Hold My Hand

by M. J. Ford

  ‘I think he’s a little odd, but that’s what you get living in a place like this. He’d got the measure of us towards the end. The guy in the photo is about the same height, but the body type’s all wrong.’

  ‘Can’t see him in a baseball cap either,’ said Jo. ‘Might still be worth Heidi testing the alibi though. She can dig up the address.’

  Carrick nodded. As they passed the porter’s office again, Jo went inside. Howard was placing several pieces of post into separate pigeonholes on the wall. There was a cleaning lady, a young woman, polishing the glass partition.

  ‘Back already?’ said Howard, opening the door to his small office. ‘I’ll sign you out, don’t worry.’

  As he pulled the ledger towards him and took up the pen, Jo placed the printout on top of the page.

  ‘Do you recognise this man, Howard?’ she asked.

  The porter set down the pen, and picked up the paper, drawing it closer to his face. ‘Should I?’

  ‘We wondered if he worked at the college,’ said Carrick.

  The old man squinted. ‘Can’t say I do,’ he said. ‘There’s not a lot of face to see, is there?’

  He handed back the paper, but Jo shook her head. ‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘And here’s my card. If anything comes to you, give me a call.’

  They left the college, and Carrick took out his phone to call Stratton back at St Aldates and give him the news. Or lack thereof.

  Jo looked up and down the street. An American couple – or at least she guessed that by the man’s size, and his trainers and socks combination – were taking pictures with a selfie stick; and a young woman was struggling with her pram over the cobbles. Jo went to help her on the steep lip of the pavement. In the pram, a girl barely a month old was somehow still blissfully asleep.

  ‘Thank you!’ said the woman.

  ‘Your baby’s beautiful,’ said Jo. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Madeleine,’ said the woman.

  Jo fought back a sudden rush of nausea – it had been top of her and Ben’s shortlist – and the shock must have shown in her face, because the woman looked worried.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo. ‘I’m fine. Sorry, I’ve got to …’

  She walked back towards Carrick, who was on the phone, and saw the woman pushing her pram quickly in the other direction. She was regaining her composure when the cleaning lady from the Porter’s Cottage came out of the door. In her hand she was holding the printout. Looking both ways, she spotted Jo and rushed towards her.

  Jo’s heart, still finding its rhythm, quickened once more.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  The woman pointed to the photo. ‘I know this man,’ she said, her accent Eastern European.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Jo. Carrick had seen them talking and was jogging over.

  ‘He is working at the college. He is gardener.’

  Carrick must have heard, because he spoke into the phone. ‘Hold fire, boss,’ he said. ‘We might have something.’

  There were no games this time. Silcott wanted them to come back to his office, but Jo made it clear things were on their terms and he was to come at once to the porter’s lodge. To her credit, the young woman, Maria, didn’t wilt under repeated questioning. Asked again by Silcott if she was sure, she insisted the man in the picture had worked at the college – on and off – for as long as she had. She didn’t know his name, though.

  ‘I’ll need a full list of groundspeople and gardening staff,’ said Jo.

  ‘Of course,’ said the dean. ‘I’ll speak with Mrs Manderley, the college secretary, at once.’

  ‘There’ll be gardeners working today,’ said the porter. ‘In the provost’s rose garden, I believe.’

  ‘Show us,’ said Jo.

  ‘Now wait a moment,’ said the dean. ‘Professor Graves is on leave at the moment. We’ll have to get permission before we go—’

  ‘Mr Silcott,’ said Jo. ‘We’re talking about a missing child. I don’t give a fuck about permissions, or traditions, or college rules. Take us there – now.’

  The dean was leaning back slightly in the face of her onslaught.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘The quickest way is through the side entrance. Howard, the key please.’ His hand was shaking as the porter handed it to him.

  They left the college again, and headed along the street outside, then reached a sturdy-looking door. The dean inserted the huge iron key, and opened it onto an exquisite walled garden where dozens of different roses blossomed. On the other side was a man in a green uniform – sixtyish, sitting in the sunshine and smoking. He took a long tug, and remained seated.

  ‘Just on a break, dean,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right, Pete,’ said Silcott. ‘These people are police officers. They need to ask—’

  Jo held out the paper in front of him as the man slowly stood. ‘This man works here. What’s his name?’

  With his cigarette hanging from his lips, the gardener looked at the page and frowned. ‘Looks like Al to me.’

  ‘Al?’

  ‘Al Trent.’

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘What’s he done?’ he asked casually.

  ‘He’s wanted in connection with a missing child,’ said Jo, her patience wearing thin. ‘So it’s important we find out where he is.’

  Fag ash tipped onto the paper.

  ‘You serious?’ said the gardener.

  Jo took the cigarette and tossed it on the ground. ‘Deadly.’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘Haven’t got an address or ’owt. He’s cash-in-hand. A lot of the lads are. Comes in when we need him.’

  Jo turned to Silcott. ‘Does this mean he won’t be on the books?’

  ‘Erm, it sounds as though that may be the case,’ said the dean.

  ‘I got a number for him,’ said the man called Pete. He fished a phone from his pocket, started scrolling. ‘Here you go. I can call him if you want …’

  ‘No!’ said Carrick, snatching the phone.

  ‘Hey! Hold up!’

  ‘No one contacts Trent,’ said Jo. ‘Got it?’

  The gardener nodded.

  ‘Might any of the other gardening staff know where he lives?’ asked Carrick.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Pete, with a shrug. ‘He didn’t really hang around with us, though. Never came out for a pint after work.’

  ‘We’ll need you to come to the station now so we can collate possible contacts,’ he said. ‘We’ll still need those personnel files,’ he said to the dean.

  ‘What about the roses?’ said Pete. ‘Provost’s got a reception tomorrow afternoon. He wants it all cleaned up.’

  These people … thought Jo.

  ‘Gardening can wait,’ she said, through gritted teeth.

  Chapter 9

  They left the dean at the college with strict instructions not to contact the McDonaghs under any circumstances. Maria gave them her details, but Jo said there was no reason to stick around. Carrick and Jo escorted the gardener, full name Peter Whittaker, back to the station. Jo believed it when he said he was no friend of Trent, so wasn’t likely to tip him off, but they couldn’t afford any fuck-ups. It was as they reached the gates onto St Aldates that Carrick said he thought they were being followed.

  ‘Four o’clock,’ he said.

  Jo turned to see a woman with a camera, about thirty yards back, pointed straight at her. She looked like an office worker in a well-cut beige suit and a pair of pale shoes with short heels.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said, and left Carrick with Whittaker.

  She strode past a fountain, half expecting the woman to turn and run. However, she just lowered the camera.

  ‘Hi Josie,’ she said as Jo approached.

  ‘No one calls me that now,’ said Jo. ‘You’re interfering with police business, Ms Saunders.’

  ‘No one calls me that either. And nice to see you too. It’s been a few years.’

  ‘Thi
s is an active investigation,’ said Jo. She wondered how long Saunders had been on their tail. ‘You’re jeopardising it.’

  ‘I’m just taking pictures.’

  ‘Don’t be fucking smart, or I’ll take that camera off you.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ said Rebekah, with a grin that took Jo right back to the school corridors, to cliques and PE and short skirts and the unreadable minds of teenage boys. ‘Look, I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘And if you stop me doing mine …’

  ‘You walked over here,’ said Saunders. ‘I’m curious, though. Yesterday you’re in Bradford digging up Dylan Jones. Today you seem to be working on the Niall McDonagh disappearance.’

  ‘You’re fucking spying on me.’

  ‘Spare me the melodrama. They’re connected, aren’t they? I heard about the clown mask.’

  ‘Bye Rebekah,’ Jo said, turning. ‘I wish I could say it was nice to see you again.’

  ‘Do you think it’s the same person?’ Saunders called after her.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Jo.

  ‘Can I quote you on that?’ asked Saunders.

  Jo headed back to Carrick without answering.

  ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she said, hoping it was true.

  ‘Feels like things are moving fast, doesn’t it?’ said Carrick. ‘We’re close.’

  Not fast enough, thought Jo.

  * * *

  But back at the station, things had changed completely. That at least was good news.

  As ever, the devil was in the detail.

  ‘Prints from the smashed phone of Niall McDonagh confirm we have our suspect,’ said DCI Stratton. Heidi Tan handed him a piece of paper fresh off the printer, and he tacked it to the centre of the case board. ‘Alan Trent.’

  The police mugshot showed a square face, eyes wide, with red rings beneath suggesting extreme fatigue, or maybe even tears. The demeanour of a man caught in the headlights and not knowing which way to run.

  ‘Arrested at his home in Aylesbury in 2013, as part of Operation Yewtree, when Bucks police received consistent and credible complaints concerning activities when he was cub scout leader in the early noughties. Victim came forward later, said that Trent sexually assaulted him as a nine-year-old. Subsequently, two other accusers emerged. Trent was convicted, given six years and served three.’

  Nothing unusual there. As long as you kept your head down, a half stretch was typical.

  ‘Parole officer?’ Jo asked.

  ‘I’m tracking her down,’ said Tan.

  ‘Trent’s last known address was social housing in Tring, Bedfordshire, but the council say he vacated several months ago, after some harassment.’

  ‘Heart bleeds,’ said Dimitriou.

  ‘Known affiliates?’ asked Jo.

  ‘He was a loner, as far as we can tell,’ said Stratton. ‘No listed occupation on his arrest. We contacted the DVLA though, and he’s listed as owning a maroon ’93 Vauxhall Cavalier Estate, which gives us a match on the paint too. We’re circulating the reg to all traffic units across all surrounding counties, checking the ANPR too, but we think he’s still in the area.’

  ‘We might have a lead on current whereabouts,’ said Carrick. He explained what they had from Gloucester College, and the plan to round up all contacts from the college gardening staff.

  ‘Excellent work,’ said Stratton. ‘Niall has been missing for almost twenty-four hours, but we still have the element of surprise. I don’t need to say, I’m sure, but the main thing is that this doesn’t get out.’

  Carrick was looking across at Jo, and she realised he was waiting for her to say something about Rebekah Saunders. She held up a hand.

  ‘Sir, we may have a problem with a journalist.’

  ‘The one from the Times?’ said Stratton. ‘That’s Avon and Somerset’s problem, not mine. She’s on the Dylan Jones story.’

  ‘Maybe not, sir,’ said Jo. ‘She seems to have latched onto my presence here.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I know her. Knew her anyway. Years ago.’

  Stratton sighed through his nose. ‘Okay. We keep things tight. Stonewall her. It’s still a local story, and the editor at the paper will want to keep it that way. I might be able to get us some breathing room. Everyone clear?’

  Nods and mutters of ‘Yes, boss’ echoed across the room.

  The meeting broke up.

  With the sun going down outside, the incident room buzzed with quiet work for the next hour or so. Tan managed to get hold of Trent’s parole officer, who agreed to come in from High Wycombe.

  ‘She insisted there was no way it was Trent,’ said Tan. ‘Said she’d bet her life on it.’

  ‘Lucky she doesn’t have to,’ said Dimitriou, leaning over the desk. ‘Trent wouldn’t be the first perp to pull the wool over his parole officer’s eyes.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Jo. She’d spent the last thirty minutes looking over Trent’s file. ‘There’s nothing in the notes that marks him as manipulative. He confessed and pleaded guilty at the first questioning. The judge actually praised his “candour and honesty” in the summation.’

  ‘Thank the Good Lord for upstanding paedophiles,’ said Dimitriou, laughing mirthlessly.

  Jo caught Carrick flinch.

  ‘You don’t think this fits?’ he said to her.

  Jo shrugged. ‘His historic offences were pretty opportunistic,’ she said.

  ‘The ones we know about,’ said Dimitriou.

  Jo persisted. ‘The incidents all follow a pattern. Boys he knew well, who trusted him. They all took place on outings – camping trips, activity holidays. And they were quite a bit younger than Niall.’

  ‘So what?’ said Dimitriou. ‘It was years ago. Maybe his tastes have moved on. Give him another twenty, and it might be legal.’

  Carrick glanced across. ‘How are we doing tracking the other ground staff, Dimi?’ he asked.

  Dimitriou seemed to get the message and continued to the interview room.

  ‘He can get a bit black and white about these things,’ muttered Carrick.

  ‘He might be right,’ said Jo. ‘I’m just not seeing it. If you’ll forgive me, this snatch took balls, and that’s not the Alan Trent I’m seeing. He was involved, but …’

  ‘… maybe wasn’t working alone,’ said Carrick.

  ‘It’s a possibility, right?’

  A constable put her head round the door and called across to him. ‘Sarge, we’ve got data from the ANPR. Nothing from the Friday, but we’ve got something twelve days prior on the A40.’

  They brought up the results on screen. The Automated Number Plate Recognition system had been up and running for several years, and was expanding all the time. Two cameras four miles apart had picked up the Cavalier heading west on the A40 Northern Bypass then returning by the same route three hours later, almost a fortnight before the kidnap.

  ‘Visiting someone?’ said Jo.

  ‘Hard to say,’ Carrick replied. He clicked through to the images. Trent, his face barely visible, appeared to be alone in both sets.

  ‘Probably nothing,’ said Carrick. He thanked the constable.

  Jo returned to the file. The physicals fit for sure. Five-six. Stocky build. Distinguishing features included a tattoo of an eagle on his left forearm, with the letters ‘PAAA’ across its wings (whatever that was supposed to mean). A long scar to the back of his right thumb.

  DOB was 17/10/61, which made him almost sixty.

  Despite herself, she did a mental calculation. He’d have been twenty-six when Dylan Jones went missing. The file didn’t have an address further back than 2001 though, and there was nothing there to link him to Bradford-on-Avon. The manual labour sat well with the landscaping angle, but she knew well enough the feeling of trying to push a square peg into a round hole.

  Her personal phone beeped. A text from Emma.

  Mum wants to know if you’re staying again?
/>
  ‘Shit,’ said Jo. She should have called them. She didn’t know what to make of the fact that Amelia had deputised correspondence to her daughter.

  Don’t worry. Still at work. See u tomorrow maybe.

  She’d pressed send before she wondered if that sounded ungrateful. Then she was angry with herself for even worrying about it. Why was she the one feeling like a teenage girl staying out past her curfew?

  ‘Jo?’

  Stratton was looking over the desk, and she slid the phone away guiltily. ‘Sir.’

  ‘The parole officer’s here. Andy’s taken her into Room 2.’

  ‘On it, boss,’ she said.

  She passed IR1, and saw Dimitriou was taking down notes from the college gardener.

  Trent’s probation officer was younger than Jo by a couple of years at least. She was dressed casually, in jeans and a long macintosh coat belted around the middle.

  She held out a hand. ‘Laura Phelps.’

  ‘Josephine Masters,’ said Jo. ‘Thank you for making the trip at short notice.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Phelps. ‘Kids are in bed. Other half’s under strict instructions to keep them alive.’ She blanched suddenly. ‘Sorry, bad taste. I didn’t mean …’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jo.

  Carrick returned with a mug of tea, which he placed on the table in front of Phelps.

  She thanked him, removed her coat, and sat down.

  ‘When was your last contact with Mr Trent?’ asked Carrick.

  ‘About three months ago,’ said Phelps. ‘Listen, I don’t know the full story, but I know Alan Trent. Your colleague, Heidi, she said there was a missing child. Alan just wouldn’t be capable of that.’

  ‘We’re just following the evidence at this stage,’ said Jo.

  ‘Which is?’ She spoke earnestly, rather than with any belligerence.

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ said Carrick. ‘Heidi – Detective Tan – said you had no up-to-date address? Aren’t you supposed to keep a tab on your parolees?’

  ‘Trent was low-risk,’ said Phelps. ‘He had a place, but the locals drove him out. It was horrible for him.’

  Jo was glad Dimitriou wasn’t in the room. She could only imagine what his reaction would have been.