Read Stolen for Free Online Page B

try,’ Dale agreed. ‘Though you may have to charm the supervisor here to give me permission, that is, if I have to go in working hours.’
    ‘That will be Marisa De Vere?’ He arched one eyebrow.
    Dale nodded. ‘She doesn’t like me much already, so please don’t give her anything further to hold against me.’
    Bryan smiled. ‘She was a little frosty when I arrived here and asked to speak to you. I thought I could take you to the hospital later, as I understand you don’t have any more clients this afternoon?’
    Dale agreed that was so.
    ‘If you could tell me everything you know of Lotte,’ he said, getting out his notepad. ‘Her friends other than yourself, family members she kept in touch with, favourite places she might have mentioned. But first, could you confirm the date you last saw her?’
    ‘It was the sixteenth of March, last year.’
    ‘Where was that?’
    ‘On the cruise ship, the morning we were all leaving. She shot off earlier than most of us, around ten in the morning.’
    ‘And she said she was going straight home to her parents in Brighton?’
    ‘That’s right, she did,’ Dale nodded. ‘And I had no reason to doubt it because she was bubbly and excited on the last day. It looks to me now that she must’ve already arranged to go somewhere else, but I can’t imagine why she didn’t tell me, she was such an open person normally. Or at least, so I thought until I found out what her parents were like. She kept that from me too.’
    ‘They certainly are a couple of cold fish,’ DI Bryan agreed, shaking his head as if bewildered by them.
    ‘Maybe it will be as well if Lotte never remembers about them,’ Dale said. ‘Or that she was raped in South America.’
    The policeman raised his eyebrows quizzically and Dale felt embarrassed.
    ‘Don’t tell me you hadn’t already found out about that?’ she said.
    ‘Yes and no. Mrs Wainwright told me you’d said she was, but she and her husband didn’t seem to believe it. I got someone to contact the cruise line for their full report, but until that comes through it would be helpful if you’d tell me about it.’
    ‘It was in Ushuaia in South America, but I only know the bare bones. Lotte didn’t tell me anything until a week or more after it happened, and she was still reluctant to talk. She’d gone ashore alone, and apparently the man spoke to her outside a shop. He asked if she would go for a drink with him, or let him show her round. He was South American – I believe he was a native of Ushuaia and not quite the full shilling. Lotte turned him down.’
    ‘Would she have been rude to him?’
    Dale shook her head. ‘No way, she didn’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings. Anyway, she cut up the back of town, and the next thing she knows he’s coming towards her in a very quiet residential street. He caught hold of her and hauled her back against a shed or garage and hit her when she struggled. He’d got her down on the ground and was actually raping her when Mr and Mrs Ramsden came along. They had apparently heard her scream. I think Mr Ramsden hit the man with a post or something and his wife followed up by breaking a bottle of wine over his head. They got Lotte away and took her back to the ship.’
    ‘She must have been very indebted to these people?’ the policeman said.
    ‘Oh, she was. They took care of her in their suite for a week,’ Dale said. ‘They didn’t let anyone else get near her.’
    ‘How did you feel about that?’ Bryan asked.
    Dale blushed; she felt he’d looked into her soul. ‘A bit shut out. I appreciated that Fern, that’s Mrs Ramsden, was taking good care of her, but she was so full on, like intense. I couldn’t even talk to Lotte alone. And I didn’t like the religious stuff either.’
    ‘She was religious?’
    ‘Well, yes. That happy, clappy sort, getting down on your knees and praising God stuff, not the basic Protestant thing. She was very fond of telling Lotte she had to put her trust in