by Jane Isaac
‘Detective Chamberlain?’ The tone at the other end jolted her. She glanced up and down the road, paranoia eating away at her. ‘Are you there, Detective?’
It was the reporter, Pip Edwards. Beth calmed her ragged nerves. ‘I can’t talk right now,’ she said. ‘I’m expecting a call.’
She cut the line and climbed into her car. The case was solved, Cara had made an admission and given a detailed account of the circumstances, yet something still felt amiss.
Her mobile buzzed again and she looked down to see a voicemail from Pip Edwards. Damn, he was persistent. She was about to cast her phone aside, listen to the message later when something stopped her. She dialled and put the phone on speaker while she belted up. The message was short.
Detective, I was outside the Russells’ when you went in earlier, hoping to catch you for an interview before the press conference, and I saw someone watching the house. I believe it’s a person of interest to you. I also saw him at the cemetery when I was waiting for you the other day. I wasn’t sure at the time, but I am now because he was wearing the same navy baseball cap. I’ll send you a photo in case it’s helpful. Do get in touch when you’re free, I’d be keen to work with you, and report the case from someone close to the family.
A text beeped. Beth swiped the screen and opened the photo. Only to come face to face with a serial killer.
51
Nick was standing at the entrance to headquarters’ car park when Beth drove in twenty minutes later. She’d called ahead, reported Edwards’ voicemail to Pete and forwarded the photo.
She steered past Nick and pulled into a bay. He was beside her car when she exited.
‘I take it you’ve heard the news?’ she said.
He nodded, his face tight. ‘You okay?’ His eyes flooded with concern.
‘Yes. What was Dale Yates doing outside the Russells’ home?’ The thought of the escaped brutal murderer from her last case being so close by made the hairs on the tops of her arms upend.
‘I’m not sure,’ Nick said. He spoke slowly, clearly, his face contorted as if he didn’t trust his voice. He guided her towards the staff entrance. ‘It’s not the first time he’s been there.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Pete’s got the enhanced photos back of the crime scene and the crowd outside the Russells’ house on Tuesday. They’re still a bit blurred, but there’s a figure in both. And that figure wore the same baseball cap.’
She hadn’t yet told him about Edwards’ sighting at the cemetery. Nick’s face hardened as she passed it along. ‘I still can’t see why Dale Yates would be following our murder investigation,’ she said.
‘Neither can I. We can’t find any connection between him and the families. I’ve spoken with Freeman. He’s renewed the wanted banners for Yates on the police system and updated the intelligence to include the recent sightings.’
They were at the back door of the station now. Beth felt Nick’s hand at the small of her back, ushering her inside and suddenly a wave of déjà vu hit her. Yates was back and, now he was alerted, Nick was not going to let her out of his sight until he was confident she was safe.
Barely seven weeks had passed since they’d tracked down Dale Yates, charged him with multiple murders and he’d escaped from police custody. And despite their public appeals, he hadn’t surfaced. She’d convinced herself he’d taken himself off somewhere, out of the county, to evade capture. But, it seemed, for the last week at least, he’d been sitting right under their noses.
Memories drifted into her mind. She snagged them: the edginess at home; the side gate left open, the car that tailgated her with the cloned plates. She’d questioned her own sanity, wondered if she was losing her nerve. What if there was more to it? What if Yates, in his own warped sense of reality, wasn’t following the case, he was following her? He’d been in prison, serving time for murder when Alicia was kidnapped. He had no links with the family and there was nothing to suggest he was involved in the abduction. She considered his presence at the graveyard, at the Russells’, at the crime scene. All places she’d frequented as she’d carried out her duties.
‘Come on up,’ Nick said as they reached the stairs. ‘Freeman’s pulled out of the press conference, left the super to cover it, and called an urgent meeting.’
*
Minutes later, sombre faces focused on a new board at the front of the conference room covered with a map of the area, highlighting the recent sightings of Dale Yates. Freeman, Nick, Beth and Pete sat around the end of the table, listening to Archie Reynolds from intelligence as he talked them through the board.
They should have been down the pub now, celebrating the end of a prolonged cold case with the rest of the team. Instead they were staring at photos of an escaped criminal.
‘We all know Yates is a master of disguise,’ Reynolds said. ‘He’s shaved off his beard, taken out his earring, used a baseball cap to obscure his face. His mistake is that he’s worn the same navy cap each time. That’s what made us look a little closer.’
‘Wasn’t he wearing a baseball cap on one of the photos we have of him from the last case?’ Nick said.
Reynolds nodded.
‘Might explain your tailgater the other night,’ Pete said to Beth.
Nick rounded on Beth. ‘Why wasn’t I told about this?’
Beth avoided his eyeline. ‘I did mention it. I was on my way home from Kettering. Thought it was joyriders at the time. We logged it as intelligence.’ She recalled playing it down to Nick, not wishing to arouse any suspicion. Perhaps she should have taken it more seriously.
‘Was the driver wearing a baseball cap?’
She shrugged. ‘It was dark. I couldn’t tell.’
‘Well, at the very least it needs to be marked as another potential sighting,’ Freeman said.
‘Where has he been staying?’ she said. ‘Someone must have been harbouring him.’
‘We’ve already tried everyone we know,’ Reynolds said. ‘No one’s talking.’
‘More to the point, what does he want?’ Pete chipped in. ‘If he relished his freedom, he certainly wouldn’t come back to Northamptonshire and risk getting close to an investigation by a team of officers that know him.’
‘Okay, let’s alert the victims’ families from our last case, heighten the security and make sure they’re safe,’ Freeman said. ‘Although I think he would have gone after them by now, if he was minded to.’ His gaze rested on Beth. ‘Right, I think that’s enough for one day. Beth, I want you to take a couple of days off.’ Beth opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, Freeman held up a hand to silence her. ‘You’ve had a heavy few days. We can keep things ticking over here. Build the file on Cara Owen. Keep searching for Dale Yates. I want someone with you all the time, and I mean all the time, until Yates is either back behind bars, or we are clear of his intentions. I take it Nick is still lodging with you?’
In his office, Freeman had implied he already knew the answer to that question. He was playing to the audience. Beth played along and gave a single nod.
‘Right, I’m giving him time off too.’
He looked across at Nick. ‘Think of it as a working holiday.’ It would have been funny if they hadn’t had the relationship conversation earlier.
52
Beth felt a tugging, as if she was being drawn up from the depths of the ocean floor. She battled to open her eyes, blinking several times to focus. She was in her bedroom. Her shirt pooled on the chair in the corner; her keys rested on the bedside table. She’d tossed and turned for most of the night, tormented by flickering dreams of Daniel Owen teetering on the edge of the car park wall. Watching him lean back, sway, and fall. Reaching forward to grab him. Too late. Again, and again, like a film trailer without the commentary. His crumpled body on the pavement, staring up at her with the sable eyes of Dale Yates, her mind merging the two figures.
The digital numbers of her bedside alarm clock flashed at her. 9.30 a.m. Milky sunlight crept in through a ga
p in the curtains where they didn’t quite meet.
Nick crouched beside the bed, fully dressed, a plaid shirt hanging loose over a pair of navy trousers that clung to his muscular thighs. He tugged her arm again. ‘Hey, sleepy head.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Monday morning.’
Beth blinked her eyes wide. ‘What?’ Vague images of Nick bringing her drinks and a sandwich seeped into her mind. She’d thought she was dreaming. Was it possible she’d slept right through?
‘You missed Sunday,’ he said smiling. ‘I guess you needed the sleep.’ He held up her phone.
‘I only woke you because your mobile keeps buzzing. It’s Eden.’
She pulled herself up to a sitting position and dug the pads of her hands into her eyes, then took the phone. Four messages from her sister from earlier that morning flashed up. She dialled Eden without checking them.
‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ Nick said.
Eden answered on the second ring. ‘Beth, where are you?’ Her tone was chipped. Anxious. ‘I’ve been calling and calling.’
Accustomed as she was to her sister’s mood swings, Beth rubbed her eyes again with her free hand. ‘At home. I was asleep.’
‘Lily’s missing.’
‘What?’ Her hand dropped to her side.
‘She’s gone. I can’t find her anywhere.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Another glance at the clock. At 9.30 a.m. on a Monday morning during term time there was only one place Lily could be. ‘Surely she’s at school?’
‘No. The school secretary phoned me half an hour ago to tell me she hadn’t arrived.’
Beth sat forward, the urgency in her sister’s voice razor-sharpening her senses. ‘Okay, slow down. Tell me exactly when you last saw her.’
‘She left home at twenty past eight. She was supposed to walk to school with Chloe, the little girl who lives up the road.’
‘I know Chloe.’ Chloe was in the same class as Lily. Her mother had been helping at the party the other night.
‘I rang Chloe’s mother after the school called me. Lily didn’t arrive to call for her. They assumed she was taking the day off because of her holiday and made their own way.’
Beth felt the hand of fear clutch her chest. It seemed an odd decision for Eden to allow her daughter to walk to school alone. She rarely let her out of her sight. ‘Try not to worry,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. Where are you now?’
‘I’ve just arrived back home. Chloe’s mum and I have scoured the village. We’ve been to the school, the park, everywhere I can think of, looking for her.’ The grip on Beth’s chest tightened a notch. Mawsley was a modern village with less than 2500 residents and set within rolling countryside. The nearest town, Kettering, was over five miles away. There were very few places for a child to hide, even if they were minded to.
‘I’m scared, Beth.’ Eden’s voice splintered. ‘I’ve called the police.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘Back at home.’
‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
53
The short drive, from one side of the village to the other, took longer than usual that morning. A lorry had broken down, blocking the main route, and Beth had to take the long way around. She was aware of Nick beside her, phone glued to his ear, and shut out his conversation, instead searching the pavements as she navigated the winding roads, desperately searching for Lily’s red coat, her blonde curls.
Last week, they’d been investigating the case of a missing child. Today, her own niece had disappeared. It seemed surreal.
Nick ended his call. ‘I’ve spoken to some friends at the office, pulled some strings,’ he said, turning to Beth. ‘Warren Hill’s back from annual leave today. He’ll meet us at Eden’s, take her account.’
‘Thanks.’ The child had been missing for less than two hours but given the circumstances – an eight-year-old, ordinarily happy, excited to go on holiday to Lapland that evening, disappearing on her way to school – she’d be treated as vulnerable. She could imagine the scene at the office right now: Freeman would be pulling in his detectives. Sleepy faces recovering from the long hours on the Owen case, engaged in a new enquiry. She gripped the steering wheel.
‘They’ve also ramped it up a gear and despatched uniform to make a start on door to door,’ Nick said. He placed a comforting hand on her knee. ‘Just precautionary, of course. We’ll cancel it when we find her.’
Beth appreciated his tactfulness, though it didn’t stop the fear continue to grip her chest. She’d worked a few cases of missing children. Mostly kids from foster homes and children’s homes who’d run away. Unhappy kids with issues who were later found and returned. There was one incident of a five-year-old who’d become separated from his mother in a shopping centre. By the time Beth arrived, he was sitting on a desk in security, swinging his legs and waiting for his mother. Very few youngsters disappeared and if her job had taught her anything, it was that time was crucial. The longer Lily was missing, the more sinister the circumstances.
By the time they pulled up outside Eden’s house, Beth’s heart was chugging in her chest.
Eden was at the door before they reached the step, a tissue pressed to her cheek.
‘What happened?’ Beth asked, squeezing past the two pink suitcases in the hallway.
‘I don’t know.’ A fresh wave of tears spilled down Eden’s cheeks. ‘She left here at twenty past eight. I waved at her from the front window, watched her to the corner. It was only another two hundred yards to Chloe’s house. I thought she was at school until the secretary phoned me to say she hadn’t arrived.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Just before nine. She was supposed to start at 8.45.’
A slender woman with dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail was beside the fireplace when they entered the front room. Alex, Chloe’s mother. She was dressed in a smart black trouser suit.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Alex said. ‘I knew she was going on holiday this evening. When she didn’t arrive to walk with Chloe this morning, I thought perhaps she was taking the day off, and took Chloe to school myself. I was leaving the village, on my way to work, when Eden phoned.’
‘You didn’t see anything unusual on your school route?’ Beth asked. ‘A car you didn’t recognise, any strangers hanging around?’
Eden gasped. ‘You think someone’s taken her?’
Beth exchanged a flickered glance with Nick. ‘No, of course not, darling,’ she forced the words out, looking back at her sister, her face impassive. ‘These are routine questions. We’re checking for witnesses who might have seen her.’
Alex paled. ‘I didn’t see anyone unusual.’
‘What about the school?’ Beth said to Eden. ‘Could she be in a different class today, or have missed registration?’ The questions were futile, Beth knew that. The school would have already made these checks before they alerted Eden, but they needed to be positive.
‘The secretary has done a thorough search. You know how small the school is, there’s only one class per year. Lily’s never off. Even when she’s ill, she insists on going. That’s why they called me so quickly. The teacher asked the kids in her class and nobody has seen Lily this morning.’ She dabbed her eye with the soggy tissue.
‘Okay. How did she seem when she left home?’
‘Fine. Normal. Excited about the holiday, her last day of school.’
‘What about her favourite places nearby?’ Nick said. ‘Is there somewhere she particularly likes to go?’
‘We go to the pond to feed the ducks, and the playground, but we’ve already been there.’
‘Anywhere else?’
‘She likes to walk down the lane to see the horses. I’ve checked there too.’ Eden drew a ragged breath. ‘I’m worried something’s happened to her.’
Beth reached out an arm and pulled her sister close.
‘Where do you live?’ Nick asked Alex.
<
br /> ‘Around the corner, at 23 Tennison Road. It’s on the way to school.’
‘I’m going to head out in the car, take another look for her,’ he said. ‘Can I borrow a photo?’ When Eden looked alarmed, he added, ‘Just to show anyone we pass, to check if they’ve seen her.’
She juddered a nod and passed him one of Lily holding Mickey Mouse’s hand on their trip to Disneyland Paris last year. A beaming smile on her young face. She confirmed with Nick exactly what Lily was wearing. ‘We’ll come with you,’ she added.
‘No. You need to stay here with Beth,’ he said to Eden. ‘We don’t want Lily to come back to an empty house now, do we?’
‘I’ll come,’ Alex said. ‘I can show you where everything is.’
Beth passed Nick a grateful nod and guided her sister to the sofa. Seconds later, the front door closed and Nick strode down the driveway with Alex on his tail.
Eden studied Beth’s face. ‘Where is she?’
Beth lent her head against her sister’s. ‘I don’t know, darling. Try not to worry.’
‘How can I not? She’s been gone over an hour.’
Beth didn’t answer. There were many other possibilities of where Lily might be and, right now, she didn’t want them rolling around inside her head. She preferred to hold onto the thread of hope that Lily had taken off on her own, to feed the horses or go to the shops, and they’d missed her. Because the alternatives were unthinkable.
‘Have you spoken to Chris?’ she asked.
Eden pulled away, her face clouding at the mention of Lily’s father. ‘She isn’t with him. He’s at work. He last saw her on Sunday.’
‘Let’s call him again, double check.’
‘No. I’ll message him. He’ll only come over, make a fuss about me letting her walk to school on her own. I don’t want him here.’ Eden glanced at an old school photo of her daughter beside the television. Her hair was tied into pigtails, her mouth parted slightly exposing a thin gap between her front teeth. ‘This isn’t like her.’
‘How long has she been walking to school on her own?’ Beth asked.
