The Missing Girls

by Carol Wyer

  Back at the yard Khan was talking to a burly man on the loading bay. He waved them over. ‘This is Frank. He’ll be able to give you what you need. As I suspected, Mrs Hutchinson booked the unit on December eighteenth, so unfortunately we won’t have any footage of that day. She moved her belongings in two days later so we might have caught her on camera that day. He looked at his BlackBerry. ‘Today’s the seventeenth of January, and she moved the trunk here exactly twenty-eight days ago, so we should still have that day’s footage recorded. Frank will download it for you, and this is the number for the man who rents unit forty-three, Karl London. If there isn’t anything else, I really have to get going.’

  ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

  ‘My pleasure. Let me know when I can rent out the unit again.’ His mobile buzzed and he smiled an apology at the women. He strode away, phone glued to his ear again, and talking non-stop, he slipped into his car and drove off.

  Frank was in his fifties – tall, skinny with an unshaven face and hooded eyes. ‘This is a dreadful business. It’s given me a right case of the jitters. I actually carried that trunk in and I’d no idea what it contained. I feel so responsible. That poor girl.’

  ‘You’re not to blame, sir. Can you tell us some more about the woman who dropped it off?’

  ‘I wasn’t around when she came the first time but I remember when she brought in that trunk. She called through to me. Said she needed a hand and “would I mind awfully” helping her out. She had a right posh accent. I was in the warehouse fixing a door shutter that had stuck. I went to help. The trunk was on the van and I tugged at it but it was quite long for me to lift on my own. I asked her to grab one end, but she said she couldn’t because she’d pulled her back. As it happened, there was a bloke walking past the yard. I shouted him over and he gave me a hand.’

  ‘Can you describe this man?’

  Frank threw Robyn a look of incredulity. ‘He was a bloke in a beanie hat, coat and trousers. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to him because she was busy fussing about telling us not to drop the trunk and all. He came across, took the other end and helped me get it off the van. Mrs Hutchinson said it had to stay flat as it had valuables in it, so we took an end each and carried it into the warehouse for her, put it in her unit, and then he cleared off. I don’t remember much about him. I was concentrating on the trunk and not bashing it against the walls.’

  ‘The man didn’t say where he was going?’

  ‘No. We didn’t really talk at all.’

  ‘Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And where was Mrs Hutchinson when you offloaded the trunk?’

  ‘She hung about by the entrance.’

  ‘Didn’t she check up on her trunk after you put it in the unit?’

  ‘No. She asked me to lock the unit up and give her the key. She had to hurry back and return the van she’d hired.’

  ‘Was that unusual?’

  ‘We see all types here. She was no stranger than many of the folk who deposit their belongings. I got the impression she was in a hurry, that’s all. She was polite, which is more than most here. She was scared her husband would find out where she’d put the trunk and pawn or sell the contents to feed his gambling habit. If I’d thought for one moment that it contained a body…’ He shivered and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  ‘You didn’t happen to notice the registration plate on the van she was driving?’

  Frank shook his head. ‘The back door was open when I came outside, and I was focused on the trunk. Maybe the bloke in the beanie hat saw it, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Anna, would you mind talking to Frank about the CCTV footage? I want to wander about.’

  She left her junior officer conducting the rest of the interview and studied the cameras on the premises. If Frank was correct, Mrs Hutchinson had positioned herself so she would remain undetected by the cameras. Joanne Hutchinson had pulled off a daring feat, but why had she brought the body of a young woman into this warehouse? Did she live close to it? And was she aware of what was in the trunk? They really needed to find the woman in blue.

  Twelve

  It had been the same response at every house – surly faces peering through cracks in the door. ‘No, mate, didn’t see anything.’

  Ross had knocked at every door in Gallow Street the day before, and was now returning to try those houses where no one had answered. His job required patience and people skills – both of which Ross had in abundance.

  He rapped on a brown door and waited. No one answered. He moved off to try the next house. As he did, he was sure he spotted a movement of curtains at the downstairs window. He was considering knocking again, when he spotted Lauren. Dressed in tight jeans, Ugg boots and wearing a faux-fur coat, she emerged from a shop and stood for a moment, head down, studying her mobile.

  ‘Hi, Lauren,’ he called. She looked up, glared at him for a minute, then raised a reluctant hand in recognition. He crossed the road.

  ‘You asking around about Princess?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I’ve tried all the houses in your road and those in the neighbouring streets. This is my second attempt to talk to those that weren’t in last time I called. I can’t get the couple over there to answer the door.’

  She gave a small smile. ‘They’ll be high. They usually are. I spoke to Roxanna who lives there with her boyfriend. She’s okay when she’s not off her face. They didn’t see nuffin’.’

  ‘Cheers. Saves me hammering on their door. They might think I’m on a drugs bust.’

  He grinned, watching as she scurried down the road. As she disappeared from sight, he heard a cough. He turned around. It was a tall girl with blue lipstick and a matching streak in her hair. ‘You’ve been banging on our door. What d’ya want?’

  ‘Are you Roxanna?’

  ‘Yeah. Did Lauren tell you my name? I saw you talking to her.’

  ‘Yes, it’s about her mum’s dog.’

  ‘Princess, yeah.’

  ‘I’m trying to find out who took her.’

  ‘Well it wasn’t me.’ The girl folded her arms across her chest and stared at Ross. ‘And I told Lauren I haven’t seen it.’

  Ross shook his head. ‘You misunderstand. I’m trying to find out if you spotted anyone you didn’t recognise on the street, looking shifty, hanging about Mrs Carlisle’s house, that sort of thing, at about half nine Monday morning.’

  Roxanna relaxed a little and shifted position. ‘I’m not sure what time it was, but I went to the shop cos we’d run out of milk. I walked past their place. I didn’t see anyone with Princess.’ She sucked on her teeth. ‘There was a delivery van in the road, and the driver was at the back of the van with the door open.’

  ‘Can you describe him at all?’

  She shook her head. ‘He had his back to me. He was shoving in a large box. Average build, I suppose. He had a baseball cap, dark trousers. Can’t tell you any more than that.’

  ‘Did you happen to notice which delivery company it was?’

  ‘Yeah. It was a local one, Anytime Delivery. I’ve seen them about.’

  ‘That might be useful. Maybe the driver saw someone.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She surveyed him through heavily made-up eyes. ‘So, is that it?’

  ‘Thanks. Yes.’

  ‘Reggie, my man, said you had cop written all over you.’

  ‘But you still came and spoke to me.’

  ‘I had a bet on with him. I said you sold insurance. I suppose I owe him ten quid now.’

  ‘I’m not a police officer these days. I’m a private investigator, so it looks like your ten quid is safe. You could tell him I was a insurance salesman though if you fancied.’

  She grinned and ambled away, and Ross scratched his ear thoughtfully. Why would a delivery driver be putting a box into his van? He mused over the possibilities. There was an outside chance Princess had climbed into the van while the door was open, and then jumped out at the ne
xt destination and got lost. If nothing else, the delivery driver might have seen somebody hanging about Susanne Carlisle’s house. It was worth following up. Ross believed if you followed enough leads, you eventually got a result. He strode back to his car, feeling more optimistic about tracking down the missing canine.

  Thirteen

  Robyn tapped the whiteboard. Attached to it was a photograph of the trunk and a photograph of the girl in plastic wrapping, Carrie Miller. Robyn had written the name of her father, Vincent Miller, above it, along with the name of his girlfriend, Leah Fall. She spoke to Anna and Mitz, the only members of her team she had been allocated for the investigation.

  ‘The girlfriend, Leah, wasn’t Carrie’s greatest fan, but since Carrie had moved out and, to all intents and purposes, was no longer in their lives, I can’t see why she would want the girl dead, unless of course Carrie had decided to move back home and Leah couldn’t face that prospect. I’m not convinced she’s capable or guilty of murder. She doesn’t fit the description of Joanne Hutchinson and has a solid alibi for both the eighteenth and twentieth of December when she was at work. However, we can’t assume anything at this stage, so Mitz, continue to run checks on both of them. And gather as much information about Mr Miller’s life as you can, whether he has debts, offended anyone, rowed with anybody down the pub, that sort of thing, in case this was some sort of revenge attack.’ She cocked her head from side to side, indicating it was a long shot but needed to be followed up.

  Robyn was extremely good at reading people. Davies, who himself was highly trained in interrogation skills, had always admired her ability to see through people and know instinctively when they were lying. Leah had bared her soul. She had disliked Carrie yet Robyn felt this was of no consequence, and as for Vince Miller, she knew he’d never harm his daughter. However, Robyn’s investigations had often taken her in unexpected directions and provided unexpected clues. This approach might also yield results, so she’d pursue it, even though she was convinced neither party had harmed Carrie.

  She wrote ‘Jade North’ on her board. ‘This is one of Carrie’s close friends. I’d like to talk to her. She might be able to shed some light on Carrie and her movements.

  To one side she wrote the name Karl London in red ink. ‘Karl rents unit forty-three at the self-storage warehouse. He might have seen Joanne Hutchinson, or the car she was driving on the eighteenth of December, which, as we now know, was the day she went to the self-storage warehouse, spoke to Dev Khan and paid upfront for a unit. As yet, we’ve not been able to get in touch with Mr London. His mobile is going to answerphone.’

  In capital letters she wrote ‘Joanne Hutchinson’, putting her name at the very centre of the board. ‘This is the woman we are most urgently seeking. We ran the name through our database and checked all the women with that name. None live in the vicinity, and of those closest to Rugeley, none match her description. The woman left fake contact details at the self-storage warehouse, so we can assume her name is an alias, leaving us with only her physical description. Both Dev Khan and Frank Cummings describe her as in her thirties, blonde, slim, about five foot ten, and well-spoken. Khan said she was “attractive” and Cummings confirmed she was a nice-looking woman “well made-up like she was an actress or model or air stewardess”. It’s not much to go on, so we need to find either someone else who noticed her or her car, and that includes the stranger who helped offload the trunk from a white van. Anna, how far did you get with the CCTV footage from the warehouse?’

  Anna raked a hand through her hair. ‘I’ve been through it thoroughly for the twentieth of December, which was when she brought in the trunk, and can’t spot her on it. I have found a few seconds of Frank carrying the trunk down a corridor, but no sign of our mysterious woman.’

  Mitz made a clicking sound of irritation.

  Anna heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve contacted all van rental companies in the area for that day. None have records of a Joanne Hutchinson. I’ve emailed them the description of the woman, but so far there’s been no positive identification.’

  ‘Try companies outside the area next.’ She tapped the pen against the board, leaving small red dots in a circle. Robyn wondered how the trunk had got onto the van if it required two people to offload it. Could she have an accomplice? She voiced her opinion.

  ‘Yes, unless she cajoled another innocent party into loading it for her.’ Mitz shrugged.

  ‘Possibly. Damn, this is frustrating. Okay, let’s keep putting up what we have.’ Robyn wrote down the name Frank Cummings and drew a line between his name and Joanne Hutchinson’s, then drew a question mark. ‘I’m going to throw this idea out there for you. What if either Dev or Frank were in on it? They’re the only people so far to have seen his woman. They might have been accomplices or even fabricated her existence.’ Robyn also thought it convenient that Dev Khan hadn’t checked Joanne’s details and had taken her cash in advance. She added his name to the board and explained her reasoning.

  Mitz piped up, ‘Mr Khan gave DI Shearer the pass key code to get into the warehouse yesterday, but he didn’t know which units we were going to search. If he had, I wonder, would that trunk still have been there?’

  Robyn tipped a nod at him. ‘Indeed, and the same applies to Frank Cummings.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘You saw him, guv. Frank was badly shaken by it. His hands were shaking a lot of the time he was speaking to us. He’s got a sixteen-year-old daughter and was horrified he’d carried a trunk containing the body of a dead girl. We spoke about it while he was downloading the CCTV footage and, judging by his reaction, I don’t believe he had any connection to the killing.’

  Robyn tended to side with her colleague on this. ‘Fair enough. Also, Dev Khan’s an intelligent man. It’s highly unlikely he’d hide a dead body in one of his own self-storage units and risk it being uncovered. If we can’t find this mysterious woman, then we’ll have to talk to both him and Frank again. Any luck tracking down the Good Samaritan who helped Frank?’

  Anna thumbed through some paperwork. ‘There’s a shot of him from the footage as he vacated the warehouse, so I’m going to take a still of his face around the Towers Business Park and see if anyone can identify him.’ She held up a grainy image of a man, head down in a beanie hat, wearing a Puffa jacket and large work boots.

  Robyn waved her pen in small circles as if conducting an orchestra. ‘That’s hopeful.’ She pointed at the board once more. ‘To sum up, we’ve got one main suspect at the moment, Joanne Hutchinson. We’re proceeding cautiously with Mr Khan and Mr Cummings, who are the witnesses who spoke to her. We need to locate a mystery man, our “Good Samaritan”, who assisted Frank with offloading the trunk for further information. We’re waiting to hear from Karl London to learn if he saw and can identify Joanne Hutchinson’s vehicle and confirm her existence. I’m eliminating Mr Miller and his girlfriend for the moment, but we’ll run background checks as discussed. Any other thoughts?’

  They all studied the whiteboard. Robyn favoured the technique of writing everything down as if they were pieces of a puzzle, and encouraged her team to add ideas, suspects, or anything they felt might assist the inquiry.

  ‘Anna, the trunk?’

  Anna checked the list in her notebook. ‘I’m still searching for companies that make bespoke trunks. Our trunk is definitely an unusual size and will have been made to order. I’m also looking into companies that sell large polythene plastic bags.’

  ‘I had a thought about that,’ Mitz interjected. ‘My sofa came protected by a large polythene bag very similar to the one we found Carrie wrapped in.’ Mitz had recently moved into the garage annexe at his parents’ house that had been occupied by his grandma until her death. ‘Could it have come off some new furniture?’

  ‘You could be on to something there, Mitz. I’m not sure how to use that information yet but I’m sure it will be useful.’ She wrote the words ‘bag’ and ‘furniture covering?’ and stood back from the board.

  Robyn square
d her shoulders and drew a breath. Carrie Miller left home on the twenty-eighth of July 2016. She wasn’t reported missing and turned up dead in a custom-made trunk six months later. That troubled her. She pointed back to Jade’s name, then spoke quietly, ‘And here’s the thing that bothers me most – why didn’t somebody report Carrie Miller missing or voice concerns to her father? I can understand why her father didn’t suspect anything was afoot, because after a massive falling-out he firmly believed she was alive and living locally, thanks to the duplicity of his partner, Leah, but her friends? Wouldn’t they have wondered where she was and spoken to Vince or Leah about it? What about this so-called best friend, Jade North? Surely she’d have suspected something had happened to Carrie. I want to check all of Carrie’s friends using social media and all that malarkey. Track down as many as you can from her old school and find out why they didn’t think it peculiar she’d stopped communicating with them.’

  Anna made another note in her book and circled it. Robyn tapped at the board again. ‘This is too confusing a picture at the moment. We have to break it down into manageable chunks and work out why no one missed Carrie Miller in the six months she was in that trunk. Let’s get cracking. Mitz, start with Mr Miller. Anna, find me some names of her friends. I think it’s time we got some answers so we can begin to piece together our puzzle.’

  Fourteen

  Christine Hallows was clattering about in the kitchen when Florence got home from school and attempted to rush to her bedroom to plug in her phone charger. Her phone had died during maths and she needed to check Fox or Dog and see if any boys had decided she was foxy. She’d tried to log on throughout the day, but every time she got out her phone, her best friend Amélie would appear. She didn’t want Amélie to discover the app. It wasn’t that she’d disapprove, but Amélie was everything Florence would like to be. She knew she was the teeniest bit jealous of her best friend’s looks and brains. The last thing she wanted was for Amélie to find out about the app and post a picture of herself. It would be sure to get hundreds of foxy emojis and admirers. Florence always played second fiddle to her friend, and for now she wanted to keep this to herself.