Proof of Life

by Steven Suttie

  “Okay.”

  “Do us a favour. Just have a quick look at the paperwork. I want to know if the constables who visited and took the initial missing person’s report checked the house out?”

  “One sec, Sir.” The line went quiet, but for the sound of paper-shuffling. “Er, according to the reports Sir, this report was taken by phone. There hasn’t been a visit.”

  “For fucks sake…” said Miller. The way that the government cuts were affecting the very basic standards of policing in the region was becoming unbelievable. A minor was missing for over five days and nights, and a police officer hadn’t even been to the property to make the most basic checks.

  “He has had a few previous runaways, Sir. Might explain it.”

  “Well, maybe, but if anything has happened to him Keith, there’ll be an inquiry and whoever decided not to attend will be in court mate.”

  “Yes. Looks like a very bad call.”

  “Right, well, I’ll need somebody with me. Is anybody at a loose-end in the office?”

  Saunders laughed sarcastically. Miller knew full-well that there were no loose-ends. The department was as busy as it had ever been.

  “Jo seems eager to get involved with this one,” said Saunders quietly, so that she didn’t hear him from across the office.

  “What’s she working on?”

  “Agnieszka Nowacki.”

  “Oh, yes. Fair enough, send Jo over to meet me at Astley High School, Stalybridge, blue lights. Tell her to text me when’s she’s on the car park.”

  “Will do Sir.”

  Cheers. I’m nearly done here. How are your inquiries going?”

  “Nothing too exciting. The teacher, Mr Pollard checks out as a perfectly normal family-man. There’s no history of any wrong-doing from a criminal or professional point-of-view. He’s squeaky clean, highly regarded by staff, pupils and education department employees.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve been hearing. Over thirty-years service here, too.”

  “As for the boy, he’s quite chaotic, he’s got lots of misdemeanours and cautions to his name. Plus, he’s been put forward for psychiatric tests by the school.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, his report from the education authority suggests that he has undiagnosed ADHD. But he’s failed to attend the two appointments that were set up for him. He’s gone off their radar now, as he’s approaching his final year. But I thought it was worth noting.”

  “Absolutely. So, who would have the responsibility for getting him to the psychiatrist? Would that be school, or parents?”

  “Well most health matters fall to the parent. But I can check.”

  “No, its alright. I’ve got a very helpful school secretary stood next to me. I’ll ask her.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll catch you later.”

  “Tell Jo to get a hurry on.”

  “Yes, okay, Sir. See you later.”

  *****

  Miller asked Mrs Horsfield to gather all of the school’s staff in the main hall for an urgent meeting. He was impressed at how quickly the teachers had managed to break away from their classrooms and unite in the school’s main hall.

  “How did you organise all this so quickly?” asked Miller as more and more adults filed into the school hall, filling the space in the middle very quickly.

  “Just a text message to all staff. I wrote ‘urgent meeting, all staff, main hall, ASAP.’ We use the system quite a lot, it’s much more efficient than walking around each classroom and handing a note to every teacher!”

  “Great, well, it’s worked out perfectly. Are they all here?” asked Miller out of the side of his mouth, once the doors had stopped opening, and new faces had stopped appearing before him.

  “Yes, I think so. I’m quite confident that everybody is here.”

  “Great, cheers.” Said Miller, before raising his voice loudly enough to be heard by the seventy or so teachers, support staff and administration employees. He addressed the sea of anxious looking faces before him.

  “Good afternoon. I’m DCI Miller, and I’m leading the investigation into the missing persons enquiry. I’m sure at least one of you will know why I’ve asked you all to break away from your lessons. I need you all to keep a lid on the information that you learnt this morning, regarding the enquiries that I am overseeing. The press have caught on to this already, but they don’t know very much. I need it to stay that way. So please, if any of you are contacted by anybody asking questions, I want you to simply state that you are not permitted to comment, and point them in the direction of the Manchester police press office. They all know the drill, but they will try it on. So, I just wanted to warn you all of the situation. Somebody stood in here did reveal information today, either directly to the press, or indirectly through a partner or friend. This could potentially hinder my enquiries. I must inform you all that you could face criminal charges if you leak any information at all, about either of the missing persons, to the press. Am I understood?”

  The teachers all said “yes,” in unison. Many of them looked concerned and nervous, and Miller couldn’t help but wonder which one of them had been unable to keep the hot gossip quiet.

  “Okay, thank you everybody and please keep your mouths shut from now on. If any of you have any information that you feel would be valuable to me, please don’t hesitate to get my contact details from Mrs Horsfield. Okay, you can go back to your work, and thanks again for such a prompt response attending this meeting.”

  The teachers shuffled back towards the doors at either end of the large hall, unsure of whether they’d just been bollocked, or not. That had been a very intense and to-the-point encounter, and had lasted less than five minutes.

  *****

  Miller went back up to the school office with Mrs Horsfield, and waited for Rudovsky to arrive. He was checking the Manchester Evening News, BBC North West and the Sky News pages on his phone. He knew that he’d have to say something to the press on his way out, so had decided to see what they were reporting first. It was all very vague, but quite sensational. Sky News were reporting “Pupil and Teacher with Long History of Disputes Reported Missing.” There really wasn’t much more to it, other than the name of the school, and a by-line of “more to follow.”

  A text message popped up on the screen. It was from Rudovsky. “Hello Sir, I’m on the car park.”

  Miller text back. “Good stuff. I’ll probably be followed by reporters so just follow my car. There in a minute.”

  The DCI thanked Mrs Horsfield for her help. She had been extremely helpful, especially in mentioning the redundancy issue. He left the school’s main doors and walked straight into the middle of the press-pack, which had trebled in size since he’d arrived an hour or so earlier. The media staff were blocking the doors, so he had no alternative but to stay put.

  “DCI Miller! What can you tell us about this enquiry?”

  “DCI Miller! Can you confirm that the pupil has been abducted?”

  “DCI Miller! Is there any truth in the rumour that the missing child was attacked by the missing teacher?”

  Miller just stood still and let the questions wash over him. The enthusiastic shouting continued. In the end, he raised his hand, which worked in hushing them.

  “Hello everyone. If you can simmer down a bit, I’ll give you a brief statement.”

  The press-pack began shouting again, and Miller stared at the Sky News camera with a look of abject disappointment at the daft behaviour of the press. He waited for them to settle down again.

  “Okay, if you’re just going to shout at me, I’ll not give you any information.” This quietened them. “Okay, I can confirm that we are currently investigating two separate missing-persons reports. As you are currently reporting, both are members of this school’s community. At this stage, I am not able to reveal the identities of either person, or whether the disappearances are linked, as this investigation is still very young, and we have no hard facts to work on at this point. But we’d like to
reassure the public that we are treating this investigation with the utmost urgency. I still have a number of initial enquiries to make at this point, but I will organise a press-conference for later in the day. Hopefully, by that point, I will have a good deal more information to share. I’ll ask the press-office to alert you once the press conference has been arranged. Thank you.”

  Miller started pushing his way through the press team and walked away from the school doors towards the car park fifty or so yards away. Several reporters followed him and continued shouting questions at the back of him. But most of the reporters knew Miller of old, and knew that once he’d finished talking, and had said thank you, that always meant that there was nothing more to come for now.

  Chapter Seven

  Miller and Rudovsky parked their cars outside the home of Darren Jenkins. The address was Sand Street, a row of old red-bricked terraced houses on the border of Stalybridge where it merges into Dukinfield. The missing boy’s house was on a street that looked as though it had been forgotten about long ago, in much the same way that the nearby crumbling mills and decaying factories had. The street still had its old cobbles, and the run-down house had a knackered old Ford Mondeo parked outside it. It had started life as a white car, but today, it looked like the present owner was concerned that it might fall apart if it was washed.

  The street was very quiet, and Miller was relieved to see that the press hadn’t discovered the address details of the missing boy, yet. There wasn’t a reporter in sight, and Miller knew that it was only a matter of time before this unremarkable northern street was over-run with press trucks and paparazzi cameras.

  Miller got out of his car, and got into Rudovsky’s once she had parked up behind him. “Alright Jo?”

  “Sir.”

  “I’ll fill you in on the background I’ve picked up from the school later. For now, I just want to have a few words with the lad’s father, Michael Jenkins.”

  “Yep, no problem, Sir.”

  “You’ll pick a lot of it up anyway, as I ask questions.”

  “No doubt.”

  “But the headline here, is that these two seem to hate each-others guts, and mum is out of the picture. I’m pretty sure that most of the answers to this mystery will be revealed here. Okay, well, we’d better go and find out. In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  The two detectives got out of Rudovsky’s vehicle and climbed the two steep kerb-steps up from the cobbled street to the pavement, and the home of Michael and Darren Jenkins.

  Miller rat-a-tat-tatted on the wooden front door. The house looked like a rented, housing association type of property as many of the doors were painted the same colour, and shared the same style of the letterboxes and door-numbers. It was the poorer end of Stalybridge, by the derelict buildings, supermarkets and factories, so it stood to reason that the missing lad’s guardian wasn’t a home-owner.

  A man in his late thirties answered the door, he looked as though he’d just woken up.

  “Alright?” he asked. His brown hair was stuck up at one side, and his stubble had passed the five o’clock stage. He was wearing a vest top, and his arms were full of shit tattoos.

  “Hello, I’m DCI Andrew Miller, this is my colleague DC Jo Rudovsky. I’m afraid we need to speak to you about Darren.”

  “Come in.” He said, swinging the door open. He looked as though he wasn’t particularly happy about this unscheduled visit.

  Miller’s and Rudovsky’s instincts told them straight away that this guy was a wrong ‘un. The first clue was in the way that he gave no reaction to the introductory statement that Miller had made. The DCI had worded it in such a vague, ominous way that it should have created a look of panic on the parent’s face. The sentence was so loaded with potential doom, that Miller had expected the parent to fall to his knees in tears, fearing the very worst news. But instead, the potentially devastating introduction earned nothing more than a huff.

  Miller immediately placed the missing lad’s father under suspicion. Rudovsky had picked up on it too. They both had one question on their minds. What did this guy know, that had prepared him for such a relaxed reception to potentially devastating news? Something wasn’t right.

  “Thanks,” said Rudovsky as she stepped past Mike Jenkins. He just shrugged and closed the door behind her. The three were standing in a small front-room. There was very little furniture in there, just a sofa, an armchair, an enormous TV and a coffee-table which was covered in all sorts of shite, from a crusty, dirty plate which needed a good hour in soak at least, before it could be cleaned. There was other junk, from take-away cartons, over-flowing ashtrays to empty beer-cans. A greasy pizza box lay on the filthy laminate floor, by the settee.

  “So, what’s going on?” asked Mr Jenkins. He had his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, and relaxed wasn’t the word. Miller suspected that he was a bit stoned.

  “Well, we’re leading the missing persons enquiry…”

  “Yeah, yeah, something popped up on Facebook about it before…”

  “So, we thought we’d come along and introduce ourselves.”

  “Well, how do you do?” asked Jenkins.

  “Mr Jenkins, if we find Darren alive and well, would you prefer it if we just took him straight into care?” Rudovsky’s kind and caring face often caught strangers off-guard when she suddenly pounced like this. Her warm, endearing eyes helped make her most unexpected, most vicious questions cut all the deeper.

  Miller looked stunned. That was a pretty nuclear start to the chat.

  “Eh, what?” asked Jenkins, with a judder.

  “Well, you clearly couldn’t give a fuck…”

  “Hey, just a minute…”

  “No, I’ve got a fifteen-year-old lad to look for, and I haven’t got time for any arse-hole parents acting the dick.”

  “Alright DC Rudovsky,” said Miller. “That’s enough.” Miller said it in a tone which Rudovsky recognised as “nice one Jo, you fucking legend.” Her bombastic approach had knocked this man’s sky-high confidence right down. He looked embarrassed and dazed.

  “I think that my colleague has a point, Mr Jenkins. You don’t seem particularly concerned about Darren’s disappearance.”

  “You don’t know about my life…” said Jenkins, sounding as though he was about to try and make all this about him. “Walk a mile in my shoes, then see what you think.”

  “Well, one thing that I do know about your life, is that you haven’t phoned the police station once to ask how the missing person’s enquiry is going. In fact, the only contact you’ve made was to report him missing, and the duty-log from the control-room states that you told the operator that you had to report it, otherwise you’d be liable for any absence fines from Darren’s school.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s right though innit? They’ve got it in for me down at that shit-hole school. Any excuse to have a fucking pop. That’s what they’re like. Sad bastards.”

  Miller and Rudovsky caught one another’s eyes. They both saw what the other was thinking. They were thinking they were stood with a professional victim. One who had no interest in anybody other than himself.

  “Any idea where Darren is?”

  “No.”

  “None at all?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “Okay, tell you what pal,” said Miller. “If you don’t sort this shitty attitude problem out, you’ll be coming down the station to answer our questions, under arrest.”

  “Fuck’s sake.” Said Jenkins. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know where he is, he’s a little dick. How am I supposed to know where the fuck he’s gone?”

  The DCI exhaled a long, heavy breath and allowed a silence to follow it. “Look, shall we start again?” asked Miller, eventually.

  Jenkins shrugged.

  “A good start might be the offer of a seat?”

  Jenkins gestured to the settee. Neither Miller or Rudovsky could stand this bloke. He really did have a chip on his shoulder the size of Blackpool To
wer. They sat down, and Jenkins remained standing on the opposite side of the manky coffee-table.

  “Can you sit down as well please?” asked Rudovsky, in a voice that didn’t hide her irritation at this bizarre spectacle. She was setting up her dictaphone on the coffee-table and had to move several items of rubbish to one side to create the space. Jenkins sat down in the chair opposite, leaning right back as though he was getting settled to watch a football match. He didn’t look like a man who was being quizzed by police about his missing teenage son.

  “I’m going to record our conversation on this,” said Rudovsky in a matter-of-fact manner.

  “Is that normal?” asked Jenkins.

  “Well, it’s quite normal,” said Miller. “My colleague is a very slow writer, so it speeds things up considerably. But if you prefer, she can take notes by hand?”

  “Nah, makes no difference to me.” Jenkins seemed like a man without a care in the world. It intrigued the detectives, who thought that all this was just a front. They were both eager to get going with the questions and see what this guy was all about.

  “So, Mr Jenkins, this shouldn’t take long… is that recording Jo?”

  Rudovsky nodded to her boss.

  “So, tell me about your relationship with Darren.”

  “What do you want me to say? He’s a little shit.”

  “Do you have any positive things we could say about him?”

  “Well, no. Not really. He’s bananas, always has been. He just wants to do your head in. Morning, noon and night. You say summat to him, like ‘don’t do that’ and you can bet your life he’ll just do it all the more. That’s why his mam pissed off, and left me, stuck here with the ungrateful little bastard.”

  “So, you really can’t find anything positive to say about Darren? I mean we’ll be talking to the press later. We’ll need some nice comments to say about him.”

  Jenkins huffed. “There’s not much, like I say. He’s one of life’s little dickheads. He’s pretty good at art, I’ll give him that. Good at drawing.”