by Paula Daly
‘So she could have gone through the gate and got into a car?’
‘That’s my best guess. No one saw her after she left the rec. If we do a press conference today, then we may get someone coming forward who might have seen her on foot. But as yet, no sightings.’
‘CCTV?’
Joanne shook her head. ‘It’s residential. There are a couple of cameras in Windermere village, by the shops, but that’s it.’
‘Okay. Get the council cameras checked and see if there’s any private footage. Then let’s get banging on the doors of all known sex offenders, say within a four-mile – no, make that a six-mile – radius. I’ll arrange a press conference for this afternoon. You okay to prep the mother, Joanne?’
‘I was going to head over to Brontë’s school. But I’ll pay a quick visit to the family first, let them know the score.’
DI Gilmore dismissed Joanne and Oliver Black, telling them to press on, while she delegated other tasks to the officers remaining. Patricia Gilmore was on loan from North Cumbria CID until McAleese was fit enough to return to work after his chemo. And though perfectly competent (she had slotted in rather well, in fact), her scant knowledge of the geography of South Cumbria, and her ignorance of day-to-day workings of the area, meant things always took a little longer to get underway than they usually would. Joanne noticed that Pat Gilmore had taken to getting a couple of detectives out on the road, asap, to try to counterbalance this delay. Today those detectives were Joanne and Oliver.
Joanne drove. She didn’t give Oliver the option and, if he was at all perturbed by this, he didn’t say. He climbed into the unmarked Ford Focus, pushing the seat back as far as it would go to accommodate his rangy frame and his long, long legs, and Joanne shot him a look, and said, ‘How do you cope with air travel?’
‘I don’t. Scared of flying.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘I think it’s the “no escape” part,’ he said. ‘Anything happens on that plane, you’re pretty much screwed.’
‘You know it’s the safest way to travel,’ Joanne said.
‘So they say.’
‘Doesn’t your wife mind?’
‘She goes away with her mother.’
‘And you stay home alone?’
‘Aye.’
‘Don’t you mind?’ Joanne was thinking that she would very much mind missing out on a foreign holiday. Surely they could do a cruise or something. But Oliver Black cast Joanne a sideways grin and said, ‘I don’t. Not since the baby arrived, anyhow,’ and it struck Joanne that a fear of flying might come in rather useful if you didn’t fancy the idea of seven days without a minute’s peace.
‘How old?’ she asked.
‘Twenty-two months. Candice is potty training.’
‘Candice the baby or your wife?’
‘The wife. Esme’s the baby.’
‘Esme,’ Joanne repeated. ‘Nice.’
They wound their way past Staveley, through Ings, and were driving along Windermere High Street when Joanne said, ‘I should probably prep you about the mother.’
‘Okay,’ Oliver said.
‘She doesn’t have a great deal of faith in me. Maybe she’ll do better with you around but, yesterday, she wanted me off the job. Of course, she’s stressed out to hell, but she’s pretty combative, so be on your guard.’
‘Noted,’ Oliver said. ‘And what about the husband?’
‘Oh, he’s…’ Joanne paused.
She was about to say – actually, she didn’t know what she was about to say, which was rather worrying. So she settled on pretending to adjust her rear-view mirror, before continuing with: ‘He’s a GP. Seems like a nice enough guy.’
—
‘She’s what you’d call unstable,’ Bruce Rigby was saying, and Karen was nodding along in agreement. ‘Yes, “unstable” is the word I would use. And we think it would be wise to press her a little. Lean on the girl and see what she has to say for herself.’
Karen Bloom’s father looked as if he was dressed to go for a run. Kind of. He wore a white vest and cargo shorts, along with a pair of cross-terrain shoes. As soon as Joanne and Oliver arrived he took charge, instructing them on what the best course of action would be, and the interrogation of Verity was right at the top of his list. He didn’t trust her, he said. ‘Attacked Karen and nearly strangled her to death,’ he added. And Joanne wondered why this had not been mentioned yesterday. Not that she thought the girl had killed her sister or anything. Joanne had been doing the job long enough now to know that she got a feeling for people, and she didn’t think Verity Bloom had anything to do with the disappearance of Brontë. It just didn’t work for her. The girl’s guilt and fear were genuine. She had answered everything Joanne put to her sensibly and immediately. No vague answers. No answering a question with a question. No looking down, looking left, looking up. The girl was sincere. She was openly upset at the disappearance of her sister, and Joanne didn’t think for a second that she’d harmed her.
But strangling your stepmother?
Interesting.
Joanne assured Bruce Rigby that they would question Verity again later that morning when they returned to do a dry run of the press conference with Karen and Noel. But, for now, she was on her way to Brontë’s school.
‘School?’ Bruce and Karen repeated in unison.
‘I need to talk to her teachers. Anyone who’s in contact with her day to day. We need to check her locker. See if we can find anything.’
‘Oh,’ said Karen.
Noel Bloom had remained quiet during all of this, but Joanne was aware of his presence. When Bruce was putting forward his case against Verity, Joanne had glanced towards Noel and seen his jaw working overtime. Can’t be easy listening to your father-in-law accuse your daughter of something sinister. But Noel didn’t rise to it. He caught up with them when Joanne and Oliver were on their way out of the door. Joanne paused where she was, waiting for him to speak, but Noel shook his head. A silent no. Instead, he gestured towards her car: We’ll talk there.
Once at the car, though, he seemed reluctant to say what it was he wanted to say. Joanne, feeling he might need some help, eased him along by asking, ‘You get any sleep at all, Dr Bloom?’
‘A little.’
‘A tough time for you all,’ she said.
Oliver took a step back from them, perhaps sensing that Noel needed some space. And Noel pulled his fingers through his hair and took a breath. Eventually, he said, ‘I’m frightened. I’m frightened for Verity. Bruce seems intent on trying to pin something on her and I’m worried you’ll waste time looking in the wrong places. Brontë’s been gone for over seventeen hours now and—’
‘Verity’s not my priority,’ Joanne said. ‘I will question her again, later, because I need to. But I don’t have her in mind as a suspect.’
Noel blew out his breath, relieved.
And then he did something very silly.
He reached out and, just briefly, touched Joanne’s elbow. She found herself staring at her arm at the point of contact.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Joanne,’
Once they were inside the Focus, Oliver Black looked over at Joanne quizzically, arching an eyebrow.
‘Joanne?’ he said, his tone oddly mocking.
‘What?’
‘He called you Joanne. Not DS Aspinall. You two know each other?’
Joanne shrugged. ‘No.’
She turned to Oliver and saw that his eyes were alive with mischief.
‘He was quite tactile. Wouldn’t you say?’
And Joanne said, ‘I really don’t know what you mean.’
15
JOANNE INDICATED RIGHT and pulled into the gateway of Reid’s Grammar.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Oliver Black said. And then he was silent in awe, surveying the grounds, as Joanne drove slowly, gravel pinging up inside the wheel arches of the car.
The sweeping driveway bisected a huge front lawn flanked by a low, neatly trimmed box hedge.
Over to the left stood a hexagonal bandstand of wrought iron, painted white, with a steeply sloping roof. Next to that was a flagpole on which a huge Union Jack hung limply, unmoving in the still air.
Oliver let out a long, low whistle between his teeth. ‘How much?’ he said.
‘To come here?’ replied Joanne. ‘Twenty grand a year, or thereabouts.’
Dotted around the grounds were sets of tables and chairs, wooden benches and picnic tables, as if pupils were encouraged to enjoy the grounds, perhaps take tea, as if they were elderly guests at a country-house hotel.
A monkey-puzzle tree stood tall and alone on the right-hand side of the lawn, its trunk surrounded by a circular seat. Upon the seat sat two girls, aged around twelve, and they were reading.
Joanne had telephoned ahead and was told she would be met by the deputy-head teacher of the senior school: Miss Montgomery. And whatever Joanne had been expecting, Miss Montgomery was not it. The name had evoked a wiry woman in a kilt. A Miss Jean Brodie type. But the Miss Montgomery who met them on the front steps was in her early thirties, a clod of adobe foundation covered her skin, and she wore a pair of eighties-style tortoiseshell glasses which took up a large portion of her face.
Miss Montgomery’s heels tapped on the parquet floor as she, Joanne and Oliver Black made their way along a lengthy corridor where huge portraits of previous head teachers hung. Each wore a black gown and a stern, formidable expression, as if teaching was not a role to be enjoyed, but endured.
Miss Montgomery said, ‘Here we are, then,’ and stopped. She gestured to an alcove on the left, a space of around fifteen feet square, with four ladder-back chairs set against one wall. ‘Please wait,’ she said, and off she went to get the head.
This was all taking too long for Joanne’s liking. She needed to talk to Brontë Bloom’s teacher, have a quick search through Brontë’s things, and then be on her way. But when she’d explained about the missing child on the telephone, she was told she would be escorted around the prep school by the headmaster. He’ll want to be kept fully informed.
The alcove was panelled in dark oak and the air felt heavy and still. All around her, Joanne could hear the muffled sounds of lessons in progress: the voices of teachers gently rising and falling, the faraway shouts and sounds of a sports lesson.
Then the bell rang and, suddenly, the corridor was filled with students.
A blast of noise hit her as classrooms emptied into the corridor. Pupils moved quickly, talking fast, in accents very different from Joanne’s, girls with their long, brown legs, boys with traditional barber haircuts from the forties: short back and sides, but with thick, floppy fringes to be flicked repeatedly.
Oliver caught Joanne’s eye and shook his head in amusement.
‘Good morning, sir!’ came a voice from further along the hallway, then another, and another. The greeting was said with such respect, such vigour, Joanne found the formality of the thing almost moving. These teachers were actually treated with respect. It was like going back in time.
The corridor began to empty and a tall gentleman appeared wearing a gown over his suit. He carried with him a diary of sorts, or perhaps a hymn book, and held out his hand, firstly, to Oliver, saying, ‘I’m Edward Cope. I’m the head here. Terrible business, this thing with…’
He paused and Joanne realized he didn’t know the child’s name.
‘Brontë,’ she supplied, and he said, ‘Yes, yes, of course.’
He gestured towards the far end of the corridor. ‘Shall we?’
Joanne and Oliver followed as he marched along, toddling behind like students.
‘The prep is attached to the rear of the senior school,’ he explained. ‘You can reach it from our second entrance, but I felt it was important to take you through there myself. What more can you tell me about what’s happened?’
‘Very little,’ answered Joanne.
He slowed, frowning at Joanne, then he began examining her as though trying to work out if she was being purposefully evasive. If she was, he wasn’t at all happy about it.
‘We have very little to go on,’ she explained.
‘Ah,’ he said, picking up the pace again.
At the end of the corridor they turned right. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything either,’ said the head. ‘I have very little interaction with the pupils of the prep. But I have had some dealings with her older sister.’
‘Verity,’ said Joanne.
‘Yes. She’s had a few problems of late, but we’ve been supporting her through her difficulties. A bright girl.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Joanne.
‘But troubled.’
They passed closed door after closed door. Each contained a small square of fireproof glass, and Joanne stole a quick look through them and was surprised at how well behaved the children were. Each child sat tall in their seat, eyes to the front of the class.
They passed another classroom and then they came to some double doors. The head punched in a code and after walking through they found themselves in a pretty courtyard.
Rosemary and thyme grew in elegant beech planters. ‘Made by our students in wood tech,’ the head informed them. A mosaic of the monkey-puzzle tree found in the front grounds covered part of the wall. ‘Ex-pupil. Very talented. At St Martin’s now.’ They crossed the courtyard to the prep, which had the same formal feel to it as the senior school, but now the sounds of children were audible. Some were singing, some reciting poetry. A piano was being played somewhere and the air smelled of buttery biscuits.
The head signalled for them once again to follow him, before stopping outside the second classroom on the left. ‘We don’t want the children upset by your presence here,’ he said sternly. ‘That’s the most important thing. We don’t want them thinking that a child-snatcher is on the loose and have them frightened in their beds. Is that clear?’
‘And if there is a child-snatcher on the loose?’ Joanne asked.
‘Well, he didn’t take her from this school. As I understand it, she was taken from near her own home. So there is no need for these children, or their parents, to become hysterical.’
She nodded. She got it. Do not tarnish the reputation of Reid’s Grammar in the course your investigation.
Joanne took out her notepad. ‘Where were you between two and three o’clock yesterday afternoon, Mr Cope?’ she asked him.
—
Edward Cope stuck around for a short while, overseeing Joanne’s interaction with Brontë’s class teacher, standing over the shoulders of the young students, commenting on their work, offering gentle encouragement, as though it were something he did all the time. From the kids’ reactions, though, it was clear that he did not do it all the time. They were anxious. They weren’t sure how to behave with him in such close proximity.
Brontë’s teacher was young. Miss Lucy Gilbert looked to be around twenty-one and Joanne suspected this was her first gig after graduating. She was a bundle of nervous energy, answering each of Joanne’s questions with round eyes while breathing in short, sharp gasps, as if she’d been plunged into freezing water.
Joanne touched Miss Gilbert’s shoulder briefly, whispering that she had nothing to worry about, and might she want to settle herself, otherwise her pupils would sense her unease? Grateful for the advice, Miss Gilbert took a couple of breaths to steady herself before leading Joanne and Oliver to Brontë Bloom’s tray, pulling it out for them so they could examine the contents.
‘I’ll take this out there if that’s okay,’ said Joanne, motioning to the corridor beyond the classroom, ‘and let you get on with your lesson. If you could just point us in the direction of her locker? And perhaps you could join us in ten minutes or so and answer a few questions about Brontë?’
Miss Gilbert nodded repeatedly, and checked her watch, before leading them into the corridor. She scanned the lockers, looking for Brontë’s name. ‘Here,’ she said.
When she’d left, Joanne removed the contents: three empty water bottles,
a pair of soft plimsolls, a scrunched-up white polo shirt with the school’s logo on the breast and a pair of navy gym shorts.
‘Anything?’ Oliver asked.
‘Nothing.’
She moved on to the tray. It was stuffed full of photocopied activity sheets, along with scrap paper used for drawing. Joanne examined each of the drawings for anything out of the ordinary, but all she saw were the efforts of a not particularly skilled ten-year-old who liked to sketch rabbits. Some stood upright and wore outfits.
Joanne sifted through the detritus – a few sweet wrappers, pencil shavings, a sock, until her eyes landed on three pieces of A4 at the bottom of the tray. They had been folded in half, fashioned into makeshift greeting cards. The front of each was decorated with hearts – again, badly drawn. Brontë had not yet got the hang of the shape and the hearts were elongated, stretched, each one out of proportion and kind of sad-looking. But they had been done lovingly, each in a different shade, and with adornments of dots or trailing ribbons.
Joanne opened the first one. Inside were the words: ‘You are the best person I know.’ No signature. So Joanne would need to check if this was Brontë’s handwriting, or if she was the recipient of the card. In the second was written: ‘Thank you for being kind.’ And in the third: ‘You make my heart happy.’
Oliver read the cards and said, ‘What d’you reckon?’
‘If she made these they were done recently. They’re clean compared to the rest of the junk in here. She must have hidden them at the bottom of the tray so they wouldn’t be found. She clearly likes somebody, that’s for sure.’
Oliver nodded.
‘And…I may be way off here,’ Joanne said, ‘but I’m guessing these cards were not made for her mother.’
—
Joanne presented the cards to Miss Gilbert, and they compared the writing in Brontë’s project exercise book (currently, the Second World War; before that, the Amazon rainforest), and there was no doubt they were written by Brontë. ‘For any reason in particular? An art project?’ Joanne asked, and Miss Gilbert said no.
