‘That’s right.’ Morgan nodded at her, then turned back to Lockhart. ‘We knew Charley had a hard time in her previous home, as almost all of the young people who come to us have. But we offer them a new, close family experience, while giving them enough freedom and space to be themselves.’ He spread his palms in front of him. ‘And we invite them to put their trust in us.’
‘It’s just the two of you running the place?’
‘Yes.’ Morgan laid a hand on his wife’s knee. ‘We’re both full-time parents to our young people.’
‘Sounds a bit different to the children’s homes I’ve seen in the past. Normally they have a roster of agency staff on shifts coming in and out.’
‘We based The Beacon on a Danish model,’ said Olsen. ‘Less like an institution, more like a family. Everyone cooks, everyone does the chores. It lets us build deeper relationships.’
Lockhart heard quick footsteps on stairs, followed by the front door slamming. He raised a thumb towards the hallway.
‘Do your kids not sign out?’
‘It’s part of our approach,’ she replied. ‘As Neil said, we give the young people a lot of latitude. They can come and go as they please. We trust each other.’
‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Charlotte, er, Charley?’
Olesen appeared to hesitate slightly before Morgan spoke.
‘No, none at all.’
Lockhart waited, but he didn’t expand.
‘Ms Olesen?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘And when did you last see her?’
The couple exchanged a glance. Morgan shook his head.
‘Friday afternoon,’ said Olesen quietly.
Lockhart wasn’t quite sure how to put his next question. He decided that direct was the best way.
‘So, if I’ve understood that right, then, a thirteen-year-old looked-after child who was under your care hadn’t been seen since Friday evening, and by Monday morning you still hadn’t reported her missing?’
An uncomfortable silence filled the room.
Morgan cleared his throat. Spread his hands again.
‘We encourage the young people here to come and go, to be responsible for themselves.’
‘Even the ones who are still legally children?’
‘We treat all our young people the same,’ replied Morgan evenly. He sounded like a politician, Lockhart thought. He was beginning to see how Charley could’ve disappeared so easily. How someone who knew how much freedom she was given could’ve taken advantage of that. He was sceptical of The Beacon’s relaxed set-up, which seemed to verge on negligent, but recalled that Donovan Blair had gone missing from a foster home at the other end of the control spectrum.
‘What’s your procedure if a child hasn’t come home by night-time, then?’ he asked.
‘They’re supposed to text us if they’re going to stay somewhere else overnight,’ Olesen responded.
Lockhart didn’t know if the council allowed that, but now wasn’t the time to question the system. He’d already sparked at an earlier word.
‘Text? Charlotte had a phone?’
‘Oh, yes. All our young people do.’ Morgan’s mouth twitched towards a smile at the mention of it. ‘And Charley was hardly ever off the thing.’
‘I’ll need her number, please.’
‘Of course.’
Finding the phone itself would be ideal, but there was still a lot of digital forensic analysis they could do with the number alone. It kindled a spark of hope for Lockhart; they hadn’t had anything like this with Donovan.
‘And, with your permission, we’d like to have a forensic officer take a look at her room.’
This time it was Morgan who appeared uncertain, but his wife spoke first. ‘That will be fine. She shared with Becky.’
‘We’ll need to interview her, too, then. If that’s all right with you?’
‘Yes,’ said Morgan. ‘She’s at school at the moment, though.’
‘And no one should go into her room until the forensic examiner arrives. PC MacLeod will put some tape over the door.’
‘Of course.’ Morgan nodded quickly.
‘Absolutely,’ added Olesen.
Lockhart explained that one or two of their team would drop by later to speak to Becky and any other children at The Beacon who were close to Charley. He asked a few more questions about her routine but nothing jumped out at him, beyond the fact that the couple obviously didn’t have a clue what she got up to outside of the home. And Lockhart felt sure that was where she’d been targeted. He ended the conversation and stood to leave. They followed him to the front door.
‘It’s an impressive place,’ observed Lockhart, casting a final glance around the spacious interior. ‘Must be expensive to run.’
‘Ah, we’re fortunate to own the house.’ Morgan put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. ‘Frida came into some money from relatives in Denmark. We can’t have children of our own, you see, so… this is our way of giving back.’
No rent or mortgage on the property, no staff costs. Lockhart could see how they’d won a contract for public care services against professional competition. It all came down to money.
He was halfway through the drive back to Jubilee House when something else occurred to him. He needn’t have been worried about the ‘death knock’, because neither Frida Olesen nor Neil Morgan had seemed particularly upset.
Thirty-Five
Lucy Berry carried her notebook and a mug of strong tea across to where the team was assembling in front of the whiteboards. It was after five p.m. and normally she didn’t drink any caffeine this late, but she wanted to be alert. She’d need to deliver an update on what she’d found out today about their new victim, Charlotte Mullins.
Lucy had been shocked when she’d heard that a second child had been killed and left in a church. With the age and location of the two victims, she’d briefly wondered if there was any link to the pattern of missing children which PhD student Marshall Hanlon had discovered. But there was nothing to substantiate that, so she dismissed the possibility for the time being. In any case, she needed to focus on the briefing and make her presence here count.
Mark had agreed to collect Pip and Kate from nursery so she could stay later at Jubilee House. He’d been working at home anyway and said it was no trouble, which was sweet of him, but Lucy knew she couldn’t keep doing this. Despite her motivation both for the case and her extra research project, putting in so much additional time wasn’t sustainable for long.
In a way, Lucy envied her colleagues like Max Smith and Mo Khan, who didn’t have children at home and could just get stuck into cases at all hours. But she reminded herself that her own family was the most important thing in her life. She loved her kids to bits, and they would always be her priority. She couldn’t lose sight of that, not ever.
‘All right,’ said Dan as a hush descended over the group. ‘Thanks for staying on, everyone. Obviously, these are quite exceptional circumstances, and we appreciate your effort.’ He turned to DSI Paula Burrows, sitting beside him with her arms folded, inscrutable. But she didn’t add anything.
Lucy was well aware that Paula didn’t approve of Dan’s methods, which were rather more direct than her own. The gossip in Jubilee House was that only their decent results – and the perennial problem of short staffing – were preventing the DSI from replacing him. Despite being a born rule-follower herself, though, Lucy couldn’t help but agree with the rest of the MIT that Dan was a good boss. They’d all much rather work for him than Paula, even though no one was brave enough to say that out loud.
‘Given the MO and presence of details not released to the press last week,’ Dan went on, ‘we’re very confident that Charlotte Mullins, known as Charley, and Donovan Blair were murdered by the same individual. These two linked crimes will now be brought together under a single investigation, known as Operation Paxford.’
‘Has the name been registered and documented?’ asked Paul
a.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Good.’
Dan returned his attention to the team.
‘As you know, we’ve struggled with leads on Donovan’s case and haven’t got any credible suspects so far. Certainly, no one with a motive to kill him, although I’m hoping that Dr Green might be able to give us some insights on that.’
There were a couple of murmurs around the group. Lucy knew that the psychologist divided opinion in the MIT, but she was one of Lexi’s supporters.
Dan cleared his throat. ‘Unfortunately, she was already correct about the killer targeting more than one child. We now have to assume there will be further attacks if we don’t catch this guy.’
‘And we can expect the media to take a particular interest when this story breaks,’ said Paula. She turned to Dan. ‘DSI Porter wants to get ahead of the game with an early press conference this evening. We can touch base on that afterwards.’
Lucy saw a look of anguish cross Dan’s face for a second before he suppressed it.
‘Thank you, ma’am. Now, you all know we were following up leads on Donovan at the Salvation Army in Wandsworth, which is our most recent unconfirmed sighting of him alive. So far, we haven’t identified the volunteer who spoke to him the night he was seen. And our ANPR search on the dark-coloured vans owned by organisations linked to Donovan also drew a blank around the time we believe his body was deposited in the church. Thanks, Andy, for chasing that down. We’re gonna need to re-run them for Charley, now.’
In the chair in front of Lucy, his large frame almost blocking her from view, Andy Parsons nodded.
‘Therefore,’ continued Dan, ‘we’re hoping that the investigation into Charley’s murder will give us more actionable leads on the perpetrator. We’ll cover the usual house-to-house inquiries for potential witnesses, as well as looking for CCTV. But our main strategy will be to look for the overlaps in Charley’s and Donovan’s lives. If we can find out where they intersected, we stand a better chance of finding their killer. There will be something, maybe just a small detail, but we’re going to turn over every stone until we find it, yeah?’
This was met with loud, approving noises from the group. Everyone seemed quite geared up for this. Lucy wasn’t surprised; it was exactly how she felt about this case. She just wouldn’t ever shout things like ‘have it’, as some of her detective colleagues did. The only person who remained impassive was Paula.
‘How sure are you about that overlap, Dan?’ asked the boss.
‘Well,’ he hesitated, ‘it’s logical that they were chosen, or targeted by some sort of method, so—’
‘And do you have any idea what that is, yet?’
‘Er, no, ma’am. But that’s where we’re hoping Dr Green might assist us. And obviously we’ll be following up on as many aspects of their lives as we can. Max, can you take us through what you found at The Beacon?’
Max Smith stood up. Lucy wished she had the DS’s confidence. She seemed to be able to talk so easily in front of a group, which was something Lucy hated doing. She already had butterflies in her tummy about having to speak in a moment, which she knew was ridiculous in the context of a double murder investigation, but she couldn’t help it.
‘Mo and I interviewed Charley’s roommate, Becky Willis,’ said Max. ‘She admitted to smoking cannabis and binge drinking with Charley, and SOCO found vodka hidden under Charley’s bed in water bottles.’
‘Where was she getting the stuff?’
‘She did have contact with some older teens outside The Beacon. Becky said that Charley had sex last year at a party with a guy who was seventeen, but that was a one-off, apparently. Becky didn’t know the guy’s name. Given her age, that’s sexual assault. But we have no idea who he is.’
‘And he’s too young for our profile, anyway,’ Dan added. ‘Anyone older on her radar?’
‘Seems so. Becky told us that Charley had met a man just a couple of days earlier, and was quite excited about spending time with him again on the Friday night. Sounded like potential grooming to me. But Charley wouldn’t tell Becky his name.’
‘She might’ve texted him, though,’ suggested Dan.
‘That’s what we were thinking, guv. We should have her call records and hopefully some cell-site data from her network provider by tomorrow, which Luce can get cracking on.’ Max turned to her and Lucy felt herself blushing instantly. ‘That’s all.’
‘Nice work, Max. OK, moving on. Luce.’
Now it was Dan’s turn to put her on the spot. Lucy could feel her heart racing, her mouth going dry. She took a sip of tea with one trembling hand and sank slightly behind Andy.
‘What’ve you been able to find today?’ asked Dan. ‘Have we tracked down Charley’s birth parents?’
‘Um, so, I found her mother, Adele, through Social Services. She lives in Wandsworth too. PC MacLeod is visiting her at the moment. No father that I could trace, but I’m hoping the mother will be able to tell us who he is.’
‘OK, cheers.’ Dan made a note on the whiteboard behind him, asking his next question while he was writing. ‘What about her online presence?’
Lucy ran a hand through her bob. ‘Er, she was quite active on TikTok.’
‘What’s that?’ Paula was sitting up in her seat, staring directly at Lucy. She wasn’t sure what to say; she didn’t want to patronise the DSI.
‘It’s, um, it’s a social media platform. Video-based. Oh, and, er, very popular with teenagers,’ she added. ‘But there’s been a lot of concern about children being groomed on it.’
‘Hm.’ Paula sat back, folded her arms again.
Dan looked at Lucy, nodded that she should continue.
‘Charley made video clips about fashion, which had a lot of interaction. So, she may have been vulnerable to being targeted or approached that way.’
‘That could be useful. Any way to see who’d contacted her?’
‘We’d need to make a request to TikTok, so…’
‘We won’t hold our breath.’ Dan glanced at the board. ‘What about her school?’
‘She was at Ark Putney Academy. It’s the local state school to The Beacon.’
‘Right.’ Dan had turned around again and was writing it up.
‘But, er… there is something else,’ Lucy ventured.
‘Go on,’ said Dan over his shoulder.
‘Well, it’s just, we know Charley only moved to The Beacon four months ago, so I checked with the school to see where she’d transferred from.’
‘Good idea. Where was she before?’ His pen hovered over the board.
Lucy glanced at her notes, though she knew the answer. ‘Richmond Park Academy.’
Dan spun to face her.
‘The same school as Donovan,’ she added.
Thirty-Six
Jordan Hennessey was angry. He’d just finished training at the boxing gym and, instead of getting the rage out of his system as usual, it’d pissed him off even more. One of the older kids, Ryan, had been giving him shit for being scrawny, telling him in front of the others that he was a little pussy.
OK, so Jordan was a couple of years younger than Ryan, and at least three weight classes below him, but he reckoned he could punch harder. He’d challenged Ryan to get in the ring with him, but the trainer had stopped them. Said it wouldn’t be a fair fight, which just seemed like it was proving Ryan’s point. What a bunch of dickheads.
Jordan decided he’d fuck Ryan up for that, one day, in the ring or outside it. He could feel the fury burning inside him at the unanswered insult. He couldn’t let it go. Just like a whole load of other stuff that had been going on in his life recently.
It’d started when he found out six months ago that his dad wasn’t his dad. The man who’d been around the house, not living with them, but in and out, taking Jordan to the park, playing football with him, giving Mum cash for bills and whatnot. The bloke he’d been calling ‘dad’ for thirteen years was actually his uncle. His mum’s half-brother. They’d lied
to him his entire life.
The first thing Jordan had done was go out. Wandered around a bit while he got more and more wound up. He’d felt so fucked off with it in the end that he’d taken a brick and smashed a window with it. Just one of the old, abandoned houses where no one lived. But it’d felt good, like releasing the stress. He’d enjoyed it. So, he did it some more.
When he’d gone home and demanded to know who his dad was, they wouldn’t tell him. That was even more of an insult. He’d broken some plates and stuff in the kitchen, and after a shitload of screaming and shouting his mum had finally told him.
She’d been raped. By a cab driver who was taking her home from a club one night. He’d gone to prison for it, though she said he’d probably be out now. And that was the final straw for Jordan. He wanted to find the man who was technically his dad. Then kill him.
He’d left for good that day, still so pissed off with his mum and dad-not-dad lying to him. Gone off to a bit of waste ground by the river and started a fire. That felt pretty good, too, same as breaking things did. But it only worked for a few hours before the anger started to come back again.
Jordan needed to get his head straight, and home wasn’t the place for that. He’d bounced around hostels and mates’ houses, spent a few weeks in a children’s home, and even slept in a church where they let you in at night. Then he’d found the boxing club in Isleworth. Told the fella who ran it he wanted to train. To learn how to fight.
The coach must’ve seen something in him, because he offered Jordan a deal: if he helped clean the gym once a week, he could train for free whenever he liked. And that’s what he’d been doing for the last month, solid. But he still had a lot of problems.
School had kicked him out for fighting too many times, and he hadn’t gone anywhere new. Some charity had told him about a school for excluded kids, but Jordan wasn’t interested. All he wanted to do was get bigger and stronger, then find the guy who’d raped his mum. He didn’t even care what happened after that; whether he went to a Young Offenders’ Institute or whatever. It didn’t matter.
Lost Souls Page 13
