by M J Lee
The woman frowned. ‘That is strange. Normally, she would be high risk, particularly if she came from a stable family background. There are four reasons why children go missing, DI Ridpath.’ She began counting them off on her ring-laden fingers. ‘First, conflict, abuse, neglect or simply problems at home. Second, they have been trafficked for sexual or physical exploitation. Third, they have spent time in care. Or, lastly, they have untreated mental health issues.’
Ridpath glanced across at Emily. She had been quiet throughout the interview. Finally she asked, ‘Which was it in Jane Ryder’s case?’
Ms Hawkins picked up the file and read it through again. ‘A couple of things are coming back to me. I remember the copper on this case being worried about the girl, wanting to make her high risk. That would mean more resource and effort would be put in to finding her. But the social worker was adamant the girl was in no trouble and wanted her to be placed in the low-risk category. She seemed to think there were problems at home and the girl had run off to live with her boyfriend. As she was over the age of consent, we agreed to put her in the medium-risk category.’
‘Social worker? There’s no social worker named in the report.’
Doreen Hawkins leafed through the papers. ‘There should be more documentation. I would have minuted any discussions and follow-up on the case.’
‘Nothing in the files.’
‘It doesn’t surprise me. Even when I left, the police computer systems were totally inadequate for what they needed to do.’
‘Can you remember the name of the social worker?’
Ms Hawkins thought for a long while. ‘Sorry, no name comes to me. I dealt with so many during my time with the police.’
Ridpath glanced at Emily and nodded. ‘OK, thank you for your time, Ms Hawkins. If you remember anything else, please call me at any time.’ He passed over his card.
She stared at it. ‘You work for the coroner. I thought you said you were a DI?’
‘I am. I’m seconded to work with the coroner. We are investigating a presumption of death on behalf of the parents. Do you think Jane Ryder has died?’
‘Has anybody heard anything since she disappeared?’
‘Nothing. No communication with her parents or anybody else, as far as we are aware.’
‘About two per cent of children are never found, DI Ridpath. It’s safe to say they are dead, either through an accident, a drug overdose or murder.’
‘Thank you once again, Ms Hawkins.’ Ridpath stood up and went to shake the woman’s hand, before turning it into a touching of elbows.
At the door, he turned back. ‘One more question, a thought, really. Why would Jane Ryder have had a social worker?’
‘I would have thought the answer was obvious, DI Ridpath.’
‘Not to me.’
‘From memory and looking at her form, it is obvious she had been in care. The Ryders were probably her adopted family.’
Chapter 57
Outside on the street, Ridpath stood around as Emily fumbled for one of her cigarettes.
‘What happened here, Em? Did Jane Ryder simply fall through the cracks in the system?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. There seems to be more going on. Didn’t her parents tell you she was adopted?’
He thought back to the first interview. ‘The father kept calling her his daughter. No hint of any adoption. The mother seems to be on some powerful drugs for her cancer, the father did most of the talking.’
‘It is strange they didn’t mention it.’ She lit the cigarette, nervously taking a long drag.
‘When did your parents tell you?’
‘I always knew, so they didn’t have to tell me. Perhaps the same was true of your Jane Ryder.’
‘But your parents told other people you were adopted.’
Emily shook her head. ‘To them, I was their daughter and that was everything. I mean, it wasn’t a secret, but we certainly didn’t talk about it, and I never mentioned it at school.’
‘Colin Dowell, the copper who did the interview back in 2009, didn’t know she was adopted either. I don’t think they told him.’
‘But Ms Hawkins, the missing person’s manager, did?’
‘She was in touch with the social worker. Perhaps it’s how she found out?’
‘Why was the social worker so keen to put a sixteen-year-old girl who disappeared into a low-risk category? Did she know something we don’t?’
‘Perhaps she knew about the boyfriend?’
‘But if Jane Ryder simply ran off with a boyfriend because everything wasn’t as hunky dory at home as you were told, why didn’t she get in touch later? A letter. A phone call. Or just a Christmas card, letting her adoptive parents know she was OK. Wouldn’t she have at least communicated in some way? I would have done, in her position.’ Emily Parkinson stopped talking.
‘What are you thinking?’ asked Ridpath.
‘Not if she hated them. Not if she hated them so much she never wanted to see them again. Not if…’
‘Go on.’
‘She wanted to punish them so much, and the harshest punishment was silence…’
Ridpath’s phone rang. He checked the screen; it was Chrissy. He put her on speakerphone so Emily could hear.
‘Hi there, what have you got for me?’
‘I’ve found the files on Jane Ryder. There were duplicates in the MFH, with a lot more follow-up and interviews than in the documents we have.’
‘Great, Chrissy, can you scan them in and send to me?’
‘Will do.’
Ridpath thought for a moment. ‘Do you have them now?’
‘I’m at MFH, they’re in front of me.’
‘Are the DNA samples taken by Colin Dowell still there?’
‘There’s an evidence bag. Let me check it. Yep, it’s a toothbrush.’
‘Great, Chrissy. Can you send it to Hannah at the lab and ask her to compare a sample with DNA from the female hand?’
‘But I thought we were unable to obtain DNA?’
‘Perhaps not enough for identification, but enough to compare with an existing sample.’
‘OK, I see what you’re doing. Does the sample from the toothbrush match DNA from the hand? You know it probably won’t stand up in court, Ridpath.’
‘But it would stand up in an inquest for a presumption of death. At least it might give us an ID.’
‘Sending it as soon as we finish this phone call.’
‘Can you also take a quick look and give me the name of the social worker involved? There should be a minuted meeting with the missing person’s manager, Doreen Hawkins.’
‘Just a sec.’
Ridpath heard the turning of pages as Chrissy mumbled a few words to herself. ‘Here it is. The social worker was a… Patricia Patterson.’
‘What?’
‘It says here Patricia Patterson. Doreen Hawkins had a telephone call with her on June 20, 2009.’
There was silence for a second before Emily spoke. ‘Hang on, wasn’t that the name of one of the social workers not charged by CPS after Operation Pharaoh?’
‘Chrissy, we need the files submitted to CPS as soon as possible. Obviously the investigating officers thought there was enough evidence to charge Patricia Patterson, but CPS disagreed. Why?’
‘Probably insufficient evidence to gain a conviction in their opinion, Ridpath.’
‘We need to know, Chrissy.’
‘Next job, Ridpath.’
He switched off the phone.
‘What is it?’ asked Emily.
‘Something’s not right with this case. There seem to be lies, more lies and even more untruths. But I know one thing is true…’
‘What?’
‘Daisy House Children’s Home seems to be at the heart of everything.’
Chapter 58
A cold, dread wind swept down the Manchester Ship Canal from the Irish Sea and draped itself over the new developments and television studios of Salford Quays.
>
Once, not so long ago, this area had resounded to the whirr of cranes, the shouts of stevedores and the foghorns of ships as bags of grain, pallets of steel and boxes of consumer goods had come from all over the world, bypassing the port of Liverpool and sailing straight into the heart of Manchester.
These days, the traffic was in the opposite direction as programmes shot, produced and developed in the studios lining the old docks were transmitted out to the world.
Ridpath didn’t like the area much, always finding it cold and grey and sterile. For a place full of creative people, it was a remarkably uncreative environment. A factory manufacturing a product, rather than a place to nurture ideas.
He’d arranged to meet Rose Anstey in a cafe at the bottom of the Quayside Centre. She worked at ITV and only had a short lunch break.
‘You must be Rose Anstey?’ Ridpath stood up.
‘Right first time. How did you recognise me?’
He pointed to the badge hanging round her neck with the words ITV and ROSE ANSTEY written in block letters. ‘I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I couldn’t work it out.’
She laughed and sat down.
‘This is my colleague, DS Emily Parkinson. We’re investigating the disappearance of Jane Ryder in 2009.’
Rose Anstey made a moue with her mouth. ‘I’m impressed. I thought by now the police would have stopped looking for Jane. Top marks for persistence.’
‘You haven’t heard from her since she disappeared?’
Rose shook her head. ‘Nothing. I mean, we were best mates back then. I would’ve thought she’d send me something. A text or an email.’
‘But nothing…’
‘Not a word. It’s like she vanished into thin air. Kudos to you lot for still looking for her though.’
‘Actually, her parents have asked for a presumption of death certificate to be issued, that’s why we are re-investigating her disappearance.’ Ridpath decided not to mention the backpack or its connection to his case.
‘Oh?’
‘I wonder if you could take us through that time. Anything, even the smallest detail, could help us.’
‘The truth?’
‘The truth.’
‘Jane and I were best friends. Had been since we both started high school at eleven. We sort of hit it off straight away.’
‘So you knew each other’s secrets?’ asked Emily.
Rose smiled. ‘We told each other everything. A proper little cabal of two misfits we were.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, neither of us was too happy at home. Jane had been through a tough time in care…’
‘You knew she was in care?’
‘She didn’t talk about it a lot, only to me, but it wasn’t a happy time for her. Her mum had given her up when she was five years old, drug problems, I think. She’d been first fostered and then adopted by the Ryders when she was nine years old.’
‘You said there were problems at home for her?’
‘The Ryders were old and set in their ways. I think they wanted the perfect daughter, and Jane didn’t live up to their expectations. The dad was OK, but the mum… well the mum was… difficult. Jane didn’t talk much about it, but I had the feeling it was all too much for her.’
‘She’d run away before?’
‘Before 2009? Yes, twice before. Once with me. We travelled as far as Stoke before we were caught and brought back. We both had this crazy idea we were going to meet Robbie Williams. We thought it would be easy to find him in a place like Stoke. We found out later he was living in Los Angeles, shows you how naive we were.’
‘How old were you?’
‘We were both thirteen. Young, innocent and stupid.’
‘What happened when you were caught?’
‘We were both brought back. I was grounded and had to see some social worker or other. It was tougher for Jane though. She was adopted and still being monitored by Social Services.’
‘But she ran away again.’
‘When she was fifteen.’
‘You didn’t go with her?’
‘Not that time. I realised it was all a bit futile and decided to keep my head down and pretend.’ She stared off into the distance for a second. ‘I was good at pretending, Jane wasn’t.’
‘She was brought back again?’
‘A lorry driver picked her up on the M6 services, she was heading to London, but as soon as she told him her age, he dropped her off at the side of the road. The police found her walking along the hard shoulder trying to hitch a lift.’
‘Where was she going?’
‘She had this daft plan to go to London and work there. She wanted to be an actress and thought the bright lights of the big city would give her “life experience”.’ Rose formed quote marks with her fingers. ‘Instead, she discovered the bright lights of the big motorway. She was different after she came back.’
‘How?’
‘More wary and closed. She said she’d met someone. Didn’t tell me who. But he’d helped her to see stuff differently.’
‘That was all?’
‘Like I said, she was more closed after she came back. She didn’t talk much about what had happened.’
‘And June 12, the day of the festival, you were supposed to go with her?’
She shook her head and laughed. ‘No, it was just a story for our parents. I’d met this boy, Billy Drury. I was supposed to go camping with him on the weekend and Jane was meeting her friend at the festival, so we covered for each other, said we were going together.’
‘You never found out who her friend was?’
‘She wouldn’t say. I came back on the Sunday night and Jane’s parents rang my mum on Monday asking where she was.’ Again, she seemed to vanish back into her memories. ‘It all came out. I was forced to admit we hadn’t been at the festival together.’
‘You told this to the police?’
Rose nodded. ‘A social worker rang me and I told her most of it.’
‘Most?’
‘I didn’t go into all the details about the person she was supposed to be meeting. I thought she was going to come back and didn’t want to get her into trouble. I had enough shit from my parents.’
‘What about Andrea, Jane’s other friend?’
‘The hanger-on? She used to follow her around everywhere, puppy-dog eyes staring up at Jane. I didn’t like her much myself. Don’t know what happened to her afterwards, we weren’t close.’
‘Was she supposed to go to the festival too?’
‘No, that was the point. Jane wanted to go alone, we were supposed to give an alibi. I don’t know what Andrea did. Perhaps she did go to the festival, wouldn’t put it past her.’
‘One more question.’ Ridpath stopped taking notes and looked her straight in the eye. ‘Did Jane have a backpack?’
Rose smiled. ‘Her dad, I mean, Mr Ryder had given her some money for doing well in her exams. Dead chuffed she was with it. Showing it off around the school. A limited-edition something or other, can’t remember the brand. She bought it at Afflecks though, I remember because I was with her.’
‘What colour was it?’
Rose’s forehead lined as she tried to think. ‘A sort of green with red stripes. CLAT or CLAK was the brand, something like that. Sorry, can’t remember, it’s such a long time ago.’
‘No worries, you’ve been great so far. OK, any questions, Emily?’
The detective shook her head.
‘Anything else you’d like to say? Something you’ve thought about but wasn’t important at the time?’
Rose thought for a long time. ‘There was one thing that troubled me. Might be nothing though.’
‘What was it?’
‘I had the feeling she’d known the person she was meeting for a long time. She hadn’t recently met him or her.’
‘Why?’
‘Just a feeling. It was like she’d met them before.’
Emily leant forward. ‘Him or her?’
‘Yeah, Jane never talked about it being a he or a she. It was always they.’ She stared off into mid-air for a long time. ‘Jane was always in charge. I must admit I was a bit of a follower too, probably why I resented Andrea. I think she planned to go away at the festival. I can’t be sure, of course, you never knew what Jane was thinking.’
‘Thanks, Rose. Call me if there’s anything else you remember, no matter how small.’ Ridpath slid his card across the table.
‘I’ve just thought of a question, Rose.’ Emily paused for a moment. ‘Did Jane ever tell you which care home she lived in?’
‘It was Daisy House, the one in Northenden, not far from where we live now. I pass it walking the dog most days.’ She paused for a moment, her eyes glassing over. ‘I always think of Jane.’
Chapter 59
Ridpath sat in his car outside the Coroner’s Court. Instead of getting out, he stayed there for a moment gathering his thoughts.
This case was becoming more and more complicated. Before briefing Mrs Challinor, he had to get it straight in his own head.
After Rose Anstey had returned to work, he had a quick chat with Emily. ‘What do you think?’
‘We need to follow up on the social worker, Patricia Patterson, as soon as possible. Why was she so closely involved with Jane Ryder? When did she meet her at Daisy House? What crime did the Operation Pharaoh investigating team think she committed? If they passed a case file to CPS, the officers must have found some evidence of wrongdoing. I’ll have chat with a mate of mine who worked on the case. Perhaps he’ll be able to tell me stuff not in the files.’
‘Get on it, Emily. Let’s meet tomorrow morning in Stretford nick to see where we are. I’ll message the others.’
He’d driven from Media City to the Coroner’s Court, half his mind on the road and the rest on the case. As he parked up, he looked out of the window of his car. The old Victorian building sheltering the Coroner’s Court had the look of a schoolhouse. But not a building out of Dickens, operated by Wackford Squeers. Rather it was something far more enlightened, like the old workmen’s institutes offering lifelong learning to anybody and everybody.
A good place. A just place.
