‘We have to consider it though, right? Forgetting the copper tank. We have to consider that Annie Cox never made it home from the train station having been seen to be travelling alone. How do you explain that?’
‘I can’t. Not right now. Isn’t that just the way all missing persons start out? And the vast majority end up being nothing more than an innocent misunderstanding or someone who maybe doesn’t want to be found for a day or two — for whatever reason. Then they turn up. No harm done.’
‘No harm done!’ George could feel his temperature rising. He wanted to grab the woman and shake her. He wanted to make her see. He took a few moments. Emma turned away from him so she was facing out of the window.
‘I know you don’t want this to be true, Emma. I know you, your community, your team out there, your whole police force, you don’t want to be considering that you didn’t get it all when you got Henry Roberts. Your vicar talked about cutting a cancer out. Maybe something was left. Someone. And that someone is out there now, with a twenty-year-old girl hostage and a stack of logs under that missing tank. In fact, forget the tank. I accept that the missing tank could be a chancer thief nicking copper — who only took one. But Annie Cox is not some silly little girl staying out at her boyfriend’s.’
‘We’re running this missing person investigation the same way we run them all. There’s no reason to run it any different. I owe it to those four other missing people, to my team, to my police force as you so eloquently put it. I owe it to them to be consistent and not to be ruled by your gut feeling.’
‘Tell me you don’t have it too? You can’t tell me it’s just me! I’ve seen you work, Emma, you’re as sharp as they come. Does this feel right to you? Any of it?’
‘This conversation is irrelevant and it’s over, George. It’s been a long day. Maybe we should start fresh tomorrow. My uniform colleagues will be working through the night. They are aware that Annie is their priority. Maybe they will make some headway.’
‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow I will be going to see Henry Roberts and I will be asking him who has Annie Cox. And I will be doing that with nothing to offer him. All I will achieve tomorrow is delighting Henry Roberts. If you could only put your team of detectives on this, they could get us a lead, something that I can at least pretend that we—’
‘GEORGE!’ Emma suddenly exploded. She had been facing away and it caught George out completely. She was red faced. Her eyes bulged. Her chest rose and fell. He had gone too far.
‘Fine. Okay, I’m sorry. I’m not here to make your life more difficult. I should know my place.’
Emma‘s head fell forward in a sigh. ‘We’ll start again. Tomorrow.’
George agreed and left quickly. He waited until he was out of the building before he let rip with a series of profanities into the swiftly darkening sky. His phone buzzed as he got back to his car. Emily had found Annie Cox’s Facebook and Instagram pages. They featured the same male a number of times. He had a surname — Faith. Adam Faith. George couldn’t help but curl his lip. It was very apt. Adam Faith’s Facebook page also listed his occupation as a PE teacher at a secondary school in Monmouth. He would be simple to find. He forwarded the message on to Emma. She could send whoever she wanted out to follow that line of enquiry. George knew it wouldn’t matter anyway. Adam Faith hadn’t abducted Annie Cox. Adam Faith wasn’t going to kill her if they couldn’t find her in time. But someone else had that intention.
Chapter 22
She could only jerk her head. Her hands were still trussed up tight against the side of the van. Her mouth was taped up too. She breathed heavily through her nose in her panic. It suited his needs; the deeper she breathed, the quicker and deeper she took down the substance. He felt her slump unconscious. It wasn’t a big shot but he still took the rag away instantly. He just needed enough time to fuel up the van.
The van was parked down a quiet country road he had picked out when he saw the sign for the dead end. It was better than he’d imagined. Down the end of the lane was just a turning circle surrounded by trees and woodland, the houses having run out fifty yards back. Complete privacy. He pulled back up to the main road and turned left. In less than a minute he passed a service entrance to the Eurotunnel site on his nearside. He went straight over the next roundabout and the petrol station was on his left. The traffic passing through was steady but there were plenty of pumps. He pulled up to the one at the far end. He could see movement at the window: a young girl serving someone. He fixed on her as the diesel pumped. Even from this distance he could see she was attractive. She was slim, not very tall but perfectly formed. Her blonde hair was tied off and ran behind her back. The pump shuddered and cut out. His tank was full.
It was busy in the shop. There was a queue for the four tills. The blonde girl was at the first one. Someone shuffled forward to her and she smiled warmly. He took a few steps. He wanted to be closer. He heard someone huff in his ear. He’d stepped right in front of them as he’d bustled in. He’d not even noticed. He didn’t care. He gazed back at the girl and she looked up suddenly, as if she could sense him staring. Maybe she wanted him to. Whatever, he ducked into an aisle and bit down onto his knuckles. He ostensibly browsed the ready-meals and sandwiches. He’d just come in to pay for the diesel. But she had seen him!
He moved to the back of the shop. He needed to find something to buy, an excuse for ducking down the aisle rather than going straight to the tills. A door opened that he hadn’t noticed nestled in a row of fridges. A man in the filling station’s uniform stepped through and nodded a greeting. He ignored him. The man walked away briskly like he had somewhere to be. The door, in contrast, was swinging shut slowly. His eyes were drawn to a white piece of paper fixed to the middle of the door. It had strips of highlighted pen through it. He moved closer. It was the staff rota: a table of names and dates with shift start and finish times. The top two names were the only females: Sadie and Gill. He only had a couple of seconds before the door clicked shut. He took in what he could.
He picked up a packet of crisps. Something he could take to the tills. The queue was shorter by now, just one person in front of him. There were three tills in operation. The blonde was directly in front of him but he couldn’t get a clear view. The man in front was short but wide. He was dressed head to toe in high-visibility orange. He wore safety boots and had HIGHWAYS emblazoned across his back. He stepped forward towards the blonde. Her till was free.
‘’Ello darlin’!’ He was brash; he talked like he didn’t care who was listening. His stride was a wide swagger. The girl smiled, but it was a nervous smile and she flushed red. The colour seemed to rise up from her chest and neck. She said something back but her voice was too low to travel.
‘Yeah, number four! An’ a lucky dip. Seein’ you in ’ere I suddenly got the feelin’ this might be my lucky day!’
He was starting to panic now. At the third till someone was still pouring items onto the counter, but at the next till along, the woman there was nearly done. They were making small talk before she left. The Highways man was done too. But he was still talking. He held a drink and some crisps in his hands. He had stuffed the lottery ticket in his pocket. He was promising to take her somewhere special whether he won or not. He laughed out loud with it.
The tension was so bad that his stomach twisted and his breath was shallow. This was just how his panic attacks would start. He wanted to shout out. He wanted to lash out and with something sharp. He wanted to run it through this wide fluorescent orange back. He would silence the mouth at the other side of it forever.
‘Can I help you?’ His violent reverie was interrupted by an urgent voice and he felt a tap on his shoulder — someone making him aware from behind. The woman at till number three was leaning forward looking expectant. He cursed under his breath and stepped towards her reluctantly, his head down. Suddenly his periphery filled with a thick shape — a blur of orange. He stopped still.
‘Sorry, bruv!’ The Highways man stepped across him. He kept
his eyes down until he passed. He lifted them to meet with the lady behind till number three.
‘Bit full of himself that one!’ She turned to her right to address the girl at the first till, ‘Sadie! I think he liked you!’
He chanced a look over. She was still smiling nervously but the red tinge to her skin was deeper, more pronounced, like she burned with embarrassment that the Highways piece of shit had even spoken to her. He could understand it. But she shouldn’t be embarrassed. It wasn’t her fault. He lingered on her. He was closer now. Close enough to see that she had subtle colour to her lips and he could see the detail in her hair. It fell down her back in an elaborate French plait. She wore a white shirt that fitted snugly over her breasts and tucked into a black skirt around a slim waist. She had a brightness about her. A purity. ‘Sadie . . .’ he murmured.
‘You okay, love?’
He snapped back to the older woman in front of him. He mumbled his apology, put the crisps on the counter and gave his pump number. He paid in silence and walked as quickly as he could back out to his van. He pulled the door shut. His hands shook as he rested them on the steering wheel. He watched the Highways marked van pull off the forecourt in front of him. The man with the swagger went with it. But he would be back. He had seen a load of their vehicles just up the road where a section of the motorway was dug up. This was the closest garage.
He moved his van a short distance to the area marked staff parking. It was round the side of the building. There were two doors, solid-looking and firmly shut. These would be the staff doors, he reckoned. He just needed to confirm. He’d waited only ten minutes when the furthest door swung outwards. It had a push bar on the inside, the sort that would lock shut if you pushed it closed. An overweight man in a shop-issue white shirt and black trousers stepped out. He lit a cigarette, took a long drag and lifted his head to blow the smoke back out. It whirled and raced around his head before dissipating into the late afternoon. The man didn’t seem to take any notice of the van in the staff parking area.
He still waited for the man to finish his cigarette and go back in. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He didn’t want anyone to be able to say that they had seen a van hanging around by the door if questions were asked.
When the door finally slammed shut, he pulled away and left the petrol station.
Chapter 23
George actually slept soundly, something he rarely did at the best of times. Somehow he had managed to purge all the worries, the frustration and the horrific images — either that or it was just a reflection of how tired he was. He had slept with the balcony door open and he was still close enough to hear the gentle shushing and gurgling of the River Wye. Perhaps this was the sound that had lulled him to sleep. He stepped back out on the balcony just after 5 a.m. He nearly didn’t set the alarm. He couldn’t remember the last time he had needed one. Today he was glad he did. The view was even more beautiful at that time in the morning. The sun was still hidden behind the valley so the whole image was presented with a grey, misty hue. The river still made its noises at the base of the hills and the trees swayed in a gentle wind. The whole scene was shuffling along in perfect time and it was all natural — not a soul in sight.
In fact George didn’t notice other traffic until he was well on the way to Gloucester. The sun was still low enough for him to pull the visor down and he was surprised to hear his phone ringing through the car speakers.
‘Major! What the hell are you doing up at this time of the morning?’
‘Well, what would you know? I got woken up by a bloody text message, didn’t I? Lord knows who would send one of those at five bloody thirty in the morning.’
‘Oh! Sorry about that. I assumed it would quietly sit on your phone until you sat up with your morning tea.’ George had considered waiting before sending his message, but he was a man who liked to do things while he was thinking about them. It was just a few lines to tell Whittaker that he was heading back, that he still wanted to speak to Roberts but he was going to make a diversion. George guessed that it was the diversion reference that had prompted Whittaker’s call. His chief inspector knew George’s reputation better than anyone and, in the past, diversions often meant trouble.
‘No. It had the effect of forcing me to make the damned morning tea in an effort to appease the enemy. My wife is not a woman who enjoys a text message tone as an alarm call, George.’
‘Well, that I can understand. Please, pass on my apologies!’
‘I will do no such thing. I fear that would serve to just prod the beast. Which, I might add, is something that now appears to be even further away following your antics.’
‘I see. Well, thank you for making me aware.’
‘Too much information, George? You can’t complain now. You wake her, you upset her. You have to accept the gory details of a nonexistent love life.’
‘Is that why you called, Major? To talk about your enforced celibacy?’
‘Well, no actually. But it feels bloody good to get it off my chest, old boy!’ Whittaker laughed. He had a powerful guffaw when he really laughed. George couldn’t help but smile himself. He was still thundering down the motorway.
‘So, how can I help?’
‘Your message. You’re heading back. You mention a diversion — anything I need to know about?’
‘Not really, Major. I had a bit of a run-in with Emma up here last night. They’re still treating their missing girl as a standard misper. I think I understand why, but they really shouldn’t be. Emma knows it too. She has a good nose, I can tell. She must have the same gut feeling as me — all the signs are there.’
‘A run-in? Did you leave on good terms? We’re still going to need a working relationship with them, George.’
‘Yeah, of course. We didn’t fall out. I backed off. I could tell I needed to. I just need her to see. But she’s so stubborn, Major . . .’
‘I can’t imagine what you mean, George, never having had to manage anyone like that before.’
‘Point taken. I’m only stubborn when I’m right, though, Major. That’s when I dig my heels in. I think she’s digging her heels in because she doesn’t want to be right. She’s burying her head. The whole force is. No one wants to be the one who admits that they’ve got another abduction. Another girl in real danger on their ground.’
‘And now you’ve got to go and talk to Roberts with nothing more than a prayer. I know you said you wanted to avoid that.’
‘I did. That’s what the diversion is about.’
‘Go on?’
‘I was reading back through everything that we have. I looked at his custody notes. He’s had consistent medical staff the whole time. While he was at HMP there were two nurses and the doctor we met down at the secure unit in Langthorne. The same personnel are going to be continuing with his care. I figure that the nurses probably know him as well as anyone. Certainly they would know what he wants or needs. He might even have dropped his guard around them enough for them to give me something I can use. Anything!’
‘I can hear the desperation from here, George. You’re not talking about withdrawing or withholding treatment, are you? Or to use its proper name — torture?’
‘Now there’s a thought! But no. Unfortunately I wouldn’t get that past my line manager. But Roberts has needs. Everyone does. I know he got his move, his view and his place to die, but there might be something else. It’s a long shot, Major, but I am all out of ideas.’
‘Okay. So how does that look? You drop round for a cup of tea with the nurse and ask her what you can use in exchange for him telling you who he was working with and who might now have abducted another young girl?’
‘Well, when you put it like that . . . I don’t know, Major, if I’m honest. I’m not sure what it looks like. I just need to get in front of her. We can have a chat and go from there.’
‘It can’t do any harm.’
‘I need your help, though. From the operation order covering his transfer it looks li
ke the nurses are working opposite shifts and the doc is kinda fitting in as and when. Two females, I forget their names. I want to speak to one of the nurses away from that place. They might be more relaxed talking to me in their own homes.’
‘Where there’s no CCTV? No record of the conversation even?’
George smiled at his screen. ‘Am I really so transparent, Major?’
‘Like a cell window I saw recently.’
‘Well, fine! Can you confirm whoever isn’t working today and where they live? I think they’re both in the south London area. I’m aiming on getting there for when one of them gets in from her night shift.’
‘You didn’t get any information from me, George.’
‘Of course.’
‘I have boxes of files around this fella. I know the working patterns and staff details are in there somewhere. I will hook them out and send them through to you.’
‘Ideal. How was moving day? And leave out the bit where that animal first walks into his cell-with-a-view.’
‘Fine, actually. We never got anywhere near him to be honest, George. The prison service did all the transport and the hands-on stuff. The place was finished with about twenty minutes to spare, I think. Some of the security bits are still out of sync, but no one’s too concerned. Even from a distance, George, he’s not a well man.’
‘What is the latest?’
‘He’s deteriorating. The doc reported that they drained some fluid from his lung so he was strong enough to move. Without treatment, it’s going to fill back up and stop him breathing. He’s too weak to be treated anyway. It might be days now.’
‘So we’re running out of time here, Major. Can he still speak?’
‘To you? I bet he’d love to.’
‘I bet he would. I need to see him today.’
‘Let me know when you’re done with your nurse friend. I’ll try and make it happen this afternoon. I did some groundwork yesterday. There was some resistance to it, though. Everyone’s shit scared of his solicitors. Would it be a formal chat? Something under caution?’
The George Elms Trilogy Box Set Page 66
