by Lara Dearman
Michael paced the floor as officers set up chairs and microphones on the small stage. There had obviously been a children’s party here recently. Streamers had been trodden into the scuffed, wooden floor, the colour bleeding out of the frayed edges of the soft paper. The smell of salty, processed food and sour milk drifted into the room from the small kitchen at the back and the high ceiling harboured an escaped helium balloon – a wilting princess with a dazzling smile in a blue dress, its spiralled ribbon tie dangling below, just out of reach. Above the door a large stained-glass window depicted a dove holding an olive branch, the background a garish mishmash of shapes shoved against each other. They flashed as cars passed outside, casting brightly coloured shadows on the dull walls, headlights on already. Not yet five p.m. and it had been dark for nearly an hour.
Michael was floundering. He was trying his best to look like he knew what he was doing, but he was out of his depth and he knew it. They’d never dealt with a missing person before. At least, not like this. They’d had the odd wino disappear for a couple of days, only to be found staggering down the high street clutching a can of Special Brew. Once a man had absconded while on bail. It had taken them a week to find him, holed up at a mate’s house. Sometimes families of vulnerable people called in when loved ones went astray, but they always found them quickly, usually within hours; a quick search of friends’ and families’ property, a glance around the usual haunts, job done. It was such a small place and there were very few places to hide. A wave of heat washed over him. Few places to hide. But to keep someone, against his or her will? That was a different story. Sheds, barns, attics, boathouses, boats. Dear God, what if she wasn’t even on the island any more? She could be on Sark or Alderney or in France by now; they might search Guernsey for days and be wasting their time. They had no idea where to start. He rubbed at his chin, felt the scratching of stubble. Had he shaved this morning? He couldn’t remember. This morning seemed like a lifetime ago. He should smarten himself up. It wouldn’t do for him to look like he was falling apart at the seams. He had to look like he was on top of everything or else people would panic. He sighed. In less than an hour he was going to stand up in front of a room full of people and tell them that, in all likelihood, a serial killer had kidnapped a teenage girl. Panic was inevitable.
But she was alive. He was sure of it. None of the other girls had gone missing for this long before they died. And it had been less than two weeks since they’d found Amanda. It didn’t fit. Something had changed. That was their only hope. Whoever was doing this had abandoned his tried and tested previous methods. He would no doubt be nervous. Maybe he felt as out of his depth as Michael did. The thought that they were both winging it was oddly comforting.
* * *
The lights hurt his eyes but at least made it difficult to see the faces of the crowd. He wasn’t sure he could say what he needed to if he had to make eye contact with people. There were perhaps one hundred gathered in the hall. Jenny and one of her colleagues sat at the front, along with reporters from BBC Radio Guernsey and Channel News. Next to them, a camera on a tripod was aimed directly at him, red light flashing. The cameraman raised a thumb and nodded over to Michael. Michael took a step closer to the microphone and cleared his throat. The chatter died down. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead but did not reach up to wipe it away. He did not usually suffer from stage fright, but there was a tremor in his voice as he started his appeal.
‘Thank you all for coming out at such short notice.’ He paused. ‘A young woman, Lisa Bretel, has gone missing. We have reasons to fear for her safety.’ He clicked on a laptop set up next to him, which projected on to a screen behind. The photograph of Lisa Bretel he had seen for the first time that morning flashed up. Soft blonde curls, a pale face with the same pinched features as her mother, pretty, but careworn, startling blue eyes. Michael cleared his throat again. Scanned the faces in front of him, blurred by the light and a trickle of sweat, which had found its way into his right eye.
‘Furthermore, we have reason to believe that Lisa may be being held against her will.’ A ripple of disbelief, a few gasps. ‘We need to speak with anyone who had any contact with her in the days before she disappeared. The last time her mother saw her was this Tuesday, the eighteenth November at around six p.m., when Lisa was on her way out to visit friends. She never showed up to meet them and she hasn’t been seen since.’ He raised his hand to shush everyone. ‘We are also again appealing for witnesses in the case of the death of Amanda Guille who, as you know, was found drowned at Bordeaux nearly two weeks ago. Anyone who saw or spoke to Amanda in the days and weeks before she died, any details she shared with you about her life, how she was feeling, who she was seeing, we need to know. Finally, we are appealing for any information people might have on a number of historic cases. Full details will be published in the Guernsey News tomorrow, on the police website, and are available at the station. For now, if you could all listen carefully to the following.’
He listed the historic cases. Read out the names of five, long-dead women. There was complete silence for a second, and then the weight of what he had said seemed to sink in. The room erupted into shouts of incredulity, people talking over one another, questions fired from all directions. He did his best. They were a tough crowd – as they should be. He was under no illusions. This was on them – they’d fucked up. Now they had to deal with it.
By the time the questions finally dried up, his throat was sore from talking and his head ached with the stress of trying to answer people coherently. His underarms were damp and prickly with sweat, which had soaked all the way through to his jacket. He kept his arms pressed firmly to his side as he closed the meeting.
‘I’m sure you can all appreciate that we have a lot to be getting on with. A team of detectives from Hampshire will be joining us tomorrow. This is routine when forces like ours have to deal with cases of this nature. We are sure that their presence will help us bring these very serious investigations to swift conclusions. In the meantime, if I can ask you all to remain calm? And I appeal to all of you here, and the people watching at home, to think about whether or not you have any information that could assist us with our investigations. If you can think of anything, anything at all which might be of use, please call us. If not, I would ask you to let us get on with our jobs.’ There were heckles from the back of the room,
‘Pity you couldn’t have done that a bit earlier!’
‘Too bloody right! How could you have missed this?’
‘Who’s next? None of us are safe!’
Michael stepped off the stage, and pushed through the crowd, nodding and reassuring people, avoiding the flashes of cameras as best he could. He made his way out into the corridor and to the bathroom, where he locked the door behind him and sat on the closed lid of the toilet. A small window, set high in the wall was propped open and he could hear people outside, the shock in their voices audible, even if their words were not. He shivered in the chill of the cold, tiled room. People thought being a copper made you impervious to fear and panic, as if putting on a uniform and holding a badge could somehow nullify basic human emotions. Some of his colleagues even acted that way, cold and businesslike, in the face of trauma and tragedy. It was bullshit, of course. They were all scared. Not of injury or death – at least, not always, but of failure.
Saturday, 22 November
He arrived at the station at just gone six a.m. He’d slept properly for the first time in days, could only imagine that the previous day’s press conference had drained every last drop of energy out of his body and his brain had had no choice but to follow suit and shut down for a few hours. He’d woken well before the crack of dawn, but he felt refreshed, ready to face whatever the day threw at him. Including that morning’s copy of the Guernsey News, which arrived just as he returned from nipping out to get his breakfast and a coffee from Wally’s next door. Brian Ozanne had agreed to run Lisa Bretel’s picture on the front page for a week, or until she was found,
whichever came first. She stared out at him, the word MISSING and the Crimestoppers’ number printed underneath. He turned the pages as he ate a toasted Guernsey biscuit with butter and jam. Jenny’s coverage had been fair, he thought. Not kind, that was never going to be the case, but fair. It was all he could ask for. He checked his watch. Nearly nine. Nearly time for the next big challenge of the day: his ‘sit down’ with Roger Wilson.
Roger had sounded pleased when Michael had phoned him the previous day, asking him to come in. Typical, Michael thought. Roger falling over himself to be involved. You’d think he’d feel embarrassed. After all, he bore as much responsibility for this mess as anyone. More, even. Chief of police and this madness going on under his nose? Michael chided himself. He must be fair. None of them had picked up on this. It wasn’t Roger’s fault any more than it was his. He looked up when he heard Fallaize’s simpering tone, welcoming the chief back.
Roger had not been into the station for a couple of months and he took his time making his way to Michael’s office, stopping and talking to people on the way. A friendly word here, a pat on the back there. He was laughing softly over some joke he’d shared with Fallaize as he walked through Michael’s open door.
‘How are you, Gilbert?’ He smiled and sat down without being asked. He was dressed smartly, a gingham shirt tucked into navy cords, which hung loosely at his waist. He’d lost weight, Michael thought. He shook his head at Michael’s offer of coffee and furrowed his brow, his expression now one of focused concern.
‘God no, thank you. I don’t think I slept a wink last night as it is. I just can’t believe this, I really can’t.’ He shook his head. ‘That journalist came to me, you know, last week, asking about all these girls, I thought it was funny. I really thought she was just some hack who had found something that didn’t exist. I mean, it’s unbelievable, isn’t it?’
Michael nodded. ‘It’s horrendous, Roger. There’s no way around it. We’ve monumentally fucked up.’
Roger did not disagree.
‘We’re going to need you to sit down with one of the DCs and go through everything, all the historic cases.’
Roger nodded. ‘I thought as much. Anything I can do to help. I’ve cleared my diary for the day.’
The golf course would no doubt miss him, Michael thought.
‘There’s not a lot to go on, Roger. The files are all pretty thin.’ He left it hanging there, not quite an accusation, but a challenge nonetheless.
Roger nodded, slowly. ‘Well, the investigations were very straightforward, Michael. As you know. Obviously, if we’d had the information you have right now, the files would have been much thicker.’ He closed his eyes, put his hand to his head, kneading his brow.
‘Are you OK?’
He glared at Michael. ‘Well, of course I’m not OK, Gilbert. And nor should you be. Because of our failings, my own personally and this force’s as a whole, six young women’s deaths were written off. And now, somewhere on this godforsaken island, another young girl’s life is at risk. How are we going to explain this without looking like complete amateurs? And the families of these girls, we’ve let them down so badly. I’ve let them down. It’s a nightmare. So if you’ve finished pissing around, let’s get to work, shall we?’
There it was. Everybody liked Roger Wilson. Except Michael. It wasn’t just because Roger had treated him unfairly all those years ago, had made Michael a pariah for sticking up for the truth, for trying to protect a young lad from police brutality. It was because of this. The arrogance. The condescension. The barely disguised contempt Roger had for him.
‘You’re right, chief. We should get to work. Let’s start with where you were and what you were doing on the following dates.’ He slid a list across the desk. Roger glanced down at it without picking it up.
‘You want alibis? I’m a suspect now? For God’s sake, man, do your job! There’s a girl missing!’
‘This is my job. It’s routine, I grant you. But as well as having to have this information for the internal investigation which is undoubtedly going to follow this fifty-year fuck-up, you’re also on the list of board members for LEAP, the youth club three of the girls were known to attend. It’s just about the only lead we have right now and we have to follow it. Sorry, chief. Let’s start with the list of dates and then move on to getting your input on the files. I’ll get you that coffee.’
He left Roger sitting there, could practically see the steam coming out of his ears as he glowered at the paper in front of him. Michael tried very hard not to feel satisfied, but the glimmer of a smile played on the edge of his lips. He even managed to nod at Fallaize as he walked through the office to the coffee machine.
37
Jenny
She put the phone down. Michael was in a meeting. Obviously. The guy was not going to be having a break for a while. She’d told Stephen Marquis about the mark on the rock at Moulin Huet and her suspicions about Brian, that he might know more than he was letting on about Elizabeth Mahy’s death. Stephen had promised to pass on the information. He’d sounded distracted, though, and she couldn’t help worrying that he was just a little bit incompetent. It was unfair, really. She couldn’t shake off her memory of the time he’d wet himself in the paddling pool one summer twenty years ago when all the cousins had got together for some family celebration, a ruby wedding anniversary maybe. He’d actually been very helpful to her over the last couple of years, always willing to share a good tip. And Michael seemed to rate him. It was always difficult, adjusting to people you’d known as kids being grown up and having serious jobs, Jenny thought.
Saturdays were usually quiet at the News but there were more people in than usual today due to the fact they were going to print a Sunday edition entirely dedicated to the search for Lisa Bretel. Even Brian was in his office. Another police car rolled past the window. She’d lost count of how many she’d seen today. All police leave had been cancelled, even the parish constables, who were civilian volunteers, had been called up to help. They were knocking on doors and handing out flyers with Lisa’s picture on. It wouldn’t help. They might have already knocked on the killer’s door. He might have taken the picture, furrowed his brow, looked suitably concerned and all the while Lisa Bretel might be just out of sight, bound and gagged or drugged or dead. She couldn’t sit around waiting for Michael to call back. She walked over to Brian’s office.
* * *
Brian sat forward in his chair, his chin resting in his hands. His usually tanned skin was pale and a fine layer of stubble peppered his face.
‘It’s not what you think.’
‘I think you know more than you’ve been telling me. When I asked you about Elizabeth Mahy, you said you had no recollection of her. And yet you were working on the paper at the time she was found dead. You were working on the story. You don’t honestly expect me to believe you’d forgotten all about it? And your reaction to my report? You were panicked. Why? What do you know?’
He shook his head. ‘I know nothing about these other girls.’
‘But Elizabeth?’
‘I made a promise.’
‘To who?’
He sighed deeply. ‘Elizabeth’s boyfriend. David De Putron.’
* * *
He and David both attended the private boys’ school, Elizabeth College. They were in the same year. Not good friends, but David had struggled fitting in. Brian had the impression that David’s family life was complicated and Brian was a good listener. Always had been. He let David talk. Learnt secrets. Saved them up.
‘I knew what I wanted to do, even then. I took a job at the News the summer I finished school. I was only just eighteen.’
A lot of the other boys went off to university, he said, but David started work at a law office to get some work experience before he went to study. He and Brian fell into a habit of getting a beer after work once or twice a week. Their friendship grew.
‘We rarely discussed our personal lives. I knew he was seeing somebody, but he was ca
gey about it. Never brought her out.’
Brian met Elizabeth by accident, he explained. He was out on a work night, somebody’s birthday, and they ended up at the yacht. It wasn’t somewhere he usually went, it catered to a different crowd, older, non-professional. That was probably why David chose it, Brian said. He didn’t think he’d see anyone he knew there. Of course, you could never count on that in Guernsey.
He could see straight away why David hadn’t wanted anyone to find out about her. She was very young; short skirt, low-cut top. Not the type of girl you’d take home to meet your upper-class family or your public-school friends. Brian had spoken to them and they’d had a drink together.
‘The next morning, David called me in a panic. He said there had been a dreadful accident. He was terrified it would ruin his career, or worse.
‘According to David, he and Elizabeth were both drunk and it was her idea to go swimming. David had no idea she was in trouble until it was too late. It was some sort of terrible accident. He begged me not to come forward and I agreed. And when the police investigation backed up what he’d told me, I had no reason to believe I’d done the wrong thing. I was merely helping out a friend.’
‘That was kind of you.’ Jenny looked up from her notes.
‘What do you mean?’ His eyes narrowed.
‘Well, you and David must have been very good friends. You risked incriminating yourself to protect him?’
