by Nick Louth
‘Poor old cow,’ Kincaid muttered. ‘How old did you say she was, Craig?’
‘It was her 48th birthday party. It’s written on the balloons,’ Gillard replied, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice. His opinion of Kincaid’s detective abilities had never been high.
‘Use it,’ said Alison Rigby. ‘Newspapers like to run clips of this kind of thing on their websites, and it’s a natural for TV.’
‘We can get it on our Facebook page too,’ Townsend added. ‘It not only shows the missing woman, but the character of the family she came from—’
Gillard interrupted. ‘My only misgiving is that we don’t have any video of Professor Knight. I want people to have a clear picture of him, because if we find him, we’ll find her.’
‘Because only he knows where the body is?’ Alison Rigby suggested.
Gillard could only nod. ‘That’s my gut feeling, yes.’
The assistant chief constable scanned the rest of the officers. Her pale-blue eyes, powerful even through her tortoiseshell glasses, scanned each of them there. ‘Can I emphasize to everyone that we are not going to give even a hint of these suspicions. This is a missing persons’ inquiry, nothing more, until we get clear and unequivocal information. Is that clear?’ There was a murmur of approval. ‘Good. Then at least we’re all on the same page.’
* * *
‘Thank you for joining us at such short notice,’ said Assistant Chief Constable Alison Rigby. The press conference room was pretty full, with several national newspapers in attendance, all the Surrey regionals plus the BBC, Press Association and local radio. Sitting with her behind the table were Craig Gillard, DS Mulholland, Surrey Police press officer Christina McCafferty, Liz’s parents Tom and Geraldine Bishopsford, and Oliver and Chloe Knight.
‘Before I hand you over to Detective Chief Inspector Gillard, I’d just like to say that a recording of this briefing will be available as a webcast. Now over to you, Craig.’
‘Thank you. Surrey Police yesterday launched a missing person’s investigation into Mrs Elizabeth Knight of Chaldon Rise, Old Coulsdon, who has not been seen for eight days. Today, we would like to ask for the public’s help in finding her. The last public sighting was at 4 p.m. on Wednesday 14 October in the car park of the school where she is deputy head. She was wearing a charcoal-grey trouser suit and carrying a shoulder bag. She may be walking with a stick. Given the number of days she has been missing, we are extremely concerned for her safety. We are also urgently trying to contact her husband, Professor Martin Knight, who has been missing for 48 hours. We are keeping an open mind at this stage about what has happened, but it is completely out of character for either of these two busy, professional people to fail to turn up for important appointments or to return calls from friends and family. We believe these two incidents are connected, and we appeal to Mr Knight to come forward.’
Gillard looked at Oliver Knight, and moved the microphone towards him. ‘My mother is a strong, independent, career woman with an ordered life. For her to just disappear without letting anyone know is unprecedented.’ The image of the consummate professional lasted until the last word, when his voice broke. He rubbed a hand across his face and paused before continuing. ‘Dad, if you are watching this, please, please get in contact.’
The conference was turned over to questions, none of which spared the sensibilities of the family, and which Gillard handled as best he could:
‘Is this a murder inquiry?’
‘No, it’s a missing person’s case. As I said, we’re keeping an open mind at this stage.’
‘Is this the same professor who lambasted your force over its handling of youth justice?’
‘It is, but obviously that does not affect the way we run the case.’
‘We noticed the crime scene people at the house. Are you digging up the garden to look for a body?’
‘Not at this stage. The involvement of CSI is a precaution. This is still, as I said, a missing person’s inquiry.’
After shielding the family from questions on whether the Knights had a violent relationship, or whether either had a criminal record, Gillard drew the conference to a close.
Rigby shepherded the family into a side room and, with Gillard there, closed the door. ‘I would like to assure you,’ she said, meeting the eyes of each of them in turn, ‘that Surrey Police will allocate the fullest resources to solving this case as rapidly and effectively as possible. Professor Knight may have criticized this force, among others, in the past, but we will continue to treat this case just like any other. If any of you have any misgivings about the way the case is being handled, at any stage, I encourage you to ring me on my direct line.’ She handed out a business card to each member of the family.
Gillard had plenty of respect for Rigby. She had made her name in the drug squad in Hull, almost the toughest posting she could have been given. She managed a clever sting operation which netted a Pakistani ‘Mr Big’ in 2002. He and his associates had been pushing half a ton a month of heroin into Britain sealed in sheets of rubber which were secured above false metal ceilings in shipping containers. The rubber’s scent-absorbing powers had fooled the sniffer dogs, and it was only when a crane operator at Immingham damaged a container that the heroin was discovered. Alison had the container repaired, the drugs replaced with talcum powder and a GPS transmitter embedded in the rubber, before letting it continue on its way. The drug squad finally swooped on a freight yard in Birmingham, netting 18 members of the gang and drugs with a street value of £400 million.
Once the family had departed, Alison Rigby took Gillard aside and asked: ‘What’s next?’
‘We’ve got two dedicated phone lines staffed here, four officers available until midnight, and two through the night. I’ll be on call this evening in case the TV appeal tweaks any recollections. Tomorrow I’m hoping we’re going to get something substantive from analysis of the Knights’ computers, and Kent CID will be starting CSI on the holiday home. We’ve got a few statements to take from family and friends. By late tomorrow we should know everything about the family’s finances, and we’ll be able to watch where his bank card transactions pop up.’
‘Have we got a full CSI report in the works on the Coulsdon house?’ she asked sharply.
‘No. They didn’t have time to do dabs or a full search. It’s pencilled in for tomorrow.’ You couldn’t get anything past her, Craig had to admit.
Rigby gave him the full blue gaze of death, one eyebrow slightly raised.
‘You think I should go there now?’ he asked
She nodded curtly. ‘Good decision. Use your initiative.’
Craig certainly wanted to have a look around Liz’s home. But having spent 40 of the last 48 hours at work, leaving eight hours in bed and less than half that asleep, he had hoped it would wait until tomorrow. Fat chance.
* * *
Gillard drove to the Knights’ Coulsdon home for 7 p.m. The house was dark, with only the faint bluish light of a phone illuminating the duty PC standing by the porch. Probably checking Facebook, Gillard thought. Still, at least this one is awake.
Gillard reread Quoroshi’s notes on his iPad, then got out and walked to the boot. Once he was fully Tyveked, he hefted the box of tricks he had earlier signed out from the newly installed Caterham CSI cupboard. Crackling his way up to the PC he was greeted courteously and checked in on the clipboard. ‘Anyone else been here since Quoroshi left?’ Gillard asked.
‘CSI technician came to do dabs at 3.25 p.m., left at 5 p.m. He said to tell everyone it’s all right to touch door handles, light switches, banister, taps and so on now. At 4.17 p.m. Oliver Knight arrived and wanted to go in “just for a minute”, but I wouldn’t let him. Lots of press, of course. Politely told ’em to bugger off, sir.’
‘Quite right too.’ Gillard took the keys the PC offered him, let himself in and flicked on the lights. The hall was short and wide. On the right was a small study-cum-library with a desk, typist’s chair and floor-to-ceiling bo
okshelves, groaning with academic titles. The whiter patch on the faded melamine desk showed where the computer had been. Using a single gloved finger he carefully opened the drawers beneath. A locked drawer had been forced, as referenced in the CSI notes, and was empty. He returned to the hall and glanced into the lounge where five years ago he had taken Mrs Edwards’s burglary statement. Tidy, classic 1990s. But no TV.
Straight on from the front door was a very large family room, hardwood-floored, with dining table, kitchen and breakfast room. Its large windows gave onto a patio and a garden that rose steeply in slightly overgrown terraces to a wooded slope on the bottom edge of Farthing Downs. There were a few dishes stacked in the sink, a few papers on the kitchen table, but no signs of an obvious hurry to leave.
Gillard climbed the open-plan staircase to the first floor. His nose caught the tang of cleaning products or perhaps air freshener. The master bedroom was at front left over the lounge, with a king-size bed, fitted wardrobes with sliding doors, and a mirrored dressing table standing on a small green rug. Yaz’s notes said two hairbrushes from this dressing table had been booked in for evidence, and toothbrushes from the en-suite bathroom. They also referenced a wine stain on the carpet now covered by the green rug. Gillard flipped the rug over, the taint of bleach invaded his nostrils. The rug had been put in place to cover a big bleach stain on the oatmeal carpet, and the smell indicated it was fairly recent. Tiny splashes of what appeared to be red wine were still visible beyond it. Craig reset the rug, and looked at the bedside table. It was heavy with brain food. Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter; a biography of Simone de Beauvoir; Homer’s Odyssey in classical Greek, a bookmark three-quarters of the way through; and a tatty, well-thumbed classical Greek–English dictionary. He ached to remove his gloves and caress those books, as if it was somehow possible to absorb through his fingertips the mature woman that his Liz had become.
Gillard made his way to the larger of the back bedrooms. A little untidy, with the bed unmade and a man’s jacket and grey trousers lying on top. A white crumpled shirt was on the carpet near the linen basket, a pair of socks balled nearby. It seemed that Martin Knight no longer slept in the marital bedroom.
The untidiness struck Gillard as evidence of a quick turnaround when Knight had come back from the conference and before he headed off to Dungeness. A pile of criminology periodicals were haphazardly stacked on the bedside table, next to a letter, faded and creased. The sight of her handwriting made him catch his breath, though the target was not his heart but another’s.
The heat of You
That first embrace in Cambridge, I remember so clearly. The wind from the frozen fens, with its breath of Siberia. Your warm arms around me in the pub doorway. The hearth you built around me, somewhere to bury myself in embraces on every darkling February day. Inside that huge old coat, a tepee of wet dogs, you were a crow with all your wild ideas, sparking in every direction, and flying up to the stars like bonfire motes. I remember when we squeezed, giggling, into the phone box on Sidney Street, you intending to ring your parents and proclaim: ‘I’ve found the One,’ even though it was two in the morning and we were both drunk. The gum-jammed box wouldn’t take coins, remember? Then reversing the charges, and they wouldn’t accept the call. Martin, I feel like I have been tipsy on you for all our happy years, but do accept this call. You saw, I think, an independent woman as sturdy as you, but I’m not that strong any more, you know, and today I feel corroded by anger.
There is a woman down the hall here, wiry as a coat hanger, who shrieks all night, jangling like an empty wardrobe. It fills the place with madness, and I fear I may tip over too, one day. The nurses are kind, and there is one elderly man here from Lahore who plays a fabulous King’s Gambit. But I miss your warmth.
I can fight my way out again, you know, but I don’t want it to be forged in anger. I need the loving heat of you, Martin. I still need the proximity of your hot, beating heart to fire my happiness. I need to know that you won’t see her again. Don’t leave me with cold grey ashes; don’t leave me with two teenagers and only the memory of your smile, and the fading echo of your laughter. You always said I was the One. Make me the One, again.
One.
Just One.
Gillard took a deep and ragged breath, and pocketed the letter, intending to find an evidence bag later.
The other back bedroom was clearly Chloe’s room. There were posters of boy bands on the wall, neatly folded clothes in a chest of drawers, and a mostly empty shoe organizer in the back of an open wardrobe. There were books too: Shakespeare, Dickens, some Beat Generation novels that Gillard had read, and plenty of French and German classics that he hadn’t. Like mother, like daughter, it seemed. Gillard had seen plenty of teenagers’ bedrooms, not normally in happy circumstances. This was easily the most orderly.
The smallest bedroom, front right, was given over to linen and box storage. Gillard poked his head into the main bathroom, between the two back bedrooms. Nothing looked particularly out of place. There was a stack of Private Eye magazines in a basket plus a few copies of the Times Literary Supplement. Reluctantly, he repressed his fascination with the minutiae of Liz Knight’s life. He walked down the stairs and had his hand on the door handle ready to go out when he glanced up.
There was a slight brownish stain around the plastic rose on the hall light fitting. The light was too dazzling to tell more, so he switched it off. He grabbed a dining chair to stand on, and used his torch to take a closer look. The hand-sized stain was where plaster had bubbled, indicative of a water leak – what builders call ‘blown’. Water from a rusting tank, perhaps. Gillard unscrewed the rose and let it slide down on the cable. The plaster beneath was badly damaged. Was this an old leak? Something inside him was nagging, wouldn’t let it go.
Craig got a small electrical screwdriver from his bag of tricks and climbed back on the chair. He prodded the blade up alongside the white electrical cable and into the plaster. It was soft as marzipan. As he pulled the blade out, a little rusty snow flurry dusted his Tyveked head. He dug in again and dislodged something that – plop! – landed on his bottom lip. He wiped with a finger and lifted it into his vision. A fingernail-sized white plaster wedge topping a glistening gem of blackcurrant jam, like some doll’s house dessert with a special filling.
Congealed blood.
Chapter Ten
Gillard was trembling so much it took five attempts to get a good photo of the area around the rose. He deposited the lump of dried blood in a cheek swab tube and then got back off the chair. Sweat was sliding down his back and he was breathing hard. A grim suspicion was crystallizing inside him, and he had trouble keeping it in check, forcing it to the back of his mind. He climbed the stairs again, back up to Liz’s bedroom, with his CSI toolbox. They seemed like huge steps, dragged by his tiredness and a sense of foreboding. On his hands and knees by the side of the bed, Craig once again flipped up the green rug. He brought out a Stanley knife and cut a cross in the middle of the bleach stain. Then he pulled up the corners of the carpet until the underlay was exposed. Where the carpet lifted there were several incisions now visible through the fabric. Beneath was a glossy, sticky mess like a spilled pot of jam, but the metallic taint gave it away. The spongy rubber underlay was drenched in it. With his screwdriver he found a join between underlay sections and he pulled them up too, exposing more blood on the floorboards. A few more minutes and he had removed a section of underlay, then used a hammer to extract the nails on one short board. Levering it up, he rested it to one side, and shone his torch within, into the space between the hall ceiling below and the bedroom floorboards.
Blood everywhere. Almost black, it had run under the joists, soaked into the insulation material, and run in rivulets right across the plasterboard ceiling. Swinging his torch in each direction he reckoned the stain was the size of a double bed sheet. He fought hard, again and again, to suppress the inevitable conclusion.
Breathing hard, he got back into a standin
g position. He jumped as he caught his own reflection in the dressing table mirror. A white Michelin man, smeared with blood to his elbows, sweat coursing down his forehead, bubbles of saliva at the corner of his mouth. Then all attempts at professionalism finally gave way. His shoulders trembled, then shook, his face dissolved, and he fell to his knees sobbing her name, again and again and again.
Chapter Eleven
Gillard emerged unsteadily from the front door, and one glance from the startled PC said it all. ‘Bad news, sir, by the looks of it?’
He nodded as he waddled down the path to the car in his blood-flecked Tyvek. It was 20 minutes before he was composed enough to ring Yaz Quoroshi. He described what he had seen, and then said: ‘There were cuts in the carpet. As if the bastard stabbed her while she was down. It was those cuts that allowed so much of the blood to seep right down beneath the floorboards. The wine spillage and the bleach was a cover-up. ’
‘Can you estimate how much blood?’ Yaz asked.
Gillard paused. ‘You’re the expert, Yaz. But it was like a paddling pool, honestly. Unsurvivable.’
After the call had finished, Craig looked at his watch. He’d never sleep after this, and he had plenty to get out of his system. By tomorrow he would be running a murder investigation, so tonight might be his last free evening for weeks. He dropped off his evidence at Caterham, told the civilian staffer to get it sent off for analysis, and headed off to the leisure centre.
* * *
Craig normally went to the local swimming pool at eight o’clock – between the over-50s club and the aqua-aerobics. The 30-metre pool had only a single lane for fast swimmers, and he often had it to himself as he whizzed past the grannies splashing along side by side in the main section. He’d normally do a couple of kilometres, front crawl with tumble turns, then finish off with 20 lengths of breaststroke. This time he counted 90 fast lengths of crawl by the time the lifeguard started dismantling his lane rope just before 9.30 p.m. He pulled himself out, arms shaking, and took a long, hot shower.
