by M A Comley
“Maybe it would be wise going forward, if it turns out to be the case that this Frank has abducted Emma.”
“I’ll look into it ASAP. Perhaps we can do an impromptu fundraiser to cover the costs of the installation. Heartbreaking that it should come to this. We’ve been open almost ten years, and nothing of this ilk has ever cast a shadow over us in that time.”
“Maybe it would be for the better, if only to keep your staff safe. We’re living in a progressively angry world where people feel they’re owed more than they’ve put into society.”
“You’re right, Inspector. Although I can honestly say that everyone who visits our establishment has never shown anything but gratitude after their visit. We’re gearing up to Christmas Day dinner, the highlight of the year for the clients and the staff alike. This year, it will be a far more subdued affair due to Emma not being with us. It would be wonderful if you found her before then.”
“We’ll certainly do our best, I can assure you. Thank you all for seeing us and giving us at least something to go on.”
Maurice showed Katy and Lorne out to the reception area and shook their hands. On the walk back to the car, Katy asked, “Shall I ring Karen to see what she can come up with about either of the Franks?”
“Good idea. Christ, we could definitely do with a break.” Lorne pressed the key fob, and they both slipped into their seats. She started the engine and paused when she noticed the colour drain quickly from Katy’s cheeks while she spoke to Karen on the phone. “Katy? What is it?”
Katy closed her eyes and opened them again. “They’ve found a body in the woods near Abbots Langley.”
Lorne’s heart sank. Shit! We’re too late!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lorne had to grip the steering wheel tightly to prevent her hands from shaking while she drove to the scene. The journey took them over thirty minutes, and in that time, neither she nor Katy spoke. Lorne parked the car alongside the local pathologist’s. Her good friend Patti beckoned them as soon as they arrived.
“Suit up first, ladies,” Patti shouted, halting them in their tracks.
Lorne and Katy went to the boot of the car, extracted their protective suits and shoes and slipped them on. “I feel sick,” Lorne admitted, zipping up the suit. All she could think of were the recriminations she predicted coming her way from Roberts and the girl’s family.
“Me too.” Katy swallowed loudly.
“Let’s get this over with.”
They picked their way through the small trees on the outskirts of the forest. Broken twigs and dry leaves crunched underfoot.
Lorne surveyed the area. “Easy to dump a body and drive away quickly without being noticed.”
“Bloody coward,” Katy said, shaking her head.
“Christ, the nearer I get, the faster I want to run in the opposite direction. I feel so guilty… I know how ludicrous that sounds.”
“Lorne, we don’t know it’s her yet. Let’s put the self-reproach on hold for now, eh? Not that there should be any. We’ve done our best with very little clues to go on. Shit! Now you’ve got me at it.”
Lorne chuckled. “Failure is infectious, right?”
“Apparently so. I hope it’s not her. I detest the feeling of failure.”
“Hello, ladies. Thanks for attending,” Patti stood up to greet them, shielding the victim’s body for a moment longer.
“Is it her?” Lorne’s voice caught in her throat as she tried to peer around Patti.
The pathologist stood aside. Lorne’s gaze drifted down to the ground. The first thing that struck her was the young woman’s mane of curly brown hair. Bile quickly rose in her throat. Lorne raced a few feet away and emptied her stomach, a mixture of relief and distress clutching at her insides. It’s not her. Thank God for that.
She extracted her phone to open her emails, looking for the one Tony had sent to her mobile the night before. She walked back and compared the image in Tony’s email to the girl lying on the forest floor. “I believe that’s Gillian Knot.” She angled her phone to show first Katy and then Patti.
They both compared the image to the corpse and nodded.
“Who is she?” Katy enquired with a frown.
“The missing girl Tony has been trying to track down. Shit! I better ring him.”
Katy placed a hand on Lorne’s arm. “Can that wait a minute, Lorne? We need to assess the situation here. Given the location is the last place Emma’s car was seen leaving the motorway… don’t you see? I think we should be linking the two cases.”
Lorne and Patti glanced at each other. “It’s too soon to say that, Katy. What do you think, Patti?”
“I think Katy might have a point. The similarity in the two girls is not something that should be discounted at this time. Plus, as Katy rightly pointed out, the location could be a significant factor also.”
“Shit! You’re right. I’m not thinking straight. Christ, do you think we could be looking at a possible serial killer? I’m hoping I’m wrong as we haven’t discovered Emma’s body yet. Any idea how long she’s been here, Patti?”
“I’d say she’s been dead at least a week. I’m not getting the impression that she was killed here, though. Given the weather we’ve had recently, I think dog walkers use this route regularly, and they would have discovered her body before now had it been lying around for a week.”
Lorne scratched the side of her face. “If that’s the case, then where was her body being kept before being dumped here?”
“That, my dear friend, is something you’ll need to investigate,” Patti said, raising her eyebrows.
Lorne sighed heavily. “My first job has to be to inform Tony. Damn, he’s laid up at home, feeling under the weather. This news is only going to make him feel ten times worse.”
Katy nodded and rubbed her arm. “You need to do it, Lorne. His partner will be out there searching for her.”
Lorne fished her mobile out of her pocket and drifted away from the small crowd of people, which included three members of Patti’s team. “Hello, love. How’s the leg?”
“Hey, you. I was just going to ring you. It’s doing better. So much so that I thought I’d go back to work this afternoon.”
“Don’t. Take the rest of the day off. You need your leg to be fully healed before you attach your prosthetic. It’s not worth taking the risk of getting another infection, love. Anyway, I have some news for you.”
“Sounds ominous. Do I need to sit down for this? Oops, I’m already sitting down. Go on, hit me with it,” he said jovially, not picking up on her sombre tone.
“Tony, we’ve just discovered a body in the forest near Abbots Langley.”
He let out a high-pitched whistle. “Crap! Is it Emma Lansbury?”
“No. It’s Gillian Knot. We’ve yet to make a formal ID, but I’ve just compared her corpse to the image you sent me last night. It’s her, love. I’m so sorry.”
Tony fell silent.
“Tony, are you still there?”
“Fuck! Why? How did she die? Do you know yet?”
“I’ve only just arrived. I better visit her parents to break the news. It wouldn’t be right for Joseph to do it.”
“You’re right. Will it be all right if I tell him?”
“Of course, as long as he doesn’t visit the parents before I get the chance to. We’ll see how things pan out here first and then shoot over there. Can you give me the address?”
Tony reeled off the address, which Lorne noted down in her notebook.
“I’m sorry to ring you with such bad news, love. I better get on now. See you later. Take it easy—that’s an order.” She hung up and made her way back to the group, where Patti was pointing out wounds on the victim as Katy jotted down the notes. “Any idea how she died?”
“There are ligature marks around her neck and petechial damage to her eyes, suggesting that she’s been strangled. A brief examination tells me that she has a few broken ribs and a number of broken bones in her right hand. I’ll
know more as to the extent of her injuries once the PM has been completed.”
“Any sign of DNA under her fingernails? Did she fight back, Patti?”
Patti looked up at her. “You know better than to ask that at this stage. Leave it with me, and I’ll send you a report by the end of my shift tomorrow, okay?”
“It’ll have to be,” Lorne snapped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to take my foul mood out on you. I’m worried that if the crimes are linked, Emma’s time is running out. The sooner we get something on this shit, the better.”
“Apology accepted. There was no form of ID on her, but I think the image you have has confirmed who she is. Are you going to see the next of kin now?”
“Yep, we’ll shoot over there and let them know. Shall I tell them to contact you when they want to see her?”
“Ask them to leave it until tomorrow, if you would. That should give me enough time to do a thorough examination and see if I can furnish you with some answers. Poor girl. Such a young life wasted.”
“Let me know if she’s been sexually assaulted in the report if you will. That could open up another line of enquiries for us if she was.”
“Of course. Right, I need to get on, and my team are eager to start examining the area. They can’t do that with you here. I’ll be in touch soon. Good luck.” Patti turned her attention to the bag sitting on the forest floor beside her. She extracted a number of plastic containers to take samples from around the body.
“Speak soon,” Lorne said before she and Katy made their way back to the car.
“I take it Tony was none too happy.”
“No. He gave me the girl’s address and said he’ll contact his partner to let him know. Do you think we should ring Roberts or fill him in when we return?”
“I’d leave it for now if I were you.”
Lorne cringed. “No matter what I decide to do, it’s bound to be the wrong decision in Sean’s eyes. Do me a favour—while I’m driving, will you ring Karen? Ask her to check the system, see if any other deaths of young women with a possible likeness to Emma and Gillian are registered. Let’s get that side of things discounted first and then go from there.”
“Good idea.”
~ ~ ~
Lorne pulled up outside the terraced house, five miles away from the forest, around fifteen minutes later. She was focused on the house and neglected to see a man get out of the car in front of her until Katy pointed him out.
The man approached, and Lorne lowered her window to speak to him. “Hello, Joe. Nice to see you. What are you doing here?”
“Tony rang and suggested I meet you here. He thought as we’ve been dealing with the family, it might be a comfort for them if I was with you when you broke the news. It’s your call, of course.”
Lorne nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. Let’s get this over with then.”
She and Katy followed Joe across the road to the terraced house, the exterior of which looked like it had been freshly painted during the summer. Joe rang the doorbell, and a man quickly appeared at the window in the room at the front of the house. He waved at Joe, then seconds later, the front door opened.
“Hello, Richard. As you can see, I’m not alone. This is DI Lorne Warner, Tony’s better half, and her partner, DS Katy Foster. Would it be okay if we came in to speak to you and Samantha?”
“Of course. Have you found Gillian? Is that what this is about?” He stepped back into the hallway. Lorne and Katy entered the house first, and Joe closed the door behind him.
“Maybe it would be better if we spoke to your wife at the same time, Mr. Knot,” Lorne said.
His shoulders slumped as if he knew what was coming next. He led them into the front room, where his wife was sitting in a chair, reading from an e-reader.
“Darling, Joe has brought two detectives with him.” Mr. Knot sat on the arm of his wife’s chair and motioned for the others to take a seat on the sofa.
Once seated, Lorne sat on the edge of the sofa, placed her forearms on her knees and clenched her hands together. “Mr and Mrs. Knot, it’s with regret that I have to tell you that your daughter’s body was found this morning.”
At first, the couple stared at her, too stunned to react to the news. Then Mrs. Knot’s e-reader slipped out of her hand and landed on the floor with a thud as her mouth dropped open and tears seeped onto her cheeks. Mr. Knot placed a comforting arm around his wife’s shoulders and whispered, “Where?”
Lorne sighed heavily. “In a patch of forest at Abbots Langley. I’m very sorry. Tony and Joe thought it would be best if Joe came with us to break the news.”
Mr. Knot nodded. “I appreciate that, Joe. How long has she been dead?”
“The pathologist won’t have a definitive answer until she’s performed the post-mortem. At first glance, she suspected your daughter has been dead for a week or so.”
He shook his head, his eyes brimming with large tears as he continued to comfort his sobbing wife. He turned to look at Joe. “So all your efforts have been in vain?”
“We’ve only had a few days on the case, but it would appear so. My condolences to both of you. We’ll be working with the police to try to track down the person responsible. I can promise you that. Tony and I never leave a case unresolved. That’ll be okay with you, Inspector, won’t it?”
“Of course, Joe. I have to inform you that we’re working on an abduction case in the area. When we were called to the scene, we were expecting to find the body of the girl we’ve been searching for. I know this is a really tough time for you both, but if you could answer some questions for us now, it will help us track down the culprit quicker.”
“Obviously, our thoughts are with our daughter, Inspector, but we want the person responsible for our daughter’s death off the streets as soon as possible. What do you want to know? Sorry, is this girl who has been abducted as young as our daughter?”
“Emma Lansbury is eighteen. She has long brown hair, similar to your daughter. That might be a contributing factor as to why this person has abducted Emma. Obviously, that is pure speculation on my part at this early stage. We have no idea if we’re even talking about the same suspect here, but with nothing else to go on, I’m prepared to stick my neck out and link the two cases. Emma also went missing close to the area where your daughter was found.”
“I see,” Mr. Knot replied.
Before asking questions, Lorne motioned for Katy to take notes. “Can you tell us how and when your daughter went missing?”
Mr. Knot ran a hand through his greying hair. “Gillian was last seen on a night out with her friends. They were celebrating one of the girls in the group getting a job at a solicitor’s. The group went to a local pub, and they left early, around ten thirty, and went their separate ways. Gillian was the only one who didn’t have a lift that night. The others told us that as it was a nice evening, she decided she wanted to walk home.”
“Have you spoken to the rest of the group yet, Joe?”
“Tony and I have interviewed a few of the teens. Neither of them mentioned noticing any strange vehicles or people hanging around. A few of them insisted that Gillian should get a lift with them, but she refused to listen. They’re all gutted and felt they had let her down. I was going to try to visit the rest of the group today. Do you want me to still do that?”
“I think we should take over the investigation, especially now that Gillian has been found. We’ll compare notes later.”
“As you wish,” Joe replied, his head dipping onto his chest.
Lorne’s heart went out to her husband’s partner. He looked as broken as Gillian’s parents. “Before she went missing, did your daughter mention if anyone had been causing her problems at all? Did she work?”
“No, she was at college, enrolled in an environmental study course. Our daughter’s long-term goal was to try to save the planet from mankind doing its best to destroy it. She had a heart of gold, Inspector. I don’t recall her telling us she was concerned about anyone she had encountered tha
t was causing her any hassle.”
“Okay. During our investigation into Emma’s case, we’ve recently discovered, a few hours ago in fact, that a man called Frank had shown some interest in her. Does that name ring a bell with you?”
The couple glanced at each other and shook their heads. Then Mr. Knot answered, “Nothing is coming to mind. Saying that, my thoughts are still in that damn forest with my daughter right now.”
“It was worth a shot. Did Gillian have a boyfriend?”
“No. She’d recently split up with a lad whom she had been going out with for a few weeks. Denis Bowyer. Joe has his address.”
Lorne turned to Joe. “Did you and Tony question the lad, Joe?”
“Yes, we questioned him yesterday. He said he hadn’t seen Gillian in the last month or so. Tony and I walked away from his house believing that he was telling the truth, Lorne.”
“That’s good to know, Joe. Thanks. Mr. and Mrs. Knot, has Gillian had any other boyfriends in the past that you would deem unsavoury characters?”
They both thought for a moment then shook their heads.
“No. If she’d taken up with a boy like that, he would have felt my wrath, I assure you,” Mr. Knot said angrily.
“Wait a minute… something has just come to me,” Mrs. Knot said, uncertainty furrowing her brow as she glanced up at her husband.
“What’s that, love?”
“The name Frank. I do recall Gillian mentioning the name, but I can’t for the life of me think why.”
“That’s excellent, Mrs. Knot. At least it’s a start. Can you try to dig deep? I know I’m asking the impossible in the circumstances.”
She placed a hand against her cheek as she trawled through her mind. “Only in the last month or so. In connection with what… I haven’t got a clue. I’m so sorry. Maybe something will come to me later when my thoughts are a little clearer.”
“Please don’t feel bad. It’s a start and a positive one that we’ve possibly found another link between the two girls. Perhaps if I throw Frank Parker or Frank Mills at you, does that conjure up anything?”
