No Time To Cry

by James Oswald

  ‘She was in Harriet, what do you expect?’

  ‘I’ll have you know I was in Harriet, and I was captain of the hockey team.’ Aunt Felicity folds the skirt back up again and places it on the table. There’s not much left in the trunk now, just a few text books and notepads, a synthetic fur pencil case Izzy’s probably had since primary school, and there, nestling at the bottom, an elderly laptop computer.

  ‘Bingo.’

  I open it up, click the power button and wait as it whirrs into life. I’m expecting to have to try and hack the password, so when it doesn’t even prompt me for one I know I’m not going to find much of use on here. Izzy’s left a few documents and folders on the desktop, so I click swiftly through them first. Homework assignments and music files mostly, my eye is caught by a scanned, handwritten document referring to somewhere called Burntwoods, near Dundee.

  ‘Charlotte said they found Izzy in Dundee the last time she ran away. You know anything about that?’

  Aunt Felicity’s blank stare is answer enough.

  ‘What about this place? Burntwoods?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Never heard of it.’

  I tap and swipe, but there’s not much here, at least after the briefest of casual glances. A more thorough analysis will take time though.

  ‘I thought teenage girls lived on their phones these days anyway,’ Aunt Felicity says helpfully. ‘Surely all you’ll find on there’s her chemistry homework.’

  ‘Actually I was more interested in her browser history, but you’re right. Most of the stuff that might point to where she’s gone will be on her phone if it’s anywhere.’

  ‘You should really be talking to her friends, you know.’

  I stare at the screen without really seeing it. Aunt Felicity is right, of course. The first thing I should do when trying to trace a missing person is speak to their known associates.

  ‘I would, if I knew who they were. They weren’t all that forthcoming with names when I spoke to the staff at Saint Bert’s. It’s hardly surprising, mind you. I couldn’t exactly flash my warrant card.’

  ‘Not her school friends, silly. Her friends in the village. The girls she grew up with.’

  ‘She still speaks to them? I hardly exchanged a word with any of my old primary school chums once I got sent off to boarding school. Except Charlotte, of course.’ It’s a possibility, I suppose, but I’ve no idea where to start. ‘How would I even find them if I wanted to? I don’t know who they are.’

  Aunt Felicity looks at me like I’m a fool. ‘I’d have thought that would have been obvious, wouldn’t it? Not as if there’s anywhere else to go in this village when you’re too young to drive.’

  20

  I don’t recognise the barman in the Green Man, Harston Magna’s only pub, but then that’s hardly surprising. He’s cheerful enough as he serves me a pint of local bitter though, and gives me a lot more change from ten pounds than I’d get in London.

  ‘Passing through?’ he asks over the general noise as he drops a fiver and some heavy coins into my hand.

  ‘Kind of. I grew up here. Hoping to catch up with some old friends.’

  ‘Oh right. Anyone in particular?’

  I try to think of some names. I spent most of my childhood either at Saint Humbert’s or bored out of my skull in the north of Scotland. Dad being the local landowner meant I didn’t get to mix much with those few villagers my own age, but there were a couple of farmers’ sons I knew.

  ‘Keith Spencer still around these parts?’

  ‘Keithy? Yeah.’ The barman looks at his watch. ‘He’ll probably be in around nine, half nine. If his missus lets him out, that is.’

  ‘Keith’s married? When did that happen?’

  ‘Two, three years ago?’ The barman shrugs, then loses interest in the conversation as another punter waves his empty glass for a refill. I sip from my pint, scanning the room for likely underage drinkers. At first it looks like I’ve drawn a blank, but then I notice a couple of coats stuffed into a corner bench, two bottles of something sickly sweet on the table in front of them. I wind my way through the crowd of strangers, take a seat at the next table along, and before long two young girls come stomping back in from the beer garden, the smell of cigarette smoke clinging to them like cheap knock-off perfume from the local market. One of them stares at me in a manner my Aunt Felicity would probably describe as rude, then they slump back onto the bench and grab their drinks. I give them a few minutes to settle, listening to their incessant bitching about someone called Johnny who’s apparently a waste of space and probably has STDs. It brings back happy memories of my own misspent youth.

  ‘It’s Kathryn, isn’t it?’ I say to the taller of the two when the conversation drops for a moment. Both pairs of eyes turn to me like I’m some kind of sick paedophile or something, but I know I’m right. Babysitting was just about the only job I could get when I was in my teens, and eyelash extensions or not, I recognise the petulant child in the near-adult nursing her oh-so-grown-up drink.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  I feign surprise. ‘You don’t remember me? It’s Con. Con Fairchild. I used to babysit, remember?’

  The scowl remains on Kathryn’s face, but it softens a little. I can see the thoughts whirring. If I’m who I say I am, then I not only know who she is, but also how old she is. I haven’t the heart to tell her the barman knows full well she’s underage. Her dad’s probably told him to make sure she doesn’t get too plastered too often. Either that or he’s just glad she’s out of the house.

  ‘What you doing here? Heard you’d gone off to work in London or summat.’

  ‘Yeah, I did. Just passing through. Thought I’d have a drink in the old place. It’s changed.’

  Kathryn’s friend sniffs. I don’t recognise her, but the fact she’s talking to me is a good start. ‘Seems like the same as ever.’

  ‘Dunno. It’s cleaner than I remember. Folk go outside to smoke too. They never used to bother.’

  ‘Fucking freezing.’ Kathryn’s friend sniffs again, reaches into her pocket and brings out a pack of ten. I can’t tell the brand as the packaging’s all white these days. Seems odd that these two smoke though. I thought it had gone out of fashion. Everyone’s into those e-cigarettes that smell like toilet cleaner.

  ‘Get you guys a drink?’ I indicate their bottles, close to empty. It’s almost too early into our conversation to ask, and I get a wary look in response. Then Kathryn shrugs. ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll have another.’ Her friend shuffles around the table and stands. ‘Be back in a minute.’

  Whether she’s off for another smoke or to the toilet I don’t much care. It’ll be easier to talk to just one of them anyway.

  ‘Same again?’ Kathryn nods, so I weave a course to the bar, thankful that the barman’s not busy despite the crowd. He pours me another pint, puts two opened bottles down beside it. This time a tenner doesn’t go so far.

  Kathryn’s still sitting there when I get back, but there’s a look on her face I don’t like. She still takes the drinks, necks one to claim it as her own and leaves the other for her friend.

  ‘I remember now. You joined the police, didn’t you?’

  I shrug an ambiguous acknowledgement. ‘See me in uniform?’

  ‘Why’d you do that, then?’

  ‘If you really want to know, it was to piss off my dad. Stupid old twat wanted me to marry some chinless wonder with a big estate and lots of money. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.’

  Perhaps it’s the casual swearing, or the offhand manner in which I refer to the man most people in this village still pay their rent to. Or it might be that a bottle and a half of alcopop is all it takes to loosen Kathryn up. Either way, she relaxes a bit.

  ‘What you doing back here, then?’

  ‘Honestly? I’m trying to find Izzy DeVilliers
.’

  She stiffens as she hears the name, the bottle halfway to her lips for another swig. I watch as she scans the room looking for her friend, uncomfortable in my presence again.

  ‘Look, it’s not a police matter. I’m not even doing it for her parents. Charlotte asked me to see if I could find her. Not to bring her back, just so that she knows she’s safe.’

  Kathryn gives me that look I first mastered as a teenager too. The one that says don’t take me for an idiot, I wasn’t born yesterday.

  ‘What about Dundee?’ I dredge up the name from the laptop. ‘Burntwoods?’

  She shrugs perhaps a little too swiftly for my liking, but she’s clearly far more skilled at lying than the average scumbag drug dealer I come across in my day job. There’s no point pushing it if she’s just going to clam up though. Instead I go to fish out a card from my pocket. I’ve got some with the Met logo and office contact details on, some just with my name and mobile number. It’s the latter I place on the table beside Kathryn’s bottle.

  ‘See, if she calls you, tell her I was asking after her. Give her that number if she’ll take it, OK?’

  ‘An’ you just wanna talk?’ Kathryn reaches out and slides the card towards her, palming it before shoving it in her pocket.

  ‘If she wants to talk to me. She knows me. I looked after her when she was little. Same as I looked after you, remember?’

  Kathryn opens her mouth to say something, but then her gaze darts away from my face. I follow, and see her friend pushing through the crowd of drinkers. She grabs her bottle, takes a swig and then thumps down into her seat with all the grace of a baby elephant.

  ‘Some bloke over at the bar asking for you,’ she says, nodding in the general direction. I remember my earlier conversation with the barman and wonder if Keith Spencer has arrived, and whether I really have anything to say to him anyway. We might have had a thing once, but it was as much my rebellion against my parents as anything else. And if he’s married, well, that could be awkward.

  Then a group of people move slightly, giving me a view of the bar and the people leaning up against it. I see him for only a split second, but there’s no mistaking that face. Not Keith Spencer at all.

  ‘I have to go.’ I half stand, half crouch, sliding around the table in the direction of the back door and the beer garden. The two young women stare at me as if I’m mad.

  ‘Someone I’d really rather not see.’ I pull my last tenner out and put it down where the business card was. ‘Get yourselves another on me, but I wasn’t here, OK?’

  Kathryn’s eyes are wide, but her friend nods and palms the money much more quickly than the card with my number on it went. I duck through the crowd, keeping an eye on the bar and hope I can make it to the back door without being seen. There are many people I might have expected to meet in the Green Man on a Friday evening, but Detective Constable Dan Penny is not one of them.

  A couple of smokers eye me suspiciously as I close the door carefully behind me. I don’t know either of them, which is a relief; the last thing I need is to be dragged into a conversation. More cars have slotted into the narrow parking spaces out here, the street filling up too. I must have timed things just right when I came in.

  It’s fully dark now, and the night air chills me. I can sympathise with Kathryn’s friend about the cold, even if it’s her own bloody fault for smoking in the first place. At least I’m certain the two of them know Izzy, and well enough to be in touch. Kathryn’s reaction to her name was all the tell I needed. Now I just need to hope they’ll pass my number on to her, and that she’ll give me a call. It would make life a whole lot easier.

  I slip out of the beer garden and back into the street, keeping as much to the shadows as possible. What the fuck is Dan bloody Penny doing here? In the Green Man? Looking for me, obviously. Kathryn’s friend said as much. But why? I told Bailey I’d see him in his office tomorrow morning. When I said it, I even meant it. So why come all this way to find me? Are they really that worried I might do a runner?

  I’m fairly sure I’ve not been seen as I quicken my pace across the village green, heading for the gate that opens onto the path through the woods. Hands shoved deep in my jacket pockets and hugged against my sides, I’m not sure if I’m shivering from the cold or from anger and shock. If it had been any other officer, I’d have assumed there’d been some development. Maybe they needed to get me to a safe house or something. But they’d have phoned, and not sent someone out here from London. A couple of local bobbies in a squad car would have done the job just fine.

  The sky is clear, moonless and speckled with stars. I follow the old path between tall hedges as it winds down the hill towards the woods. It’s been too long since I last saw a proper night sky, not the orange glow of streetlights and the flashing strobes of planes on their noisy descent to Heathrow. As I put more distance between myself and the Green Man, so my initial surge of adrenaline wears off and my anger burns more slowly. It’s not hard to see that there’s something off about this whole situation. Everything that’s happened since Pete’s death all points at corruption in our team. Someone’s been feeding information to the mob we were supposed to be gathering intelligence on, and that same someone has managed to deflect all the suspicion onto me.

  But Dan Penny? Sure, he’s the biggest arsehole I’ve ever met. He’s so full of himself I’m surprised he can even breathe, and his attitude towards women belongs in the Stone Age, preferably weighed down with actual stones and thrown into a deep lake. He’s lazy, not that good a detective and frankly about as attractive as root canal surgery, despite his claimed string of conquests among the women PCs in the station. Corrupt? Well, maybe. But not on his own, and not in charge. He doesn’t have the imagination.

  So why the fuck is he in the Green Man?

  The looming trees give me no answer, and all the owls can do is hoot. I clamber over the stile, feel my feet sink slightly into the soft loam. It’s maybe half a mile to Aunt Felicity’s house from here, along a well-defined path. I walked these woods most of my life, know them like the back of my hand. Some people might be scared of the dark, but I’ve always welcomed it. I have no fear as I set off deeper into the forest, just the cold anger burning in my breast, the questions that have no answers, that make no sense.

  Which is probably why I don’t notice the two men until it’s too late. The first one steps out from behind a tree, and with hindsight I know he’s just a distraction. I’m trained for shit like this, tensed and ready to take him on even if he looks wiry as fuck. Then someone else grabs me from behind. Something clamps over my mouth and nose, a whiff of chemicals, and everything goes black.

  21

  A rhythmic shaking drags me up from the depths of sleep and into a world of pain. It takes me a while to work out that I’m in a car and being driven somewhere, a while longer to remember how I got here. I almost open my eyes before my brain starts to catch up with what’s happened. The two men in the woods, someone using chloroform on me. Christ, do they still use that stuff? Judging by the way my head hurts, it would seem they do.

  The car rides smoothly, its engine a muted distant drone. Big and expensive is my best guess, coupled with the fact that I’m belted into a reasonably comfortable seat. It would be better if my hands weren’t tied behind my back, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. I risk a glimpse through slitted eyes, then wince as the bright headlights of oncoming traffic lance through me like lasers. In that micro-second I am able to make out two people in the front seats, a driver and a passenger, leaving me alone here in the back. Where they’re taking me is anyone’s guess, but they don’t know I’m awake. It’s a slim advantage, but I’ll take it.

  The throbbing in my head eases as the minutes slip past, leaving me with a raging thirst and a horrible taste in my mouth. Keeping my movements to a minimum, I try to do something about the binding around my wrists. It feels like a cable tie, so I might be
able to get it to loosen a bit, if I can just get a fingernail into the little ratchet.

  The car slows, turns sharply and thumps over some kind of ramp before I can even get started. The noise changes, and I realise we’ve gone into some kind of building. I hope it’s an underground car park and not some disused warehouse where I’ll be tortured and killed like Pete.

  When the car stops, I fake being still out cold. It must work, because rough hands grab me, unclip the seatbelt and haul me out of the car. He’s strong, whoever he is, and smells of mothballs. I let my head loll forward onto my chest, then risk another peek through slitted eyes. It’s darker here, and I have time to make out a polished concrete floor, doors to either side. There’s a tray outside one that looks like nothing so much as room service in a hotel. A plate with the remains of a half-eaten meal on it, plastic knife and fork, empty Coke bottle. Maybe not a very upmarket hotel.

  We pause, and I feign stirring. The man carrying me merely tightens his grip, and then a ping announces the arrival of a lift. Inside, the lights are brighter and my groan not faked. I feel sick to my stomach. How would my captors feel if I threw up in here?

  ‘Come on. No messing around.’

  It’s the first words I’ve heard spoken since they captured me. Not the man holding me, but the other one. I stumble slightly, taking my weight on unsteady feet. It’s still painful to open my eyes wide enough to see properly, but I can see we’ve gone from polished concrete to marble tile, and the skirting boards are dark wood.

  We stop, and my captor knocks on a door. There’s a moment’s pause and then another man speaks.

  ‘Bring her in, Adrian.’

  I know that voice, and as he speaks those words so it all begins to make sense. Sort of. I mean, a telephone call would have been easier and less prone to later prosecution for abduction. It wouldn’t have made me less disrespectful though. Chances are I’d have ignored it, so maybe the chloroform and cable tie seemed the better option.