Hush Little Baby (DC Beth Chamberlain)

by Jane Isaac

  17

  An ailing light bulb beside the door flickered in the conference room. Beth ignored it, instead focusing on the map of Kingsthorpe displayed on their board.

  She traced the route from where Alicia disappeared to the building site at the end of Boughton Green Road, less than two miles as the crow flies.

  Beth had driven to the other side of Kingsthorpe after leaving the shops earlier and cruised to the end of Boughton Green Road. Surveying the bystanders and reporters huddled beside the police tape as she slowed to pass the crime scene, she was relieved to see the high banner advertising new executive homes that blocked their view into the building site and prevented them photographing and filming the area on their phones. The last thing Alicia’s parents needed was to see footage of their child’s crime scene playing out on social media.

  The child’s body had been removed, although the police tent would still be in position, preserving the area where she was found. CSIs would continue to examine the surrounding area for several days.

  She scoured the map. The building site ran for several acres, butting the edge of Guilding’s shoe factory grounds, the last unit on Boughton Green Road, running to the roundabout at the bottom, and the open countryside beyond, and reaching back half a mile to the tennis centre at the back end of Kingsthorpe.

  Hunter confirmed the size and state of the body resembled that of a three-month-old child, which meant if it was Alicia, she was killed around the time she went missing. Until tests were completed on the residue on the concrete, and soil samples tested from nearby, they had no idea how long Alicia had been in that spot. If she was buried fifteen years ago, whoever hid her knew the area, had local knowledge of where the walkways were, and placed her where she was unlikely to be found.

  A flap of the door turned her head. Nick Geary walked in. ‘I was told I’d find you in here,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve allocated all the tasks in the office,’ she said, aware of her additional responsibilities. ‘Given everyone enquiries to follow up on.’ As soon as she’d walked into the office earlier, she’d been swamped by questions from the team. Taking on a management role and being FLO on the case was certainly going to prove a challenge.

  ‘So, I see. I’ve got the address of Tanner, the retired superintendent who was the senior investigating officer on the original investigation. Wondered if you’d like to come out and see him with me?’

  Beth nodded and looked back at the map. ‘A baby is kidnapped beside a bank of shops on a residential housing estate on a Tuesday morning and nobody sees anything. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Nothing about this case makes sense,’ Nick said, digging his hands into his pockets. ‘I mean look at the mother. Remarried, playing happy families with her ex-husband’s best friend.’

  ‘There’s no crime in piecing your life back together.’

  He lifted a single shoulder, let it drop. ‘Maybe she planned this herself, killed the child and took out an empty pram. Nobody actually saw the baby.’

  Beth glanced at the contents of the file, strewn across the desk behind her. She’d read the senior investigating officer’s reports, followed the discussions with Marie Russell. ‘It was a theory in the original investigation,’ she said, ‘but the car seat was fixed to the top of the pram. Surely someone would have noticed if the baby was absent.’

  ‘Would they though? Really? The hood was up.’

  ‘To shield the child from the sun.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You heard Marie Russell say it was a difficult time for her. A new baby she struggled with. Grappling with the grief of losing its twin. Reports from her health visitor expressed concern for Marie’s well-being. The statement from her doctor confirmed he’d recommended bereavement counselling, and there’s no record of her seeing a counsellor.’

  ‘They didn’t mark the child at risk.’

  ‘People make mistakes. She had means,’ Nick continued. ‘They were having an extension built on the side of the house. There were probably plenty of bags of concrete around. She had opportunity. Her husband was at work, out of the way.’

  ‘Why take the trouble to bury the child in concrete?’

  ‘Makes it more difficult to find. If it wasn’t for the excavators, the child might never have been discovered.’

  Beth switched her mind back to her discussions with Marie Russell. She’d said herself her memory of the time was foggy. Although, she appeared to recall the day of Alicia’s disappearance and the events leading up to it with surprising clarity.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Beth said. ‘Who moved the pram when she was in the supermarket? And a concrete block that size would have weighed a ton. How would she have carried it by herself?’

  ‘Perhaps she had help.’

  18

  Former Superintendent Mark Tanner greeted Beth and Nick warmly when they arrived at his home at just after 2 p.m., his face lit with anticipation. He’d followed the findings on the news and when Nick called to arrange the visit, he’d invited them straight over, clearly keen to assist in any way.

  Beth remembered Tanner from her early days in the force. He was a bear of a man at 6 foot 6 inches, with a quick wit and a tenacious hands-on approach to investigating, a trait rarely seen in his rank these days. Stories of him crawling through undergrowth to assist with surveillance and wading through a river on a search team were still banded around the station. It was a much-changed Tanner they saw today though. The Parkinson’s disease that had dogged him since his retirement, three years earlier, had taken a hold. His cheeks were sunken, his clothes hung off him and Beth noticed a tremor in his hands as he greeted them.

  Tanner led them to a spacious summer room, at the rear of the property, that overlooked a sloping manicured garden, edged with a low fence. Beyond, a patchwork of fields and rolling countryside stretched to the Welland Valley on the horizon. Nick and Beth sipped coffees, freshly brewed by Tanner’s bustling wife, Emma, while Nick gave him the rundown on the case. He waited for Nick to finish before he spoke. ‘You’re sure it’s Alicia Owen?’

  ‘We’re awaiting the parental DNA match, but everything points to her – the clothing, the age, the bangle.’

  ‘What state is she in?’

  ‘The body has been preserved enough for pathology to extract DNA. Cause of death hasn’t been established yet, she’s still being examined.’

  Tanner’s face softened, hope blooming at the prospect of a result. Unsolved cases wormed under every copper’s skin and none more so than those who’d worked on homicide and serious crime, when every waking hour was consumed with the drive to unearth a guilty party and achieve a sense of justice for loved ones left behind.

  ‘The reporter on the news said the child was found by a schoolgirl,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Goes to the nearby girls’ school.’

  ‘What was she doing there?’

  ‘Having a cheeky fag before school, by all accounts.’

  ‘I seem to remember I liked a smoke, back in the day.’

  ‘Didn’t we all?’ Nick said.

  Tanner chuckled. When he spoke again, his eyes grew sombre. ‘That child.’ He shook his head. ‘We had half of Northamptonshire out looking for her. Babies don’t disappear. As time passed, we all feared the worst. You know the score: the longer they’re gone, the less chance we have of finding them alive. And the circumstances surrounding this one, the lack of witness sightings and no body. It was incredibly frustrating.’

  ‘We’re wading through the case material. Was there anything that stood out to you from the original enquiry?’ Beth asked. ‘Might give us some focus.’

  Tanner stroked his beard. ‘If Marie Russell was to be believed, it was an opportunist kidnapping. But it was also difficult to believe a stranger would take a child from a shopping area in broad daylight, especially a baby.

  ‘We called in an expert on those prams, or travel systems, as they’re called,’ he continued, cocking a brow. ‘Wasn’t like that when we had our kids. Technology
had moved on – mothers were buying complete systems: car seats and prams that clicked together, so they could move their baby from one place to another with minimum disturbance. In Alicia’s case this was a huge factor because the abductor hadn’t taken the whole unit. They’d removed the car seat and made off with the baby sleeping inside, leaving the pram behind. Like any other product, these travel systems differed from one company to another. This one wasn’t difficult to master, just a couple of clicks and a lever. But an opportunist would be in a hurry and it was hard to believe someone would wheel the pram around the corner and even attempt to remove the seat if they hadn’t used that particular system before.

  ‘We interviewed all the family and close friends that knew Alicia, or had allegedly been in contact with her – you’ll find the transcripts on file. The liaison officers were concerned about Marie Russell. She had to be sedated in the beginning which made interviews difficult, and faced a lot of criticism from the local community for leaving the baby outside the shop. We had to persuade her to take part in public appeals. It was difficult to tell whether her reluctance was driven by guilt or grief.’

  ‘So, Marie Russell was your prime suspect?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve read my notes,’ he said. ‘I can’t deny, Marie Russell was in our sights. She was Alicia’s principle carer and home alone with the child that morning. The last person on record to see Alicia. A couple of witnesses saw her walking to the shops with the car seat fixed to the top of the system, but nobody got close enough to see the baby inside. We explored several different scenarios. Arguably she had means and opportunity to kill the child before she left, and then make up a mock bundle in the travel system. A shop assistant saw her park up outside the supermarket. No one saw the pram being moved or the car seat being taken. It couldn’t have been her that wheeled the pram away because she was in the shop at the time.’

  ‘You think she had help?’

  ‘It was an avenue we considered. In the event she was guilty, it seemed the only explanation.’ He shrugged. ‘Our main problem was that the liaison officers couldn’t get close to her. When she discovered we were examining her phone records for secret messages or associations, she refused to have officers in the house. Without a body and any evidence, there was very little to go on. And… I don’t know. I always struggled with a motive for Marie. To lose one child at birth is tragic. She was suffering from depression and with good reason. Baby Alicia was regularly examined by their local GP and health visitor and they hadn’t flagged up any concerns of abuse or neglect. If anything, her GP said she was more akin to an over-protective mother.’

  ‘Beth’s doing the liaison job with the family now,’ Nick said.

  Tanner shot Beth a look. ‘How are you finding her?’

  ‘On the whole, cooperative and helpful. It’s her husband who seems the more reluctant of the two.’

  ‘Vic Russell.’ Tanner nodded knowingly. ‘I remember when she married him. They kept it low-profile until a local journalist turned up at the reception and took surreptitious photos. She went crackers when it was reported in the newspaper.’ A phone rang in another room. He looked momentarily perplexed, the sound appearing to dislodge his thoughts. ‘How are you finding Daniel Owen?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘He’s a totally different kettle of fish. Talks about Alicia in the present tense, as if she’s still around. Has photos of her out in his front room. It’s like he can’t let go.’ A brief silence fell upon them. ‘Do you know anything about Daniel’s brother, Scott?’ Beth asked. ‘We’re re-tracing everyone Alicia was in contact with before she died but can’t seem to locate him.’

  ‘Not much more than you, I would think. He had an alibi and wasn’t a suspect in the enquiry. As far as I recall, he was a low-level crim. We’d picked him up for joyriding in his teens. I’m told there was some kind of family argument, shortly after Alicia went missing, and he left home. Nothing unusual there. The Owens were always falling out. Scott often left home and returned later. He was a young lad, late teens. Accustomed to going out with his mates, drinking too much and getting into fights from what we could make out. His mother died of a stroke some time afterwards. Last I heard, Daniel and Cara blamed him for sending their mother to an early grave and disowned him.’

  The door opened and Emma appeared. ‘That was the dispensary on the phone,’ she said to Tanner. ‘Your prescription is ready.’ She looked across at Beth and Nick. ‘Can I get you another drink?’

  Nick and Beth declined the offer and thanked her.

  She patted her husband’s shoulder affectionately. ‘How about you?’ she asked. ‘You must be parched with all this police-talk.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  An affectionate smile tickled her lips. ‘I bet.’ She turned to the others. ‘He won’t have a drink in front of visitors. Hands shake too much.’

  He threw her a frown, drawing his thick eyebrows together. ‘Emma!’

  ‘What? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ Nick said. He gave a gentle smile and stood. ‘We need to get back anyway.’

  Tanner hauled himself up and placed a brief hand on Nick’s forearm. ‘Keep me updated, won’t you? It would be good to finally see this one through.’

  19

  Beth and Nick strode into the incident room later that afternoon to find the DCI beside Pete’s desk, scrutinising the latest batch of photos sent across from the autopsy. Empty pizza boxes were laying open across the top of the filing cabinets.

  ‘You could have saved some for the management,’ Nick said, glancing toward the food boxes with a sarcastic smile.

  Freeman laughed. ‘Ah, yes. I almost forgot. Everybody, meet your DS and DI for this case. Better take note of their preferences. We know Nick’s a Margarita fan. What about you, Beth?’

  Heads turned. Beth felt her cheeks heat up. She had less than a year’s homicide experience under her belt and, while everyone knew she’d passed her sergeant’s exam and was awaiting interview, there were many there that had worked on the murder squad since before she made detective. The last thing she needed was hostility from members of the team who felt they were better qualified. But if the warm smiles and nods of congratulations greeting her were anything to go by, she needn’t have worried. Nick gave her a wink from the side of the room.

  ‘Pepperoni with extra sausage,’ she said, not wishing to let the moment linger.

  ‘Good choice.’ Freeman nodded. ‘Okay, gather around everybody,’ he said, beckoning his team forward. ‘You all need to hear this.’

  Beth and Nick passed on Tanner’s account.

  ‘So, Tanner ruled out the mother?’ Freeman asked when they’d finished.

  ‘He didn’t say that exactly,’ Nick said. ‘More he struggled to find her motive. If she’s to be believed, nobody else knew where she was going that day.’

  Beth scanned the latest post-mortem photos on Pete’s desk. The child’s body was completely removed from the concrete now, a tiny frame laid out on a metal gurney. The torso blackened, the skin sinking into every natural recess. Her eyes rested on the bracelet, still laced around her wrist.

  ‘Why leave her bracelet on?’ she said. The presence of it niggled her. ‘When you’ve gone to such great lengths to hide a body, bury it in such a way that it might never be found, it’s odd they didn’t strip her down and remove personal items.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve been pondering that,’ Freeman said.

  ‘Maybe it was a shrine,’ Nick said.

  ‘Underground? In concrete?’ Beth shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘People resort to all sorts of strange methods when they panic.’

  ‘This looks more calculated,’ Beth said.

  Pete nodded in agreement. ‘Farmers bury all sorts in their fields,’ he said. ‘Broken, old machinery, you name it… The block was found close to the ruins of the barn. If the concrete hadn’t been chipped, it’s likely the remains would have been discarded into land waste with the ba
rn base and never discovered. It’s possible whoever buried her thought ahead and considered that.’

  Four pairs of eyes stared at the photos as they mulled this over.

  ‘Hunter’s confirmed there is an injury to the back of the head,’ Freeman said, bringing them back on track.

  Beth stopped short. At three months the child’s head would have still needed some support. ‘How could that happen?’

  He pulled a face. ‘Difficult to say, apparently. A blow to the back of the head, or maybe her head was cracked against something.’ They all winced, horrified at the notion that a young child might have been subjected to such cruel trauma.

  ‘Any chance it could have been caused accidentally?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Hunter can’t be sure at this stage. There’s no sign of sexual interference though.’

  Beth recalled the tears in Daniel Owen’s eyes when he’d asked the question, the evening before. The gruesome thought that your child was sexually abused was every parent’s worst nightmare. At least she could reassure him on that point. It also ruled out another motivating factor.

  Freeman placed his hands on his hips. ‘What do you think about the mother, Beth? You’ve been spending time with the family.’

  Beth took her time to answer. ‘If she was involved, she’d have needed help. We know the pram was wheeled away while she was in the supermarket and the shop assistant witnessed her presence. And even with a young child inside, that concrete would have weighed a ton. Marie Russell’s a petite woman, I can’t see how she’d manage to transport it and bury it alone.’ She looked towards the window, working it through in her mind and grimaced.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I just don’t buy it. I mean, I know she was depressed and grief-stricken after the loss of her son but Marie Russell talks about the incident with such clarity of mind, such depth of emotion. If she’s to be believed, it broke her.’