Trick of the Dark

by McDermid, Val

  'I'm not really expecting to find anything,' Charlie said.

  'DS Nicolaides said you're looking for possible victims of a serial offender?'

  'That's right. Jenna Stewart fits the profile. I want to see if there are any possible intersections. It's a long shot.'

  Langhope smiled. 'But sometimes they're the ones that pay off. I'll leave you to it. I'm sorry, but I have to lock you in for security reasons.' She pointed to a button on the wall by the door. 'If you need anything — coffee, toilet, to go outside for a smoke — just press the bell and someone will come and fetch you.'

  Charlie was impressed. Most of the evidence stores she had been in took the view that if you were in the building, you were trustworthy. Experience had shown how empty that confidence had too often been. But nobody was going to walk out the door with Hester Langhope's treasures. Not unless they'd signed for them first. With a sigh, Charlie withdrew the stack of papers that filled the box and set to work.

  What it boiled down to was this. Everything had seemed normal in the Calder household on the morning of Friday, 11 October 1990. Howard Calder had left to catch the bus to work as usual at five past eight. Jay — or Jennifer, as she had been then — had dawdled over breakfast, complaining of toothache. Her mother had called the dentist at half past eight, arranging an emergency appointment for twenty past nine. Jenna had written a note for her daughter to hand in at school to account for her lateness, then given her bus fare to make sure she arrived at the dentist on time. That was the last Jay saw of her mother. After the dental appointment, Jay had returned home because she felt dizzy and sick. The house was empty, but she thought nothing of it because her mother had been working as a volunteer with a project doing up a block of old people's flats nearby. She'd gone to bed and slept the day away.

  When Howard Calder returned from work, he was surprised to find only Jay at home. Jenna had never failed to be back from her volunteer work in time to prepare the family's evening meal. He and Jay waited till six, then Howard walked over to the restoration project. He found the building locked up and deserted. It took him the best part of an hour to track down the warden of the flats, who told him the work was now complete. Only a handful of volunteers had been there that day, putting the finishing touches to a couple of the flats. He recognised Jenna from Howard's description, but had no recollection of seeing her that day. She'd been working last on flat 4C, and he thought that had been finished the day before.

  Howard returned home, but Jenna still hadn't turned up or phoned. He decided to call the police to report her missing. Charlie imagined the officer taking the call. Another wife who'd had enough of a husband who couldn't believe she'd have the cheek to walk out on him. The officer had suggested Howard should check to see if any of his wife's personal items were missing. At that point, it hadn't even occurred to Howard that Jenna might have left him.

  It didn't take him long to work out what was missing. A small suitcase, some underwear and a couple of blouses, toothbrush and toiletries, her passport, birth certificate and a framed photograph of Jay, aged six. All you'd need to walk away from a life and start over, Charlie thought. It was amazing how little you could get away with.

  The police weren't very interested, and Charlie couldn't blame them. But Howard was persistent. He tracked down the other volunteers at the project and learned that his wife had been friendly with the project manager, a Dutchman called Rinks van Leer. Van Leer had returned to Holland but was due to begin a new restoration scheme in York a week later. Howard went to York, expecting to find Jenna, but she wasn't there and van Leer denied that she had left Roker with him.

  So Howard had gone back to the police. This time, they took a little more notice. It was unusual for a woman to abandon a child, even a sixteen-year-old, without a word and without any obvious boyfriend to go to. But their inquiries soon hit a brick wall. They spoke to their counterparts in Holland but there was no evidence that Jenna had ever been there and she'd certainly not been with van Leer, who had been staying with friends in Leyden for most of the week. None of the other volunteers admitted to having seen Jenna on the Friday she'd disappeared. Charlie had the distinct impression that Jenna Calder would soon have drifted off the police radar had it not been for Howard's weekly visits to the station demanding an update. He was adamant that while she might have gone away willingly, she must have been murdered because nothing else could explain her silence. After a year of this, the file noted tersely, 'Mr Calder was advised that the case was no longer a priority and that if there were any developments he would be contacted.' The case reviews had been thorough but routine. There were no developments.

  The file also noted tersely that Calder's stepdaughter had moved out two weeks after her mother's departure to lodge with a teacher from her school. It noted Jay's belief that her mother had run away with a boyfriend because her stepfather was 'an oppressive bastard'. She believed her mother's silence arose from a determination not to give Calder the slightest clue as to her whereabouts. An officer had noted, 'Jennifer seems reconciled to the idea. She does not blame her mother and claims she would have done the same thing in her shoes.'

  Charlie sat back, digesting what she'd read. From a police perspective, there was nothing suspicious about Jenna Calder's disappearance. Women and men walked out on their families all the time without warning. Books had been written about the impact of a parent or a partner cutting themselves adrift from their previous lives. Charlie had interviewed people on both sides of the divide — the abandoned and the abandoners — and she felt deep sympathy for both groups. It happened more often than most people liked to believe possible. So it wasn't surprising that it had been regarded as a relatively insignificant missing persons case.

  But it you looked at it from the perspective of someone investigating Jay Stewart's past for possible murder victims, the case took on a different appearance. Because the one thing that leapt out from the pile of pages was that the version of that Friday morning that appeared in Unrepentant was very different from the one contained in the police records. According to what Charlie had read, Jay had gone to the flats to confront her mother and Rinks. But the building had been locked up and the caretaker had told her the work was finished. She'd gone home, convinced she and her mother would be leaving Roker behind for a new life with Rinks. But she hadn't found Jenna and she'd never seen her again.

  Charlie recognised that Jay might have tweaked reality for a more dramatic narrative, though in this instance, it didn't seem to have improved the quality of the story. Relating the visit to the dentist might have slowed the pace, however. And of course, the great advantage of the version in the memoir was that it gave Jay a more dynamic role. Rather than going to the dentist and coming home, where her mother never returned, it inserted her into the narrative, taking her to the very site of her illicit meetings with Rinks.

  The crucial point remained that Jay had no alibi for the day her mother disappeared. She'd gone to the dentist, but she hadn't carried on to school. She claimed she'd been in bed all day following her visit to the dentist, but there was no corroboration. Come to that, there was no evidence that she'd actually been to the dentist at all since nobody had thought to check. If you discounted Jay's evidence to the police or to her readership, there was no reason to believe that Jenna had ever left the house.

  'Get a grip,' Charlie said aloud as she replaced the paperwork in the box. Even if Jay had killed her mother in the family home, it was beyond belief that a sixteen-year-old could have disposed of the body without a trace before Howard Calder got home from work. Charlie knew from her own experience of dealing with killers that getting rid of a corpse is far from simple, especially in a country as densely populated as the UK. Unless Charlie could come up with another scenario, Jay remained off the hook.

  She rang the bell and waited for Hester Langhope to release her. There was only one other person who might have some insight to offer. But Charlie didn't hold out much hope of Howard Calder shedding light
on the mysterious disappearance of his wife. If he'd had anything to say, he'd have said it years before to the police. But at least she had an address, thanks to the police files.

  As she drove back down the A1 towards Roker, Charlie called Nick. 'Not quite a waste of time,' she told him. 'There's a discrepancy between what she says in her book and the police statement.' She outlined the problem. 'But it's academic, really. Because either way Jay doesn't have an alibi from about ten in the morning till five in the afternoon.'

  Nick was straight on to the problem. 'So where's the body? She was a kid. She wouldn't have the strength or the knowledge to get rid of it.'

  'My conclusion exactly. But since I'm up here, I might as well pay Howard Calder a visit. You never know, he might have the mythical piece of knowledge whose significance he's never understood.'

  Nick laughed. 'You've been reading too many bad novels.'

  'Guilty as charged. I know it's a long shot, but any news from the phone company?'

  'No joy so far. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything. Good luck with Howard.'

  As she passed the Angel of the North, its massive aircraft wings spread in benediction, Charlie thought it was more than luck she needed.

  13

  There was nothing prepossessing about the house where Jay Stewart had spent her adolescence. It sat in the middle of a long terraced street of dirty red brick, neither the best nor the worst on view. The black door and white paintwork were grubby, a combination of city grime and tiny grains of sand carried on the wind from the nearby beach. The curtains seemed to droop, as if all the spirit had gone from them, and the light that showed behind the fanlight above the door was the discouraging pale yellow of a bulb whose wattage was too low for the space it had to illuminate. If this was how it had been twenty years ago, Charlie wasn't surprised that Jay had chosen to get out as soon as she could.

  She rang the doorbell, which gave a loud angry buzz. As she waited, she looked around. Four o'clock on a cold Tuesday afternoon, and not a soul stirring. No kids playing football in the road, no youths hanging around on a street corner smoking, no knots of pensioners gossiping. No sense at all of the lives being lived behind those doors. It didn't feel like a community, which surprised her. Maybe it was just because she didn't know the area, didn't know how to read the signs.

  The door opened behind her and she spun round. The man framed by the door looked irritated, thick grey eyebrows drawn down over deep-set eyes magnified by his steel-rimmed glasses. He seemed to be an assembly of sharp angles — thin face, nose like a blade, skinny shoulders, bony hands — all compressed in a tight, narrow space. He had a full head of grey hair, cropped so close at the sides that Charlie could see the greyish pink flesh of his scalp. His skin was pale and lined, the contours those of a face that seldom smiled. 'Are you the woman from the council?' he demanded, his voice still strong and overbearing.

  Charlie smiled. No point in beating about the bush with this man. 'No. I'm Dr Charlotte Flint. I work with the police. I wondered if I might talk to you about the disappearance of your wife.'

  His scowl deepened. 'A doctor? From the police? I've never heard anything like that before.'

  'I'm what's called an offender profiler. I help them build cases against people suspected of serious offences like rape and murder.'

  'Have you found Jenna? Is that what you're trying to say?' His eyebrows lifted and he looked almost happy.

  'I'm sorry, Mr Calder. We haven't found your wife. What I'm doing just now is examining some cases where the missing person fits some of the criteria for a known offender to see if we might be able to clear up some outstanding disappearances. ' She gave a quick smile, hoping the lie would stand up to doorstep scrutiny.

  Calder frowned. 'What do you mean, criteria? What sort of criteria?'

  'I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. It's confidential. Possible contempt of court down the line, you see?' Wrap things up in enough verbiage and people would fall for anything. She hoped.

  'I'll need to see some ID before I let you in,' he said, thrusting his jaw out defiantly.

  'No problem.' Charlie produced her Home Office ID.

  'You've come a long way,' Calder said, opening the door and signalling she should enter. The hallway was as bare and cold as the street outside. Plain varnished floorboards without even a rug to enliven them, walls painted cream too long ago. There was a faint ancient smell of cooked meat. The room he showed her into was short on comfort. There was a wooden-framed three-piece suite that looked like it had been a G-plan copy back in the sixties. The cushions were thin and depressed. Half a dozen hard dining chairs stood against the wall. The only decoration was three elaborately embroidered samplers with biblical texts. Even from a distance, Charlie could see the work was exquisite. 'What beautiful samplers,' she said, stepping closer to one to take a look.

  'My mother's work.' Calder spoke abruptly, as if the subject was already closed. He waved Charlie to a chair but didn't sit himself. Instead, he stood in front of the unlit gas fire, hands balled into fists in the pockets of his loose grey cardigan. There was no offer of tea or coffee. 'I must say, I'm glad to see Jenna hasn't been completely forgotten by the police. The locals frankly couldn't care less.'

  'It was the local police who suggested this might fit our other cases,' Charlie said. Small white lie, but Northumbria Police had been kind to her. They deserved the return of the compliment. 'I'm familiar with the circumstances of your wife's disappearance, ' she added hastily, having little appetite for another rehearsal of the facts. 'I've seen the files. But you knew your wife better than anyone and I'm interested in your theory of what might have happened. What was your first reaction when you realised she wasn't home when she should be?'

  His face twisted through pain to embarrassment. 'I know it sounds silly, but the only thing I could think was that she had been kidnapped.'

  'You didn't think she might have been in an accident?'

  He shook his head. 'I'd have been informed. Jenna always carried her handbag with her personal details.'

  It was a curious thing to be so definite about, Charlie thought. 'But why would anyone kidnap your wife?'

  'We belonged-' He caught himself. 'I belong to an evangelical Christian church. We campaign actively against the sin we see in our society. At the time of Jenna's disappearance, we were protesting vigorously against the opening of a homosexual bed and breakfast on the front here at Roker. We were gaining a groundswell of support. I wondered if she'd been kidnapped to make us back down. I thought then — and I still think now — that those creatures are capable of anything.'

  Charlie always hated these moments where she couldn't fight back against bigotry because drawing out the information was more important than taking on the prejudiced. Instead, she bit back her measured retort and said, 'But you had to abandon that theory when you discovered your wife had packed a bag?'

  Calder chewed the corner of his lower lip. 'It appeared I could have been wrong,' he said.

  'So what did you think then?'

  He gave a short, sharp sigh. 'I didn't know what to think. As far as I was concerned, our marriage was as strong as it had ever been. I had no indication from Jenna that anything was wrong between us.' He looked up at the far corner of the room. 'But Jenna had not always been in the church. She had left behind her a life of terrible sin before she was born again in the blood of the lamb.'

  'You think she went back to that life?'

  His eyes slid over Charlie on their way across the room. 'Not from choice. But I've read things about the after-effects of drugs. That people can have flashbacks. Events that alter their perception of reality. I think she must have had something like that. Some sort of mental breakdown.'

  'And is that what you think now?'

  He folded his arms tightly across his narrow chest. 'I think she's dead. I think she had some kind of breakdown that made her leave us. And then something else happened. Someone killed her. Or the Devil spoke to her and persuaded her
to kill herself. So she never had the chance to repent and return. What else makes sense?'

  'You don't think she left with another man? To start a new life?' He said nothing, simply shaking his head, his mouth clamped in a thin tight line. 'She'd walked away from the past before, Mr Calder.'

  'She wouldn't have left the child. She knew we didn't get along, me and Jennifer. She'd have made other arrangements. She'd have made sure Jennifer was sorted out properly.' He turned away and walked to the window, looking out into the street, fists leaning on the sill.

  'I've read Jennifer's book,' Charlie said.

  He whirled round, his face animated with scorn. 'That disgusting abomination? She had the gall to send me a copy. I threw it in the bin. I won't have the words of Satan in the house.'

  'So you won't be aware that Jennifer's account of that last morning was different from the version in the police files?'

  'How could I? I wouldn't sully my eyes with that claptrap. Let me tell you, Dr Flint, I wish I had the money to take her to court. That book is a filthy libel from start to finish. So it doesn't surprise me that you've caught her out in a lie. I've prayed over that girl's soul night and day, and that's how she repaid me. But what can you expect from a pervert?'

  'She says you and her mother were trying to arrange a marriage for her. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind when you said Jennifer would have made arrangements?'

  'Exactly,' he said, triumphant now. 'We were already making plans. Plans, I might say, that would have saved Jennifer from this life of degradation that she's embarked on now. It wouldn't have been long before she was married. Even supposing Jenna had decided she wanted to go, she could have waited that little bit longer. She wouldn't have just run off on a whim. Not without another explanation. Like a breakdown. It couldn't be another man. That could have waited, you see.'