by M K Farrar
“Do you know what the bullying was about?” Erica asked. “You mentioned hair pulling before?”
“Bethany has trichotillomania,” Rita said. “When she’s stressed or anxious or worried, she pulls her own hair out.”
Erica frowned. “Off her head?”
“Not just that, her eyebrows and eyelashes, too. It gives her an...odd appearance which she’s very self-conscious about, especially in this day and age of everyone, but especially teenagers, needing to look perfect. We got her into a counselling session which the school arranged, but Bethany hated it and refused to go back.”
“Do you know the names of any of these bullies?”
“Yes, one was her old best friend, Amber Hudson. They were so close at primary school, but then they went to high school and everything changed.”
Erica winced. That must have been so painful for Bethany, to have her friend turn against her like that.
The parents were painting a picture of a teenage girl who was neither happy at home nor at school, and who suffered from mental health issues. She was a textbook case for a runaway.
The living room door pushed open, and a little face peered through.
“It’s okay, Florence. These nice police officers are helping us find Bethany.” Rita turned apologetically to Naeema. “I couldn’t face sending her into school today.”
Naeema smiled warmly. “That’s fine. How are you, Florence?”
Florence slipped fully into the room and then ran over and climbed onto her mother’s lap. “Are you going to find Bethy?”
“We’re doing our best,” Naeema said.
The girl was all skinny arms and legs and reminded Erica so much of Poppy it almost hurt. She gave her a wink, and the girl smiled back shyly, her hand at her throat where she twisted a silver charm on a leather cord back and forth. It was an unusual thing for a girl of her age to be wearing. She looked at it more closely, and Florence turned the charm in a way that gave Erica a better view. Her stomach lurched, and her heart seemed to crawl up her throat. It took all her self-control to act normally.
“That’s a pretty necklace, Florence.” Erica did her best to keep her voice level. “Where did you get it?”
“Bethy gave it to me as a present.”
“When was this?”
“During the night sometime. I was sleeping when she came in. She woke me up. Do you think it was a going away present? She never told me she was going to leave.” Tears ran down the child’s face.
“We’re doing everything we can to get her back again. Do you mind if I see that properly?”
“Okay.” Florence lifted the necklace over her head and handed it to Erica.
Erica quickly pulled a glove from her pocket before she took it. Considering it had clearly been handled and had been around the neck of a seven-year-old for a while, she doubted there would be a huge amount of forensic evidence left on it, but she didn’t need a huge amount. Sometimes just a few cells or a droplet of blood could be enough to nail someone for a crime.
The necklace was a leather cord, a silver pendant about the size of a two pence coin dangling from it.
Her breath caught.
She’d seen that symbol before. It had been cut into Stacey Ford’s body over and over.
“Did she tell you where she got this?” Erica asked.
Florence shook her head. “No. She just said that she had something special for me.”
“She said that? That it was special?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Erica felt bad having to say this to a child who was clearly missing her sister, but she had no choice. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep hold of this necklace, Florence. Is that all right?”
Her lower lip wobbled slightly, but she shrugged. “I guess so. You can keep it for as long as you want if it means you’ll bring Bethy back.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to bring your sister home, Florence. Okay?”
“Okay.”
The mother’s eyes were wide. “What could a necklace possibly have to do with Bethany running away?”
“I think it might have something to do with whoever gave her this necklace.”
“You think she’s run away with a man or something? Bethany never showed any interest in boys—”
The husband cut her off. “You mean boys never showed any interest in her. It’s hardly surprising considering she was half-bald with no eyelashes.”
Rita Ford looked as though she was about to claw her husband’s eyes out. “You shut up about her.”
Florence burst into tears. “Stop fighting. Both of you.”
Both parents fell silent, but neither of them made a move to comfort their distraught seven-year-old.
Naeema leaned forward slightly, her elbows on her knees. “Has Bethany mentioned that she’d met someone? A boyfriend?”
Rita shook her head. “No, not at all. She isn’t interested in boys.”
That she tells her parents about, anyway, Erica thought.
“She has been out a few times this past week, though,” the mother continued. “She said she was working on a school project with some friends.”
“Do you know which ones?”
Rita glanced away. “This is going to sound awful, but I didn’t even know she had any friends. I assumed it was just a couple of girls from her class.”
“Do you know where they met up, or what subject the project was on?” Erica pressed.
Rita shook her head again. “Maybe I should have asked more questions, but I was just happy she was getting out of her room for a while.”
It was possible Bethany had just been meeting a friend, but if this behaviour was out of the ordinary, then it was more than likely that it was linked to her disappearance.
Naeema took over. “I’m going to need to know the days and times when she went out, and how long she was gone for.”
Rita chewed her lower lip. “Okay, it wasn’t that often.”
“It’ll help us narrow down CCTV footage so we can try to trace her, figure out where she’s been going.”
“Okay.”
The two detectives got everything they needed and left the house.
“What was that all about with the necklace?” Naeema asked as they stopped at her car.
“The symbol on the charm is exactly the same as the one that was cut into Stacey Ford’s body.”
“Wow. So the same person is responsible for her disappearance?”
“I think it’s too much of a coincidence for us not to assume that. Good call on bringing me in on this one. If I hadn’t been there, I never would have seen the necklace and I doubt you’d end up looking in the right place for Bethany.”
“What is the right place to look?”
Erica shook her head. “That’s our job to figure out. Something must be connecting the two girls. We just need to figure out what.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
Erica sighed and dragged her hand through her hair. “I wish it was. I’ve been working on this case for the past week, and this is the biggest development we’ve had. Both girls are vulnerable, Stacey from a sexual assault she experienced a couple of months before her death, and Bethany from her bullying. It makes sense.”
“What theory are you working on?”
“That they’re involved with a cult called The Second Law. We caught people on CCTV footage the night of Stacey’s death, all wearing long white robes, similar to the one she was killed in. I spoke to a professor who specialises in cults, and he—”
Naeema lifted a hand. “Wait one minute. A cult? You can’t be serious?”
“Cult leaders prey on vulnerable people—especially women, and young women at that. Both Stacey and Bethany match that profile. We know that in the months before her death, Stacey spent a lot of time away from home, but according to her friends, she wasn’t with them. The mother thought she had an unsuitable boyfriend, but I think she was with this leader and his group, the other cult members. Th
ey might have been there when she died.”
Naeema’s dark eyes had widened the more Erica had spoken.
“That’s crazy. I didn’t think such things existed in East London.”
“They’re everywhere, unfortunately. The trouble is that cults are notoriously tight-lipped. They believe wholeheartedly in whatever their leader has told them and are unlikely to betray him.”
“Even if they know a girl has been murdered.” Naeema’s tone was full of disbelief.
Erica thought for a moment. “We don’t know how he’s spun it. I guarantee he will have made it look as though it was a positive thing.” Something occurred to her. “We thought the way Stacey was killed might have been because he was trying to trick the police into thinking Stacey had killed herself, but now I’m wondering if the way she died was done to make other people think she’d killed herself.”
“Jesus Christ. This is crazy. That kind of shit happens in deepest darkest America, not here.”
“I’m afraid you’re kidding yourself there. No culture is immune from this kind of thing.”
Chapter Thirty
In the office, she called everyone together and ran through what she’d learnt with Naeema Shariff. She was glad to see Shawn was back, and he gave her a smile and a nod of apology.
“We’ll be coordinating with missing persons from now on,” she began. “The more people we have on this the better. There must be a link between Stacey Ford and Bethany Emerson. Just from a quick check, though they live in the same area, they didn’t go to the same school and would have been in different years. The families don’t know each other, and as far as we can tell, there are no reasons for them to have crossed paths. But someone else did cross both of their paths, and I want to know when and where. Anything that ties them together, no matter how small, is important. I want to know where they hung out, what activities they took part in outside of school hours, where they liked to shop and eat, even where they got their hair done. There has to be something.”
Erica was convinced this would be their key to finding out what had happened. Cults had disciples who went out into the community and pulled vulnerable people into their circle. It might not have even been the cult leader who recruited the two girls, but instead someone within the group.
What if it was two different people, and Stacey and Bethany didn’t have anything in common? What would she do then?
She didn’t want to think about that. They needed to find Bethany before she ended up murdered with symbols cut into her body like Stacey Ford.
Everyone got to work, and the office was a buzzing hive of activity.
An hour or so had passed when Hannah Rudd approached her desk. “I think I’ve found a link between the two girls.”
“Tell me.”
“I went back through the photographs of Stacey Ford’s room that were taken during the search. There were pictures and medals of her taking part in dance competitions. I looked into it and found out she was part of a dance class that took part once a week at the Millway Academy in Clapton.”
Erica narrowed her eyes. “Why do I know that name?”
“It’s the same school Bethany goes to.”
“Shit. Could that be our link then? Someone who goes to the school, or someone who works there?”
Rudd tilted her head. “It’s the only connection we’ve found so far.”
“Good work. Can you contact DI Shariff and let her know about the development? Looks like we need to pay a visit to the school.”
Erica wasn’t about to start trying to make appointments. A girl was missing, and there was a possibility that her life was at risk. The school had already been notified about Bethany’s disappearance, so them showing up to speak to staff members and even students wasn’t going to come as a surprise.
Erica wanted her partner back by her side. “Shawn, I’m going to take a trip down to Millway Academy and ask some questions about why two girls associated with the school have either gone missing or turned up dead. Got time to join me?”
He rose to his feet. “Absolutely.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, they were outside the school building. They had to get the woman on reception to buzz them through—security was far higher in schools than it had been when Erica had been in full-time education—and they were pointed in the right direction to the headteacher’s office.
Memories swarmed over Erica, the squeak of her shoes on the floor, the smell of teenagers and whatever food had been cooked in the canteen, the pictures painted by art students displayed on the corridor walls. Students in matching uniforms, ranging from tiny eleven-year-olds to sixteen-year-old boys, who towered a foot over Erica and sported full stubble, watching them with curiosity as they made their way down the halls. News of Bethany’s disappearance had most likely worked its way through the school by now. Did any of these teenagers know anything about it? Did any of them have stories about how one of the teachers acted inappropriately towards the girls, or perhaps it was even one of the students? Stacey Ford was two years older than Bethany, but if she was here out of hours with the dance group, maybe someone had been kept behind for detention and seen her first then?
They located the headteacher’s office, and Erica knocked firmly on the door.
“Come,” a male voice called from inside.
Erica pushed open the door. Sitting behind a desk opposite was an unassuming man in his mid-forties, with a serious face. His white shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, his tie loose. A suit jacket hung over the back of his chair.
“Mr Woodhouse, I’m DI Swift, and this is my colleague, DS Turner. We’re here to talk about one of your students, Bethany Emerson, who went missing early this morning.”
He half rose from his chair and reached out to shake her hand across the desk, and then shook Shawn’s.
“Thank you for coming. I can’t tell you how distressed I am about Bethany going missing. I’m very concerned about her. She’s had some...issues...shall we say, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s done something to herself.”
He gestured to the chairs on their side of the desk, and Erica slid into one, Shawn taking the one beside her.
“What makes you say that?” Erica asked.
“She already harms herself. She pulls out her own hair and her eyebrows and eyelashes, too.”
“Why would that mean she’s done something to herself?”
He lifted a hand as though in an apology. “I always assumed it was a form of self-harm. I’m by no means an expert, though. I believe a plan was put in place to try and help her. She went to see the school counsellor just this week.”
Erica frowned. “The school counsellor?” She remembered Bethany’s mother mentioning a counsellor as well. “Can I get her name?”
“His,” he corrected her. “It’s Mr Henniger. Alfred Henniger, though he goes by Alfie.”
“Is he here at the moment?”
“No, he only works part time.”
“I’m going to need his contact details. His phone number and address.”
He nodded. “Of course. I’ll get them to you before you leave.”
This counsellor was someone new in Bethany’s life. He had a position of power and influence, and had time alone with her. He would have already known she was vulnerable by the simple fact that she’d been sent to speak with him.
“How long has Mr Henniger been with the school?” she asked.
He pursed his lips as he thought. “Not long. Twelve months or so.”
“And have there been any problems? Everything been fine between him and the students?”
“As far as I’m aware.”
“And his home life?”
Lines appeared between his eyebrows. “It’s not something he brings into school with him.”
They definitely needed to question this Mr Henniger.
“Moving on,” she said. “Had Bethany talked about being worried or frightened of anyone?”
“There’s a group of girls who have bullied
her. I’ve had them in the office several times to try to sort things out between them, but it’s almost impossible to control the behaviour of teenage girls. Between you and me, there are few groups of people crueller than a teenage girl. They have so much to live up to these days, especially now social media plays such a big part in their lives.”
“I’m going to need to get my detectives to speak to those girls as well.”
Erica didn’t think the girls had anything to do with Bethany’s disappearance, mainly because it would have meant that they’d also have been responsible for Stacey Ford’s murder. But they might be able to tell her more about Bethany and whether or not anyone had been acting suspiciously around her.
“How many students are here?” she asked.
“At last count, I’d say just over one thousand.”
Shawn let out a low whistle. “How about in Bethany’s year group?”
“Almost three hundred.”
It would take them forever to question each pupil. It was time they didn’t have. She was going to have to narrow it down to those she had the most interaction with, such as her bullies.
“What about friends? Does Bethany have anyone she hangs around with?”
He shook his head. “Sadly not, poor girl. She was always alone.”
Erica’s heart went out to Bethany. It seemed she had a pretty miserable existence. Parents who were fighting, a lonely school life, a habit that had left her half-bald. It was no wonder she’d got herself caught up with someone or something she shouldn’t have.
Erica switched tactics again. “Do you know a Stacey Ford?”
He frowned. “No, I’m sorry, the name doesn’t ring a bell. Was she a student here?”
“No, but she did come to these premises. She took part in a dance class after school.”
“I don’t really get involved in out-of-hours activities. We rent out the hall to raise extra money for the school funds, but it’s not something I coordinate myself.”
“Who does?”
