Double Fault

by Judith Cutler

  ‘In that case, we’d better find her, hadn’t we? And PDQ. Go on, have some more – choc’s supposed to be good for the heart, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t notice you pigging it down.’

  ‘With the wedding coming up? No, thank you.’

  ‘Marco tells me he’s read on the internet that people who eat dark chocolate are slimmer than those who don’t.’

  ‘Perhaps they don’t eat anything else. OK. When you’ve wiped that bit off your mouth – just there – then we can talk to Ray. He’s desperate for a breakthrough, and you’ve become a sort of talisman. I think he’s right, actually – that you’ll have absorbed far more club gossip than you think. And also that your recollection of the scene will be sharper than most.’

  ‘I’m an ex-cop, Fran, aren’t I? Emphasis on ex. Not a thrusting new boy, with eyes like gimlets and ears like radar scanners. Which reminds me, I’m going to have to do something about my ears. I kept missing bits of what the kids were saying. Phoebe particularly – she’s much squeakier than Marco, whose accent’s becoming more British by the day.’

  ‘While Phoebe still sounds like an all-American girl. Those braces on her teeth can’t make it any easier, poor kid.’

  ‘Right – Bugs Bunny with a mouth full of toffee. But I hope it’ll be worth it,’ he said dubiously. ‘Think of those celebs with the widest mouths you can imagine stacked with rows of incredibly white gnashers. They look deformed, some of them.’

  Before she could respond, Ray Barlow phoned. Did they want to talk in his room or in hers? Hers, she rather thought.

  EIGHT

  ‘Cannabis Cop at Crime Scene! Crazy Ex-cop on Kidnap Case!’ Mark inserted quotation marks with his fingers. ‘You must be out of your minds, both of you. The media would have a field day. Don’t you see? That was why I said I’d do back-room stuff. The moment I turn up at the club, someone in that posse of reporters will spot me and for want of something better to write about will go for my jugular. Again. And yours too. Livvie Cops Stumped: Nutter on Case.’ He sat back in his chair, folding his arms implacably.

  Ray Barlow smiled, just as he had in response to similar imaginary headlines conjured by Wren. More mildly, he suggested, like Mark hooking his fingers into quotation marks, ‘Have a Go Heroine takes over Livvie Case. Top Cop in Wheelchair visits Site.’

  ‘Wheelchair,’ Fran squawked. ‘I don’t even use a stick these days!’

  ‘Joe Public doesn’t know that,’ Ray said. ‘OK, how about a compromise? Elbow crutches? Just the one?’

  She zipped her mouth. There was no need for them to know the pain trying to rely on one crutch had caused. Perhaps twisting her body for such a short time wouldn’t have such a bad effect as prolonged use. Maybe she should consider the wheelchair after all …

  ‘They’d be so busy snapping you and hanging on your every word,’ Ray continued, ‘that they wouldn’t notice anyone else. Come on, Fran, you know you’ve got the pizzazz to carry off a solo performance and distract everyone’s eye. Mark and I would just slip in as part of your entourage and not a soul would notice.’

  ‘Sand to Arabs, fridges to Eskimos,’ Mark murmured. ‘All the same, Ray, I truly don’t want to risk it.’

  Ray looked him in the eye. ‘May I be blunt, Mark? When you were ACC not a lot of us in the force would have recognized you if we’d met you in the supermarket in civvies. I’m truly desperate here. Or I wouldn’t ask. Would I? My judgement on the line too. And Fran’s.’

  ‘He’s done every last bit of forensics, Mark,’ Fran put in, getting bored. ‘It isn’t as if he’s not tried to do without this.’

  Mark clearly wasn’t going to give in easily. ‘What about the raincoat? Has that made any difference?’

  Ray shook his head. ‘Mock-up pictures of Livvie wearing the raincoat have been out with each regional news bulletin. It made the national headlines with the BBC and ITV; Channel Four are leading with something political but have promised coverage. But none of the CCTV in the areas has helped. It’s as if some giant bird swooped down and took her off.’ His grin was tired as he added, ‘And no, we’ve checked with the aviation authorities – Livingstone’s chopper was where he said it was at the salient time. And I think even your Golden Oldies might have noticed one landing on your courts.’

  Mark opened his mouth and shut it again. Then he said, ‘We might have noticed a high-wire act, or a trapeze artist too. Even Tarzan, provided he’d worn his leopard skin. Though with all the noise we’d probably not have heard his classic call.’ He demonstrated, if quietly.

  Undeterred, Ray returned to his original wish. ‘How about going in white coveralls, Mark? Complete with head gear? I wouldn’t recognize my dad like that.’

  Fran pulled herself to her feet and went walkabout, as if exercising her leg. In fact, she was exercising her mind. Letting it go blank. Or not. Leaning against the desk, she waited as Ray asked, ‘What noises might you have heard, had it not been for the kids? Say you turn up early for your lesson with Zac. No one but you there.’

  ‘Not a lot, as I said. The ears are going,’ he told him apologetically. ‘So I don’t get much birdsong these days.’

  ‘My dad went to Specsavers,’ Ray said. ‘Lost his upper frequencies, apparently. How about things that are lower frequency?’

  ‘You mean such as cars and such? I can hear chainsaws in the woods, sometimes. The plop of other people’s tennis balls.’

  ‘Before anyone else turns up.’

  ‘Pigeons. The odd cow. The loo emptying people. They always seem to arrive the same time as I do. But not, sadly, yesterday afternoon. Sad in more than one sense: because it might have been a lead and because the whole loo – well, you wouldn’t have used it if you didn’t have to, not after those kids and their poor aim had sprayed it.’

  ‘They take away the whole unit and replace it, do they?’

  ‘There’s some pattern. Mostly they just empty the sump, or whatever they’d call it. Every so often we get a freshly sanitized one. Perhaps not often enough. Suffice to say when it’s bad, like it is now, I’d swear some folks nip over or through the fence and use a tree. No names, no pack drill.’

  Ray leafed through notes. ‘No mention of the loo anywhere on anyone’s statements, as far as I can see at least. No, some lads used it. I don’t see how it would help us, unless, as you say, the men who service it came during the game. Which you confirm they didn’t.’

  Fran started prowling again. ‘I heard you say, Mark, when you phoned Ray, that Livvie was a fastidious little girl. Would she have used the loo if it was foul?’

  ‘All the other kids did. I presume she did too … Ah.’ He looked at her and held her gaze, before turning to Ray. ‘Any trace of her on the fencing? A hair, anything?’

  ‘Would you excuse me, guv, if I called the forensics people?’

  Mark nodded. Neither Fran nor Ray showed any sign of registering his gaffe.

  ‘When you talk to them,’ he said, pausing as Ray started to dial, ‘you might want to get them to see if they checked for any traces the far side of the nearest tree. I know she told Jayne she had to stay where she could see her dad, but I don’t know any little girl who’d lower her knickers and pee where she could be seen. Or perhaps not the nearest tree. That’d smell too.’

  Ray, already talking, raised a thumb.

  Fran wandered to the window. ‘Nice bright evening. Remember we planned drinks on the terrace after work each day?’

  ‘We’ve managed them at weekends. Sometimes. OK, once or twice. When that wind wasn’t blowing. Yes?’ Mark asked Ray, now finished with his call.

  ‘They’ll be checking within the hour. Fence and unofficial latrine. I’ve asked for a much wider sweep, too.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Mark said, ‘I’ll take up your offer. What’s one white suit more or less? So long as Fran does her one woman show for the media.’

  ‘No wheelchair, mind,’ Fran said, as if it had ever been a serious suggestion. She reached for her jac
ket. She added as if she was happy with the idea, ‘But an elbow crutch if you insist. By the way,’ she asked, as Mark passed it over, ‘what sort of car did that guy Stephen drive? The one with the dentist’s appointment?’

  ‘A red Audi Three; not lipstick red, more towards the maroon end of the spectrum.’ He gave a bemused look as Fran and Ray high-fived each other, and Ray reached for his phone again.

  Fran leant towards Mark, and asked quietly, ‘Have you had time to phone Zac and his wife? As a friend, of Zac’s at least?’

  ‘With the kids hanging on my every word? Actually, while they were off spending their Easter money, I did try. But I couldn’t get past the Family Liaison woman – she sounds a veritable Gorgon.’

  She could always offer to pull rank with the FLO and make sure Mark got through. But how would he feel about that?

  ‘I did insist she let Zac know I’d phoned and tell him to call me whenever he wanted,’ he continued. ‘But since I’m neither flesh nor fowl – well, it’s like this walk in the woods tonight, isn’t it? I’m in a very grey area.’

  She couldn’t deny it. But as she reached to squeeze his hand, Ray ended his call and there was no chance to continue their conversation.

  Fran wasn’t known for giving impromptu press conferences, usually preferring to leave her front-line colleagues dealing with the case in question to front them. But today she would give a bravura performance, if her silence as they left her office was anything to go by.

  ‘I can almost hear the wheels turning,’ Mark said, touching her temple as they walked to the car park. ‘Go for it, sweetheart!’ He kissed her lightly on the lips, probably lese-majesty, of course, but what a man might do to the woman he loved. Although Ray was happy for him to travel with him and Fran, Mark was firm in rejecting the offer, and with a wave of the hand moved away to join the forensic team, with whom he’d be travelling.

  He’d just be looking, not touching, he insisted. On Ray’s orders someone gave him a clipboard so he’d look ultra-useful. He’d probably just doodle, something he’d seen Fran do profitably over the years. The more florid and complex the doodle, the more convinced you were she couldn’t even be listening, let alone concentrating, and the more likely she was to come up with exactly what you needed. Pray God it worked for him this evening.

  Fancy remembering the car like that. Funny thing, memory.

  Smiling wryly, he nonetheless kicked himself for his earlier refusal to come along – he should have trusted Ray to manage the press, who were penned at the end of the long, potholed track to the club. Even keen snappers, perched on stepladders, with cameras capable of shooting images in the dark wouldn’t be able to spy into the crucial area. Since the track curved back and forth and was lined with clumps of mature trees, not yet fully in leaf but dense nonetheless, their ultra long-focus lenses would be useless. The personnel carrier swept past them. Just to make sure no one would be able to see him, let alone register his face, he bent down, as if to pick up his dropped pencil.

  The wooded area itself was as brightly lit as you could wish for – with, unfortunately, concomitant deep shadows. He stumbled a couple of times as he headed for an outpost where he could watch but not disturb his colleagues. A path, much better maintained than the track they’d just bumped along, wound alongside the fence, but was always more than seven or eight metres away. It was iron hard, and much easier to walk along than plunging through than the undergrowth – what they called a bridle path. When he was a kid, he’d thought it was spelt b-r-i-d-a-l, and wondered why brides needed separate routes when they were heading to church. In any case, all the brides he’d ever seen had been in limos with white ribbon. And then someone had told him it was a path set aside for horses. He smiled back at his younger self. And frowned at his older one. He reached for his phone. No damned signal, of course. But there’d be one somewhere in the car park. After all, that was where he’d been when he’d first called for help. Or he could borrow a colleague’s radio. Correction: former colleague’s radio.

  From the corner of her eye, Fran saw Ray turn away from the press melee, taking a call. When he jammed a finger in his spare ear, she looked harder. Yes, something was up. She was too far away to work out what was going on. Afraid that if she lost concentration she might say the wrong thing, she raised her spurious crutch like a conductor’s baton. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we need to get on with our search. Time is of the essence, remember. But I’ll brief you again as soon as I can. You know that. Do your best to elicit your readers’ and viewers’ help, please: it could be vital.’

  Though questions were still crackling through the air as if part of a dying fireworks display, she turned away, remembering to put the crutch to the use for which it was intended. She managed what she hoped was a convincing hobble, praying she wouldn’t pay for it later with more back pain.

  Taking Ray’s arm, poor old lady that she was, she propelled him fiercely out of earshot of the reporters.

  ‘I saw your face. What is it?’

  ‘Mark’s had an idea. I’m not sure. But it’s worth a shot, I suppose.’

  ‘He is an ex-cop. And cops are renowned for their hunches,’ she said dryly. ‘And the idea is?’

  ‘A horseman. He says the estate manager patrols the grounds riding a horse to spot miscreants on wheels. Before you ask, there was no sign of any horses in the stables at Hogben House. I’ve just checked with the people who did the search there. But I’d like to check all stables within riding distance of the clubhouse. Assuming we can locate them.’

  Fran pulled a face. ‘Around here I’d bet there are more fields devoted to feeding horses than to feeding people. So, lots of stables. What’s your feeling about using those guys to put out an appeal?’ She jerked her thumb in the direction of the lingering reporters.

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Let’s talk to Mark. If the estate manager’s the only guy he’s seen riding in this area, an unexpected visit to his house and his stable might be my preference. And if that fails, and he’s clearly as white as the driven snow, we go very public indeed and get each and every stable checked. Do we have the estate manager’s address? Not to mention a name?’

  ‘Ross Thwaite.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound local.’

  ‘Does he have to be? These days you’re college-trained, aren’t you, not stepping into your father’s hobnailed boots.’

  She nodded. ‘Of course. Well, let’s go visiting. Actually, let’s pick up Mark – he deserves a bit of glory, assuming there’s any on offer. If not, he can get egg on his face with the rest of us.’

  Ray gave a clipped order – the personnel carrier would bring back Mark, solo and no longer clad in white. ‘But we can’t have him take part in any raid, Fran, can we?’ His voice had a pleading undertone – after all, he was only temporarily promoted, and naturally didn’t want the slight inconvenience of being caught in control of an unauthorized civilian to mar his chances of having a permanent upgrade.

  Mark too would have been horrified at the prospect of her cavalier and uninsured breach of regulations. ‘Absolutely not. Don’t worry, Ray – we’ll play this by the book. How many do you want in your posse?’

  ‘I thought enough to surround the property. A real tight ring. Enough to cut off any escape should one be attempted. But I’d like it to be a silent presence. Fran, I keep thinking of cellars and false walls like your youth centre. I keep hoping. Though by now the poor kid’s more likely to be in the bottom of a well. Or a mine shaft. The Kentish coalfields … I don’t know.’

  ‘We’re a bit far west and south for the mine shaft option, thank God. As to wells, I simply don’t know how many there are round here. They must be marked on large scale maps … No. We’ll keep hoping she’s alive. We’ve not got enough officers to search for both a living child and a body, so let’s focus completely on the former. Ah, is that Mark’s transport of delight? Good.’ They exchanged a wave. He headed towards them but hung back, as if afraid they didn’t want him as pa
rty to their discussion. ‘Can we just double-check we’ve got the right address, Ray? We don’t want to get it wrong and give the game away.’

  ‘Double-checked, guv.’

  ‘Thought it would be.’ She shot him a swift, apologetic grin. ‘And remember, it’s just an enquiry, for the moment at least. And a very polite enquiry, too. No searching for anything except a child. Don’t lay a finger on his computer or anything. Not yet. A treat in store, maybe. So you and Jules in the front, Mark and me tagging along in the back. And no blues and twos, just as fast as you can safely go.’

  ‘Don’t want to lose any more top brass, do you?’ Mark added grimly.

  Ten minutes later, the team deployed itself in total silence around a rather smaller Kentish cottage than she thought a man with the title estate manager deserved. There was a lean-to that might have been doubling as a stable.

  Jules pulled up about ten yards down the lane. Had Thwaite looked, he’d presumably have thought one patrol car innocuous enough. People carriers might have alarmed him, so the two that had rendezvoused with the fast response car lurked hidden round a convenient bend further down the lane. Although at first they’d agreed that Fran would speak to Ross Thwaite, and Ray would take an immediate lead if things got remotely physical, Mark now chipped in with a suggestion. ‘Fran, you’re supposed to be lame, remember. He might even have seen you on TV with your crutch. In any case, anything above sergeant grade might arouse suspicion. Jules led the search of Hogben House itself – he’s the PolSA, after all. Instead of leaping round like Superwoman, let him do his job. Him and Ray, maybe?’

  Fran gave him a mock salute, turning to Warden. ‘OK, Sergeant Warden – hell, no wonder you prefer to be called just Jules – do your stuff. Loft to cellar. Even the old outside privy, if there is one. The well. The water butt. The bloody bird feeder …’

  ‘I’ll go and brief the rest of the team,’ Ray said. ‘And join in the fun, if there is any.’

  ‘I don’t want fun, Ray: I want a result.’

  Saluting, Ray trotted off briskly. A couple of minutes later, he joined Jules as he walked up the cottage path. He closed the gate firmly behind them.