Cradle to Grave

by Rachel Amphlett

  Moments later, Aaron Stewart climbed aboard and raised an eyebrow. ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Stay close to the cabin door,’ said Carys. ‘I don’t want us contaminating evidence any more than we might’ve done already.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Laura’s right. The place is a tip inside, and – look – there are bloodstains. The door’s locked, and I haven’t found a spare key out here. Do you reckon you could break it down?’

  ‘Probable cause, ma’am?’

  ‘One dead man, signs of a struggle, and perhaps someone else in there in need of medical attention.’

  ‘Stand back.’

  Carys moved away from the cabin window, and hovered behind Stewart. As he took a step forward, she ran her gaze over the bloodstains.

  This had to be the place. No fisherman in his right mind would leave his boat in such a state.

  Stewart lashed out with his boot, splintering the thin wooden door under the flimsy lock, and pulled his telescopic nightstick from his utility belt. ‘With all due respect, stay here.’

  ‘Got that.’ Carys pulled out her nightstick and hovered at the threshold while the police officer ducked his head under the low frame and stepped down into the cabin.

  She wrinkled her nose at a faint tang to the air that escaped the living quarters of the boat, and stooped to peer through the broken pieces of door that now clung to the hinges.

  Muted sunlight shone through the curtains at the windows, creating a gloom that hung in the air, malevolent and foreboding. Stewart moved through the space with care, his tall frame stooped as he swung left and right, his nightstick held in a tight grip.

  ‘Police! Anyone here?’ he said. ‘If you’re injured, call out.’

  Carys held her breath.

  The boat remained silent.

  ‘There’s a door through to the forward cabin,’ said Stewart. ‘I’m going through.’

  The sound of his knuckles against wood reached her, and then he pulled the door.

  He swore under his breath.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s clear. There’s no-one here, but you’d better come and look at this.’

  Carys placed her gloved hand on the door frame and climbed down the four steps that led into the cabin, before making her way to where Stewart stood at the far end.

  She thrust her arms out for balance as the boat moved in the water, her eyes sweeping the opened drawers, the contents strewn across the cabin seats. In the galley, a refrigerator had been opened, remnants of food smeared up the walls and trampled underfoot.

  The police constable stepped to one side as she approached, his face troubled. ‘Look.’

  Peering through the door, Carys’s breath caught in her throat. She swallowed to batten down the fear.

  She had to concentrate.

  She had to do her job.

  A child’s clothing had been pulled from an old sports bag that lay open on the bed – blue dungarees, white cotton vest tops, a pair of brown sandals. Amongst the tiny pairs of jeans and jumpers tossed aside, two picture books lay open, their pages creased. A toy car lay abandoned on the floor of the cabin, and a colourful plastic cup lay on its side on a three-drawer dresser.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Carys took a step forward, and crouched. She lifted the rumpled blankets from the side of the bed, then looked underneath. ‘Not hiding anywhere?’

  ‘I’ve checked the head as well. No-one in there.’

  Carys straightened, and beckoned to Stewart to follow her outside.

  ‘I’ll get forensics in here. I want you to stay posted by the main door, okay?’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Give me a hand.’ Carys called to one of the police constables on the river path, and climbed off the boat before pulling out her mobile phone.

  She hit the speed dial, her hands shaking, and began to hurry back to her car.

  ‘Guv? We’ve found an abandoned boat that shows signs of a struggle. There are bloodstains on the gunwale, and the contents of the cabin have been ransacked. We’re waiting for the Environment Agency to tell us who the boat is registered to.’

  ‘All right,’ said Kay. ‘Get yourself back here. Well done.’

  ‘Wait.’ Carys held the phone tighter to her ear, and started running. ‘Don’t hang up.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I think we’ve got a missing child as well.’

  Six

  DCI Devon Sharp looked up from the HOLMES2 report in his right hand as Kay burst through the door into his office, and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Have we got a breakthrough?’

  Kay took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. The tension in Carys’s voice had been evident, and it was all Kay could do not to emulate it at the news her detective constable had shared.

  ‘Carys and the search team have located a cabin cruiser abandoned on the River Medway west of East Farleigh. There are bloodstains on the gunwales, signs of a struggle – and it appears that we might have a missing child as well.’

  Sharp rose from his chair, tossed the report to one side, and gestured towards the incident room, his grey eyes troubled.

  ‘Do we have an identity for the victim yet? Have you got any idea who the child might be?’

  ‘Nothing yet. They’re still searching the boat,’ said Kay as she hurried after his imposing figure. ‘Carys had a police constable get in touch with the Environment Agency again, with a note of the boat’s registration number. We want to know if they can corroborate the location of the body this morning with the boat to see if the river flow would’ve carried him from that location. I don’t want to call off the other search team until we have that information.’

  ‘Good thinking. Where is Carys?’

  ‘She’s on her way back here now.’

  Barnes crossed the room to where they stood by the whiteboard, his face pale at the new development. ‘I’ve spoken to Harriet and she’ll liaise with the underwater search team to have them dive the river and look for a weapon or shell casings while her lot are processing the boat. I’ll call Hazel Aldridge and get her on standby as well. We’re going to need her by the sound of things.’

  Kay nodded. The formally trained Family Liaison Officer would be the main point of contact for any next of kin, once the victim’s identity was known, and would provide valuable information to assist in the investigation as the family divulged any details about what might have occurred prior to the man’s death while the search for the missing child continued.

  ‘Where’s Alistair? Has he got back from Folkestone yet?’ said Sharp.

  ‘He’s on his way,’ said Barnes. ‘Hughes on the front desk called me to say he just saw his car pull in.’

  ‘Good – the last thing we need is to try and coordinate a search operation like this is turning out to be, without our Police Search Advisor.’

  The door to the incident crashed open, and Carys appeared. She tapped Gavin on the shoulder and hurried to where Kay stood, closely followed by a man in his late fifties with a shock of white hair that was almost as spiky as Gavin’s.

  He rolled up his shirt sleeves as he approached, nodded to Sharp, and then shook hands with the rest of the detectives gathered at the front of the room.

  Kay felt a surge of adrenalin. The addition of the local PolSA, Alistair Matthews, would add an element to the search that was desperately needed, and she welcomed his expertise.

  ‘Harry’s still there, coordinating the rest of the search,’ said Carys. ‘I got here as soon as I could. The traffic is bloody horrendous now.’

  ‘It’s the last week of summer,’ said Alistair, ‘and it’s going to hamper our efforts if we’re not careful.’

  Kay gave her detective constable a few seconds to get her breath back, and then gestured to the whiteboard. ‘Download any photographs you’ve got on your phone, Carys, and get them filed on HOLMES2 straight away. Gavin – can you get those printed out and the best ones put on here, so everyone can familiarise thems
elves with the crime scene?’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  ‘What can you tell us about the cabin cruiser?’ said Sharp, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘And what makes you think there’s a missing child involved?’

  ‘The cabin cruiser was in reasonable condition,’ said Carys. ‘Not new – perhaps six or seven years old, I’m guessing. The paintwork has held up well, but hasn’t been applied recently. PC Laura Hanway was amongst the first group in the search team, and found bloodstains on the starboard side of the boat – nearest the water. She called out to me, and by the time I climbed on board and joined her, she was peering through the window between the deck and the cabin. It was clear there had been a struggle at some point – the place was trashed, and so I asked PC Aaron Stewart to break down the door in case someone was lying injured.’

  ‘Was there anyone on board?’ said Kay.

  ‘No, but when Aaron moved through to the forward cabin, that’s when he found children’s clothing and toys tossed everywhere.’

  ‘What sort of clothing?’ said Alistair, and pulled out his notebook.

  ‘I saw T-shirts – green, blue, and a couple with TV characters on the front – a dinosaur was on one of them. Striped socks, a pair of jeans, and some red dungarees. There was a pair of brown sandals, too.’

  Kay swallowed as she listened to the list of items being reeled off by Carys. The thought that somewhere out there, a small child was lost and frightened – or worse – brought the threat of bile to her throat. She clenched her fists, digging her nails into the palms of her hands.

  ‘What size clothing? Age?’ said Alistair. ‘Girl or boy?’

  Carys blinked. ‘I’m – I’m not sure. Um, maybe three or four. I thought maybe a boy – there were action heroes on the other T-shirts, and a couple of toy cars on the bed.’

  ‘What about forensics?’

  ‘There’s a team of four at the scene now. They were with our search team, and they can request support from the other team working eastwards from Tovil if they need it.’

  ‘Great work, Carys,’ said Kay. She narrowed her eyes at the PolSA, who had opened his mouth once more.

  Carys had faltered under his questioning, and Kay was determined to keep her young protégée’s confidence levels high. If she began to doubt her decisions out in the field, she would never recover. She saw reflections of herself at the same age in Carys, and knew she would need to watch the younger woman carefully over the ensuing days so that she didn’t become overwhelmed by the level of responsibility she surely felt.

  Amongst the bedlam of the incident room teeming with investigators and people calling to each other, Kay heard another mobile phone start ringing, and spun around to face Barnes.

  The detective sergeant held up a finger, murmuring into the phone.

  ‘Put it on speaker phone, Ian,’ barked Sharp, and signalled to the rest of the team to join them.

  ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Devon Sharp. Who is this?’

  ‘It’s PC Laura Hanway, guv. I’m at the boat.’

  ‘What have you got for us? Anything?’

  ‘I’ve heard back from the Environment Agency. The boat is registered to a hire company called Toppings based at Tonbridge. I’ve called them, and they’ve confirmed the abandoned boat – Lucky Lady – was rented by someone called Greg Victor. The owner also said that he had a little girl with him.’

  Seven

  ‘Can they confirm if the girl is Greg Victor’s daughter?’ said Kay.

  ‘No, guv and they don’t know her name – he didn’t introduce her to them. Apparently, Greg’s car is still parked outside their office.’

  ‘Registration number?’ said Gavin as he took a spare seat next to a computer, his fingers tapping a computer keyboard.

  Laura recited it.

  ‘He hasn’t got previous, and there’s nothing else on HOLMES2 relating to that name,’ said Gavin. ‘Nothing for the vehicle, either.’

  ‘Did the hire company give you an address for him?’ said Kay.

  ‘A post office box number only,’ said Laura.

  ‘Give it to Barnes so he can get on to the Royal Mail.’

  ‘Pass them to me if they drag their feet,’ said Sharp.

  ‘Will do, guv,’ said Barnes. ‘Any photographs of the girl, Laura?’

  ‘None.’ She paused, and they could hear her moving through the boat’s cabin. ‘There’s no identification for either of them, but Patrick and the other CSIs are confident this is where the victim was shot. The blood spatter is consistent with a gunshot wound.’

  ‘All right, Laura – thank you,’ said Kay. ‘Keep us posted on anything else you find.’

  She signalled to Gavin. ‘Get on to the media relations team and have them ready to issue an alert for a missing child as soon as we manage to find an address and next of kin for Greg Victor. We need urgent clarification of who this little girl is as well – whether she’s his daughter or not, and then we need to figure out why she’s been taken.’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  ‘Update the underwater search team, too. She might not have been taken – she might have run away, or fallen over the side of the boat when he was attacked. Keep the search teams there until we can eliminate either of those possibilities.’

  ‘What about revised search parameters?’ said Alistair.

  ‘We’ll start at the boat and spread out wider if we don’t find anything. It’s the best course of action with the little information we’ve got to work with.’ Fighting down her terror at the thought of a small child being thrown into the river or wandering off on her own along a towpath in the dark, Kay turned back to the map of the River Medway and rested her hands on her hips. ‘Okay, so our victim is shot where he’s moored next to the Medway Path just past East Farleigh. On to our third scenario. What’s the nearest point of escape for anyone with a small child in tow?’

  Barnes placed his reading glasses onto his nose and moved closer. ‘Nearest point is the bridge at East Farleigh. There are a couple of footpaths off the Medway Path between where the boat was found and Fant, too.’

  ‘East Farleigh would’ve been a risk with a kid,’ said Kay. ‘Too much attention if she was upset, maybe.’

  ‘Not if she knew the person or persons who took her.’

  ‘After seeing someone get shot dead?’

  ‘Maybe they shot him after they took her off the boat.’

  ‘All right. Good point.’

  ‘If not that way, the footpaths, then – past this small-holding here. There’s a track that winds its way up to the Tonbridge Road. If they were on foot and had a car parked further up the track, the residents might not have heard them.’

  ‘I think that’s our best bet. It’s a route that would attract less attention. What do you think, Alistair?’

  The PolSA wandered over to where they stood, and then nodded. ‘I’d agree. I’ll head over to East Farleigh to split up the search team working there, and we’ll get a group to follow up those two leads.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Kay.

  ‘Guv, I’ll try to find some CCTV or private security film footage from the properties around the lock at East Farleigh so we can rule that out,’ said Barnes.

  ‘Agreed, thanks, Ian. It’s best to be sure.’ Kay turned to the rest of the team who were hovering in the background. ‘Back to work everyone. Standing around isn’t going to find her.’

  She turned to Sharp and Alistair as the other detectives hurried back to their desks. ‘Is there anything else you need from me, Alistair?’

  ‘No – but phone me as you get updating information, please. We’ll focus our search on those two footpaths for now, but I’ll keep you informed on any developments from that end with regard to the dive team as well.’

  With that, he turned on his heel and hurried from the incident room, his mobile phone already to his ear.

  Kay exhaled, and ran her gaze over the heads of her team as they worked.

  ‘I’ll make some phon
e calls, see if the Chief Super can allocate more staff to us,’ said Sharp. ‘We need to coordinate the shifts, too. We’re going to do this little girl no favours at all if we’re all tired, so I’d suggest I’ll take the night shift and you can get some rest.’

  ‘I’ll have Carys head off now,’ said Kay. ‘That way, she can come back tonight and give you the support you need.’

  He nodded, his face grim. ‘I don’t like this, Kay. We’ve never had an incident like it here. What are your first thoughts?’

  Kay ran her hand through her hair. ‘We’ve received no communications about a possible ransom for the return of this girl, and if the information from the Environment Agency is right, then she was taken late yesterday afternoon – perhaps early evening. But why was she there in the first place with Greg Victor? If she was kidnapped, why would they take her from there? Why all that risk in shooting Greg?’

  ‘Do you think the kidnappers panicked?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Kay rolled her shoulders, trying to ease out the tension that was already giving her a headache at the base of her skull. ‘Or they were sending a message to someone.’

  ‘Hell of a message.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She raised her hand and beckoned to Carys.

  ‘What is it, guv?’

  ‘DCI Sharp is going to run the investigation through the night so we’ve got twenty-four-hour coverage until we find this missing girl. Get yourself off home now – I want you to come back at eight o’clock tonight to support him. I’ll sort out the paperwork tomorrow.’

  ‘No problem. Will you phone me if you find her before I get back?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll leave you a message if you don’t pick up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Guv.’ Barnes replaced his desk phone in its cradle and pushed his way past two uniformed officers as Carys headed out the door. He held up a piece of paper. ‘The Royal Mail depot at Parkwood just called. We’ve got an address for Greg Victor, just outside Tonbridge.’