’t have been here in the first place.’

We were on the way home; if we didn’t encounter any delays we’d make it in time for Rachel to pick up the children from school, and Steve wouldn’t have to interrupt his work flow to collect them.

‘You’re probably right,’ I said. But whereas once I would have agreed with her wholeheartedly, now I wasn’t so sure. Too many sinister things were happening.

‘There’s no other explanation.’ Rachel pulled out to overtake a lycra-clad cyclist and swerved back in violently as she saw a car come over the brow of the hill ahead of us, though he was still miles away. ‘If Dawn had ever brought them home with her, they’d be there now. Grace thinks she did, but she’s confusing it with another time. The last diary will have been destroyed in the fire, and she’s never started another.’

‘Well, at least I’ve got this one.’ I glanced down at the exercise book, carefully covered with silver wrapping paper and with a scattering of gold stars stuck around the date in the shape of a heart, which Grace had allowed me to borrow. ‘And it covers the early part of Dawn’s time in Stoke Compton, so it’s possible there might be something in it that’s useful.’

I hadn’t so much as opened it yet; to flip into it at random seemed disrespectful. Dawn’s life was in these pages, things she’d never meant anyone else to read, her thoughts, her hopes and fears, a record, perhaps, of her most private moments. And, if I was very lucky, some clue as to what it was that was going on at Compton Properties. What it was that had cost her her life.

‘Fancy Brian Jennings working for Lewis Crighton!’ Rachel’s butterfly mind was skimming all Grace had told us. ‘Now that is a turn-up for the book.’

‘I’m surprised no one has mentioned it before,’ I said. ‘It explains how he came to latch on to her, doesn’t it?’

‘And gives him another reason for having it in for her,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘If she got him the sack.’

She was right, of course. Not only spurned by the object of his desire, but losing his job because of her, perhaps Brian Jennings’ sense of being wronged against had festered and grown until he could think of nothing but revenge. Perhaps he had started the fire, and Dawn’s accident was just that – a tragic accident. But Grace didn’t think so, and neither did I.

‘Why on earth doesn’t that motorbike overtake me?’ Rachel’s exasperated voice cut into my thoughts.