It’s the nearest I’ve got to them. It’s the first real indication of what they are like, what they know. Who they are? Putting this layer of scribbles over a list of things etched into their being. Together with the message text on the paper dolls, I’m pulling together a picture of someone brooding, someone preoccupied by something. Something on the peripheral of their consciousness, something that distracts them while they’re list writing. Something that makes them warn people. Warn? Is that the right word? Wasn’t it a threat?
I pick up another sheet where Petra has collated the doll messages. They’re clearly individually written, each one slightly different. ‘Hold Mummy’s hand tight. Don’t run off with strangers. Because you never know what those strangers might do to you.’ All perfectly punctuated. Someone has sat down and written each one out individually. I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe we’re dealing with someone who has patience, will wait for us to react once they state their demands. But the messages are they a warning or a threat? I’m not so sure now. Steve’s getting impatient.
‘OK. So are we agreed that this doesn’t move us any farther forward?’
I can’t agree with him. They may not give us physical evidence but they hold meaning. They hold information about the MO.
‘I think it tells us something about the perpetrator. They’re in no hurry. They’ve taken time to prepare, and that usually means they’re in no rush to wind it up. They’ve made arrangements for the long haul. I also think they’re preoccupied with something.’
He hasn’t really grasped my meaning. He continues along his previous route.
‘Yeah. I think it’s pretty clear now that these people are activists who are concerned, maybe even obsessed, with Marc’s work. Their preoccupation and their probable motivation, is to get Marc, or his company, to change their direction or to stop doing something. The presence of explosives means that they will go to any lengths, in addition to abducting Maisie, to reach their goal. Putting it all together, I feel we should still expect a demand for money or action sometime soon.’
Petra starts to gather the paper together and I call Keith.
‘Anything?’
He makes a desperation sound.
‘No. Not much at all. I’ve found some references to Magellan on Green forums, mainly cryptic references. For example, stuff like ‘Magellan will sort it’ and ‘Leave it to Magellan.’ It’s as if this Magellan is the Holy Grail of anyone who’s ever been an activist. The ultimate activism. But no real clues as to whom they are. No website. A real urban legend. It’s almost as if they’re saying ‘leave it to the professionals.’
I think for a moment. Professionals or gifted amateurs?
‘Thanks Keith. Keep going. Any news on the CCTV?’
‘Not yet. I’ll text you the minute it’s through.’
I end the call just in time to see a reporter climb up onto the top of the perimeter wall and start to photograph us. One of the uniformed officers guarding the property shouts at him to get down, then there’s a scuffle. Steve finally loses his temper. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it signals a turning point.
‘Get him down. Jan, write out a bloody statement for Lauren to read out. We need to get them off our backs then think what our next move is. I’ve got fifty back-ups on standby for when we find the vehicle. It needs to be secured and we need to find Maisie. We need to do that as soon as possible.’
I know he’s reaching his critical mass, but I have to make my point.
‘We haven’t got anything. Short of tracing every single car that went through that junction on last night. Maybe we should do that. It’s the only thing we’ve got. It’s midday, Steve. She’s been missing fifteen hours now and we haven’t got farther than this house. We’ve got a lot of information, lots to go on, and we’ve laid the foundations. But all we know is that someone’s out there with Maisie and some fertiliser. ’
I know why he doesn’t want to go down the car tracing route. It takes time. Lots of time. And it’s visible. But we have no choice. I take out my notebook and write a short statement for Lauren to read out. She reads it twice. Steve’s still fuming.
‘And don’t answer any questions. They’re like bloody jackals. They’ll try anything to get it out of you.’
But that’s Lauren’s strength. Her measured way of stating the obvious and no more, and her poker face. Even in extreme situations she appears, on the outside, to be expressionless and emotionless. She reads it a third time and then we walk out of the property and towards the gate. I can see Amy Lewis out of the corner of my eyes, standing in the huge bay window of her luxurious home, looking for Maisie. How many times over the past hours has she looked out for her? Hoping that one of us will bring her back, up the gravel path and into her arms.
Lauren sees her too and for a moment I catch the sorrow in her eyes, a window opening in her mask and the light escaping. I shoot her a warning look and she nods. We reach the gate. She needs to walk up to the top of the dirt track and stand just behind the police cordon at the turning on to Link Lane. Steve’s radioed ahead to warn them to cover her.
‘Ready?’
Lauren’s more than ready. This is her forte. She looks calm and confident.
‘Absolutely.’
She rounds the corner and steps out into the lane. Already camera flashes puncture the dull day and I hear a buzz in the distance. It takes her about a minute to walk the track then she’s standing in front of them. I back off. I need to keep out of sight. I don’t want to make it worse than it is.
I step backward into the grounds, behind the gates. Steve’s talking on the phone in the hallway and Petra’s walking back towards her car. I catch sight of the outline of the dark moorland on the grey sky. It’s impossible to believe in this day and age that no one has seen anything. There’s a phone mast up on the northern hill, and a glint of light in the distance. I scan the horizon for nearby houses, anyone, and anything that might have seen someone drive up here on Saturday night.
The area is really quite remote. I know that there’s a farm over the next hill, farther up Link Lane, but they wouldn’t be able to see the road, even from a bedroom window. Link House is completely hidden. My phone rings. It’s Keith.
‘CCTV’s back. It’s been completely enhanced as far as they can. The camera works on a thirty second frame switch. There are three different placements on each camera and it’s thirty seconds each. Here’s what I’ve got, and it isn’t much. In fact I’m not sure that it’s anything.’
My heart beats furiously. Anything is something at this point.
‘At eight fifty seven the camera on the right hand side of the main door, looking outwards clicks onto the right hand side of the gate and the wall beside it. Then it clicks over to the next piece of perimeter wall, then the next piece, then back to the gate. There’s a small difference between the first picture of the gate and the second. The second one, at eight fifty nine has a minute white line on the ground outside the gate. Headlights. So small that it couldn’t be seen on the unenhanced version, because it merged with the white coping stones on the side of the wall. The camera clicks round again and it’s gone. Then again, then seven more times it’s there, then it’s gone.’
I turn around and look at the camera and then at the wall.
‘Text me the images. Both, Enhanced and unenhanced. Great work, Keith. There’s got to be something in this.’
I switch off my phone and it beeps the text to me. I don’t look at it. Instead, I go outside the gates. Lauren is still at the top of the dirt track, I see her turn to walk back. I look at the ground around the police van I arrived in. Every inch of it will have been scoured for evidence, so I’m probably wasting my time.
Lauren reaches me now. She blinks rapidly to rid her retinas of the camera flashes.
‘How did it go?’
She smiles widely.
‘Really well. I read it very slowly and there was complete silence. I think they bought it. I think they were satisfi
ed.’
‘Great.’
Just as we turn to go back inside, I see Amy Lewis run towards me. At first I think that she’s going to run straight into me, but she dodges both me and Lauren and runs at the gates. She’s screaming, just one high pitched scream. As she gets nearer I can make out what it is. She’s screaming ‘No.’ No. It resonates deep within my soul.
I move quickly and grab her just before she reaches the gate. A uniformed officer sees us grappling with each other and rushes forward but Steve and Lorraine reach us and he stops just short of grabbing Amy. She’s pulling at my hair and my clothes and shouting loudly.
‘My baby. Not my baby. No. Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her.’
She begins to hit me and I hold her tightly. The others stand and watch, unsure of whether to intervene. I know that someone must have told her about the ammonium nitrate and she can’t hold her pain in any longer. But I can soak it up for her. I can be the vessel she needs to scream into, the audience who understands her desperation. She begins to cry hard and loud and I know she’s run out of emotional energy. I can almost feel it ebb away from her.
I release her and she stands there, a broken woman, her eyes begging me for her daughter.
‘She’s my only child. You need to find her. You need to. None of you can ever know the lengths we’ve gone to have a baby. To have Maisie. She’s so beautiful she’s so…’
She’s bending into me and then she suddenly straightens.
‘I left the window open. It was me. I left the window open.’
She whispers, almost hisses the words, flagellating herself with each syllable.
‘No Amy. It isn’t your fault. Whoever did this did it for a reason. They would have found another way in. Don’t blame yourself. It’s their fault, not yours.’
I put my hand on her shoulder and talk to her gently.
‘Go back inside, Amy. Lorraine will look after you. I promise we’ll let you know as soon as we know any more.’
Lorraine leads her inside. She goes with her then turns back.
‘You said you’d find her.’
I meet her eyes and no words are necessary. I will find her.
Steve’s talking on the phone again, making arrangements with the powers that be. I look up at the camera’s again and then up at the wall. I go inside the house and up to one of the bedrooms. I can easily see over the wall here, but the camera just sees the one dimension flatness of the wall against the background.
I go outside again, to the police van. A young officer, a newbie, passes me with a tray of sausage barm cakes and I take one. I haven’t eaten since last night. I lean against a post and go through all the vehicles it could be. It would narrow it down from the hundreds of vehicles going through the junction, but I need something more conclusive. It’s times like these that I wished I still smoked, where I could light up a cigarette and think hard.
I know from past experience that a moment is mirrored against the world and often leaves a trace. That could be a memory, seared into someone’s mind or a picture. Otherwise, who’s to say it ever happened? The records are in the most unusual places. Sand can hold the records of where the tide has been, and bones can tell us stories of ancient lifestyles. The soil holds secrets that we uncover the more we work it and even our own, live bodies, retain the marks of our battles, either mentally or physically. But what, here in the middle of the moorland, recorded ten minutes when a little girl was taken? Had it, despite cameras and security, escaped?
It couldn’t have. Only the most remote places are anonymous these days. Somewhere here something has seen the vehicle and its driver, and little Maisie. I look around at the trees and the high wall, beyond it the house. Upwards, a passing plane assures me that this place can’t go unseen. My line of vision falls and I see it.
The curved glass of the ornamental lamp at the top of the post I am leaning on. Curves and prisms. And reflected in that glass, the image of the police van.
Chapter Eight.
I dial Keith’s number as I try to swallow the half chewed sandwich. My mouth suddenly feels dry and my fingers won’t find the right keys. This is what it’s like for me when I’m on the edge of discovering something. Finally it rings and he answers.
‘Keith. The CCTV. The one that shows that lamp.’
I know it will be at his fingertips. Keith is a top class IT surveillance officer. He was specially selected for the SMIT team from the civilian staff. There were big objections when he first came on board from trained IT officers in the force, but rumour had it that he was Echelon trained. He had worked on top secret cases over the years and, with the contacts he has, he could execute a surveillance warrant in seconds.
‘Yep. It’s on both cameras.’
‘OK. The one on the same picture as the white line. Can you have a look at that lamp? Have that part of the picture enhanced?’
I hear him tapping on the keyboard again, faster and faster.
‘I’ll get it done right now.’
I pause. It’s a gamble to tell the other person what you’re looking for. It can bias the outcome if there’s any ambiguity. But I have no choice. I have to find the vehicle.
‘I’m looking for a vehicle. Headlights on. I think it might have been reflected in that lamp.’
The line goes dead and I know he’s on the phone to the lab, ordering the enhancement, checking everything he’s already got. I look over to the front doorway of the Lewis’s home. Steve’s still talking on his mobile and Lauren’s gone back inside. I stare at my phone now. Come on, Keith. Come on.
I walk around the back of the house now, ever checking that I’ve still got a mobile signal. My mother used to send me out across the moorland to buy eggs and milk from a local farm. I could have spent hours sitting amongst the heather, picking at rocks and watching bugs under stones. I bet that’s what Amy wants for Maisie, that idyllic countryside childhood. Village life. No one could have ever predicted what has happened today. Marc and Amy, they probably felt safe out here, safe from the hustle and bustle of the city, where too many people push and shove and all doors need to be locked.
I gaze at the imposing house. Amy left the windows open, never dreaming that someone could creep in and steal her sleeping daughter. Never once thinking that her husband’s job would bring criminals to her door. She was safe. I expect she’ll never feel safe again. And that’s a horrible feeling. The insecurity seeps under the skin and trickles into every feeling. It isolates happiness and builds a cage around it, until, eventually, carrying out the minutiae of every day slides over the slippery slope of fear and all enjoyment of life is gone.
I’m suddenly back in London and walking toward a car park, carrying an old style brown suitcase. I’m dragging my body across the tarmac, heavy with sadness and uncertain of the future. No happiness there. I’d left that behind in the weeks before.
My phone rings and it makes me pull my breath in.
‘Keith?’
‘Got it. Not very clear. Not clear enough for a registration number, too small. But it’s a silver four x four. Land Rover Range Rover Classic. 1992. First model with air suspension if I’m not mistaken. Parked up just before the gates.’
All the hairs on my arms prickle up.
‘Finally. Finally. Right. The vehicles at the road junctions. Did Lauren index them?’
He laughs. Keith’s a jovial person, always first with a wisecrack, but this is the first time I’ve heard him laugh for a long time. We must be getting somewhere.
‘Duh. Lauren indexes everything.’
‘Right. I want all the silver Range Rovers that passed those junctions. Registration and registered owner. Stand by while I run this by Steve.
I thought we’d never get here. I was beginning to think that we were at the end of the road. I end the call and sprint over to where Steve is drinking tea from a polystyrene cup. He knows before I reach him.
‘What? What you got?’
‘I’ve got the vehicle. Silver Range Rover. Keit
h’s searching for all vehicles of that type now.’
He doesn’t smile. But he stands a little bit straighter and runs his fingers through his hair.
‘How?’
I point at the lamp.
‘Reflective glass. Ornamental. I got Keith to have all the CCTV enhanced.’
The corners of his mouth turn up a little, and that’s the most I’m going to get out of him. Until Maisie is safe and well.
‘Let’s get out of here. We need to get back to base and move quickly on this.’
We hurry inside and I signal to Lauren that we’re going. Lorraine follows Marc Lewis into the hallway.
‘What’s going on? Has something happened?’
I blink at him. He looks dishevelled and tired and it’s no wonder. They’ve both held up under the pressure of this. I’ve attended parents of abducted children who’ve become violent and hit out at the police. But Marc’s coped by doing his own research, keeping himself busy. And Amy’s coped with a cocktail of tranquillisers. I don’t know which one I would do in their circumstances. No one does until it happens to them and I’m mindful of this when I reply.
‘We’ve got some new information. We’re just going to make some more enquiries, Marc. We’ll keep you informed every step of the way.’
He stands at the door and watches us as we get in our individual cars and pull out of his driveway. I meet his eyes as I pass him, strapped into a passenger street. He’s losing patience. Despite appearances, he’s at the end of his coping capacity and I’m momentarily worried that he’ll go to the end of the dirty track and talk to the horde of reporters while we are gone.
Cameras flash as we pass the reporters and I pull my collar around my face. In twenty minutes we’re back at headquarters. Lauren rushes to help Keith. Steve and I grab a coffee. It’s one o’clock. Nineteen hours since someone took Maisie from her bed and put her into a silver Range Rover. Two things are still bugging me about this. I’m convinced that this is someone with local knowledge, someone who knows Saddleworth very well. And the doll. I know it’s there somewhere, locked into my synapses. Etched on my neurons. Somewhere, tidied away in my memory banks. I know what that doll is. It feels like it’s there somewhere in half-sleep, on the edge of my dreams. I’ve seen it before. I know I have.
What I Left Behind (The gripping prequel to the DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series) Page 7
