What I Left Behind (The gripping prequel to the DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series)

by Jacqueline Ward

  They all sit down and Pat begins.

  ‘For the purpose of the recording are you Glen Phillips Wright of 5a Swindon Road, London. Owner of a silver Range Rover registration number HT2 4SG?’

  Glen looks up. His eyes are red rimmed and I expect Pat’s made him cry. A lot.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK Glen. I’m going to ask you a series of questions and I would like you to tell me as much as you can. There’s a young child missing and the information you give me may help us locate her. So you’ll be doing a public service in a way.’

  Glen looks subdued too. Not as cocky as he was before.

  ‘I don’t know nothing about the kid. Nothing at all.’

  I see Sally lean slightly forwards, watching him closely. Pat shifts in his seat.

  ‘OK. We’ll start with Magellan. What’s Magellan, Glen?’

  He glances at his solicitor but doesn’t heed his slight headshake.

  ‘It’s an environmental collective. About ten of us, all fighting for the same cause. We oppose the rape of the environment.’

  Pat nods slowly. I can sense him revving up, moving in for the kill.

  ‘And the vehicle you own, which you say was stolen after 10 am on Thursday morning and which we believe has been used in criminal activity. Is there any chance that some of these Magellan chaps could have taken it? For any reason? Maybe some kind of, I don’t know, plan?’

  Glen starts to cry. He’s sobbing

  ‘I didn’t make the fucking plan. I had no part of that.’

  Pat pushes a piece of paper over the table to Glen and rolls a ballpoint at him.

  ‘Glen. Would you be so kind as to write the names of the Magellan people on this piece of paper? And any addresses and phone numbers. And don’t worry about getting the numbers wrong. We’re just examining your laptop and getting your phone records so we’ll be able to work it out if you make any little mistakes. Thanks.’

  He starts to write. I dial control.

  ‘Get that piece of paper copied and sent to Petra. Tell her I want a match with the handwriting on the messages.’

  When Glen’s finished an officer takes it from him and leaves the room. Pat resumes.

  ‘Right. We’ve already established that some of your Magellan associates might have taken the car. The car that was parked in Central London with ammonium nitrate, pure sodium and an assortment of other potentially explosive materials. You’ve yet to tell us the purpose of the contents of the car. And don’t give me any shit about an experiment, Glen.’

  His solicitor objects.

  ‘You can’t do that. You can’t speak to him like that.’

  Pat nods and Sally smiles and fold her arms.

  ‘Have you got children, Mr Forbes?’

  The solicitor nods. It’s obvious that he’s scared to death of Pat.

  ‘Right. A one year old child was taken out of her bed. She’s been gone overnight and now it’s coming up to five thirty and she’s not been found. I’d like her back with her parents as soon as possible. Her father is a well-known business man, Marc Lewis, and he’s worried out of his mind.’

  Glen’s reaction is visible. Sally makes notes and Pat stares at Glen.

  ‘Jogged your memory, has it, Glen?’

  He’s pale and shaken. I can hear Steve breathing hard, and Lauren bites her nails. They think we’re near to our goal. They think Maisie is all but found and that Glen holds the key.

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We had a plan. Plan A. To hold the children of those executives who did most damage, to show them how the earth is feeling. How she hurts. How…’

  Pat’s laughing loudly now.

  ‘Fucking hell, Glen, have you heard yourself? Take children; steal them away from their parents, in this case from her bed, to show them how the earth feels. Jesus. It’s one thing walking around with a placard, but that really is fucking bonkers, mate.’ He suddenly bangs his fist on the table. ‘What’s the rest of the plan? Where were you going to take her?’

  Glen starts to shout. His voice is high pitched and hysterical and Sally looks surprised.

  ‘It was fucking aborted. It was slammed. We never got that far. We had a list of kids, but we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t go through with it.’

  ‘Why, Glen? Why?’

  ‘Too risky. That’s why. Too difficult.’

  Pat fires back.

  ‘Or maybe even Magellan thought it was too stupid. So you all decided to blow something up. Is that it?’

  Glen droops his head now. His solicitor taps him on the shoulder.

  ‘You don’t have to answer anything, Glen. Remember what we said.’

  Pat continues. He’s not giving up. He never does.

  ‘Go on Glen. I’m good for this. What was plan B then? Blow up a power station? A dam? Maybe one of their houses? All in the name of green trees and sunshine. Which by the way, doesn’t decriminalise it, however many smiley faces you paint on it. Blowing something up is blowing something up, whatever you feel the reason is. So go on. What’s the plan?’

  Steve dials his extended team.

  ‘Stand by. Stand by for target.’

  Glen’s silent for a good minute, then he lolls his head to one side. He looks off into the distance and for a moment I think he’s going to move to ‘no comment.’ But he doesn’t.

  ‘The visitor centre next to Sellafield. We we’re going to blow it up, just scare people. The plan was to give them a warning first before we did anything.’

  Pat leans forward.

  ‘Did anything? Can you be more specific?’

  Glen’s lips move but nothing comes out. Steve hurries out of the SMIT suite and into a nearby empty office. I can’t hear him but I know he’s sealing off the area around the nuclear power station. Posting armed guards there. Lauren shoots me a worried look. Pat and Sally are waiting for Glen to speak. Pat finally loses it.

  ‘OK, Glen. OK. So what we’ve got here is a missing child and some chemicals in the back of a vehicle. Intention. To blow something up. Let me ask you this: who do you think has taken your vehicle? Who do you think is going to blow up a power plant? Best guess. Come on. A kid’s life might depend on this. Maybe not just a kid’s life if they reach their target. So who’s betrayed you, Glen? Who’s the Magellan Judas?’

  He shakes his head violently.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. It could be any of them. They’re all as passionate as me about… it.’

  Pat stands up and leans over the table.

  ‘But you didn’t drive to Manchester and kidnap a child, did you? So who’s the nutter, Glen? Which one of your Magellan friends is capable of this?’

  Glen starts to cry again, this time hysterically.

  ‘I don’t fucking know. It could be Ian Kelly. He’s been shouting his mouth off all over the place about teaching them a lesson. The big oil corps. You know? Making them think. Making them wake up.’

  Pat laughs.

  ‘Oh, Marc Lewis is awake alright. He’s awake and wondering where his tiny daughter is. He knows what you and your Magellan crew are about, Glen. It’s him who we got our information from. He knows about you, but he thought you were harmless. He thought you were a bit stupid, you know, all shouty about cutting energy generation, but driving to demo’s in cars. Throwing a brick through his office window then jumping into your 4x4 to go home for a nice hot shower and to watch TV. He was laughing at you, Glen.’

  Glen sits up straight and manages a grin.

  ‘Not laughing now, though, is he?’

  Pat lunges for him and Sally manages to catch his arm and pull him back. Even though I expected this, it still makes me jump. She rests her arm on Pat’s shoulder and ushers him towards the door.

  ‘Get him out of here.’

  She and Pat leave and the camera flashes off. Steve reappears.

  ‘Right. Everyone. I’ve put the power plants on high security. From six am in the morning, through Monday rush hour, there’ll be traffic streams and o
fficers looking for the car in the city centre and beyond. In the meantime a UK-wide alert remains for the vehicle. Pat’s team are rounding up the suspects on Wright’s list. Petra will have the handwriting sample back as soon as possible. In the meantime everyone on the late shift wait for instructions. Everyone else, get some rest but be on call in case we need you to come in.’

  The officers in the room disperse and Lauren shakes her head.

  ‘Bloody hell. They could be anywhere. I took my mum and the twins to the coast next to that last Saturday. Can you imagine…’

  We don’t need a scenario painting right now so I shut her down.

  ‘I can. Yes. I really can. But that car has got to be parked up somewhere. Someone would have seen it otherwise. We might have to go public.’

  Steve’s standing behind me. We both look at the press circus that’s currently occupying every tiny piece of space outside the station. He moves his head from side to side, trying to release the tension that’s built up in his body. He looks at me.

  ‘I’ve got everything covered security wise, as much as it can be with someone driving a bomb round Manchester with a baby in the vehicle. We’ll have to wait until Knowles gets the other guys in. That might take some time. Even if that does give us some idea who it is, we need to communicate with this person or persons. Jan. Can you organise a press conference in the morning? Full on, with Amy and Marc Lewis.’

  It’s decision time. I’ve been here for a year now and it’s time.

  ‘Of course. I’ll take charge of that.’

  He stares at me. Steve doesn’t know the full story of why I’m hiding here, but he knows enough.

  ‘Lauren can head it up if you’d rather…’

  ‘No. No. Thanks, Steve. But I’ve got to do it some time. This isn’t about me. It’s about Maisie.’

  Lauren and Steve nod and smile. There’s nothing more to say. I’ve got to face the outside world sometime, face what happened. And if I’m going to go on national TV I might as well do it properly. I turn to Keith.

  ‘Can you let the networks know we’re going to do this live at nine am? And that they need to start the broadcast five minutes before Amy and Marc come in. I want the full appeal broadcast, no cuts.’

  Steve’s shifting from foot to foot. Then he shrugs.

  ‘Might as well. Give them the info about Maisie, obviously, and the car. Tell them all the details we have about the Range Rover. Pat’s team have the registration documents, it’s on the system. They’ve scanned everything up. And for God’s sake, make it clear to the parents that there can be no mention of the explosives. That needs to be kept under wraps or there’ll be national panic.’

  He looks at the clock. Six fifteen.

  ‘This might be a good time for everyone to go home and get some rest. Goes without saying to leave your phones on. Jan, if nothing happens overnight someone will pick you up at seven tomorrow morning.’

  I don’t want to go home. It’s always like this. I want to stay, to be at the centre. But I know he’s right.

  ‘OK. If anything happens anything at all, comms will get in touch. Otherwise see you tomorrow.’

  He leaves but only for the office next door. None of us want to go. Keith pulls up the Sky News webpage and starts to monitor it. Lauren is going through the list of evidence that Pat’s team has scanned onto the intranet, even though she’ll be able to work from home as she has a login.

  No one wants to be the first to leave so I guess I’ll have to take the lead. I dial the front desk.

  ‘Can I get a car that’s going towards Greenfield?’

  There’s usually a long wait but because of the activity around that area there’s a car straight away. Even though it’s like ripping a piece of skin away from the flesh, I pull myself away from the investigation and into the front foyer of the station. I stand well back so that no one spots me until the last minute. I’ve spent the last two years living in the shadows and I had hoped that it would last longer, until everyone forgets about me. But with a child’s life at risk, I’ll step out. Whatever the consequences.

  Chapter Eleven.

  It turns out that I’m not as anonymous as I think I am, even now. As I get out of the car and watch it wind its way down the country road away from my home, I see my nearest neighbour running up the back path. Kirby, my Red Setter, takes a running jump at me and nearly knocks me over just as Jean reaches me. Her husband Graham is just behind her. I owe them both an apology.

  ‘Sorry. Sorry, Jean. I meant to phone. Thanks for having Kirby. Thanks.’

  She’s waving a newspaper at me.

  ‘Ooo Janet love, you didn’t tell us what you did for a living. Graham thought you were a nurse or something. You didn’t tell us about this, did you love?’

  She looks worried. Graham has reached her now and he stops and holds his knees, out of breath. He points at the hill, in the general direction of the Lewis’ home.

  ‘On that investigation, aren’t you? Working for the police.’

  Jean’s hand goes to her mouth. Here in Greenfield a cat stuck up a tree is big news.

  ‘You should have told us love. And we’ll have Kirby anytime you want. Any time. Just call it our contribution to national safety.’

  I look at the newspaper. There’s a large picture of me in the car leaving headquarters. I check the distribution. National. My name’s all over it but luckily, not my home address. It says Manchester. I don’t live in Manchester. I survey the hilltops, and outward over the dusky moorland. There’s a news helicopter fairly close but I know it’s hovering over the Lewis’s. I conduct a quick risk assessment in my mind as Jean tells me about Kirby’s routine over the past two days. I think I’ll be OK.

  ‘We’re very proud of you, Janet. Very proud. Have they… you found that poor little girl yet?’

  Graham’s arm goes around Jean’s shoulder and their eyes widen as I tell them what I know will be repeated around the village as soon as I disappear.

  ‘We’re getting near. We have some very good leads. I feel for the parents, lovely people they are.’

  They nod for a while and just stare at me. Then Jean speaks.

  ‘Well, we’d better be off. Seeing you in a new light now, Janet. We just thought you were a GP or something. Now we know, well, very impressed. Very impressed.’

  They walk off, waving behind them, and Kirby dances round them. I wanted to tell them that about my life, my training. My secret. But I don’t want to spoil my friendship with Jean and Graham. They’re the nearest thing I’ve had to parents for a long time. They’d do anything for me. When I had flu Jean went to the chemist and bought me some Lemsip, and fed me chicken broth. I suddenly realise that I’ve got a warm feeling inside from them. They’re proud of me.

  I let myself in and Kirby settles on the sofa. The reason I bought this house, a detached cottage far enough away from anyone that they couldn’t hear me, is that I love loud music. It helps me relax. I think it’s something to do with filling my senses so full that I give myself a rest from the day. The louder the better, but I leave the volume on my CD player at eight. Even so, the bass thumps through the floor as I flick a Foo Fighters CD on.

  Even though I slept in a cell last night I’m not tired. The house smells of cinnamon and I immediately go on autopilot and start cooking. That’s my great love, cooking. Well, it is since I came to live here. Back in London I lived on takeaways and pub food. But now it’s what I call three or four pan dishes. The more difficult, the better. I’ve got a Lever Arch file full of loose leaf recipes from all over the world. Following a complex recipe and eating the result is a double pleasure for me. I’m perfectly happy this way. Just me and Kirby, my rock music and my cooking. Perfection.

  Don’t get me wrong, the case never leaves me for one second. It’s hanging in the background as I sing along and chop onions so finely that you can only taste them and not see them in the bolognaise type sauce I’m making. Just the same, but at the end instead of Italian herbs, I add fr
esh mint. Then I layer it with the penne pasta and pour over a cheese sauce, laced with mint and cinnamon. All the time I’ve been cooking it I haven’t been thinking about Glen Wright or Pat and Sally.

  I haven’t even thought about Maisie, until the second after I push the dish into the oven to bake. Then it comes back, and, as always, I notice what’s front of the queue. What’s most important? What stands out? And it’s dolls. Paper dolls. Doll notes, Dolls holding hands. Doll scribbles. The chemical trail has linked the enquiry beautifully, but the dolls are running alongside it a close second. There seem to be an awful lot of paper dolls all of a sudden.

  My phone’s still inside my bra strap; I’m always ready. I take it out and scroll down the list of contacts, finding my old colleague from my PhD days Catarina Young. If I ever need advice that doesn’t have a police bias I call Cat. As I dial I sit down at my desk in the dining room and google dolls. Amid the porn and the lap dancing clubs there are some blogs about antique dolls and some dolls for sale on eBay. But none of the pictures fit the outline images in my mind. The shape of the doll messages. Cat answers.

  ‘Jan. How’s things?’

  Cat’s my mentor. She’s been there for me since the beginning when I was a trainee. I trust her implicitly. Even enough to not hide my mobile number from her.

  ‘Good. You?’

  ‘I’m really well, Jan. Just got back from France with Phil. Been there for two weeks.’

  I pause. All I ever seem to ring her for is advice about work. But I have no choice.

  ‘Just ringing for some advice, really.’

  ‘Mmm. About the child abduction case?’

  I feel a shiver through my soul. Cat lives in Surrey. Even she’s read about my involvement in it.

  ‘Well, part of it. The abductor left some messages, shaped like dolls. Then we identified some handwriting from pressure impressions, again, dolls. Then there was another reference to dolls, but I don’t know how relevant it is. The problem is, the connection’s been overlooked. There is other strong evidence, but I feel the investigation’s going in the wrong direction, and that we’re chasing the wrong people, even though they’re involved. It’s hard to explain. But the dolls?’