The Good Samaritan: A heart-stopping and utterly gripping emotional thriller that will keep you hooked

by C J Parsons

  The aircon in the briefing room must have broken again, because the heat was making Juliet sweat. Her eyes moved over the faces of the seven officers slouched behind the desks in front of her. Defeat hung in the air like a noxious gas. Losing their prime suspect – let’s face it, their only suspect – had brought scathing headlines and a bollocking from the guv, strafing morale. She needed to use this briefing to get everyone re-engaged, start the creative juices flowing again.

  ‘So.’ She turned towards the whiteboard. She had taken down all the maps and photos, stacking them on the desk beside her, wiping the board clean so they could come at the case fresh. Only the photo of Sofia remained, Blu-tacked to the middle. ‘Let’s review what we’ve learned from our investigation so far.’

  ‘That one of south London’s prettiest parks is a front for drug dealing.’ DS Hiranand piped up from a desk near the back, drawing a couple of sniggers.

  She looked at Alistair, who was tipped back in his chair with his heels parked on a desk at the front.

  ‘DI Larkin, why don’t you talk us through the evidence from the park?’ She dabbed her damp forehead with a sleeve. ‘What do we know?’

  Alistair swung his feet onto the floor, the front legs of his chair thumping back onto the carpet.

  ‘We know that someone cut through a section of fence between the playground and the children’s woods the night before the abduction, using bog-standard metal cutters that you can buy at B&Q. We know that whoever took Sofia Haversen gained access to the park keepers’ hut, probably using the hidden spare key, put on one of the uniforms stored there and took the key that opens the north gate leading out of the park. And that they used a park vehicle to transport Sofia through that gate, leaving a strand of her hair in the back.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She put the photo of the cut fence, the hut and the cart back on the board and picked up the marker pen. ‘We no longer believe that the “someone” was this man.’ She stuck Nick Laude’s photo above the cart and scrawled his name beneath, adding ‘park keeper/drug dealer’ in brackets. ‘But whoever did this must have been watching Laude long enough to know his routine.’

  She could hear a trapped fly buzzing against the window in the silence that followed. She scanned the room; a couple of the officers were nodding, which was a start.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back over the sequence of events. The cut in the fence was discovered by park staff the morning of the abduction. There’s nothing from the CCTV of the streets around the park, so the abductor probably climbed over the north gate to gain entry, then cut the fence in the blind spot between the playground’s two CCTV cameras. Sofia was lured through the gap and into the bushes – specifically a large bush with a dense wall of leaves around the outside but enough hollow space inside for the attacker to render her unconscious without being seen.’

  She placed the photo of the stuffed penguin on the board.

  ‘This was the bait, soaked in chloroform.’ Her gaze travelled around the room, pausing briefly on each face. ‘I hope I don’t need to remind you that we are withholding the information about the use of toys from the public, so there is to be no mention of that detail to anyone outside of this investigation.’ She turned back to the board. ‘We are still trying to trace the chloroform. No luck so far. Most likely it was bought online, possibly through the dark web.’ She considered the penguin photo for a moment longer before turning to face her team again. ‘DI Larkin. Talk us through what happened next.’

  Alistair cleared his throat. ‘Then he . . . ‘

  ‘Or she!’ DS Dutoit called out from her seat beside the window, looking annoyed, as though women were being unfairly denied equal opportunities in child abduction.

  ‘Right,’ Alistair continued. ‘He or she hid Sofia inside one of the canvas sacks commonly used around the park, probably throwing his’ – a glance towards Dutoit – ‘or her street clothes into the bag too. Sofia is then loaded onto the cart Nick Laude left beside the hut with the keys in the ignition.’

  Juliet’s marker began racing across the board, adding arrows and scribbling notes, filling the white spaces with scraps of information.

  This isn’t so bad, she told herself. It’s not as though we’re back at square one. There’s a lot of information here.

  They already had the what, when, where and how. They just needed to fill the giant, who-shaped hole in the middle of their case.

  Alistair continued: ‘Sofia is transported to the north gate, not far from the place where our perp knows Nick will be safely out of sight by the pond with his drug-supplier-cum-girlfriend.’ Juliet stuck up photos of the gate, with its closed lock. ‘He or she opens the padlock with the key taken from the hut and drives Sofia out.’ She added the close-up of the mud tracks on the road.

  Juliet pointed to the blank space in front of the doubled-up tyre tracks. ‘The perp transfers her into a vehicle parked here.’ Her fingers shifted to the tracks themselves. ‘We can see by the second, identical tracks superimposed over the first that the abductor reversed back through the gate and abandoned the cart, leaving no identifying prints or DNA, either in the cart or on the padlock. Ditto the gate keeper’s hut.’

  There was a pause. They were all looking at the board now, examining the photos and notes, searching for new links between them.

  Hiranand spoke up again.

  ‘The park keepers often wear gardening gloves. The abductor might have used a pair of those.’

  ‘Yes, good point.’ Juliet gave him an encouraging nod.

  ‘You say the vehicle beyond the gate was “parked”,’ a young PC near the back said. ‘How do we know someone else wasn’t waiting in the driver’s seat with the engine running? Could we be talking about a two- or even three-person job?’

  Juliet nodded. ‘We certainly can’t rule that out’ She could feel the room warming up, motivation seeping back in, like circulation returning to a blood-starved limb. She snapped the lid back on the marker. ‘OK. Where are we on witness appeals?’

  ‘Crime Stoppers is running our re-enactment tomorrow night,’ said David Gray, a pale-haired, square-jawed DS near the front. ‘And we have our three-week “anniversary” witness appeal on Sunday. In light of what’s happened, should we change our approach there? Because we’re looking for two things now. Whoever did this must have spent a lot of time hanging around the park, learning Nick Laude’s routine. So we need to ask if anyone suspicious was seen hanging around the park keepers’ hut in the run up to the abduction. Plus our usual question: whether anyone remembers spotting someone in a park keeper’s uniform in the woods shortly after Sofia disappeared. We haven’t had any joy on that the previous two Sundays. But maybe this time we’ll get lucky.

  Juliet was about to respond when a gruff voice spoke from the back.

  ‘No, we won’t.’ Martin Greer: salt-and-pepper hair, bushy eyebrows and a nose that had been broken at some point and healed badly. A seen-it-all attitude badly paired with a lacklustre service record. He was surveying Juliet over folded arms. ‘No one will remember seeing a park keeper.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Twenty-eight years’ experience.’ He nodded agreement with his own words. ‘Because when you’ve been a cop for as long as I have, you learn a few things.’ Juliet gritted her teeth as she schooled her features into a neutral expression. ‘And one of those things is this: there’s something about a work uniform that makes people invisible. Part of the scenery. Which is why it was dead clever of our man to use one.’

  Juliet glanced towards Dutoit, but the DS didn’t react; either she hadn’t caught the gender reference or didn’t fancy crossing swords with Greer.

  ‘Still,’ Hiranand sounded defensive. ‘I think it’s worth a try.’

  ‘Definitely worth a try,’ Juliet said firmly. She waited to see whether anyone else spoke before continuing. ‘OK, we also need to take a closer look
at our victim. Sofia Haversen’s father was keen to emphasise that penguins are her favourite animal, so a stuffed penguin would be the perfect choice of bait. If this was a targeted abduction, then our jobs get a lot easier. Because the offender would have to be someone who knew Sofia and her routine, which dramatically reduces the pool of potential suspects.’ She turned towards the stack of photos that contained all the other people associated with the case: a depressingly short stack. Carrie’s picture lay on the top. Juliet blue-tacked it above and to the left of Sofia.

  ‘This is the victim’s mother.’ The pale face stared out at the briefing room with its trademark blank expression. Juliet stared back, trying to think how best to sum her up. ‘Carrie Haversen is a very socially isolated woman. No friends, which is sad for her but good for us, in that it limits the number of adults who came in contact with her daughter. We have already interviewed all the parents and teachers from Sofia’s school who had any sort of relationship with the girl. No former sex offenders, criminal histories or red flags of any kind. Her colleagues have been ruled out for the simple reason that none of them have ever seen or met Sofia.’

  She stuck Simon’s picture next to Carrie’s. ‘Simon Ryder: Sofia’s father. He suffers from psychotic episodes and has form – he once held his daughter prisoner in a closet while she was in his care.’ She jotted ‘history of mental illness/locked up Sofia’ beneath the image. ‘However, he was more than a hundred kilometres away at the time she was taken. Up until now, we haven’t been looking at him very closely, since he’s been ruled out as a suspect and hasn’t lived with Sofia and her mother for more than two years.’

  ‘We should check his known associates,’ Martin Greer said. ‘Maybe Ryder introduced the girl to some nut job friend from the loony bin who took a shine to her.’

  ‘That is a possibility.’ She pointed the tip of her marker pen back and forth between Greer and Rob Potter, a morose PC with sallow skin and sharp features. ‘Why don’t the two of you take charge of that? But can we please be sensitive about the language we use to describe people who suffer from mental illness?’

  Greer nodded, before turning and muttering to his neighbour. The words ‘bloody political correctness’ were pitched just loud enough to be audible. Dick.

  Juliet picked up the last photo and stuck it on the board, pausing to consider the blandly handsome face.

  ‘This is Josh Skelter, the man who found Sofia and brought her home. We’ve established that he didn’t have his mobile with him at the time. But I still find it odd that he didn’t borrow someone else’s to call the police – or Carrie, for that matter, since Sofia knows her number by heart – instead of just showing up on the doorstep.’

  ‘Yeah, that is a bit strange,’ PC Potter said. ‘Are we sure about his alibi?’

  She shot a side-glance at the picture, thinking back to that first interview: Skelter, with his frustratingly unreadable face.

  ‘It checks out. His secretary swears blind he was in his third-floor office, hard at work, when Sofia was taken. The security footage from both the building’s lobby and the street outside backs that up; there’s no sign of him.’

  DS Dutoit again: ‘So who does that leave us with?’

  ‘Right now, nobody.’ Her eyes hopped along the row of photos – Carrie, Simon, Josh, Nick – spaced across the board like stepping stones leading nowhere. ‘Which tells us that there’s someone missing from this board. I’m going to re-interview Sofia’s mother. Because if that girl was targeted, there’s a person somewhere in their lives who’s been overlooked. Someone who could still pose a danger to them.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Tara said. ‘Peter’s a bit under the weather.’

  ‘Oh.’ Carrie was standing in front of the stove, mobile held against her ear, absently stirring the simmering pan of bolognese sauce that was even now filling the house with the aroma of meat, peppers and onions.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Tara repeated. ‘I hope we can make it another time soon.’

  ‘Perhaps Sofia and I could come to you? Drop off the food, say a quick hello to him and . . .’

  ‘I’m afraid he might be contagious,’ Tara interrupted. ‘I wouldn’t want Sofia to get what he’s got. Liquid coming out both ends. It’s pretty grim.’

  ‘Oh. When you said he was “a bit under the weather”, I thought . . .’

  ‘I was just trying to spare you the gory details. It’s actually pretty bad, so . . .’ Her voice trailed into silence. Was she waiting for Carrie to say something? Because there was really nothing further to add. Peter wasn’t coming. That was that.

  ‘OK,’ Carrie said eventually. ‘Goodbye.’

  She turned off the stove and sat down at the dining table, resting her chin on a palm, disappointment squeezing her chest.

  ‘Mummy?’ She turned to find Sofia standing beside her, face pursed with concern.

  ‘Yes, my love?’

  ‘Was that Tara?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s not bringing Peter over, is she?’

  ‘No. He’s sick.’

  ‘She’s never going to bring him.’

  The words set off a volley of blinks. Why would Sofia say that? Did she know something Carrie didn’t?

  ‘What do you mean?’ She took hold of her daughter’s small hand, noticing the frayed fingernails (she’d been chewing them since the abduction). ‘Did Tara tell you something?’

  A small shrug. ‘No. But she goes weird when she talks about him.’

  ‘Does she? In what way?’

  ‘Can we eat the spaghetti now? It smells yum.’

  ‘But what made you say—’ She stopped the question with a sharp shake of her head. What was she doing, hassling a five-year-old about a throwaway comment?

  Ridiculous. Carrie turned back to the stove. Everything was fine. She could freeze the extra sauce for another day. Perhaps she would thaw it out for Peter to eat, after he’d recovered.

  ‘I’ll put the pasta on now. Go and play with your animals. I’ll call you as soon as dinner’s ready.’

  ‘OK. Thanks, Mummy.’

  Eighteen

  Sofia woke up in the middle of the night to find a monster standing beside her bed.

  At first she thought it was just a dream, or her imagination making pictures out of darkness, so she forced herself to stare right at it, thinking that would make the monster disappear or go back into being a shadow or maybe some clothes hanging. But it didn’t work. The monster was still there, staring down at her. It was the same shape as a human, but its head was covered in something black (fur? feathers?). All except for little bits around its eyes and mouth, where she could see normal-looking skin the same colour as hers. The monster raised a finger (also black) and put it in front of its mouth, which meant shhhh. But Sofia didn’t shhhh.

  Sofia screamed.

  The sound must have scared the monster or maybe hurt its ears, because it turned around and walked out of her room. She could hear its feet (paws?) on the stairs as it went away. Sofia pulled the covers up over her head and lay with her breath going fast and her heart bouncing like crazy, counting in a whisper.

  ‘One, two, three . . .’

  She told herself that, if she made it all the way to twenty, that meant the monster was gone for good and wasn’t coming back. Or, at least, it wouldn’t be able to come back before she ran to Mummy.

  ‘. . . eighteen, nineteen, twenty.’

  Sofia threw back the duvet and sprinted down the corridor.

  Carrie was dreaming that a huge hole had been torn in the roof and water was pouring in, as if the house were a torpedoed submarine. Josh was beside her, plugging the gap with balled-up newspapers. She was trying to tell him that the paper wouldn’t work, that it kept dissolving, but he couldn’t hear her over the sound of Sofia screaming and the thud of footsteps on the stairs.

  �
��Mummy! Wake up!’

  Carrie’s eyes opened. She shook off the last tangled fragments of her dream to find her daughter standing beside the bed, the moonlight picking out the white of her pyjama top, turning its pink butterflies grey.

  ‘What is it, sweetie? Did you have a nightmare?’

  ‘Not a nightmare.’ Sofia crawled in under the duvet, clasping her arms around her mother’s neck, holding tight. Her whole body was trembling. ‘A real-life monster came inside my room. It wanted to catch me.’ She buried her face in her mother’s neck. ‘I’m scared.’

  Carrie stroked her daughter’s back.

  ‘It was just a dream, my darling. It can’t hurt you.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t! It was real! I woke up and the monster was standing right beside my bed looking at me. But when I screamed, it went away and I came in here.’

  ‘What did the monster look like?’

  ‘Like a human only with dark fur.’

  ‘You mean like a werewolf?’

  ‘No. The fur was really short. Except for circles around its eyes and its mouth.’

  ‘Can you describe the circles?’

  ‘They were like normal skin, peeking out through holes in the fur.’ She nestled closer, limbs twining around her. ‘Can I stay here with you? Monsters never come in your room.’

  An unsettling thought twisted through Carrie’s mind like dark smoke. The footsteps in her dream. Could they have been real, an intruder fleeing down the stairs? And Sofia’s description of the monster . . .

  ‘Sweetie, let’s pop into your room so I can show you there’s nothing there.’

  ‘No!’ Sofia clung tighter. ‘What if it comes back?’

  ‘The monster is only in your imagination, darling.’

  Sofia shook her head firmly, making the duvet rustle.

  ‘I know sometimes I make things up. But not this time.’

  ‘If I’m wrong and there’s a real monster, I’m going to kick it in the butt,’ Carrie said. ‘Because this is a No Monster zone. Our house, our rules.’