Running Girl

by Simon Mason

  In the little conservatory at the back of the house, Inspector Singh of the City Squad looked out of the window into the darkened garden as he waited for Mr Dow to calm his wife, who had collapsed onto the settee. It was a small garden, like those of all the houses in the cul-de-sac; tidy too, with a narrow strip of patio, a neat square of lawn and three sides of flowerbeds packed with shrubs. An ornamental bird bath gave it a touch of light fantasy. The house was the same, he’d noticed: very small, very neat, with unexpected fancy details here and there, like the elaborate door chimes and bamboo-cane furniture.

  Inspector Singh was a man who noticed things. He had a silent face and still, watchful eyes. The reticence of his features – narrow mouth, refined nose, regular jaw – might have made him seem anonymous, but his machine-like alertness was conspicuous to everyone he met. Conspicuous too was his uniform – not a requirement for inspectors but something he personally insisted on.

  He turned back to Mr and Mrs Dow, who sat together, quietly now, on the bamboo-cane settee. Mrs Dow gave him an angry look, her face wet and twisted. Singh had seen the expression before on the faces of other mothers. She was frightened, and under her fear was resentment and shame. He glanced across at the constable, Jones, who was staring at his boots.

  ‘Mrs Dow,’ he said carefully. ‘By far the likeliest scenario is that your daughter’s perfectly safe. For reasons of her own she may have decided to go somewhere and she’ll contact you when she wants to.’

  Even as he said it he didn’t believe it. Mr Dow looked at him with disgust. ‘Until then,’ Singh went on in the same careful way, ‘we’ll do all we can to try and locate her. We’re checking the hospitals. An alert’s gone out to the community officers. In the meantime it would be helpful to know a little more about what happened.’

  Mr and Mrs Dow each gave a small, reluctant nod.

  He said, ‘Let’s start with the basic facts.’

  There weren’t many. Chloe Dow, aged fifteen, had gone jogging and hadn’t come back.

  ‘What time did she leave the house?’

  About seven o’clock, they thought. Neither Mr nor Mrs Dow had actually seen her go. She’d left a note on the living-room table, which they found when they came in from late-night shopping: Gone for a run. Back 7.30. Usually she ran for about half an hour.

  Singh made careful notes in his book. ‘And where did she go? Do you know?’

  Mrs Dow shook her head. It could have been any one of her usual routes. Down Pollard Way and back through East Field. Along the bypass to the roundabout and back. Up Old Ditch Road, out beyond the ring road on the track that goes through Froggett Woods to Battery Hill. Or somewhere else. She’d left no clue. Just: Gone for a run.

  ‘And when she didn’t return, what did you do?’ he asked.

  The Dows looked at each other. Nothing, at first. They were angry with her. There had been arguments recently. They plated her tea and put it in the fridge and tried to watch television. Around nine o’clock they couldn’t stand it any more and began to phone round Chloe’s friends, asking if they’d seen her. After that, Mr Dow went out in his van and drove along Chloe’s usual jogging routes looking for her while Mrs Dow stood at the kitchen window staring at nothing. When he got home she phoned the police.

  ‘And here you are,’ she said bitterly.

  Singh paused. He said, very carefully, ‘Is there any reason you know of why she might have decided not to come home this evening?’

  Mrs Dow made an angry snorting noise. ‘Why do you keep saying that? She hasn’t run away!’ Her lip trembled and her face began to crumple. ‘Something’s happened to her,’ she shouted through her sobs.

  Standing again at the conservatory window, Singh checked his phone. The station had forwarded a couple of texts from community officers. A late-night jogger had been stopped on Pollard Way. Some kids smoking weed in Old Ditch Road playground had been questioned. He deleted the messages and checked his watch: 11.30 p.m. Lost in thought, he stared out into the dark and rainy garden. At this time of night, as the weather worsened, there was little chance of a community officer spotting anything. Besides, he already had a bad feeling about Chloe Dow. As Mr and Mrs Dow knew, girls who go jogging don’t usually decide to run away from home at the same time.

  As he stood there thinking, something in the garden distracted him, and he screwed up his eyes and peered out through the wet window. But it was nothing; only shadows of the shrubs stirring under the rain. Then a call came through from the duty officer asking for an update, and Singh turned and walked back through the conservatory, talking. He hadn’t got as far as the dining room when there was a loud crash behind him from outside.

  Spinning round, he looked back through the conservatory window and caught a glimpse of fencing buckling in the shadows of the shrubbery and the sudden outline of someone leaping.

  ‘What the ...!’

  Mr Dow was on his feet, staring. Jones was already running towards the front door, like a dog suddenly let off the leash.

  Singh put his hand on Mr Dow’s arm. ‘What’s behind the garden?’

  The man pointed. ‘Roadworks depot that way. And the Marsh Fields over there.’

  Singh called after Jones, already out of the door, ‘Take the depot!’ Then he was running too.

  He ran into the rain and slithered across the illuminated grass at the side of the house, glimpsing the rainy outline of Jones, ahead of him, already climbing the fence.

  ‘Left!’ Singh shouted at him. He wasn’t sure if Jones knew his left from his right. ‘Towards the depot!’ he added.

  Jones vaulted over and disappeared, and Singh heard his footsteps thumping in the gravel path beyond. A few seconds later he scrambled over himself, losing his grip on the wet boards and falling heavily to the ground on the other side. Up again, he ran panting under the shelter of trees along the back fences of ‘Honeymead’ and the other houses, scanning the undergrowth for signs of disturbance. But it was too dark; he couldn’t even make out the broken fencing. Stopping to listen, he heard only his own ragged breathing. And then, very faintly, something else, up ahead. Footsteps. Someone running. He wiped the rain from his eyes and ran on again, faster now, on his toes, with maximum efficiency, down the path to where it bent towards Bulwarks Lane. He sprinted through a wicket gate onto the rough ground of the Marsh Fields, and came to a stop on the grassy humps of the empty common, looking around for a movement in the shadows. But there was nothing. Everything was suddenly still and quiet, except for vague rain noises in the leaves of the trees all around and his own panting. Out of the darkness rain fell on him whitely. He was too late. Whoever had been in the Dows’ garden had disappeared.

  Silently he turned and retraced his steps to the house.

  Jones was there already, with nothing to report. He looked at him oddly and smirked. ‘Sorry, sir. It’s slipped.’

  Singh stared him down. ‘Get some light and check the garden,’ he said. ‘Take a look at the broken fencing.’ After Jones had gone, he adjusted his turban – ill-fitting bullet-proof police-issue – and wiped his face dry before returning to the conservatory, where the Dows were waiting, Mr Dow bitter, Mrs Dow terrified.

  ‘Why was there someone hiding in your back garden?’ Singh asked. He didn’t mean to sound accusing, it was just his manner.

  ‘How should I bloody know?’ Mr Dow said.

  Mrs Dow began to wail. ‘It’s something to do with Chloe,’ she said. ‘I know it is! Why is she doing this to me?’ And she collapsed against her husband, weeping again.

  Now it was half past midnight. Singh refused to be tired. Sitting stiffly upright at the table with Mr and Mrs Dow, he began once again to ask questions about Chloe. ‘What I need,’ he said, ‘is a more detailed ID. A recent photograph, if you have one. A short description. What she was wearing. The teams will need it for first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Mrs Dow’s face crumpled. ‘Aren’t you going to do something now?’

  There was a mome
nt when he thought he was going to lose his cool. But Inspector Raminder Singh never lost his cool. It was his trademark; one of the reasons why he was both so respected and disliked by his colleagues.

  Mr Dow came back into the room with a photograph and handed it to Singh. As soon as he saw it he had the bad feeling again.

  ‘I see,’ he said. He hesitated. ‘It would also help us,’ he said carefully, ‘if you could tell me more about your daughter. What sort of girl is she?’

  To his surprise, Mrs Dow did not burst into tears. She stared at him with loathing.

  3

  THE NEW DAY dawned, still raining. All morning drizzle fell in a steady flicker from the heavy sky, hampering the police search as it fanned out through wet neighbourhoods into the waste ground and industrial parks at the eastern edge of the city. The car plant streamed, the ring road was a cloud of spray, and black puddles bulged in the gutters of the streets like oil from a spill. At Flat 12 Eastwick Gardens the windows steamed up in the kitchen, where Garvie Smith and his mother sat arguing about the night before. Mrs Smith had an inkling that her son had been out seeing his unsavoury friends, and Garvie was emphatically denying it.

  ‘I can’t help it if you have a suspicious mind,’ he said.

  ‘I have no such mind. I’m asking—’

  ‘What sort of mind do you think you have?’

  ‘Don’t try to distract me. I want to know—’

  ‘Uncle Len thinks it’s a suspicious mind.’

  ‘Uncle Len—’ She stopped herself. ‘This has nothing to do with Uncle Len. Or my mind. I’m asking you. Did you go out last night? I know for a fact you didn’t do any revision.’

  She glared at him sitting at the table with his chin on his hands, looking difficult. It was not easy to argue with Garvie. He was unpredictable.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  Before he could answer – if he was going to answer – the doorbell rang. Giving him a look that clearly suggested he should stay where he was, Mrs Smith left the kitchen, and at once Garvie got up and began to drift in that apparently idle way she hated towards his room. He hadn’t quite reached it when he heard her return.

  ‘Garvie?’

  He stopped when he saw the look of concern on her face.

  ‘There’s someone here who wants to ask you some questions.’

  A policeman in a turban stepped forward. He looked small standing next to Mrs Smith, almost dainty. There was nothing you could call an expression on his quiet face. But he looked at Garvie steadily, sizing him up.

  ‘What about?’ Garvie said.

  ‘About last night.’ The policeman’s voice was quiet too, and careful, giving nothing away.

  ‘Yeah? What about last night?’

  Garvie’s mother frowned at him. Still standing, the policeman took out a notebook and leafed through it. Looking up, he said, ‘At eleven o’clock you were with a group of boys in the Old Ditch Road play area.’

  (‘That’s interesting,’ Garvie’s mother said.)

  ‘Says who?’ Garvie said (avoiding looking at his mother).

  The policeman looked at him silently for about a minute. Something new registered on his quiet face: a dislike of Garvie. No stranger to this expression in the faces of officials he encountered, Garvie looked back until, finally, the man lowered his face to his notebook again and read out half a dozen names, including Ryan ‘Smudge’ Howell, Ben ‘Tiger’ McIntyre and Liam ‘Felix’ Fricker.

  ‘So?’ Garvie said. ‘It’s not illegal.’

  The inspector’s eyes hardened. After a moment he said, in a voice of barely restrained contempt, ‘Do you want to have a conversation with me about what’s illegal?’

  Garvie’s mother opened her mouth. ‘Well, Inspector, I hardly think—’

  He said, ‘We can do one of two things, Mrs Smith. I can conduct this interview with your son here, in my own way. Or we can all go down to the station.’

  Garvie’s mother’s eyes narrowed, but she gave a brief nod.

  ‘Sit down,’ the inspector said to Garvie.

  Garvie sat in a slouch at the table, hands thrust deep in his jeans pockets, while the inspector continued to stare at him. Garvie knew what the man was doing. He was trying to intimidate him. Some policemen shouted and threatened. Some just stared. Singh was a starer.

  Garvie stared back, coolly.

  ‘Perhaps, Inspector, you could explain what this is about,’ Garvie’s mother said.

  ‘A girl has gone missing.’

  ‘Missing?’

  ‘She left her house yesterday evening and didn’t return. There’s been no sign of her since.’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Her name is Chloe Dow.’

  Mrs Smith put her hand up to her mouth. ‘Chloe, Garvie!’

  A flicker of something crossed Garvie’s face, then it was gone. He turned to his mother and frowned at her.

  ‘You know her?’ the inspector said in his quiet, cold voice. It was a question, but it sounded like a statement.

  They were both looking at Garvie now, his mother’s face worried and cross, the inspector’s face hard and accusing.

  ‘I know of her,’ Garvie said at last. ‘She goes to my school. She’s in my year. I see her, I talk to her. I don’t know her.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Define “know”,’ Garvie said.

  Singh said nothing, just stared. It was easy to see what sort of a man he was. Uptight. Ambitious. The smudge on his turban suggested long hours, dedication. An exam passer, Garvie thought. A disciplinarian. A man disliked by his colleagues.

  His mother didn’t like him, either; he could tell that. Garvie settled himself back in his chair and waited.

  The inspector said, ‘You’re acquainted with her, then. And what sort of girl is she, in your opinion?’

  ‘Not the sort who disappears.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You must have seen a photograph of her.’

  Raising an eyebrow slightly, Singh said nothing.

  ‘Anyway,’ Garvie added, ‘what’s all this got to do with me?’

  After explaining that Chloe had gone jogging and that Old Ditch Road was on one of the routes she might have taken, the inspector embarked on a lengthy series of questions about the night before. What time exactly had Garvie gone to Old Ditch Road? What route had he taken? What had he seen? Where had he run to when the police arrived? Mostly Garvie answered ‘Can’t remember,’ or simply shrugged. Once or twice he ignored the question.

  Gradually, as the interview went on, Inspector Singh’s quiet, careful voice became less quiet and careful.

  ‘Perhaps you can explain what you were doing at Old Ditch Road last night,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you can explain the link between what I was doing and what’s happened to Chloe,’ Garvie replied.

  ‘Garvie,’ his mother said, but mildly, ‘try to answer the inspector’s questions.’

  ‘What’s the point? They’re the wrong questions.’ He sat up and leaned forward, and looked directly at Singh. ‘How do you know she went jogging at all?’

  ‘We know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She left a note.’

  ‘How do you know she didn’t just leave it to throw people like you off the scent?’

  Singh said nothing. But his face tightened.

  Garvie went on. ‘How do you know she left it? How do you know she left when you think she did? How do you know she didn’t leave the note then change her mind?’

  Singh remained impassive, but a muscle jumped in his left cheek.

  ‘They’re the right sort of questions,’ Garvie said. ‘Seems to me.’

  After a moment’s cold silence the inspector began to talk – perhaps a little faster than before – about the nature of police work, which was no doubt obscure to members of the general public – but Garvie immediately interrupted him with a casual wave of his hand. ‘Listen, man. I know all this already. My uncle works with the police. Fo
rensics.’ He looked at Singh and, pointedly, at the insignia on his sleeves. ‘High up,’ he added.

  Singh suddenly stood, and Garvie allowed himself a little smile. His mother gave him a quick, fierce look and he knew what was coming to him later. But it had been worth it.

  Mrs Smith got to her feet. ‘I’m sorry we can’t be of more help, Inspector,’ she said.

  For a moment the man stood there, perfectly still; then, without changing his expression, he thanked Garvie’s mother for the opportunity of asking her son his questions.

  ‘By the way,’ he added (his voice now as calm and quiet as at the beginning), ‘two grammes of cannabis were taken off Liam Fricker at Old Ditch Road last night.’ Turning back to Garvie, he fixed him with that deliberate stare. ‘You told me what you were doing wasn’t illegal. It was. It’s my job to ensure you don’t break the law. It’s your mother’s to explain why smoking weed is bad for you and I’ll leave her to do that now.’

  Then he turned and walked away, and Mrs Smith went after him to the door.

  Garvie stayed where he was, staring at the kitchen table. He didn’t like the way the conversation had ended. He’d been outplayed by Inspector Smudgy-Turban Singh. Hearing the front door close and his mother’s footsteps coming back slowly and heavily across the living room, he braced himself.

  There was a long silence. When he finally lifted his eyes she wasn’t even looking at him. She was fiddling with the radio, a distracted look on her face. Quietly he got to his feet and began to drift towards his room in that apparently idle way that she—

  He was halted by the local news coming on suddenly. Police were looking for fifteen-year-old Chloe Dow, a popular student at the Marsh Academy and a promising athlete, who had disappeared the night before.

  His mother stood there listening, her hand up to her mouth and, despite himself, Garvie listened too.