by Paula Daly
There are five kittens in a cardboard box. One dead; the other four are not far off.
Fleas. They’re riddled with them.
The fleas have sucked off so much blood from these tiny beasts that I’ll be lucky to save them. Their gums are white as alabaster and their little bodies are limp. Only two are able to make any sound. They’re a mix of black and white. The hardest to rehome at the moment, I don’t know why.
People are going a bundle for ginger toms and tabbies; they come in asking if we’ve got those silver tabbies off the Whiskas advert, not knowing those are pedigrees and sell for around four hundred quid.
I don’t bother putting the kittens in a basket just yet. They’re too weak to go running off, so I leave them in the cardboard box. I go and check the rest of the flat and find two more adult cats. Both black, both semi-feral, and one is pregnant. I have a quick look round in wardrobes and behind chairs, but I can’t find a trace of anything else, so I head off down the stairs with two of the baskets and lock them in the car before returning for the others.
The Georgian woman is pretending to wash up again and I give her a half-wave, but she’s trance-like. I think about giving her another knock to return the torch, but she was adamant: Leave torch outside door when finished. So I do that. Some people just don’t like visitors.
I collect the rest of the cats and have one last check round before leaving. Then, propping the porch door open with the third basket, I check my pockets for my car keys and the bunch belonging to the man’s apartment, making sure I’ve got everything.
And it’s then that I notice the name on the letterbox belonging to apartment two.
Riverty.
‘G. Riverty,’ it says, in small, neat letters. As in Guy Riverty. As in Kate’s husband, Lucinda’s dad.
Guy and Kate have lots of cottages scattered around the Lakes, but I didn’t know they owned anything here.
They’ve never mentioned it. Then again, I think, closing the door, why would they?
19
‘BUT WHAT IF it’s not the same guy?’ DS Ron Quigley asks the DI.
‘Too many parallels,’ he replies. ‘The girls are the same age, same type, similar area, went from around school. Too much for us to not work on that assumption.’
‘But he’d let Molly Rigg go by now. He only kept her for the day.’
Detective Inspector Pete McAleese sighs. ‘Ron, it’s not atypical for the crimes to escalate as they go along. You’ve seen that for yourself enough times. First time, they test the water, see what happens, then they move up a gear.’
They are in the operations room. It’s packed with bodies, but Joanne still has her coat on because there’s a frost on the inside of the windows. She’s warming her hands on a mug of strong tea, hoping they are still dealing with a clever rapist and not a clever killer.
Joanne clears her throat, addresses McAleese. ‘I know we’ve got to move quickly with this new information Lisa Kallisto’s given us – about Lucinda meeting with an older man – but I agree with Ron. What if it’s not the same guy taking the girls? I think we need to take a closer look at the father.’
‘We always do,’ agrees DI McAleese, wearily. ‘But in this case we can rule him out. One, because his alibi stacks up: he was with his family when Molly Rigg disappeared. And two, we’ve shown a picture of him to Molly and she says it’s not him.’
Joanne puts down her tea. ‘I re-interviewed Molly this morning and she doesn’t know what she knows. She was so drugged up with Rohypnol. How can she give a sure negative when she can’t recall any of it?’
‘Like I said, his alibi stacks up. So even if you’ve got the hunch of your life, Joanne, you’re going to have to let this one go for now. So, that leaves us with—’
‘What DNA we got?’ Ron asks.
‘No semen, no skin, no hair. We’re limited to a suit fibre found around Molly’s genitals. It’s not definitive, but the lab reckons it comes from something with a silk thread in it. A pinstripe maybe.’
‘Great,’ Ron says, leaning towards Joanne. ‘A dapper paedo … that’s all we bloody well need.’
Joanne senses the meeting is about to come to a close. ‘Sir,’ she says quickly, ‘I really feel it would be a mistake to ignore the father here, even if he’s got his alibi—’
McAleese holds up his palm. ‘Joanne, listen, you know what we’re dealing with – thirteen-year-old girl, white, middle-class, missing from an area of outstanding natural beauty. The second girl to disappear in a fortnight. So, yes, I’ll be looking at the father, and, yes, I’ll be putting someone on to that, but remember: everyone’s watching us. The whole country’s watching us. We’ve got to find the bastard who’s taken this girl today. Not tomorrow. And that means following up what we actually have to go on right now.’
Joanne nods. ‘I understand.’
‘You and Ron get yourselves back to Windermere and go and interview Sally Kallisto,’ instructs McAleese. ‘See if you can’t get her to give you more about this mystery man, see if anything correlates with what Molly Rigg’s said this morning.’
Joanne stands, and she and Ron gather up their things as McAleese delegates more house-to-house.
She’s just about to leave the room when she doubles back and stops beside McAleese, interrupting him mid-flow. ‘Molly Rigg was taken to a place with laundered sheets,’ she says quietly. ‘Guy Riverty’s got rental properties. Is anyone checking them out?’
Weird to be back here, Joanne’s thinking, as she and Ron are directed to the deputy head’s office.
‘Brings back all the old memories, does it?’ Ron asks her.
‘Yeah. Which school did you go to, Ron?’
‘Lancaster Grammar.’
‘You’re cleverer than I had you down for.’
‘I was pretty sharp when I took the eleven plus, deteriorated straight after that, though. Came out with nowt at sixteen, so I joined the force … I only signed up on account of all the sport.’
Joanne casts Ron a sideways look. He’s not what you would call a fine physical specimen. He can get out of puff tying up his shoelaces.
‘I know what you’re thinking’ – Ron smiles – ‘I don’t play so much any more, but I did use to play a lot of cricket. This police scout came round to our cricket club and told me he had the perfect career for me. Said I could play all the sport I wanted if I joined the police cadets.’
They are walking down the main corridor of Windermere Academy. The place does bring back old memories for Joanne. Memories of being thirteen, of being shit scared she might trip up and make a fool of herself. Of catching the eye of a fifth-form boy and blushing hot for the rest of the day every time she thought of him.
The deputy head has made his office available for Joanne and Ron to speak to Sally Kallisto. Joanne looks around at the bland decor, at the veneered desktop, at the once-white vertical blinds, now a soiled, creamy-grey.
She’d sat in here on one occasion before, way back, twenty-odd years since, when there had been a particularly brutal fight between two fourth-form girls. One had had her earring ripped straight from her ear, splitting the flesh of the earlobe in two, and Joanne was brought in because she’d seen it. But she didn’t say anything. She’d feigned ignorance because she’d been brought up believing that you never grassed on your mates. Ironic she was here now, about to ask Sally Kallisto to grass on hers – though, admittedly, the stakes were considerably higher in this instance.
Sally is ushered into the office along with a pasty-faced young teacher – Miss Murray – who looks more frightened than the child.
Sally looks nothing like her mother. She’s the spit of her dad. Straight, black hair, smooth, dark skin, beautiful, deep, chocolate eyes.
‘I’m Detective Joanne Aspinall … and this is my colleague’ – she gestures towards Ron – ‘Ron Quigley. You met each other yesterday.’
‘Hi,’ Sally answers quietly.
Joanne’s arranged the chairs into an L-shape. She sits wit
h her notepad open on her knee, and Sally sits down on the chair next to her.
‘Before we ask you some questions, Sally, you’re quite sure you’re happy to be accompanied by Miss Murray? Because we can wait a little longer, try to get hold of your parents if you’d prefer for them to be here instead. Your mum’s out collecting cats, the shelter told us, so she should be back soon. But I can’t seem to get hold of your dad. He’s not answering his phone.’
Sally’s tights are bunched a little around her ankles. She pulls at the fabric of each leg as she answers, doesn’t make eye contact with Joanne. ‘Can we do it now?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s just … it’s just that—’
She doesn’t finish.
Joanne glances at Ron. They’re both thinking the same thing: Girl doesn’t want to talk in front of her parents? She’s got something useful to say.
Joanne smiles. ‘Let’s get straight to it then.’
Joanne begins by running through the events of Lucinda’s disappearance, to check nothing’s been missed by Ron when he spoke to Sally yesterday.
When she’s finished speaking Sally looks directly at Joanne. ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’ she asks.
‘I’m really hoping so. Do you?’
Sally shakes her head.
‘What makes you think that?’
Sally drops her gaze. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t see how she can be …’
‘Because—’
‘Because my mum says she’s probably dead.’
‘Your mum can’t know that for sure. Nobody can, can they?’
‘No, but I didn’t tell you – I didn’t tell the police – about the man Lucinda was seeing. I should have told you that, shouldn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ says Joanne, ‘you should. But that’s why we’re here, so you can tell us now.’
‘My mum says it’s my fault, she says that if Lucinda dies—’ She pauses, tucks her hair behind her ear: ‘… do you think it’s my fault?’
‘No.’
Joanne leans forward in her seat.
‘It is not your fault that Lucinda chose to get into the car of a stranger. But, Sally, listen to me, you’re going to have to tell us everything you know about Lucinda for us to be able to help her. Even if you think you’re betraying her. Even if you think that she will be so upset and angry with you that she’ll never speak to you again. You’re going to have to tell us her secrets. Do you understand that?’
Sally nods and takes in a trembling breath. Suddenly she’s trying her very best not to cry, and the skin on the back of Joanne’s neck prickles. They are close. She can feel it.
Joanne prompts her. ‘Cry if you need to, Sally. Don’t hold it in.’
Ron produces a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and passes it to Sally. ‘There you go, love,’ he says gently.
But Sally manages to hold on to her tears. ‘I’ve never seen the man she talked to,’ she begins. ‘I’ve never been with her when she met him. She said she’d seen him three times, and he wanted her to go somewhere with him, he wanted to take her shopping.’
‘Did she seem at all frightened of him?’
‘She was excited.’
‘So he hadn’t tried to hurt her?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever see his car?’
‘Not properly. Just the back of it one time.’
‘When was this?’
‘Two weeks ago?’ She phrases it as a question. ‘I’d stayed to talk to a teacher, so I was late.’
‘Can you describe it for us?’
‘It was silver.’
‘Definitely silver?’ Ron cuts in. ‘Could it have been white?’
Sally looks to the side. ‘Maybe,’ she admits. ‘I’m not completely sure. I didn’t know it was him until I got to Lucinda, and she told me he’d just asked her out.’
‘Asked her out?’ Joanne repeats. ‘Does that mean to be his girlfriend, or to go somewhere?’
‘She didn’t know. We talked about it a lot, but we were never really sure if he meant it, like, as in to be his girlfriend, or what.’
Ron says, ‘So you’ve never actually seen this man for yourself.’
She shakes her head. ‘Never.’
Joanne jots down the car colour and raises her head. ‘What else can you tell us?’
‘Not much.’
‘Nothing at all?’
Sally shrugs.
‘Come on,’ Joanne encourages. ‘I know what girls are like – you discuss everything. Every tiny detail to do with boys.’ Sally is momentarily wounded, so Joanne adds quickly, ‘It’s no different when you get older, you know,’ and she shoots a glance at Miss Murray. ‘Is it?’
‘Oh no,’ replies Miss Murray, flustered. ‘I can spend hours and hours talking about my boyfriend.’
Sally doesn’t take the bait, though.
She stares down hard at her lap. Her body’s rigid, and it’s almost as if she’s been threatened not to divulge anything.
‘What is it, Sally?’ Joanne asks finally. ‘Has Lucinda told you something about him, something you’re frightened to tell us?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘You’re certain about that?’ Joanne asks this while at the same time feeling deflated. She was certain there was more to be had here.
‘I’m sure,’ confirms Sally.
Ron goes to shift in his seat but, without thinking, Joanne reaches her hand across to his knee, a gesture to tell him to stay put.
‘Sally,’ she says carefully, ‘remember what I said. You need to tell us everything, or we can’t find her. You’re not helping Lucinda by keeping her secrets safe. Not now.’
Sally looks up, and all at once begins blinking rapidly. She tries to take a breath in, but the air shudders into her lungs as if there’s a blockage inside her trachea.
Her eyes lock with Joanne’s. Then suddenly brim with tears as the words come spilling out of her in a rush.
‘It’s to do with her dad,’ she says. ‘That’s her secret. That’s what I’m not allowed to tell anyone.’
20
I’M BACK AT WORK trying to syringe-feed some fluids into these kittens, but it’s no use. I know I’m hurting them, and I’m reaching the stage when it’s going to be kinder to go ahead and get the vet to give the blue juice. I’m pissed off and sad, but trying not to let myself get angry about the bastard who’s left them like this. It takes too much out of me. One good thing to come of it, I suppose, is that we know Banjo the Staffy is okay with cats. That’ll improve his chances of rehoming. Even if prospective owners don’t have a cat, they’re not keen on the idea of adopting a dog who’ll happily eat one.
The buzzer goes, meaning there’s someone outside in the office, so I leave the kittens and go on through. I could do with a break from them anyway, maybe have a cuppa.
It’s Mad Jackie Wagstaff.
People call her Mad Jackie because she was prone to thumping people on a regular basis, particularly when she was going through a bad time a couple of years back.
Her husband frittered away all of their money – re-mortgaging the home without Jackie knowing it – and getting them into a whole heap of financial trouble. To get them out of it, he had the bright idea of raffling off the house. It was a nice property, valued at about three hundred thousand, and everyone (including me and Joe) bought tickets at twenty-five pounds a go. Apparently, they sold close to eight thousand tickets, after putting adverts in the Gazette and dropping fliers about the village, which gave them close to two hundred thousand pounds in total.
Then Mad Jackie’s husband ran off with the money. Disaster.
And suddenly everyone was gunning for Jackie. She says people still cross the street when they see her coming; she’s lost the friends she’d had for over thirty years.
Now Jackie works as a carer, bringing me the pets of those that have died.
I look at her surprised when I see she’s stan
ding in the office, empty-handed.
‘What?’ she says, then realizes. ‘Oh, don’t panic, I’ve not brought you anything today. I’ve come to see you. See how you are. Our Joanne said that missing girl was staying with you when she disappeared.’
‘Yeah, she was, kind of,’ I tell her. Then: ‘Your Joanne? You mean Detective Aspinall? Is she your daughter?’
‘Niece.’
‘You never said.’
‘Yeah, well, she doesn’t like me advertising the fact. Paranoid, if you ask me. She thinks if everyone knows she’s CID she’ll have her tyres slashed. Anyway, our Joanne said you were pretty cut up about it – the girl – so I thought I’d just look in on you, see if you’re okay, since I was passing.’
‘Trying not to think about it, if I’m honest. Well, trying not to imagine what’s happened to her. It’s helped coming in here. You don’t want a cat, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Kitten?’
‘We’re not allowed any pets.’
‘You could sneak one in. No one’d know.’
Mad Jackie laughs. ‘The landlord would. Anyway, it’s Joanne’s house, not mine. She’s only letting me stay there ’cause I can’t afford to live on my own. She won’t let me have a cat.’
‘Fair enough. I’ve got to try. We’re stuffed to bursting at the moment and I just brought in a load of half-dead kittens … I’ve got nowhere to put them if they do survive. What a day,’ I say to her. ‘What a bad couple of days.’
‘What do they think’s happened to the missing girl?’
‘You probably know more than me.’
‘What? You mean Joanne? Oh, she tells me nothing. She’s not allowed to and she’s a stickler for the rules. How’s the mother doing? Joanne said you and her were friends.’
‘Did you see the press conference?’
Jackie nods.
‘I couldn’t watch it,’ I say sadly. ‘It’s bad enough knowing the agony I’ve put them through, I couldn’t stand to watch them go and—’
I stop because the door opens and a woman walks in with a West Highland Terrier.
She’s wearing one of those padded gilets in shiny fabric, expensive jeans tucked into pink Hunter wellies and a silly furry hat with ear flaps – like she’s been out trapping beaver.
