Convictions

by Julie Morrigan

‘It could be anywhere,’ Winter told him. ‘In some random company car park, on an industrial estate, hell, it could be in the river for all we know. And that’s assuming it’s still in the area.’

  ‘Okay, folks, get on with whatever you were doing. Going home, most of you, I should think. Rob, Ruth, my office.’ Hardcastle strode off, his expression one of extreme concern. Ruth Crinson and Rob Winter shared a look then trailed in his wake.

  ‘Out of everyone here, would you say you two are closest to Karen?’ Hardcastle asked.

  ‘Yes, I should think so,’ Ruth said.

  ‘I’ve got the right people, then. Look, I want you to be completely honest with me. Is there anything I should know about that might impact on this investigation? Secret boyfriends, dodgy Internet stuff, drugs, private investigations …? Anything, anything at all?’

  ‘Honestly, sir, there’s nothing. Karen’s life was an open book. An ex-husband, a little house and the job. That’s it.’

  ‘Well then, it must be the job, mustn’t it? She had a thing about this church. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, in all conscience, get a search warrant without compelling evidence, which we don’t have. What are the odds, in your opinion, that Karen got impatient and took matters into her own hands?’

  ‘She was frustrated by not being able to go through the place and search the buildings. She was convinced they were involved in some way and that there must be some evidence there, if she only got the chance to look for it,’ said Ruth.

  ‘I wonder if she went snooping and they caught her,’ mused Hardcastle.

  ‘Even if they did, it’s a church, sir,’ said Winter. ‘How bad could it get?’

  ‘Well, if Karen’s suspicions were on the right track, potentially very bad indeed,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Sir,’ said Ruth. ‘Do you really think Karen might have gone to the church and got into trouble?’

  ‘I’m starting to think that’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Well, then, surely a missing police officer is grounds for a search warrant?’

  ‘Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do. You two be here bright and early tomorrow, you hear?’

  ***

  ‘If you’re going to keep me here, I need some stuff,’ said Karen.

  A rope around her right ankle was securely tied to the bedframe and her hands were cuffed in front of her. The cheeky buggers had used her own cuffs to do it with, a fact that she was not at all happy about. They’d caught her going through the contents of a filing cabinet in the office at the church, something else she hadn’t been at all happy about. She’d been engrossed in what she was reading, looking for evidence of their involvement in the child abductions, when somebody had whacked her on the back of the head and the lights had gone out. She’d woken up here, in this room, no idea where she was.

  ‘What do you need?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘What do you think, dipshit? Clothes, toiletries, books, my laptop—’

  ‘You can have some clothes and toiletries. But please, moderate your language.’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  The man took a step towards her, but the expression on her face stopped him from going any closer. ‘I’ll arrange it,’ he said.

  ***

  Next morning Hardcastle was in possession of search warrants for Cotter’s house, Surtees’ house, and the church and its outbuildings. The team stood around expectantly, each waiting to hear what their role would be.

  ‘Beggs, McAllister, go to the Cotter house with DI Jackson. Question Mr and Mrs Cotter and search the place thoroughly. Keep him busy for an hour or more. And don’t let either of them anywhere near a phone: I don’t want the jungle drums going.

  ‘The rest of you, I want you to deal with Mr and Mrs Surtees. Craggs, Bester, go with DI Webb and question Mrs Surtees and search the house, garage, shed … whatever they’ve got. Crinson, Winter, follow them and pick up Mr Surtees. Take him to the church and go through everything, every building, every cupboard, hell, rip the floorboards up if you feel it would help. You four,’ Hardcastle indicated a huddle of uniformed officers. ‘Go directly to the church and wait for Crinson, Winter and Mr Surtees. Remember, people, we’ve got six missing kids and one missing copper. Anything you can find, no matter how small, might help. Take no chances and discount nothing. Good luck, people.’

  ***

  ‘Mr Surtees,’ Ruth said, showing her warrant card.

  ‘DCI Crinson,’ Surtees said, reading the card. ‘How very nice to meet you.’ His eyes flicked over the assembled personnel on his front path and the look on his face suggested he wasn’t being entirely truthful. ‘Now, how can I help the police this time?’

  ‘This is DI Webb, and he has with him PCs Craggs and Bester. You’ll remember DI Winter.’

  Surtees nodded at them. ‘Will you be coming in?’

  Ruth showed him the search warrants. ‘These warrants grant us permission to search both your home and the church, and the grounds and outlying buildings of each. PCs Craggs and Bester will be searching the premises here and DI Webb will be speaking with Mrs Surtees. We need you to come with us to the church. Bring all the relevant keys with you. We need to leave now.’

  Surtees’ mouth was working but no words were forming. He moved back into the house. ‘Oh my,’ he said. ‘What on earth could you possibly think you might find in my home or my church?’

  ‘We have a situation, Mr Surtees. We are looking for six missing children, one of whom is Annie Snowdon, last believed to have been in the company of one of your flock. We also have a missing police officer.’

  ‘Well, I can assure you, you won’t find any of those people, no matter how long you search. They simply aren’t either here or there.’ He reached out toward the telephone on the hall table. Ruth got there before him and placed her hand over it.

  ‘No calls, sir.’

  ‘But I should call ahead, let people know we’re coming.’

  ‘Please get your coat and keys, sir.’ She looked at his feet. ‘And you probably want to put your shoes on.’

  Surtees looked down at his slippers. ‘Yes, yes, of course. I won’t be a moment. Wait here.’

  He started up the stairs and Ruth nodded to Craggs. ‘Go with him. Keep him off the phone.’

  Craggs took the stairs two at a time and reached the top just in time to snatch Surtees’ mobile out of his hand. ‘No calls, sir,’ he said. ‘As per DCI Crinson’s instruction to you.’

  Ten minutes later Winter pulled up at the church and he, Crinson and Surtees got out of the car. He was joined by the waiting officers and they all followed Crinson as she hustled Surtees towards the main building.

  There were two youngsters and a young woman in the office and PC Gray shepherded them out into the main church and sat them in a pew where he could keep an eye on them. Within a few minutes, another couple of kids and two adults were sitting alongside them and Gray was having a quiet word with the young woman.

  ‘DI Winter, take PC Mills and go through the outbuildings,’ Ruth instructed. ‘Mr Surtees, give DI Winter the necessary keys.’

  Surtees fussed and fumbled and handed over three keys. ‘That’s for the shed, that one opens the store room and that one is for the Sunday School room.’

  Winter took them, nodded at Crinson and headed out with Mills in tow.

  ‘Now, Mr Surtees, let’s see what we have here in the church.’ The main body of the church had already been searched, which left a couple of meeting rooms, the office and a bathroom. With Mills and Gray occupied, Crinson directed the two remaining officers to search the meeting rooms and the bathroom, and she and Surtees headed for the office.

  Ruth went through the desk, emptying drawers, flipping through files, she checked the safe, the filing cabinet, and found absolutely nothing that suggested any of the missing people had been anywhere near. Seething with frustration, she returned to the church. The other searchers were already there. She looked round the group and one by one they shook their heads: nothing.


  One of the young people sniggered at their frustration. ‘What?’ she demanded, out of patience with these people.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, still clearly amused.

  ‘Do you want to answer that question at the station, sonny?’

  He looked at her and the grin slid from his face as he realised she wasn’t joking. ‘No,’ he said. He dropped his eyes and folded his hands in his lap.

  Crinson wasn’t going to be put off so easily. ‘Well?’ she asked again. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘It’s just—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, if we had—’

  ‘Had what?’

  ‘If we had been involved in the disappearances of the people you’re looking for, do you really think we’d be stupid enough to have anything incriminating here? I mean, we haven’t done anything bad. But we aren’t stupid, either.’

  ‘Interesting. Does the church have any property elsewhere?’ The boy had gone back to looking at the floor. Crinson thought she detected a change in the air, a hint of concern in case he said too much, perhaps. ‘I asked you a question,’ she said. ‘Does the church have any property elsewhere?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ he said, eventually, looking as though he regretted speaking in the first place.

  ‘Mr Surtees,’ Ruth said. ‘Does the church have any property elsewhere?’

  ‘No,’ he answered, his eyes on the floor.

  ‘Okay,’ said Ruth, ‘let’s get this wrapped up.’

  ***

  ‘So nobody found anything at all that might help with this investigation?’ Hardcastle asked when they were back at the station. He was calm on the surface, but Ruth knew him well enough to read his moods: he was anxious, disappointed, no doubt worried sick about Karen Fitzgerald. Coppers didn’t just vanish into thin air. Not coppers like Karen, anyway.

  ‘Everyone was very accommodating,’ Gray offered. ‘But I honestly think we found nothing because there is nothing to find.’

  Ruth snorted. ‘We’re being played. Despite Surtees’ denial, I’d put my pension on them having some other property somewhere. If we could find that—’

  ‘But these people are Christians,’ Gray protested. ‘I don’t believe you realise how important telling the truth is to them.’

  ‘Don’t be naïve,’ said Winter.

  ‘Tell that to a few thousand kids with sore arses,’ muttered Webb.

  ‘Okay, enough,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Any suggestions as to what to do next? Have we overlooked anything? Is there anything that made anybody’s antenna twitch? Anybody we should be taking a closer look at?’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find any additional property in the names of the pastor or the church,’ said Webb.

  ‘I’d like to take another look at Karen’s house, sir,’ said Ruth. ‘Just in case I missed something.’

  ‘Okay, go to it, people. Ruth, take Rob Winter with you. Go over the whole place again.’

  Chapter 15

  ‘God, I hate this,’ said Ruth as she put the spare key they had got from Karen Fitzgerald’s mother into the lock.

  ‘I know. It feels different when it’s a mate’s house. More personal. More wrong.’

  Once inside, Ruth dumped her bag on the couch. ‘How’s about you take upstairs this time and I do down here?’

  ‘Then we can swap and a do a walk-through of each other’s search areas.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Good idea. Then there’s the shed and the garage.’

  Ruth was going through a pile of papers she’d found on top of a bookcase when she heard Winter call her name. ‘Ruth? You got a minute?’ She put the papers down and headed upstairs.

  ‘Have you found something?’

  ‘No, the opposite. Didn’t you say all Karen’s stuff was here when you checked?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing had been taken, no toiletries, no clothes.’

  ‘And you said there was still a suitcase under the bed?’

  Ruth nodded. ‘There were a couple.’

  ‘Well, they’re gone now.’

  Ruth looked, then went through the chest of drawers, opened the wardrobe and looked in the bathroom. ‘It’s like she packed for a holiday or something. It’s not all gone, just some of it.’

  ‘Let’s see what else is missing,’ said Winter.

  Ruth went back downstairs and, on instinct, took the spare key to the garage door from the kitchen windowsill and went outside. There, safe and snug in the garage, was Karen Fitzgerald’s car.

  Within a very short space of time, Karen’s house had turned into a hive of activity. Fingerprint teams were busy inside the house and out, uniformed officers were going door to door, questioning the neighbours about what they might have seen or heard, and whether anyone had a security camera that might have caught something useful.

  Forensics took the car away to conduct a thorough search of the vehicle. It would be taken apart; every aspect of it, every surface, every nook and cranny, examined and tested, and by the time the team had finished, any secrets it held would have been given up. One thing had been discovered already: the things Karen had bought the previous Saturday were in the boot.

  ***

  ‘It makes no sense,’ Gray was saying to Rob Winter. ‘Why would she bring the car back and take her clothes and toiletries?’

  ‘I don’t think she did,’ said Rob. ‘I think someone else did, someone who’s keeping her locked up somewhere.’

  ‘As for the car, anyone would know we’d be looking for it and it would be dangerous to keep it. Safer all round to just put it back where it belonged. We’d already searched the house and garage. They probably didn’t think we’d go back,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Let’s face it,’ said Rob, ‘it was just luck we went back so soon. It could have been days, weeks, even.’

  ‘Did the door to door crew find out anything?’ Hardcastle asked.

  ‘They’re still out, but they haven’t alerted us to anything. They should be back soon, they’re just doing the houses where they got no answer earlier,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Hardcastle, as he saw the uniformed officers come back into the station. ‘Right, people, what have we got?’

  ‘I think I have something,’ said Mills. ‘Mrs Johnson, who lives diagonally opposite, says she thinks she remembers seeing a couple of young lads cleaning Karen’s car yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Did you get a description?’

  ‘Nothing conclusive: youngsters, dark clothes, baseball caps.’

  ‘Could be the young people from the church,’ said Winter.

  ‘Could be anybody,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Mr Dobson down the street on the same side says he had some God-botherers at the door the other day. He couldn’t remember exactly when. He assumed they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but he didn’t ask.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that from Mrs West,’ said Mills. ‘She didn’t open her door. She says when people she doesn’t know or isn’t expecting come to the house, she hides in the downstairs loo until they go away again.’

  ‘These religious door-knockers didn’t leave any literature, by any chance, did they?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘None that was mentioned, sir.’

  ‘God almighty, we’re going to have to talk to Cotter and Surtees again.’

  ‘Let’s pull Surtees in, sir,’ suggested Ruth. ‘So far we’ve questioned him on his territory. Let’s get him in the interview room and see how he likes that.’

  ‘Good idea, Ruth,’ said Hardcastle. ‘DI Webb, would you and DS Evans go and pick Mr Surtees up?’

  ‘Sir.’ Webb and Evans headed for the door.

  ‘How do we know it was them?’ asked Gray. ‘That church isn’t the only one in the area.’

  ‘No,’ said Hardcastle, ‘you’re right, it’s not. But it is the only one with a church member who had one of the abducted children that DI Fitzgerald was looking for in his car. DCI Crinson and DI Winter, my office, now, please.’ He turned on his heel and walked off at speed
.

  ***

  ‘Bloody Gray,’ he said as soon as the door was closed behind them. He ran his hand through what was left of his hair. ‘At first I thought he’d bring some balance to the investigation. It’s not like the rest of us are churchgoers. But he’s really getting on my tits.’

  ‘He seems to be blindsided by the fact that these people proclaim themselves to be Christians. It’s making him careless about the facts, like if they say they didn’t do something, then they didn’t do it, but simply because they said so, not because we got an alibi and it checked out,’ Winter observed.

  ‘We’re going to have to be careful. Check and double check.’ Hardcastle sat down. ‘Does anyone know what church Gray goes to? He’s not a member of Surtees’ church, by any chance?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I’ve never asked him.’

  ‘Well, will you find out, please, before too much more time passes? I’d hate to think those bastards had a man on the inside.’

  ‘They do always seem to be one step ahead of us.’

  ‘Yes, but let’s not get paranoid. He’s got a conflict of interests in this case, but he’s still one of our own. Now, about Surtees. I’m inclined to take the gloves off, go in hard. Thoughts, people?’

  ‘I agree, sir,’ said Ruth. ‘I feel like we’ve been played from the start. He knows a damn sight more than he’s letting on, in my opinion.’

  ‘I agree he’s keeping things from us, but do you think the hard approach will work?’ Winter sat back and folded his arms. ‘I’m just thinking about Cotter. The tougher things got, the harder he prayed. He’s not exactly made from stern stuff and he didn’t crack.’

  ‘Well, we’ve tried being nice and that didn’t work. What would you suggest?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘Appeal to his … Christianity. Ask him to tell us the truth. Tell him how hurt and upset the kids’ families are. Tell him about Karen’s mum, ill and in her sixties, how she cries herself to sleep because her daughter’s missing. Make him feel important.’