by Lee Weeks
‘Who is it?’ a woman’s voice answered. The voice came from somewhere at the back of the caravan. A curtain was pulled aside and the window pushed open.
‘What is it?’
‘Police officers – could we have a word?’
Carter took a step back from the door as they waited. They heard the turn of a key and the caravan door opened. A woman stood on the other side in an oversized T-shirt that had a Disney logo on the front. She pulled a blanket around herself as she squinted at them.
‘Excuse us for bothering you, but are you alone in this van?’ The horse tried to nudge past them.
‘Yes. Back, Misty . . . back.’
The woman was trying to hide the fact she was out of breath as she came out and pushed the horse gently backwards with a hand on its chest.
‘Lovely horse. Are any of these other vans occupied?’ asked Carter.
‘Not at present.’
‘Can I get your name, please?’
‘Kensa Cooper.’
He could smell the poverty coming from the van. The toll life had taken on her was sunken into her hollow cheeks. She had heavy eyeliner, which had smudged and gave her a haunted look as if she was made-up for Halloween. She was probably not even thirty but looked much older. She had a slurring in her voice, madness in her eyes.
‘Were you out in the field just now, Kensa?’ She didn’t answer. ‘If you were that was pretty hard going running up that hill and over these fields. No wonder you’re still out of breath,’ Carter said, smiling kindly. ‘Ebony here is a great runner and even she couldn’t catch you.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong. You shouldn’t have chased me.’ Kensa pulled the blanket tightly around herself. She went back in and tried to close the door on them but Carter put his foot in the way.
‘We can’t leave just yet. We need to know a few things then we’ll go,’ said Carter sternly.
‘It’s all right, Kensa,’ said Willis. ‘We’re not going to hurt you – we just need to talk to you, that’s all, and then we’ll leave.’
Kensa looked from one to the other and then nodded.
‘What did you want at the Forbes-Wright house?’ asked Carter. ‘Why did you go there?’
‘I was going to see who was there, that’s all. I clean there sometimes. Just interested, is all.’
‘Did you know Jeremy Forbes-Wright?’ Willis asked. Kensa moved her head just enough to indicate that she did.
‘You weren’t going there to clean at this time of night, though, were you?’ asked Carter.
‘No. I wanted to see who had come. I saw the woman. I looked in at the kitchen. She was crying. I wanted to tell her something . . . I’ve seen her boy – I know he’s safe. She doesn’t need to worry – he’s in safe hands.’
‘Where, Kensa? Where did you see him?’
‘In my dreams.’
‘When you went down to the house this evening, is that what you were going to tell her? That you’ve seen him in your dreams?’ asked Willis.
‘Yes.’
‘Kensa? Is it all right if we take a look inside the van?’ asked Carter. She looked behind her and became agitated again. She started to clench and unclench her hands; she made them into fists and knocked her knuckles hard against each other.
‘We need to take a quick look, Kensa, and then we’ll be gone,’ Willis reassured her. ‘We won’t disturb anything.’ Kensa started to shake her head as she looked back inside.
Carter took a step closer.
‘Come on, Kensa, it’s got to happen – let’s get it over with,’ he said. ‘We won’t be here long; we’ll leave things as we found them.’
Willis stepped inside and led Kensa to the sofa. ‘Stay there, Kensa. Don’t worry about anything.’
Carter stepped back outside and closed the van door on them as he had a look around, underneath and at the back of the van with the help of Misty, who was fascinated by the intrusion so late at night. At the back of the van there was a gazebo that was battered but not quite broken. Beneath it were three white plastic chairs and the smell of a bonfire gone cold. There was a spare gas cylinder under the van and a water container.
Willis looked around her. The caravan had the smell of poverty and horse and unwashed bodies. There was no television or laptop, no sound at all besides the creaking of the caravan. Willis found a few bags of weed in the bedroom, hidden on a shelf above the bed.
As Willis came back in the lounge she could see Kensa rocking on her feet.
‘Do you have a friend living nearby?’
‘No . . .’ Kensa shook her head and stared out at nothing as she pulled the blanket around her. She sat down and stared at her hands as they clenched and unclenched.
‘You need someone to help you, Kensa. You’re not well. Would you like me to see if I can get help for you?’
Carter was standing at the door – he’d finished his search. He stepped inside and sat down, sliding behind the lounge table. He looked from Willis to Kensa and shook his head. Willis sat down next to Kensa on the sofa.
‘Kensa, did you go down to the house tonight to look for someone?’ Carter asked.
She nodded.
‘Who, Kensa?’
‘I thought Toby might have come. I thought he would come now that his son is here.’
‘How do you know Toby?’
‘We were sweethearts once. A long time ago.’
‘How old were you then, Kensa?’ asked Willis.
‘We were teenagers, but he wasn’t very nice to me. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘Kensa, if you know where Samuel is, you have to tell us. He needs to go home to his mum and dad,’ said Willis.
There was a silence.
‘Okay, Kensa, we’ll go now,’ Carter said, looking at Willis to agree. ‘Have you got a phone, Kensa?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘Well, here’s my card.’
‘Kensa?’ Willis laid a hand on Kensa’s. ‘If you want help, we can get some for you. Just ring that number.’
They walked back towards the house.
‘How does she manage to look after a horse? She can’t even look after herself,’ said Carter, as they walked down the unlit lane. They could hear the roar of the waves below them.
‘She probably looks after the horse better than she does herself,’ Willis replied.
Carter phoned Robbo again. ‘I have a name for you: Kensa Cooper. That’s our victim from 2000, I think.’
After Carter left her to go back to the hotel, Willis lay in bed and listened to Lauren crying. It was two in the morning. She heard the dog whimpering too and then she heard the sound of Lauren getting up and going downstairs. Willis stood and went to look out of the window. The moon was bright and the frost was already thick on the roof of Lauren’s car.
Willis put the light on and took out her notebook as she sat on her bed in the onesie that Tina had given her for Christmas. She went through everything again and started a new list of questions that she wanted to ask in the morning. Then she got up to put the light off to try and get back to sleep. She heard the sound of Lauren coming up the stairs talking to the dog, so she guessed that they’d be sharing a bed tonight. As she looked up she saw the old security camera in the corner of the room. She looked around for a chair and stood on it to have a look at the camera. She wrote down the name of the manufacturer. Another question to add to her list. Why wasn’t the alarm system working?
Unable to sleep, she went downstairs and stood looking over the veranda and out down to the sea. The moon was bringing light onto the common and the gorse bushes and trees shimmered with frost. There was a mist rising from the ground forming a shroud across the common.
Chapter 23
Thursday 6 February
Willis rang Raymonds’ doorbell at ten past ten. Carter was at her side. Raymonds looked almost amused at seeing the officers on his doorstep. He didn’t move to allow them to come in.
‘We need to ask you about a few things,’ Carter said. Raymonds’ eyes went back tow
ards Carter.
‘Now?’
‘Yes, if it’s convenient?’
‘I was just helping my wife – she has Parkinson’s. Some days it gets her worse than others. Today is an “I can’t dress myself” day.’
‘We will be happy to wait while you see to your wife,’ said Willis.
‘How kind.’ He had a curious look of disdain on his face, as if he were enjoying some joke and just letting it play out. He showed them straight into the front room again and sat in the same chair as last time.
‘While I see to my wife should I call my lawyer?’ He smiled.
‘Not unless you think you need one,’ Carter answered.
‘Two visits from the Met in as many days – I’m either honoured or I’m in trouble.’
‘We just need to ask you about Kensa Cooper.’
‘Kensa?’
Eileen called and Raymonds excused himself. Ten minutes later he was back.
‘Where were we? Ah yes, you wanted to talk to me about Kensa?’
‘We met her last night – she was hanging about Kellis House.’
Raymonds opened his eyes wide, but even allowing for the theatrics Willis could see the heat was coming to his face. A small strand of his immaculately smoothed black hair had fallen over his forehead; he reached a slow hand up to his face and flicked it back.
‘She used to do a bit of cleaning for Mr Forbes-Wright. I expect she was just curious. She’s harmless.’
‘But, this was the woman you talked about being associated with Toby Forbes-Wright?’ asked Carter.
‘Did Kensa tell you that?’
‘No, she just said she and him were sweethearts. I figured it out.’
He grinned at Willis. ‘I mean, are we going to talk about things off the record?’
Carter looked across at Willis, who had her notebook perched on her lap. She gave a reluctant nod and closed it.
‘She needs some help,’ said Willis. ‘She really shouldn’t be left to fend for herself in a caravan in a field. Why isn’t someone caring for her?’
‘Now, now, that’s an odd thing to say.’ Raymonds looked at Carter as he pretended to try and understand what was meant. ‘It’s hard for foreigners to understand, but she chooses to live up there in that field. She came from gypsy folk and she always had it in her blood. She has friends in the village – Mawgan Stokes looks out for her. Plus she makes a living from looking after the site.’
‘But she has mental health issues,’ said Willis.
‘She turns them on and off, depends on how much weed she’s smoking at the time. Some days you see her and she’s perfectly normal; others, she’s barking.’
‘She says she’s seen Samuel in her dreams,’ Carter said.
‘Hallucinations, those will be. I’m guessing you looked to see if he was hidden in or around the caravan and he wasn’t.’
‘We looked. I’ve ordered a bigger search done of all the vans up there.’
‘Of course – you get on with whatever it is you think you’re doing.’
‘Kensa didn’t talk about being assaulted by Toby,’ said Willis.
‘Didn’t she?’
‘So, Toby was never questioned by you.’
‘We had no need to question him when all the evidence spoke for itself, and I didn’t want Kensa upset any more than she had been. It was all a storm in a teacup in the end.’
‘If she was only fourteen, isn’t that something you would have investigated? The rape of a minor?’ asked Carter.
‘By another minor?’ Raymonds tutted, shook his head. His eyes narrowed in on Carter. Willis stared hard at him. He had learned from the best when it came to staying calm under pressure. She could imagine Raymonds had had a formidable interviewing technique. ‘What would have been the point? Things happen at beach parties; no one to blame. This is all getting a little too farcical. You come down here looking for a missing child and end up trying to solve an old rape case that never happened.’
‘You said it did. You made it out to be a big deal at the bar last night. Toby was a nasty piece of work, you said. But now you’re playing it down.’
‘I don’t want you to get distracted. There were no charges brought. Forget about it.’
‘Yeah – I can understand what you’re saying, but it’s apparent to me that the truth never came out that night. Is the truth coming out now?’ asked Carter.
Willis felt Carter getting angry as she sat beside him.
‘The missing boy is nothing to do with us.’ Raymonds lifted his chin and stared at Carter, unblinking.
‘But Jeremy Forbes-Wright was; and this is his grandson we’re talking about. The day Kensa was attacked a deal was done with Jeremy Forbes-Wright and I want to know what that deal was.’
‘Nonsense.’ Anger flashed over his face and brought a livid colour to it, as it blackened Raymonds’ eyes. ‘I would watch your tongue, Detective. I can assure you, I acted in Kensa’s best interests.’
‘Not your own?’ Carter returned Raymonds’ stare.
Willis felt Carter’s heat as he sat next to her. She saw Raymonds was beginning to sweat as he became calmer and eyeballed Carter.
Carter pressed on. ‘There were no charges brought even though Kensa had been raped?’
‘Rape is one of those grey areas, especially when you’re talking about two kids.’
‘No, it isn’t.’
Chapter 24
Lauren heard the front door close; she held on to her mug of tea and walked out into the summer room at the back of the house to gaze down over the scrubland towards the ocean. She was so tired; she hadn’t slept. The day had brought her another day further from her son. It was dark outside when she’d first come downstairs at six o’clock, tired of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking, willing herself to be beside Samuel wherever he was, be it in the frozen earth, just to be with him. Then she had looked out at the morning – another day when she was alive and her son was waiting to be found.
The smell of the wood-burner was still in the air from the night before. She’d light it again in a minute: get some order to her day; for now she couldn’t take her eyes off the sky. Clouds raced across it. The yellow gorse shimmered beneath. The sun lit the edges of the clouds. She looked out across the scrubby heathland before her as it rolled down and then was lost to the dark-blue ocean as far as she could see. There was such a beauty in the landscape that was hard and brutal to her eyes right now. She’d thought that the house would be the perfect weekend retreat – she could even come down and work in the week if she wanted. Or, better still, bring friends from London. But they didn’t have any friends, certainly none with children. Now they didn’t have a child. Now, as she looked around her, she felt a sense of loathing for it. She felt hostility, mockery.
Toby was right – put it on the market and buy somewhere abroad maybe, or at least rent a few places. Have fun. Maybe they could think about putting a deposit on somewhere and she’d pay the mortgage on her salary. She looked back out at the scrubland and saw a figure move – walk across the common between her and the sea – and she stepped nearer to the window as she watched the woman turn and stare in at her. Lauren saw it was the same woman she’d seen from the window the day Samuel disappeared. As the woman’s eyes focused on her, all else slipped away from Lauren’s vision. Then the woman turned and walked quickly away and was gone.
Lauren ran back into the kitchen and out of the back door onto the long veranda; she found a way through the low hedge that marked the end of the garden. A path was cut into the common. She stepped over thistles and thorny gorse bushes scraped her as she pushed through to stand where the woman had been and she came to a patch where no gorse grew, where there was soft downy grass and small wild flowers crept along the ground. She heard a sound and saw Russell beside her. He started digging away at the smooth mound beneath her feet. She picked him up and carried him back into the house and closed the veranda door behind her. When she looked again the woman was standing in the
lounge, by the door.
‘What do you want?’
‘My name is Kensa.’
Kensa stared past Lauren and the winter sun reflected in her eyes, it lit her pale skin. She looked like a restless dead spirit, looking for peace. She had deep lines in her face, dark circles around her eyes. She hadn’t slept all night.
‘Please – can you help me?’ said Kensa.
Kensa turned her attention away from the rising sun and back to Lauren. Lauren felt such an urge to run, but Kensa stood in the doorway.
‘What do you want me to do?’
Kensa shook her head. Lauren took a step towards her. Kensa stayed where she was and when Lauren held on to her arm she felt paper skin and thin bone that almost melted at her touch. Kensa took a deep breath and stared out at the sea. Her dark-brown eyes reflected the blue of the cold sky.
‘I’ve seen him in my dreams. He is somewhere dark. He is sleeping.’
Kensa’s eyes refocused and they turned on Lauren.
‘Who is – is it Samuel?’
She nodded. ‘He’s only sleeping. He’s in the safe place.’
‘Oh my God, thank God.’ Lauren’s knees began to buckle. ‘Please tell me where he is.’
Kensa moved backwards, away from Lauren’s grip. ‘I can’t tell you any more.’ She looked in pain. Kensa’s face turned into a child’s; she began to cry:
‘Mommy . . . Mommy.’
Chapter 25
‘He’s a lying bastard,’ Carter said as they walked back to the car. They drove to the top of the hill and sat in the layby to run through things. ‘We need to find some record of what happened that day. Get in touch with Robbo, bring him up on the screen for me.’
As Willis took out her iPad and waited for it to turn on she looked across at Carter.
‘It’s a terrible injustice that happened here.’
‘Yeah – it is.’
‘But it might not lead us to Samuel,’ she added.
‘No, but we are still not hearing the truth about the day of the funeral either. We need to go and see Mawgan again. If she’s a friend of Kensa’s we need the truth.’
