‘Jack the Ripper was probably spoken of in much the same way,’ Kelly said. ‘Can your Manchester mole tell us the origin of the photos?’
‘Yes, though again it will take time. It’s a lengthy process, but the CPS is inundated with cases like this all the time.’
‘How did he explain having Dale Prentice’s details?’
‘He said he’d followed the case closely since writing a poem about mines in the area and coming across it as part of his research.’
‘So purely humanitarian, then?’
Rob spread his hands.
‘What about the details of the other children?’ Kelly referred to her iPad.
‘He gave plausible reasons for all the information, but they need to be checked out. For example, he said that he was worried about safeguarding issues and he’s the coordinator in school for liaising with outside agencies.’
‘Interesting. Has that been verified?’
‘Yes.’
Kelly made a mental note to check up with social services about Dale Prentice. It niggled her that his history could be easily accessed. Meanwhile Rob said he’d do the same for the others.
‘So let’s talk about Sadie Rawlinson. Was she photographed after she made the complaint?’
‘Yes, guv. There were no discernible marks, no sign of a struggle, and her statement has changed a couple of times.’
‘Christ, that’s all we need. Kate and Emma, get her in again. This might be a waste of everyone’s time, not to mention CPS money. I’ve got one more bomb for you: it turns out that Sadie Rawlinson is Faith Shaw’s best friend. I have that on good authority from another teacher, who wants to make a second statement about her good friend Tony Blackman. She requires anonymity, so I invited her here.’
Eyebrows were raised.
‘Who is it? Why would she want anonymity?’
‘She’s called Sarah Peaks.’
Chapter 19
Nedzad Galic stared at his son. The information had been relatively easy to come by and he’d happily have paid more for it. St Bees was a grotty little seaside town on the west coast of Cumbria, and it was fucking cold. The beach looked white and barren and the sand whipped up with the wind. He’d seen snow in Sarajevo, but there it was accompanied by blue sky, not this dreary grey blanket that he’d got used to in Britain. But he wasn’t here for the weather. He was here for his son.
The nursery sat back from the beach, on a quiet street next to a housing estate. He had not intended to be here for the actual job, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d seen scores of photographs taken of the little boy as he was dropped off. On Tuesdays, they visited a local burger joint after pick-up time, and he’d watched from across the road in a van as his son was fed crap from a box. He wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to take him home where he belonged. The very thought of being apart from him twisted his insides and delivered such pain that his heart raced and he thought he might not be able to breathe.
The journey to where he was now had been long and arduous. He thought back to the night he’d lost Jovana. He’d trusted the lorry driver with their safety, paying ten thousand pounds to make the journey. The plan was that they would be taken to a safe house in London, but the lorry had carried on for another five hours after passing through the Channel Tunnel. By the time he’d figured out his mistake, it was too late, and all he could do was beg the driver to take Jovana somewhere safe.
He’d been forced to fight for his life, naked, with no weapons, as a circle of men betting and drinking beer laughed and threw things at him. He only made his escape because the man charged with watching him overnight was a weakling with no brain. It hadn’t taken him long to find Jovana, but they’d had to leave their son at the hospital. Nedzad had always vowed he’d return for him, and now he’d found him.
The woman who called herself his foster mother carried him out of the nursery and Nedzad started his car. The man he’d entrusted to carry out the job was a local. He was a shadow who lived on the edge of society, and a regular courier for Nedzad’s goods. So far he had proved himself loyal and, more importantly, ruthless.
Nedzad watched as the woman’s car pulled out and headed for the burger restaurant. It would only take five seconds to kidnap the boy. His man had brought a gypsy woman with him to do the talking. When the foster mother’s attention was distracted, the boy would be grabbed and he would have his son back. He’d seen it done many times before in Sarajevo, when kidnappings were commonplace during the war. The most important element was holding your nerve.
A light rain began to fall, and Nedzad switched on his windscreen wipers. He stayed close to the vehicle in front, which in turn stayed close to the foster mother as she pulled into the car park. Nedzad had already checked for CCTV. There was a camera on the corner of the building, and his man had come here in the early hours and smashed it.
The gypsy couple parked near her and got out of their vehicle, chatting about something unimportant. The foster mother got a pushchair out of the boot and fiddled with it. This was their cue. She’d left the child’s door open, and the gypsy woman went to her and asked her a question. The foster mother had her back to the car, having turned around to reply to the woman. Surprise was everything: she’d never expected to be asked a question at that moment, she wasn’t expecting danger, and she was sure that her son was still in his car seat.
* * *
Dale’s foster mother turned back to the pushchair and got it set up, then went to fetch the boy. His seat was empty. She paused for a second, thinking he must have somehow wriggled out of it. She called his name and searched under the seats and in the boot.
‘Dale?’ she repeated over and over again. She walked around the car several times before panic began to set in. She ran now, and looked under the vehicle and around her in the car park. The woman she’d been speaking to was gone, so she couldn’t ask her for help.
Then she remembered the phone call from the police asking if everything was normal and if Dale was all right. A fire hit her gut and she felt like throwing up. She couldn’t remember if the woman had got out of a car. She’d been gently humming to herself and so hadn’t heard any vehicles arrive. She screamed to a man who walked out of the restaurant with a box.
‘Help me! Help me! My son! He’s gone!’
‘All right, love. All right.’ He asked her to calm down and got out his phone to call the police. Then he looked around the car park and offered to search for her baby son.
‘How old is he?’
‘Two.’ She began to sob.
‘He’ll be all right, you’ll see. He’ll have toddled off somewhere. Wait here, I’ll ask in the restaurant.’
He left her and she ran to the edge of the car park. The road ran along one side of it, but it was deserted. There was traffic on the main road in the distance, but she had no idea what she was looking for. Tears blurred her vision.
‘Dale!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.
People came out of the restaurant and comforted her until the police arrived, by which time twenty minutes had passed and the woman was hysterical and hyperventilating.
Chapter 20
‘Craig? Good to hear from you. How’s Barrow?’
Kelly had worked with DCI Craig Lockwood on a case a couple of years back. It had ended in the conviction of an old flame of hers, and her sister for one wouldn’t let her forget it. He was calling from Barrow-in-Furness.
‘It’s still here, Kelly. This side of Black Coomb is closer to God, you know that.’
‘I don’t believe in God, Craig, you know that.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve got some information that you might find interesting. I saw the appeal for your missing girl on TV last night.’
‘Faith Shaw?’
‘Yes. It said she was last seen at the charter fair in Keswick, is that correct?’
‘As far as we know. She was supposed to meet her dad at nine thirty, but she never showed. Her mates said she went to the loo and never came back.
’
‘Last week, one of my team interviewed an eight-year-old girl from Dalton who had a nasty experience with a man at the fair there.’
‘What sort of nasty experience?’
‘She was cornered by him behind a trailer. She was unhurt, but pretty shaken up. He offered her a pill; she said he used the word “sweetie”. The officers looking into it made an identification, and they reckon they got the guy: he was sheepish and apologetic, like they always are, and they let him off with a warning. He works for one of the rides, no fixed address. His name is Bobby Bailey.’
‘But travellers rarely have previous …’
‘That’s what I was thinking, but we got his prints and he’s pinged up for doing time for various sexual misdemeanours. He’s on the sex register, Kelly.’
‘What’s his record?’
‘Indecent exposure, possession of indecent images, and his last one was attempted rape, but that one wasn’t prosecuted; the parents dropped the charges.’
‘Christ. Can you send the girl’s statement to me, as well as Bailey’s record?’
‘He’s clean at the moment, and I spoke to a previous parole officer who said, and I quote, “He’s a missing kid waiting to happen.” I know the woman who organises the fair every year, from way back. She takes in waifs and strays from all over the place, including Bobby Bailey. She gave me bullshit about his background, but I’ve got nothing to trade and she’s a good source.’
‘What about the sweeties? She could be closed down.’
‘Exactly, I’m working on her and I’ve got eyes on him.’
‘I’ll action a further interview from here, I might be mistaken, but I don’t think he’s on our list for the Keswick interviews.’
‘Makes sense. These guys sleep all day and prowl all night. You probably know this, but the fair’s moved on to St Bees now; they’ll be there for three days.’
‘Thanks, Craig, I owe you one.’
‘So what have you got? Any sightings?’
‘Nothing. There’s been a few suicides up here recently – well, over the last four years; I call that recent – and I’m looking at the drug angle.’ She told him about Jenna Fraser, and Craig audibly winced down the phone.
They chatted for a little longer, about what they’d been up to and their plans for Christmas, and swapped theories about where a fifteen-year-old could go, alone and in the snow. It was good to catch up, and Kelly wished she had time to do it more often. She’d had a soft spot for Craig when they worked together.
After she hung up, she sat and thought about Maggie and Colin Shaw, and how awful their Christmas would be if they hadn’t found Faith by then. She wondered if Michael had already bought her a Christmas present, and what it was.
St Bees was over an hour away, but inside her patch. The nearest station would be Egremont, and she thought they could perhaps liaise with Whitehaven and send some uniforms to look up Bobby Bailey, who she was now staring at on her computer. He gave her the creeps, but that was only her subjective first impression, which was judgemental and unfair. He was forty years old but looked sixty; he had missing teeth and greasy hair, and all the telltale signs of alcohol and substance abuse: dark circles under the eyes, puffy and yellowing skin, deep wrinkles from dehydration. She zoomed in on his eyes: they were vacant, hollow and … sad. He had the eyes of someone who had given up a long time ago.
She prepared an email and looked up who to send it to in Whitehaven and Egremont. Then she searched the file for the statements taken by Keswick police. The appeal to the public had brought in hundreds of statements from people who were at the fair, but none had any information regarding where Faith had gone after her reported visit to the Portaloo at the fair; if indeed she had ever gone there at all.
Kelly scrolled through the reports. Only three people remembered seeing Faith, and she realised that all girls that age looked the same: tight jeans, tight top, baggy coat and loads of make-up. No wonder Faith didn’t exactly stand out. She made a note of the three fair workers who’d given statements, and also confirmed that Bobby Bailey had not been questioned; he’d slipped through the net like so many of these fairground hands. No one could give them a current employee list; it just didn’t work like that. The workers were like ghosts in the night.
Next she read the statement given by Sadie Rawlinson on the night itself. Sadie had apparently sat in the Shaws’ lounge, sipping tea and crying noisily. Much like she had sobbed her way through her initial interview accusing Tony Blackman. Her statement was followed by those of Luke Miles and Justin Cain. All three said the same thing: Faith had gone to the toilet.
Kelly thought about this.
She cast her mind back to many nights out she’d had with mates, drunken or not, and tried to remember whether she’d ever announced her intention to visit the lavatory. She might tell one friend and another could overhear, but to tell the whole group? She needed to find out the relationship between these kids: were they friends, or more? If Luke Miles was a potential love interest, like Michael said, there was no way Faith would let him in on her bladder requirements.
So her next problem was: if the kids were lying, why?
Chapter 21
Kelly stopped at an off-licence to pick up a bottle of wine. As she parked, she spotted a group of teenagers hanging about with sod all to do but show off and harass passers-by. She wondered why they were standing here in the freezing cold instead of watching a movie indoors. Maybe it wasn’t cool to watch movies any more. It was depressing, and reminded her of London, where teenagers gathered in pods, waiting for trouble, because they had nothing else to do.
She kept her head down as she walked past them. But she still caught their attention, and one of the boys made a crude comment involving the C-word. Kelly swung round. Something in her eyes and her body language made the boy’s shoulders drop just a little and his swagger deflate. She squared up to him and the gang parted. One by one, they walked away and across the street, looking back occasionally to see if she was watching them.
Kelly went into the shop, her heart racing. She grabbed a bottle of red and examined the label. She’d never understood how it was legal to whack on an extra fiver per bottle if your shop straddled a corner, but they somehow got away with it. She took another one and put them on the counter. She paid by card and left. The boys had gone.
Johnny was out tonight, meeting a mate in the pub. Kelly fancied doing the same, but couldn’t think of anyone to call. She wasn’t in the mood for male company, and that surprised her. She’d always had plenty of male friends, but recently she’d begun to think about her girlfriends she’d left behind in London. Her only female companions here were her mother, her sister and her colleagues. The fact brought her downward spiralling mood even lower. The two most prominent women in her life were growing ever distant: her mother because of the awkwardness that had developed between them since Kelly had found out the truth about her father; and her sister because they’d never got on. The uncomfortable feeling of being a misfit that plagued her from time to time hung about her shoulders and she wished she could swat it away like a pesky fly in summer.
She had once believed that at some point, the childhood squabbles with Nikki would stop. She’d been wrong. The news that John Porter wasn’t her father after all made her even less keen to see her half-sister. She also didn’t trust herself not to let the secret out. The smug satisfaction she would gain from it was petty but potentially delicious, and she had to stop herself thinking about it. She remained convinced that Nikki should never know, partly out of respect for her mother and Ted, but also because it was none of her sister’s goddamn business.
Wendy Porter had crumbled when pushed by her daughter, and confirmed Kelly’s suspicions about her paternity. Kelly couldn’t decide which was worse: the fact that her mother had had a torrid affair, the fact that she’d tricked her husband into thinking that Kelly was his, or the fact that Kelly now had a new dad. Ted didn’t know that he was her biological father
, and Kelly had been close to calling him several times recently to tell him. But she still didn’t know how to broach the topic.
And she was still full of anger.
It had taken her months to identify the emotion, and the root of her recent angst. Johnny told her that it was a process, like grief. The thought that she was going through some kind of mental healing irritated her: it implied that she wasn’t in control, and it made her sound weak, like her sister. It was as if she was looking for something that was missing, but she didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t generally in the habit of analysing her own feelings, but recently she’d found herself hanging around Kate’s desk, asking her about her kids, and asking Emma what she was doing at the weekend. She’d become emotional and it didn’t feel comfortable. She’d even taken Emma for a drink and introduced her to her childhood friend, Andy. As it turned out, her not-so-reliable pool partner had fallen for Emma and they were now inseparable; another friend down.
Her life had changed, and for once, she didn’t know what to do about it. Johnny told her she needed to look after herself better and be more selfish. Kelly thought this concept ludicrous, and told him so.
‘You’re missing the point,’ he’d said.
‘What?’
‘You always act in other people’s best interests, not your own. The time will come when you’ll run out of steam. You need to put yourself first. If you don’t, there’ll be nothing left when you need it.’
Kelly had laughed loudly. ‘Imagine if Nikki heard you say that!’
‘Instead of thinking about Nikki’s reaction all the time, how about ignoring it and moving on, for your own sanity?’
Kelly was stunned, not only by Johnny’s very grown-up lecture, but also by the paradox that seemed to encapsulate her relationship with her sister and mother. It would appear that she’d got it wrong, and that was a hard pill to swallow. The problem was that trying to follow Johnny’s advice had left her chunks of time to fill with philosophising, and she didn’t like it. She hadn’t seen Nikki for at least three weeks, but no one seemed to mind. Her mother never mentioned it, and Matt, Nikki’s husband, had stopped calling her every time his wife had a mini breakdown. She was finally beginning to understand that it was all right to avoid those people in life who caused discord. She was getting old, she thought.
Bitter Edge Page 9
