The girl stared.
‘Taylor.’
She snapped out of her thoughts and flicked the kettle on. ‘What happened?’
‘Her friend got run over in a hit-and-run and is now seriously ill in hospital. Annabel is missing.’
‘Missing as in wandered off or kidnapped?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to establish. There has been no sign of her since.’
‘Is Cally okay?’ A wash of genuine concern spread across Taylor’s face.
‘Cally’s safe with her grandad. We’re trying to locate Mr Braddock.’
She began picking at the label on the coffee jar. ‘How would I know where he is?’
Wyre quietly stepped into the room and stood next to Gina. Gina nodded to her and they both sat on the stools at the island. ‘We know that Mr Braddock booked the cabin and we know about your relationship.’
Taylor slammed the jar of coffee onto the worktop and began pacing around the small kitchen area. ‘How? We didn’t tell anyone. We were waiting for the right time. Does Annabel know?’
‘Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you tell us what you know.’
‘I don’t know why Mrs Braddock is missing or why someone ran over her friend.’
Gina leaned back and Wyre removed her notepad from her bag. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. What is your relationship with Grant Braddock?’
Biting the skin around her nails, Taylor stopped pacing. ‘We’re in love.’
‘How long have you been having an affair with him?’
‘Around three months. He said they were over, he just needed time to tell her and to work things out. He said he couldn’t leave without Cally and he wouldn’t lose the house so I had to wait. I didn’t mind waiting because that’s what you do when you love someone. I said that I’d look after Cally when Annabel left, like I already do. I know he wasn’t making it up. He was sleeping in the spare room.’
‘It must have hurt, seeing him with Annabel day in, day out. I mean you are a huge part of their lives. Annabel must have trusted you implicitly if she left you with her daughter.’
‘I knew you’d get judgy. You don’t understand.’ She pulled her shorts up over her navel.
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘He has a kid. He couldn’t just leave and I had a responsibility to look after Cally. Mrs Braddock was always out, doing things, leaving Cally with me and the neighbour. I told Grant that it was good. She was getting a life so that when he ended it, everything would be okay, that she’d want to leave. It’s all going to come out now, isn’t it?’
Gina nodded, hoping that the conversation would stay open. She thought of Taylor and the state the couple in cabin eight had said she was in. Gina wondered for a second if Taylor could have driven and Grant could have come along and helped to clean up her mess. ‘Where were you between ten thirty and midnight, last night?’
‘Here. I was so sick after the wine, I came in and went to bed. I couldn’t even stand, let alone go out. I remember falling over in the hall and crawling to the bedroom. The room spinning and it felt weird. It’s too quiet here. It was giving me the creeps, all those trees and foxes. I kept hearing noises.’
‘Where was Grant?’
‘Drinking on the settee. He kept saying that Annabel hates him having a good time and he was making the most of it.’
‘Where is Grant, now?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ Gina spotted a heaped blanket on the floor and a couple of crumpled cushions at the one end of the settee. ‘He slept there because he was in a mood which is why I got drunk.’
‘Why was he in a mood?’
She shrugged. ‘How would I know?’
‘When did you last see him?’
