by Jack Slater
‘Here we go.’ Jane turned at another junction and drove slowly until she spotted the right number on a gatepost.
‘Blimey, they ain’t poor, are they?’
The house was set in its own neatly manicured grounds behind a high, thick hedge.
Jane turned in through high wooden gates that already stood open and parked in front of the double-width garage.
‘You never been round this way before?’ Pete asked as they stepped out and made their way to the front door.
‘Don’t get too much crime up here, do we? And you know me. I come from the other side of the river.’
Pete laughed. ‘Well, that’s closer than me. Only money round Okehampton is the old kind. Manor houses and the like.’ He reached for the bell-push, but hadn’t touched it when the door opened to reveal a man in shirtsleeves and smart trousers.
‘Detective?’
‘DS Peter Gayle. And this is DC Bennett.’
‘Come in. My wife’s through there.’ He stood back and indicated a door to the right of the big hallway.
They went into a large, bright sitting room where Mrs Whitlock sat on one of three cream sofas, a barely touched cup and saucer on the coffee table in front of her. In her thirties, blonde hair held back from her face in a chignon, Pete could see that she was a woman of natural style and beauty, despite the haunted look she wore now.
Her husband followed them in and sat beside her, taking her hand. ‘Please, have a seat. These are the detectives, Jess.’
She glanced up, clearly in shock.
Pete took the sofa at right angles to theirs. ‘Pete Gayle. This is Jane Bennett. We just need to establish the facts of the situation, then we’ll get out of your hair.’
‘Please. Ask us anything,’ Alistair said. ‘Just . . . find her, Sergeant.’
Pete took out his notebook and saw Jane doing the same. ‘That’s what we’re here for. Now, we only have what you told my colleague on the phone, so… We need to build as full a picture as we can.’
‘Why? Surely, it’s not Rosie’s fault she’s gone? What can we tell you that’ll help find whoever took her?’
‘If she’s been abducted, rather than gone off on her own . . .’
‘Of course, she hasn’t gone off on her own,’ Whitlock snapped over him. ‘She has no reason to. She’s perfectly happy at home. And at school.’
Pete raised his hands. ‘As I was saying, if that’s the case, then whoever took her would have probably at least seen her before. It may well be someone she knows or someone you do. Or, if it was random, then one of you may have seen something out of the ordinary. Perhaps an unusual vehicle on the road out there.’ He waved towards the street. ‘Someone hanging around when you picked her up from school or in town. Anything.’
Whitlock squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back for a moment. ‘I’m sorry. Where should we start?’
‘We’ll need a picture of her. As recent as possible. Mrs Whitlock, you took her to school this morning. Is that usual?’
She looked up, a dazed look in her hazel eyes, took her hand back from Alistair and clasped them in her lap. ‘We share the job. Sometimes I do it, sometimes Alistair does.’
‘All right. Which way did you go? As much detail as you can, please.’
She shook her head slightly. ‘The same way as always. Left at the end of the road, bear right then turn right by the junior school. It’s really not that far. We only drive her because she’s never up in time to walk.’
‘Did you see anything out of the ordinary along the way?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing. It was just an ordinary morning.’
‘No one following you, perhaps?’ Pete pushed. ‘An unusual vehicle parked nearby when you got there? An accident or roadworks?’
‘No, there was nothing. As I said, just a normal morning. I dropped Rosie barely a hundred yards from the school gates. There were mothers and kids everywhere, just like always. I pulled away and . . .’ Her face crumpled and she covered it with her hands as she burst into tears. Her husband put an arm around her shoulders and held her.
Pete recalled Louise’s similar reaction in this same situation, just a few months ago, and his own seething need to stop talking and get out there, searching for his child. Emotion swelled like a lump in his chest. ‘I’m . . .’ He coughed and cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Whitlock. But this is very necessary. You didn’t see anyone you knew when you got there? Stop for a chat, maybe?’
She took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head. ‘As I said, I dropped her off, pulled away and went on to work.’
As she took out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes, Pete turned to her husband. ‘And if you take Rosie to school, you go the same way?’
‘Yes.’
‘At the same time?’
‘Of course.’
‘And when you realised she was missing, you phoned her friends?’
‘Yes. That was my first thought. Maybe she’d gone home with one of them. She doesn’t have any evening activities on a Tuesday. But they said they hadn’t seen her all day.’ His voice seemed to clog. He swallowed.
Instinctively, Pete was inclined to believe the couple. They gave every appearance of being genuine and honest and, having been in this same situation himself, just a few months ago . . . Or was it that that made him feel this way? He was going to have to work hard to maintain his objectivity on this one. ‘Evening activities?’
‘She swims at county level. Loves tennis, too.’
He nodded. ‘We’ll need a list of her friends. Has she got a boyfriend?’
Jessica looked horrified while Alistair shook his head. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Mrs Whitlock?’ Pete pushed.
‘No. Good Lord, she’s only thirteen.’ She looked about to crumble again, but held herself together somehow.
‘Of course. But, kids these days – you never know, do you? We also need to know about anywhere she goes regularly. Like for the tennis and swimming. Anywhere she goes with friends. Or with you or other family members.’
Alistair shook his head like a man confused by what was happening around him. ‘She goes into town with her friends, like all teenage girls, and she has school and her sports. That’s it, apart from the occasional party or sleepover and the usual family stuff.’
Pete nodded. ‘If you could make us a list of her friends, with their contact details, and where she goes to swim and play tennis, then, sir.’
‘Right.’ He got up and stepped out of the room.
‘Does she have a favourite place, Mrs Whitlock? Somewhere she might feel safe?’
‘What? Why?’ She looked confused.
Pete shrugged. ‘We have to allow for every possibility.’
Alistair came back into the room, a small beige book and a notepad and pen in his hands. ‘What’s this?’
‘I was asking if there’s anywhere Rosie might consider special. A safe haven. Favourite place. Anything like that.’
Alistair shook his head. ‘We’ve never . . . Why would she need a place like that?’
‘You’d be amazed at what goes on in kids’ heads,’ Jane said. ‘She doesn’t have any history of depression or anything like that, does she? Mood swings beyond what you’d expect from a teenage girl?’
‘No. Certainly not.’ Mrs Whitlock’s eyes grew wide with outrage.
Alistair sat down and took her hand again. ‘She’s just a normal teenager.’
‘What about school?’ Pete asked, thinking of his son, Tommy. ‘Is everything OK there? No undue pressure? Exams coming up?’
Jessica shook her head.
‘Has she been bullied at all? At school or perhaps online?’ Jane asked. ‘All this twittering and Facebook, chat rooms and so on.’
‘She’s not into that kind of thing,’ Alistair said. ‘She uses her mobile a fair amount, texting and chatting with her friends, but that’s all as far as I know. And she’s not bullied. She’s very popular, by all accounts
.’
‘We’ll need her computer, tablet, whatever, just to make sure,’ Pete said. He’d still never seen Tommy’s again after all this time, he remembered suddenly. He’d have to ask Simon about that. ‘I expect she had her mobile with her?’
‘Yes,’ Jessica said softly. ‘But it’s switched off. Goes straight to voicemail. That was the first thing we tried when I came home.’
‘OK. We’ll need the number then, and the service provider. I take it it’s all right for us to check the call log?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you, sir. You were already home?’
‘Yes. I worked from home today. I’m a lawyer. Look, is anyone actually out there searching for Rosie, Sergeant?’
Pete paused, writing in his notebook, then looked up again. ‘As soon as we have somewhere to search, we’ll be going over it with a fine-tooth comb, sir. But we need all the information we can get in order to get to that stage. What other relatives are there?’
They glanced at each other and he spoke again. ‘We both still have our parents. I have a brother, Jason . . .’
Pete noticed a faint grimace cross the woman’s face.
‘. . . Jess has a sister, Penny. Penny Child. She’s divorced, but she’s kept her husband’s name.’
‘So, she’s single now?’
‘No,’ said Jessica. ‘She’s got a boyfriend. Michael Gibbons. They’ve been together – what?’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Two years or so? But what’s this got to do with anything? None of the family would have—’
‘And that’s it?’ Pete broke in.
‘Family-wise, yes.’
‘Right. We’ll need a list of contacts – family, friends and colleagues, even if they don’t know Rosie.’
Alistair frowned. ‘Why?’
‘For elimination and for cross-reference. People forget things, don’t notice them, do notice them. You’d be surprised. Tell you what, you’ve got your little book there. While you do that for us, would it be OK if you made us all a drink, Mrs Whitlock? Jane can give you a hand.’
‘OK,’ she said, looking a little surprised by the request. ‘I’m sorry. I should have offered before. It’s just . . .’
‘We understand.’ He nodded to Jane to go with her, then waited until Jessica had led the way out of the room. ‘Jane.’ He got up and went to the door, stuck his head through and said quietly, ‘Ask her about her brother-in-law. And if the girl’s all right around her father as well as anyone else you can think of. Grandfathers, friends.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘What was that about?’ Alistair asked as Pete returned to his seat.
‘Oh, just something I remembered at the last minute. How are you doing?’ He glanced down at the notebook on the coffee table in front of the other man.
‘Coming along.’
‘So, you’re a lawyer. What kind of law do you practice?’
‘Corporate, Sergeant. Company takeovers, property purchases and sales, staff disputes, that sort of thing.’
‘Big money involved at times then.’
‘Yes. But it’s the client’s, not ours.’
‘Nevertheless.’ He glanced around the room. ‘You’re obviously not on the breadline.’
‘And, Sergeant?’
‘Well, one of the things we have to consider in these circumstances is the possibility of kidnapping. For ransom.’
‘What?’ He stopped writing as he stared at Pete in shock. ‘I’m just a West Country lawyer, not some big City banker. Why on earth would that kind of thing affect me?’
Pete shrugged. ‘You never know, sir.’ In his own case, Simon had looked not just at ransom, but at the influence someone might want Pete to bring to any of the cases that were being worked at the time. ‘You haven’t received a demand of any kind?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘If you do, you will tell us?’
‘Of course.’
‘Only, very often, these things include a proviso that you mustn’t contact the police. It’s never a good idea to go along with it. It’s aimed at isolating you, making you more vulnerable, that’s all.’
‘As I said, Sergeant, we’ve heard nothing from anyone. And, if we do, we’ll be sure to inform you.’
Pete nodded.
Alistair leaned back in his seat. ‘Anyway, why are you – a sergeant – handling this? I thought an inspector would have come out.’
‘That’s the TV and the movies, sir. In the real world, especially these days, with all the cutbacks, there’s usually only one DI in a station, if that. And he or she’s in a more supervisory, management-type role than an active investigative one. They allocate cases, oversee progress and chip in if we ask them to.’
‘I see.’ He resumed writing, resting the pad on his raised knee.
‘So, you were at home all day?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t hear anything from the school, asking why Rosie hadn’t turned up, anything like that?’
‘No, they . . .’ He sat forward again. ‘It’s not like your average comprehensive, Sergeant. They assume the students have some level of responsibility. They allow them a day for sickness before chasing them up.’
Pete grimaced. He’d never heard of a school treating its students like that before. Maybe a college or university, but not a senior school. ‘OK. We spoke about her mobile and so on. Do we have your permission to check on your landline and Internet provider, too?’
‘Of course. Anything that’ll help find Rosie, though how they might is beyond me.’
‘The more information we have, the better.’ Hopefully, the records would allow him to verify Alistair’s whereabouts for at least part of the day without needing to ask him directly at this stage. That could come later, if it proved necessary – statistically, the majority of missing kids were missing because of something a parent or close relative had done, but, at the same time, he knew how distressing that kind of suspicion could be. He remembered answering these same questions five months ago, from Simon Phillips. How he’d seethed to get out there, do something – anything – towards finding Tommy instead of wasting time, answering damn fool questions.
Jane opened the door and held it for Mrs Whitlock to come through with a tray, which she put on the coffee table.
‘Great. Just what we need,’ Pete said, as she handed him a cup and saucer.
‘Thanks, Jess. There we are, Sergeant. Rosie’s mobile number is at the top. Our home line. Then you have my parents’, Jessica’s, my brother’s, her sister’s, Rosie’s school. Her best friend is Becky Sanderson. We spoke to her earlier. You’ve got the numbers there for our tennis club, King’s, plus Northbrook swimming pool, which she uses at this time of year because the outdoor one at Topsham is closed, my office and Jessica’s school. The other ones are just friends of ours. Purely social. From uni and so on.’
‘Excellent. Thank you. That should speed things up considerably.’ He took a sip of his tea. ‘So, she uses Topsham pool when it’s open?’
‘Yes.’
Tommy had enjoyed swimming, too, but he had never bothered with the open-air pool. Had preferred to stick to the indoor one in the city – where he’d been waiting for Pete to pick him up on the evening when he’d . . . Pete sucked air in through his teeth, breaking the chain of thought. ‘One thing I would say. I don’t know how – it baffles me, even after all these years – but it never takes the press long to get hold of things like this. My strong advice, for now, would be not to say anything to them. Just in case. As soon as we’ve established there’s no reason not to keep things quiet, we’ll probably call a press conference ourselves and involve you both in that, if you’re up to it. It keeps things under control a bit, that way. Less intrusive, at least to start with.’
‘Why wouldn’t we want to talk to the press? Jessica asked. ‘I’d have thought . . .’
‘In case she was kidnapped,’ Alistair said before Pete could reply.
‘What?’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Pete said gently. ‘But if she was, and the press are already involved, that might not be a good thing.’
‘Oh my God! I hadn’t even thought of that. You mean, if it gets out they might . . . ?’
Pete held up his free hand. ‘As I say, it’s only a faint possibility. It’s just one of the things we have to consider at this stage.’
Clearly, the missing girl was desperately loved. Pete felt the old determination building inside him. He wasn’t going to allow these people to go through what he and Louise were going through. He would do his level best to bring their daughter back alive and well, whatever the odds.
‘God, this is unbelievable. It’s just so awful!’ She looked as if she was going to break down again.
‘I’m sorry. I know how you feel, Mrs Whitlock, and—’
‘Don’t be so bloody patronising,’ Alistair snapped. ‘How the hell can you possibly know how we feel?’
‘Sir, I . . .’
‘Has your daughter ever gone missing, Sergeant?’
Pete felt himself go pale, a wave of coldness sweeping through him.
‘DS Gayle lost his son in similar circumstances, just a few months ago, sir,’ Jane said stiffly. ‘So he knows exactly how it feels. I don’t, but he does.’
‘That’ll do, Jane,’ Pete said softly.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘Yes, well . . . As DS Gayle was saying, we’ll do all we can to find your daughter and bring her back safe.’
*
Lauren woke in complete darkness, snuggled tight against the warm body of another person. For a brief moment she felt safe and cosseted. Then the smell of the hay brought her back to reality with a jerk. Who was this other person? Another girl. She smelled feminine. Lauren could feel her long hair, a skirt and bare legs against her own. Where had she come from? She tried to ask, but there was a gag in her mouth. She moved to free it but her hands were tied behind her with something thin and hard. Shifting in the hay, she found her ankles were bound too. Shit, they really meant business now.
‘Iss OK.’
