by M J Lee
‘It’s gone missing too.’
‘Right first time.’
‘If you can find it, we can try to compare her DNA with our hand and see if we get a match.’
‘That’s what I was hoping you would say, Hannah.’
‘It still might be difficult, Ridpath, the lab thinks her hand was immersed in the embalming fluid for the longest time.’
‘Chrissy, did you find the files yesterday?’
‘Not yet, after this meeting I’m off to trawl through the old MFH cases. I think it may have been misfiled there.’
‘I’m interviewing the missing person’s manager later. She may know what happened.’
‘Knowing Doreen Hawkins, I wouldn’t bank on it, Ridpath,’ muttered Chrissy.
‘Emily, how did you get on with the backpack?’
‘As I said yesterday, three were sold in Manchester on June 1, 2009. Two people paid with credit cards, a Miss Wendy Taylor and a Mrs Hilary Swindon. I contacted them. Both remember buying the bag and Miss Taylor still has hers. Mrs Swindon said her bag was stolen two years ago when she was on holiday.’
‘It could be the one,’ said Oliver.
‘Except it was stolen in Greece, and she said her daughter had resprayed it bright blue.’
‘It leaves only one left. Sophia?’
‘I checked with Mr and Mrs Ryder earlier this morning. I showed him the picture and Mr Ryder remembered it well. He told me he gave his daughter the money to buy the backpack in 2009 as a present for finishing her exams.’
Ridpath stared at the pictures on the whiteboard. ‘Looks like we have our link. But how did it get into Daisy House nearly twelve years later?’
Oliver Davis wrote the question on the whiteboard in neat block letters.
‘Dave, anything else on Joseph Rowlands?’
‘We managed to pick him up back in Manchester in 2017. He didn’t report to the Sexual Offenders Register though. He was working as a gardener again, this time for Oldham Council. He seems to have kept his nose clean, no police reports or problems. Again, his workmates say he was a good worker, always on time and kept himself to himself. He was reported missing on June 10, 2018 by his partner. Apparently he went to work one morning and never came back. No note, no explanation, nothing. She reported him to the police two days later. Here’s the misper report Chrissy gave me.’ Dave handed over two sheets of paper. ‘I talked to the copper involved. They thought he’d had enough of the relationship and walked out. The copper didn’t know he was on the Sexual Offenders Register.’
‘So no follow-up?’
‘No. He was put down as low risk. His partner had three kids from a previous relationship—’
‘Shit,’ Emily said loudly.
‘I asked the partner as subtly as I could how Rowlands had behaved around them and she told me he had been a great stepfather, taking them to the beach and on camping trips.’
‘Without her?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Shit,’ repeated Emily.
‘Did you inform her that we may have found him?’
‘I did. She still misses him.’
‘Dave, how old are the kids now?’
‘Fifteen, twelve and eight. A boy is the youngest, still at primary school.’
‘You’d better notify Children’s Services at the council. They’ll need to follow up.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘We must, Dave, can’t let it go. Once we know of the slightest possibility of an offence, we need to report it.’
‘Even though nothing may have happened.’
‘Not for us to decide, Dave, children may have been at risk.’
‘OK, but the woman still misses Joseph Rowlands – this will devastate her.’
‘It has to be done.’ Ridpath turned to the civilian researcher. ‘Chrissy, how did you get on with finding the staff from Daisy House?’
‘Without applying for a court order for the information from Manchester Council, here are the names collected by the Pharaoh investigation. Thirty-two in total.’
‘So just those investigated, not all the people who worked there?’ asked Dave Connor.
‘That’s correct.’
‘How many of these people were submitted to CPS for possible prosecution?’ Oliver asked.
Chrissy checked her notes. ‘Good question. Seven people, of which only four were actually put on trial.’ She produced a short list of names and job titles, which Oliver stuck to a new board.
Harold Davidson – Social Worker
Eliot Sandberg – Social Worker
David Wallace – Care Assistant
Joseph Rowlands – Head Gardener
‘All of them were charged with a variety of sexual offences against children, receiving between two and six years, and all were placed on the Sexual Offenders Register.’
‘The kids, of course, received life sentences.’
This was spoken with bitterness by Emily. Ridpath glanced across at her, surprised at the reaction.
Chrissy carried on. ‘Davidson committed suicide shortly after the verdict. Sandberg was shanked in the showers in prison. He died three days later, but his attacker was never caught.’
‘Exactly what he deserved.’ Emily spoke again without looking up from her notes.
‘Nobody deserves to die, Emily, particularly not when they are in prison.’
‘Listen, Ridpath, these men committed offences against children, some as young as six years old, whilst they were supposed to be caring for them. We give them a little pat on the head and stick them inside for a few years. The whole case disgusts me.’
Ridpath didn’t answer. ‘Carry on, Chrissy.’
‘David Wallace died in 2016, apparently from a heart attack.’
‘That leaves Rowlands, who vanished in 2018 and whose hand has now turned up in our backpack. What about the other three who weren’t charged by CPS?’
‘Here’s the list of names.’ She passed out a sheet for everyone.
Robert Dunphy – Care Assistant
Patricia Patterson – Social Worker
Peter Clarke – Odd Job Man
‘I haven’t checked on their whereabouts yet. My next job.’
‘Have you looked at the Sexual Offenders Register?’ asked Emily.
‘Not yet. You’re wondering if any of them went on to offend again?’
Emily nodded.
‘I’ll do it as soon as this meeting ends.’
‘And one of them is a woman. What offence did she commit?’ The surprise registered in Emily’s voice.
‘I’ll dig out the files sent to CPS.’
Before Emily could ask another question, Ridpath began to sum up. ‘Right, we have a new lead, Gerald Duffy. Dave, we need to find out who he is as quickly as possible.’
‘Right, Ridpath.’
‘Last night I asked myself a few questions. The first: what links Joseph Rowlands, Jane Ryder and now Gerald Duffy? Is it Daisy House? Or is it something else, something we missed?’
‘Like what, Ridpath?’ asked Chrissy.
‘Like, were they all at the festival in 2009? Or were they all the members of some gang? Find the connection and I think we’ll finally be able to understand what the hell is going on.’
He paused for a moment, looking out at the small team assembled in front of him. Could they do this? Usually MIT would have a pool of twenty detectives to chase down leads on any case. Here he had only four people. Five, if he included himself. Was it enough?
It had to be enough.
He carried on. ‘Second: how did their hands end up in a backpack owned by Jane Ryder in Daisy House? Third: what happened to the bodies? Why haven’t the bodies been discovered?’ He stopped, remembering Chrissy was supposed to be checking with HOLMES. ‘Still nothing, Chrissy?’
She shook her head. ‘Not a sausage. It’s like the bodies vanished into thin air. I cross-checked with discovered bodies on the NCA Missing Persons website. And still nothing.’
Ridpath made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Fourth: why collect and amputate the hands? Is this person collecting trophies? Or do the hands have some other meaning, some hidden meaning?’
‘Or is it something more personal?’ Emily whispered as if speaking to herself. ‘Is this a form of revenge, removing the object that hurt them?’
The room went quiet before Dave Connor gave a short laugh. ‘Bit too deep for me, Emily. Perhaps he’s just handy with a hacksaw?’
Nobody laughed at Dave’s joke.
Ridpath continued to sum up. ‘Last question. Who placed the hands in the backpack? In other words, who is our killer?’
‘That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Ridpath.’
‘The problem is, Chrissy, at the moment, I don’t have a bloody clue what the answer is. Is everybody clear what they have to do?’
Emily put her hand up. ‘What about me?’
‘You’re coming with me to see the missing person’s manager in the Jane Ryder case, Em, and afterwards we’re meeting Jayne Ryder’s best friend, Rose Anstey, in Salford Quays.’
‘Ridpath, why are we looking for the coroner’s missing person? Surely we should be trying to find out more about the hands in the backpack?’ asked Dave Connor.
Ridpath stared at him. ‘Because I’m becoming more and more convinced the answers to our questions are connected to the disappearance of Jane Ryder. I don’t know how yet. Or why. But they are connected, I feel it in my bones.’
Chapter 55
They were both sitting in Ridpath’s car. He hadn’t turned over the engine.
‘Are we going to meet this woman or not?’
Ridpath paused, tapping the steering wheel, before deciding to ask the question that had been troubling him. ‘Did you mean what you said in the briefing?’
Emily Parkinson frowned. ‘What?’
‘About Eliot Sandberg deserving to die in prison.’
‘Yeah, every word of it.’
Ridpath stayed silent, waiting for an explanation.
‘Don’t give me the silent treatment.’
‘Our job is to catch criminals, not hope they die, Emily.’
‘But they assaulted young children in their care. For God’s sake, these people were supposed to look after those kids.’ Her eyes began to moisten. She looked down at her hands and began to interweave her fingers as they lay on her lap. Finally, she sighed loudly and spoke in a quiet, restrained voice. ‘Remember when we first started working together? I told you my dad was a draughtsmen at BAE in Preston and my mum was a nursery nurse.’
‘I remember. You also studied English Lit at Manchester.’
She laughed. ‘What a waste of time.’ She looked down at her hands again. ‘I didn’t tell you the complete truth. I always thought of Ted and Irene as my mum and dad, but they weren’t my biological parents. I was adopted when I was eight from a council children’s home.’
‘I’m so sorry, Emily, I didn’t know.’
‘It’s not so bad. I had a great childhood, and they were wonderful parents, Ted and Irene, I couldn’t have asked for better.’
‘When did you go into care?’
‘I think I was two, or so they tell me. I don’t know. I have vague memories of being pulled away from my birth mum and crying myself to sleep in an empty bed surrounded by all these other kids.’
‘Do you still remember your time at the home?’
She nodded. ‘It wasn’t great. Please understand, I wasn’t abused or anything. The home I lived in was actually pretty nice. There weren’t many kids and I got on with all of them. The place itself had a big garden, swings, an orchard where we picked fruit and the people tried their best.’
‘But…?’
‘But it wasn’t a home.’ She paused again. ‘You know, until I went to live with Ted and Irene, I’d never been hugged. The first time Irene wrapped her arms around me I didn’t know what to do, I froze and stood there. And school was the worst. All the other kids and the teachers knew we came from the children’s home.’
‘So you were picked on?’
‘I swore I was never going to be bullied again.’ She laughed. ‘Perhaps that’s why Turnbull hates me. I look at him and don’t see another copper but one of the bullies at school.’
‘What happened to your birth mum?’
Emily Parkinson swallowed. ‘I found out much later, she died not long after I was taken away from her. She was an alcoholic, had been for a long time apparently.’
‘Em.’ Ridpath put his hand on her arm.
She wiped her face. ‘I feel so silly telling you all this. It’s all in the past, happened a long, long time ago. And now we have a case to work and not a lot of time to do it.’
‘Do you still want to be on the team? I can ask for someone else, if it’s too much for you.’
‘No, no, I want to work this.’
‘Are you sure? Can you handle this? We need people to be distanced, not emotionally involved, Em. To work the case, collecting evidence, and understand what actually happened.’
She stared at him. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you. When have you ever been distanced from any case you ever worked?’
He smiled. ‘Touché. But I never allow my feelings to influence the way I work the case or the results I expect.’ His voice changed tone. ‘If you can’t remove your feelings about children’s homes from the case, DS Parkinson, you need to remove yourself. Do I make myself clear? Right now, the case is all that matters; finding the truth about who placed those hands in the backpack.’
‘Understood, Ridpath. But we’re never going to find the truth in a car park outside Stretford nick. I suggest we go and see our witness.’
He turned the engine over. ‘Let’s go back to work.’
Chapter 56
Doreen Hawkins was a big woman, both in stature and in presence.
Her secretary had sprayed Ridpath and Emily’s hands twice before they were allowed to enter the great woman’s presence.
‘She’s frightened of germs, washes her hands at least ten times a day. You don’t know what it’s been like during the pandemic.’
‘Difficult?’ asked Emily.
‘Bloody impossible, but I need the job.’ She knocked tentatively on the door. ‘The police to see you, Ms Hawkins.’
‘Ask them to wait.’
The secretary raised her eyes skyward. From inside came the sound of papers being shuffled and chairs moved. ‘Come,’ came the imperious order.
The secretary ushered them into the great woman’s presence. She was dismissed with a nonchalant wave of the hand.
Doreen Hawkins filled her office. Literally. But there was a nimbleness, a subtlety about her movements that belied her size, as if an athlete were trapped in the wrong body.
The office in question was the Kool Kidz Klubz, a children’s charity that helped support kids in need throughout Manchester and Salford.
‘Mrs Hawkins, I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may?’
‘It’s Ms Hawkins, and what’s this about? I don’t have much time. In exactly ten minutes, I have a meeting with the lord lieutenant of Lancashire, Baron Shuttleworth. We may be extending our services into the county.’
Barons? He thought they went out with the Magna Carta? If the name was supposed to cow Ridpath, it failed miserably. ‘My name is DI Ridpath and this is DS Emily Parkinson. We’re looking into the disappearance of a young woman, Jane Ryder, in 2009.’
‘Actually, your name is Ridpath and your rank is detective inspector. Let us be precise, Detective. I dislike imprecision of language amongst my staff and I won’t tolerate it from anybody else.’
‘I’m sure you will tell Baron Shuttleworth exactly the same when you meet him.’
‘Which is in exactly nine minutes, so I would let me know what you want.’
Ridpath took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to be rushed or intimidated by this woman. ‘We believe you were working as missing person’s manager for GMP in
2009?’
‘I was employed in that capacity from 2000 to 2015, when I took early retirement.’
‘Do you recognise this missing person report?’
Ridpath passed across the file. Doreen Hawkins glanced at it and saw her name, tapping the paper. ‘That’s me. Must have been one of mine.’
‘Could you tell us about this case?’
Doreen Hawkins laughed. It sounded like the bark of a deer. ‘You must be joking.’
‘I’m deadly serious, Ms Hawkins.’
‘Do you know how many people are reported missing each year?’
‘Yes, but I am sure you are going to tell me anyway.’
Without taking a breath, she rattled off the statistics. ‘Somebody is reported as missing from home every ninety seconds. The latest figures for 2019 show there were one hundred and seventy-six thousand people reported missing in the UK. In Manchester alone there were over thirteen thousand reports of missing people.’
‘It’s a lot.’
‘But that’s not all. Of the hundred and seventy-six thousand, approximately seventy-five thousand were children. In Manchester, the figure was slightly less than five thousand children. These figures are probably under-reported. The truth is we haven’t a clue how many people or children vanish in the UK. At Kool Kidz Klubz, we work to target at-risk children, persuading them not to run away or, if they do, helping them to return home.’
‘I’m sure you are doing wonderful work, Ms Hawkins, but I have a specific investigation I am looking into. Jane Ryder, who disappeared on June 12, 2009. This is a photograph of her. Do you remember her case?’
Ridpath slid across the photo from the files. This time Doreen Hawkins picked it up and stared at it.
‘Sorry, I don’t remember her. It’s nearly twelve years ago, and as I said, close to five thousand of these pictures used to cross my desk each year when I worked for GMP.’
‘Could you read the report, see if it jogs your memory?’
Mrs Hawkins sighed, glanced at the clock and picked up the report, reading it properly. ‘Sorry, still nothing.’
‘Why was this girl only classified as medium risk when she was just sixteen years old?’
