Playlist for a Paper Angel (DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series Book 3)

by Jacqueline Ward

  My head’s reeling. I stare at the pictures and try to work out what it means. The babysitter didn’t pick up Elise, and the police have her now. She didn’t pick up Elise. The babysitter. Christine. I search my memory, running back through the time I visited her house. A white van parked in the drive. And I’d seen her getting out of a white Transit van in the car park opposite Katherine Street when she’d picked up Elise.

  She didn’t pick up Elise. Elise is safe. But another little girl isn’t. And she was taken from a place about two miles down Pit Lane from Christine’s house. In a white van. I push the newspaper into the bin bag and go to the communal bin at the back door. I tear off the front page and push it down my trousers. Then I go over to Eva.

  “Is it OK if I go to the toilet. In my room? Only the soreness . . .”

  She nods her head.

  “Yeah. But come straight back.”

  I run up the stairs and open the door of my room. What does this mean? Elise. She’ll be in foster care now. Safe and warm. But Christine? Why would Christine take a child? And there must be hundreds of white vans. Why do I think Christine has her?

  I go back to the day I first visited Christine’s house. She was very clean and tidy and her cottage smelled of cinnamon and coffee. And fresh bread. There were lots of toys, and she said that she was a babysitter. She even had certificates. And a sleep room. I’d been so relieved that I could go to work and leave Elise somewhere safe, instead of alone in the flat, that I overlooked my fears.

  Like the time she offered to look after her for a full week. Or when she asked me if Elise had a passport. Because she might want to take her and other children to Disneyland Paris. Or the time Elise came back with a plaster over a vein in her arm, as if she had blood taken. I’d pointed at it.

  “Had her at the doctors, lovey. She seemed a bit anemic so I saved you the job.”

  I’d been confused, but grateful. And very tired. And on drugs. It all seemed normal at the time. A lot more normal than I was. The kind of normal I wanted for Elise.

  I look closer at the picture of the van in the newspaper. It’s pretty clear, and it’s just a white Transit van. It’s kind of from the side, looking into the passenger window.

  I look a bit closer still and remember passing Elise to Christine, and Christine fastening Elise into a car seat. Elise had reached out for something. I thought it was an air freshener at first, but it sparkled in the afternoon sunshine as it spun around.

  “Look, Mummy! Angel”

  And there it is, in the picture, hanging from the middle of the windshield of Christine’s van. Which means that I know where Dara Price is and who has her.

  Chapter 17

  I slept with the lamp on last night and fell asleep to the playlist. It’s comforting somehow, and it makes me feel like I’m not the only mother facing this situation. When I got home last night, there was another missed call on my phone, this time from a different number. Again, I phoned it back, but it rang out.

  It made me think about what Damien had said about instincts. A simple case of everything making sense from all the connections. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, but I need to be optimistic. Aiden will contact me eventually. He can’t just forget about me. He can’t. I’m his mother.

  So I’d cried myself to sleep with the playlist and got lost in the emotion of it. When I awake at seven, I have a text from Lorraine asking me if anything had happened. I need to talk to her, talk this out about Aiden. But I also need to find Dara. The avalanche of yesterday’s confusion spills into my sleepy mind, and I hurry to shower and dress. Then I grab some tea and toast and drive to the station.

  On the way I listen to the playlist again. It’s a strange feeling to be connected to a woman I don’t even know. Even if she did heartlessly leave Elise in the street, her heart was breaking. It suddenly strikes me that I must be wrong, that it wasn’t a bungled abduction. She knew she was going to do it. She knew, and she had listened to these songs and felt heartbreak. Our hearts match. We are both apart from our children.

  I suddenly think about Amy Price. How must she be feeling? As I arrive at the station, I see Damien standing around the corner from the main entrance by the bins, his notebooks spread out on top of them. I get out of my car and walk over.

  “What are you doing here? You do know we have offices up there, don’t you?”

  He pushed his pencil behind his ear.

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Oh. Has something happened?”

  He shakes his head and grabs my shoulders.

  “No, Jan. Nothing. And that’s the point. I’ve been up all night looking at this, and I seriously think we’re on the wrong track with Peters. Seriously.”

  He’s looking deep into my eyes, and he’s making me feel like crying. “Promise me you’ll keep other lines of investigation open. Promise me, Jan. Otherwise, we won’t find Dara.”

  I know he’s got a point, but I also know what it looks like to Stewart.

  “But it’s clear-cut. Peters left early. The white van’s engine was warm. Previous. It all adds up, and I don’t think I can do anything to change Stewart’s mind on this one. You have to admit that it does look as if . . .”

  He walks away, hands in the air.

  “No. I don’t think it does. No evidence whatsoever it’s him. No forensics. I checked. The van was clean. No trace of Dara. Nothing, Jan. He could have been going to the shop in the van. Or just fancied a drive out. It’s not him, Jan.”

  I start to walk toward the entrance. A couple of reporters are shouting at us as we go in.

  “Have you found Dara, DS Pearce?”

  “Had the Twitterati gone too far?”

  That’s another thing. As well as the confusion over Peters and Damien’s theory, everyone in the world seems to want their say about Dara and Elise. I’d followed the social networking as much as I could, and there’s someone monitoring it constantly, but so far twenty-six people have been named as Dara’s abductor, and none of them are Peters. None of them have a white van registered to them. As a result of Twitter and Facebook, I’ve been receiving more than ten texts an hour from surveillance with updates.

  There used to be a time not so long ago when surveillance meant doing the legwork. That’s how I was trained as a young copper. Watching and listening out in the field. Now it almost comes to us, and we have to make sense of it.

  I ignore the reporters and check in with Stan. Then I go to one of the interview rooms, followed reluctantly by Damien. I open the door, and Julian Peters is huddled in a chair, his face bruised.

  “Mr. Peters. I’m DS Pearce and this is Damien Booth. We’re going to start this interview at nine fifteen.”

  I flick the recorder on. He stares at me.

  “I don’t know anything about this. Nothing at all.”

  I can’t look at him. I can’t. This is so wrong.

  “OK. Let’s start with Sunday lunchtime. Where were you at one o’clock until four o’clock?”

  “I was at home, then I went to the fundraiser.”

  “And what time did you arrive at the fundraiser?”

  “Can’t be sure. But I was with Harry and Frank all the time. I’m sure they’ve told you.”

  I nod. I can see Damien watching him carefully.

  “Yes. And what time did you leave the fundraiser, Mr. Peters?”

  “About seven, seven-thirty.”

  “Did you leave any time in between? Did you leave and then come back?”

  “Yes. I went to get some tobacco. About fiveish. Which is why you’ve got me here, I expect?”

  I ignore his question.

  “OK. Did you walk to the shop to get tobacco, Mr. Peters? Did you walk to the off license to get tobacco?”

  They’ve checked the off license shop CCTV across the road. He wasn’t in there on Sunday. It’s tense as we wait for his answer.

  “No. Well, yes, I did walk, but not to the offy. I went down to the big Tesco’s. Cheaper.”

 
; “So you walked?”

  “Yeah. There and back.”

  “Did you drive the white Ford Transit van registration number J4034E at all on Sunday?”

  He frowns.

  “No. Why would I? I can’t drive, DS Pearce. I’ve never had a license.”

  I get up and motion to Damien to follow me.

  “Interview terminated at nine twenty.”

  I flick the recorder off. Peters stands up.

  “Can I go then?”

  “No. No, Mr. Peters. We may need to ask you some more questions.”

  I leave the room and lean on the wall outside.

  “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Damien puts his arm on my shoulder.

  “Assumptions, Jan. It was all assumptions anyway. Assumed he’d go to the nearest shop. Assumed he had a license. No checks and balances. I’ll put money on him being on the Tesco CCTV.”

  I can feel my temper rising. Not at Damien, although he does have a habit of rubbing me the wrong way. And he continues to.

  “Fifty-one percent.”

  “What?”

  “Fifty-one percent. Two nights missing. Dara. A fifty-one percent chance of being found now. Or zero percent, if you continue with the Peters line.”

  I storm up to the ops room, where everyone is starting to gather for the briefing. I can hear him behind me, and he stands next to me at the back of the room. He almost whispers in my ear.

  “Difficult questions, Jan. Difficult questions. Never won me any friends.”

  We stand at the back of the room until DI Stewart enters, and then everyone sits down. Then I join him at the front. I’m about to speak when he jumps in.

  “Thanks for coming in everyone. Operation Hawk. Two-year-old child, Dara Price, taken from her bed on Sunday afternoon. Parents ruled out as they were in the house with other people at the time. Suspect arrested. Julian Peters. Previous convictions and in the vicinity at the time. One witness statement. So it looks like we have our man, but no child. Search of the area ongoing. Jan?”

  I step forward. Damien’s eyes are on me, and I suddenly feel nervous.

  “Thank you, sir. I just interviewed Mr. Peters, and it turns out he did leave the pub but did not visit the places we have searched. We need to get CCTV from the Tesco store at Greenfield and confirm he was there at the time he says. Also, he can’t drive. He claims he didn’t drive the van and forensics drew a blank. So it looks like we don’t have our man.”

  I draw a deep breath in and go to speak, but Jim Stewart jumps up.

  “Or he had an accomplice. A driver. The witness says the van had been driven. He was missing at the time of the abduction. Reinterview everyone in the pub. Watch all the mobile footage that’s been sent in. See who else was missing from the group at the same time.”

  I go to speak again, but he’s on a roll.

  “We need to find this kid. I want all outhouses and sheds in the area searched. And wheelie bins. He . . . they went back to the pub later. They’re either keeping her somewhere or . . .”

  I jump in.

  “But, sir. We have to follow other lines of inquiry as well.”

  He turns to me and looks at the incident board. Mike’s sitting in the second row, and I suddenly feel like I’m digging a hole for myself.

  “What other lines, Jan? We’ve got no other leads.”

  It’s true. The incident board hasn’t been updated with any of the information about the women and children who have gone missing or with details of Elise and her mother. I can feel Damien’s eyes bore into me.

  “Dr. Booth and I have been working on a line of inquiry that links the child we found in Ashton with this case. There was a receipt for Greenfield in the baby’s pram and a playlist of songs that . . .”

  Stewart throws his hands up in the air.

  “A receipt? Is that all you’ve got?”

  I look around for support, but there is none.

  “And a playlist of songs. Which is how we found out who the little girl is.”

  I go over the board and write her name. You could hear a pin drop in the room.

  “Elise. And during the door-to-door interviews, we took witness accounts that suggested someone in Greenfield is taking children.”

  Everyone stares at me. Damien smiles slightly. Jim Stewart looks serious.

  “Abducting children? Is this on record? Were these abductions reported?”

  I swallow hard. This is the tricky bit.

  “Not really abductions, sir, more like children who were given away. It seems a woman is taking babies from young girls and giving them a paper angel as a receipt. When the girls go back for their child, neither the woman or the child is ever seen again.”

  I see Mike put both hands up to his face and someone stifle a giggle. Jim plays to the crowd now.

  “So babysitting?”

  “No, sir. The girls are giving the children to her to look after them . . .”

  “So is it an abduction or not? Has there been a complaint from the family? Have social services alerted us?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Right then. So it’s babysitting and runaways. Jan, a two-year-old girl is missing. Her parents are beside themselves with worry. We are wasting time talking about domestic incidents. Forget that and organize a press conference for Mr. and Mrs. Price. And keep your eye on the social networking. You never know when a member of the public might have some information they want to give anonymously.”

  Silence. All eyes on me. I feel my heartbeat quicken.

  “I’ve been monitoring it since the start, sir. I’m a surveillance expert. It’s what I do.”

  “Hmm. I’m drafting everyone onto the Dara Price case now temporarily. Do some more door-to-door. I want nothing missed.” He stares at me, his eyes cold. “Forget about that other kid, Jan. Find Dara.”

  He stalks back into his office, and I see that Damien is gone.

  Chapter 18

  When Damien doesn’t reappear, I try to phone him. His phone’s switched off. I spend an hour in surveillance with my ex-colleagues, just to check I haven’t missed any intelligence, but all they have so far is a long list of unconnected names and thousands of Tweets and Facebook comments criticizing the operation but not suggesting alternative measures.

  Operation Hawk. First I heard of this was in the ops meeting. That’s what he does with his own cases. Names them. I’ve got a horrible feeling that Jim Stewart is losing faith in me, and I need to do something quickly. I walk back to the ops room and organize the door-to-door and search teams, then I look around for Damien. He hasn’t come back, and I can’t wait any longer.

  I drive out of Manchester toward the hills but turn off and go home. I need to contact Aiden. Or Sal. I desperately need to know what’s going on. Probably nothing. It’s probably just how it seems.

  I open up my laptop and open Facebook. It makes a welcome noise, and I feel a little excited about typing a message to Aiden. But his icon isn’t there. His picture from last Christmas with a reindeer hat on. It’s gone. So I search Facebook for it. Aiden Margiotti. I never took Sal’s name, so Aiden and I have different names, which he never minded. I search for Aiden Pearce, just in case he’s changed it. Nothing.

  I type in his email address and password. I knew it but never used it until he went missing out of respect for his privacy. When he disappeared, I logged in to see if he was still using his account. But he hadn’t used it since the day he left.

  Something’s wrong here, too. It won’t let me into his account. I go to my own account and search for him in my friends list. His name is there, but when I click on it, it says he’s deactivated his account. Sal’s account is still there, but when I click on it, there is nothing but his profile picture. I search for Aiden on Facebook, but, again, he’s gone.

  I switch off my laptop. Of course they’d delete the accounts. It’s another way to find them. Find out where they are. But I won’t give up hope. I won’t. Somewhere in his heart he must have a spark of
love for me. He’ll contact me when he can. Won’t he?

  My phone is buzzing with messages, updates on social networking and door-to-door. I check what’s going on and nothing new has been discovered. I’d better head off to the Prices’ and collect them for the press conference. And try to find Damien.

  I call him again, and his phone rings out, but he doesn’t answer. I drive out to Greenfield and brave the reporters and news vans outside the Prices’ house. As I drive through the gates, I see Lorraine’s car. But still no sign of Damien. I call him and leave a message for him to get in touch as soon as possible.

  Inside the Prices’ house, all the curtains are drawn. Amy Price is sitting on the same sofa as she was the last time I saw her, and Marc is standing by the window, peering through the curtains. Lorraine shoots me a warning look as I enter the room. I walk over and sit next to Amy.

  “Mrs. Price. How are you?”

  She looks in a daze. Probably Valium.

  “D’you know Dara nearly died? Just after she was born. She had a heart condition. Didn’t think she would survive. I have never taken my eyes off that baby girl since then. Never once. How could this happen?”

  I frown.

  “Is she still ill now, Amy? Does she need medication?”

  We share a look, the agony of children’s illnesses, but she shakes her head.

  “Not at the moment but . . .”

  But she could need it any time. My desperation to find her inches up a notch as I imagine poor Dara falling ill and suffering more than she might be already. By the look of Amy, that’s all that has been on her mind since Sunday afternoon. Marc Price rushes over and stands in front of us.

  “News?”

  I shake my head.

  “No. We’ve still got Julian Peters in custody. But he’s denying any involvement. There is contradictory evidence . . .”

  He starts shouting.