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

by Jacqueline Ward

  “Jan.”

  I catch my breath, and I don’t know why.

  “Hi, Damien. Did you get my text?”

  Silence. I can sense him nodding into his phone.

  “Mmm. Have you listened to the playlist again?”

  It’s this that irritates me about him. I know he’ll be standing at the bottom of some big hill, gazing out over the purple moors, wind blowing through his hair. And he has to be all vague and arty.

  “No. Not since the other day. But you were right. It does all link up. And there’s more. I went to see Elise, and she pointed and said ‘angel.’”

  He sighs.

  “But I’ve got the angel.”

  “I made one.”

  He laughs.

  “I didn’t have you down as a craft artist.”

  “I’m pretty good with paper and scissors. But I went back to Jim, and he says I can’t follow this up.”

  Damien sighs.

  “Look, Jan, I’m not going to—”

  I interrupt.

  “No, no. Please listen. I’m going to do it anyway. I went down to forensics to be sure about the van from the project, just to check. And I found something there. Another angel. It was in Dara’s bedroom. They’d labeled it as a paper object.”

  He sighs heavily.

  “Oh my god. Those poor kids.”

  We are silent for a moment, and I think I hear him sniff.

  “Are you crying, Damien?”

  “No. Not really. I just can’t stand the wasted time. She might be dead by now.”

  It’s the first time anyone on the case has said that. We have an unwritten code not to say someone might be dead until we are sure. But Damien’s not one of us. He’s the one who asks the awkward questions.

  “Let’s not think about that. We need to find this woman. She’s called Christine, I think. High-top white van, as you know. What can we do, Damien? I’m all out of ideas.”

  He’s silent, so I continue.

  “You do some more door-to-door. I’ll go and have a think. There’s got to be a part of this that we haven’t put together yet. Think big picture, missing link. Go back to the beginning and start again with the hindsight of what you know now.”

  “Backtrack?”

  “Yeah. Look at all the evidence again. In quick time, obviously. We need to find her quickly.”

  “Mmm. Marc Price is threatening to—”

  I cut him off midsentence.

  “I don’t give a crap about Marc Price. He’s a thug who doesn’t know the value of life. He thinks he can make threats to get what he wants, but in a situation like this that never works. It takes time to work these things out. Time we don’t have because we’ve all been on a wild goose chase all over Julian Peters’s life.”

  He snorts.

  “You agreed to it.”

  “I don’t know why you keep going back to that, Damien. He’s got previous convictions for child porn. I don’t know why you feel so sorry for that horrendous man.”

  He laughs.

  “Feel sorry? Yeah, he did have a conviction. He’s served his sentence, Jan, he’s atoned, and now he’s doing charity work. Isn’t that the process of the law? The law you say you uphold every day of your working life? I feel sorry for him because he’s been crucified for taking a two-year-old little girl that he didn’t take.”

  “You’ve been so sure about that right from the start. How did you know? How did you know it wasn’t Julian Peters?”

  Silence again.

  “I didn’t. Not for sure. It’s all about odds. Probability. The odds were stacked against him. No real evidence. Supposition. Lots of assumptions. Whereas the door-to-door accounts were unprompted. Those people told stories that they had no need to.”

  “But they always do that. To validate their position.”

  “Yes. True. But in this case there was a risk, wasn’t there? I bet not one of those people hasn’t, at some point, considered reporting a missing person. Something’s stopped them. The vulnerability of the victim. The shame, the fear. Youth, poverty, desperation. Exactly the same things that make them prey.”

  He’s right.

  “So all the things we can’t evidence in court?”

  “Exactly. They haven’t reported the missing person because it’s a family matter. A domestic, as the police call it. Because they can’t be sure exactly what has happened. And someone they love might get into trouble. In every single report of a child being handed over and the mother going to get them back, there’s been some kind of family conflict or anxiety. Some confusion over what’s happened at that point.”

  “Yeah. The Sommers weren’t too happy about Dawn’s baby in the first place. Her dad encouraged her to give him away.”

  “And if they had reported it, what would have happened?”

  “We would have probably given it low priority because of the family argument.”

  “And that’s what the perpetrator relies on. Grooming victims into trusting them, playing on the problem they haven’t been finding a solution to. Even the angel. Sinister though it may seem, it’s cute enough to be tempting. Like a gingerbread house.”

  I smile. Bloody hell, Damien. You’re good. Very good.

  “So are we back on track then?”

  “Yep. As long as you don’t start herding up anyone who had pinched a Christmas tree light in 1974 and questioning them. But I’m going to stay here today, keep asking those difficult questions. I’ll ask around about the woman and the van. You do what you have to do, then get back to me in the morning with a plan.”

  He ends the call, and I feel strangely satisfied that I’ve spoken to him, almost as if I’d missed him. And I feel disappointed that I’m not going to see him.

  It’s three o’clock already. I pick up all the files and head for home. I need to put a case together. I need to find a way to get Jim to agree. If I can’t, I’ll go above him. On my way out, I check the logs and see that all of the ex-cons have been released without charge, but several more people from the village have been brought in for questioning. Stan appears from the back office.

  “Off for the night, Jan?”

  I nod.

  “Yeah. Got some serious planning to do. I’ll be on my mobile if anyone wants me.”

  I leave the station and begin the drive home. I need to rethink all this. I need to pull it together, find something that puts Christine with Elise. Even though I saw her response to the angel with my own eyes, the word of a dysfunctional two-year-old will not stand up in court. I need more. I go back over the day Elise was found, right from the start. Retell the story.

  I drive through the back streets of Manchester and through a country park. Daisy Nook. River Medlock. Lots of old trees. This route avoids the traffic on the main road and is easy on the eyes at the same time. Not today, though. There’s a man painting lines across the road. He’s hand painting them, and I immediately become irritated.

  I pull up at the rusty traffic light, which seems eternally red, and distract myself with the case. I got the call from uniformed. Mike drove me to Katherine Street. I picked Elise up, took her to the station. I wonder for a second what would have happened if someone like Hable had attended. What would have happened to Elise then? Would we have looked for her mother? But I found Elise because I was there on surveillance.

  The traffic light turns momentarily, and I go to move off, but it turns red again.

  “Come on. Come on.”

  I need to get home. Time’s ticking away. I need to find Dara. And Christine.

  I stare at the road works, the barrier stopping me from moving forward. Stopping me from getting to where I need to go. And then it hits me. I reverse into the bushes at the side of the road with a screech. Then I point the car toward Central Park and police headquarters and drive for my life.

  Once there, I rush in without locking my car and sprint up to ops. Mike’s there with a couple of other DCs, and I grab him and bring him to the surveillance unit. I’m out of breat
h, I can hardly get the words out, and he starts laughing at me. I start laughing, too, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve laughed properly for ages. When we both stop, I catch my breath.

  “Mike. I’ve fucking cracked it.”

  He nods.

  “Hmm. The benefits stuff sounds suspicious. What’s happened to those women?”

  I shake my head.

  “More than that. You know that day when we found Elise―we need to access the CCTV for then.”

  He brings the file log up on the screen and points to an item halfway down the page.

  “Already done it. We’ve had the CCTV and looked at it to ascertain the time the mother left. There were too many people. We didn’t see her.”

  I nod.

  “Can you check what time the roadblocks were removed? What time the roads were opened?”

  He taps in some codes and looks at another log, the one for the demonstrations.

  “A quarter past six. All the roads were back open by then.”

  “Right. We need CCTV for all cameras around that area from the time we found Elise until seven o’clock.”

  It takes him ten minutes to find all the operating cameras. We watch the footage from the first one in quick time, and I draw a blank. Then on the second one, I spot it at 6:17.

  “There it is. A white van driving up Katherine Street.”

  We slow down the footage and see the white van stop at the alleyway where we had found Elise. We can just about see the driver lean over and open the passenger door to get a better look, then shut it again and drive off. She was late. That’s the only reason we found Elise, because she couldn’t get through the road blocks, and she was late.

  “Follow it. We need to get a registration number.”

  Mike flashes up all the cameras at 6:19, and we follow the van up Mosley Road and toward Saddleworth. We see the van turn off the main road toward the more rural areas, and then we lose it. Mike leans back in his chair.

  “No more CCTV.”

  He enhances the license plate, and we see it full on the screen.

  “European plates. Fucking hell. Untraceable. Probably not insured, either.”

  I roll the film back to where the driver turns off the road.

  “Can you enhance this a bit? The window, where you can see the driver?”

  He makes the screen bigger and bigger until all I can see is a grainy middle-aged woman’s face and an angel dangling from the rearview mirror. I look at Mike.

  “Jesus. She couldn’t get at this little girl, so she took another one.”

  He pales.

  “What for Jan? What does she want all these children for?”

  Chapter 24

  The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day for her.

  I’m lying on my bed, and my head is spinning. Instead of Eva bringing us a prepacked sandwich for our lukewarm tea, we are summoned to dinner. We are told to dress up and look our best by a woman we have never seen before. Even Eva has to step up this time.

  When we get downstairs, we are seated opposite a line of men. The small breakfast tables have been dragged together to form one long table, and the room has been dressed.

  There is wine and food, but I’m not hungry. One of the men tells me to eat up, and the strange woman stares at me and raises her eyebrows. I eat as much as I can, and when we are finished, we’re lined up. The men go along the line and point at two girls. At first I’m worried that this will end up as a repeat of Sunday night, and I still have bruises. But when they finish choosing, we are sent back upstairs.

  As we reach the top of the staircase, the woman stops us.

  “Lisa. Natalie. Jane. Tomorrow night you will come downstairs at seven o’clock dressed presentably. No jewelry or piercings.”

  Eva grabs Natalie’s hand. Jane just stares straight ahead. I follow Eva up the corridor and into Natalie’s room.

  “What’s going on? What do they want me for?”

  Eva frowns and looks at Natalie, who was shaking. She pulls me outside the door.

  “For fuck’s sakes, Lisa. I’ve already told you. Can’t you work it out for yourself?”

  She walks off, leaving me in a state of shock. Of course I can. Of course I know what’s going to happen. But I can’t believe it. Even after Emily. Even after what Joanne said about girls leaving. In the back of my mind, I sort through a thousand other reasons why I might have to go downstairs tomorrow night. I can’t believe that any human being would be so callous as to let another human being go through this.

  But it’s funny what we do to each other. We are so cruel. Letting other people suffer. Turning a blind eye. Ignoring what’s in front of us. I think about Declan and his pornos and the laughing boys. I think about the people who are involved in making those films, the violent filth that degrades everyone involved, all human life. People defend them, saying the girls want to do it. They love it. Or they get paid a lot, as if that can make up for the horrors and the nightmares.

  I start to cry for everyone who’s gone before me, all the men and women who have been sucked into this life only to have it ruined or ended and then be blamed for making a choice.

  I think about Elise. About how I tried to look after her, how I snatched her back from Declan’s family because they were criminals and murderers, only to bring her somewhere worse.

  I know what people will say when they find out about me, if they ever do. Why didn’t she get a job in a factory or a cake shop?”

  Because it doesn’t pay the rent. I can’t claim benefits, because I can’t have a bank account, because I’m not Lisa. And Elise isn’t Elise. On her birth certificate, she’s Lily Connelly. And on mine, I’m Pamela Jagger. Anyone can change their name, make a new life, pretend they’re someone else for a while.

  But when it comes to the real stuff, you need photo ID and two household bills. References. I’d changed everything to escape Declan and his family, as well as the police and social services. They would have taken her, placed her with Declan. He would have told lies and paid someone to say I was a smack head, and I would never have seen her again. I would have done anything.

  There it is again, that word. Anything. Anything. It’s all very well and good saying you’d do anything, but what if anything isn’t open to you? What if you only have a limited range of options open to you? Then your “anything” becomes narrower until all the good anythings aren’t allowed, and you can only do illegal anythings to survive. To eat. To get shelter. To live. Then throw a two-year-old child into the mix.

  It doesn’t matter now. Those things are just regrets. Just things that have happened in the past. And you can’t change the past. I saw a program on TV about this guy who wanted to time travel, but when he thought about it, he realized that even if he could do it, it would be wrong because just him being there would change the future. But I’d go back and change it anyway.

  I’d change the way I treated my mum. I’d get help for her. And I’d change the way I stole Elise from Declan’s front room. I could have gone to social services, but I was too scared. And I’d change last Saturday most of all.

  Instead of leaving Elise in the street, I should have kept on walking. I should have walked to the nearest hostel and asked for a room and started again. Choose another name for us. Another set of lies. At least then we would have had an option.

  As it is, I’m fucked. I had a plan earlier on, but with all this going on I doubt there will be a chance to get into the control room. There’s a knock on the door, and Eva comes in. Her expression is harsh.

  “You shouldn’t have said that. It’s bad enough as it is. Anyway, I brought you these.”

  She hands another strip of tablets to me.

  “Take a couple tonight, then just take the rest as you go downstairs tomorrow.”


  I sit up in bed.

  “What’ll happen?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Lisa. Please don’t ask me. It’s not fair to ask me. All I can say is I’m sorry. I don’t choose this, just like you don’t. Just take all the pills and you shouldn’t know much about it.”

  She touches my hand, and I start to cry.

  “Come on, Lisa. You’re tougher than that. You can’t change it now, so just go with it. Easy for me to say, but it could easily be me next.”

  I nod through my tears.

  “Can I just ask you one thing?”

  “Yes. Anything. Except what will happen tomorrow.”

  “Did you ever know this existed before you came here? This sort of thing?”

  She shakes her head.

  “No. Not really. We never do, do we? And all the girls are very young, some more experienced than others, but how could any of us know? It’s like when you watch EastEnders, you know it’s not real. You know when Phil hits Billy it’s all acting. And that’s what you get used to. Until you see a boxing match. Then you kind of think that’s acting, too. Until you see the blood. Then it’s real. Then you watch the news. We’re fed all the crap at school about equal rights and how prossies are all part of one big happy union that arranges AIDS tests for us. And fucking Pretty Woman. One day your prince will come. But it’s not like that, is it? It’s like this. The deeper you get in, the harder it is to get out.”

  She leaves. I lie awake for hours, thinking about everything that’s happened. My dad. My brothers and sisters. Elise. Even Declan, the bastard. I’m not even nineteen yet. That’s another lie I told. Nineteen years. I go through the playlist in my head, song after song, and imagine Elise is thinking about the songs, too. I wonder if anyone has found the list and if they have listened to my heart. The red glow of the numbers on the bedside clock tick over minute after minute until it’s five o’clock. I have to decide now. I have to weigh up which is the best time to die. Now, when I’m trying to get to the control room, or later on. Or I could just take all the pills Eva gave me and have done with it.