by Jane Adams
Jake had never been certain whether she believed him completely, but she liked the idea of a secret lover — so romantic — especially one who took her away for expensive weekends and provided a place to work and materials that she could never afford on a student loan.
He’d let her have Christmas with her family, deliver her painting, and enjoyed imagining their confusion and concern when they studied the subject matter. He knew they were far too polite and well bred to say anything to Julia.
She’d spent Easter with them too. He’d brought her back to the house after the Easter break and told her there was something he wanted to show her in the basement. She had never left it again until the day she died, though he’d let her have her books and drawing things.
Poor Julia, she’d had a lot of talent.
Jake turned back to the table and flicked the paper over to the front page, staring hard at the images of Charlie Morrow.
Jake approved of talent and knew that he had plenty. He took scissors from the kitchen drawer and clipped the pictures of Charlie from the paper, then took them up to his studio and pinned them to the wall, wondering as he did so just how far the burns were likely to extend.
‘A real Jake Bowen original,’ he said.
* * *
Peterson stormed into the incident room at Honiton and threw the stack of morning papers onto Mike’s desk.
Mike moved them off the report he had been reading. ‘I’ve already seen them,’ he said.
Peterson sat down. ‘Our superiors are not happy,’ he said.
‘Perhaps if they’re so superior they could have told us how to avoid it,’ Mike said. ‘Someone was bound to make the connection some time and, frankly, I don’t see it’s done us any good sitting on it. We’re still no nearer finding the child.’
Peterson gave him a suspicious look. ‘Mike, if I thought you or Maria had anything to do with leaking this, you’d be off this case quicker than I could say Jack Crap.’
‘If I’d known that, I’d have leaked it sooner,’ Mike said wryly. ‘Oh, come off it, we may as well bow to the inevitable. I told Ed Macey nothing. He must have made his own connections.’
‘Sometimes, Mike, I wonder about your attitude.’
‘Sometimes, so do I.’
Peterson didn’t reply to this but stood up again. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Trouble at home.’
‘Oh.’
‘My daughter’s place. It was broken into. She’s been away since those damned pictures arrived so no one’s quite sure when.’
‘Wasn’t the place alarmed?’ Mike asked.
‘They’re out in the middle of nowhere. People don’t even lock their bloody doors.’ He sighed. ‘Yes, it was alarmed. She was upset, thinks she forgot to set it on Monday when they went to get their things. I said I’d go and see what was missing then get back to her. She doesn’t want to go herself. She’s terrified about going home, Mike. Scared out of her wits.’
Mike nodded. ‘I can understand that.’
‘Meantime,’ Peterson said, ‘you’d better go and see our friend Macey. Oh, and we’re going ahead with the Crimewatch thing. The voice enhancement from that video tape should be ready by then. Maybe the bastard overstepped himself this time.’
‘I hope so,’ Mike said quietly.
After Peterson had left, Mike went back to what he had been doing, trying to get clear in his mind the various strands of the Bowen inquiry. So many people tied up all over the country by one man. So much information and so little of it that connected or made any obvious sense.
He’d been looking again at the descriptions of Jake that had surfaced. Liv Watson and her friends had him as a man with sandy-coloured hair and pale blue eyes. Freckled skin, they said, and about six feet tall.
The man seen leaving Caldwell’s house at the time he must have died was dark, with a beard, and Max Harriman swore that Jake had wavy brown hair and grey-green eyes. He gave Jake’s height as being a shade under six feet. That, at least, was vaguely consistent.
There were other sightings, all of them variable, some of them recorded by police artists or computer-generated images, even old-fashioned photofit. There was little match barring Jake’s height and his weight — well built and definitely not fat, not even around the middle, as Liv had commented in her statement.
Alastair had confirmed that his son had grey-green eyes and light brown hair, but contacts can be worn and hair coloured, and wigs and false beards no longer had to look as if they’d fallen out of Christmas crackers.
Mike looked at the dozen random images set out on the desk and tried to fit together some kind of composite — the essential Jake that remained even behind the masks he wore.
He picked up the final image as Alastair Bowen came through the door. The picture of Jake at fifteen had been scanned into a computer and aged to give a simulation of how he might be now: Jake at nearly forty derived from Jake as a teenage boy. Mike wondered just how accurate this was ever going to be.
He pushed the images across to Alastair, who regarded them solemnly. Alastair’s own features and those of his wife, taken from a photograph of them both close to Jake’s present age, had been added to the mix and the artist and programmer who had worked upon it professed to be very pleased with the result.
‘You think he looks like this?’ Alastair mused.
‘I don’t think anything any more. I’ve discovered it’s a waste of time.’
Alastair glanced up at him and laughed shortly, then looked back at the picture. ‘Handsome,’ he said. ‘Not flashy, but a good-looking man.’
Mike nodded. ‘That comes over in all the descriptions,’ he said. ‘And he looks younger than thirty-nine. No one placed him older than mid-thirties, most ten years younger than we know he is.’
It was a sharply featured profile. Slightly prominent nose, high cheekbones and a squarish jaw with a small cleft in the chin. The eyes were large and widely set, with heavy but well-shaped brows. Looking at Alastair, Mike could see a definite resemblance. Alastair was a man in his late sixties and the face had become slack with age and two years of worry about his wife, but it was still a challenging face, the eyes intelligent and alert.
Alastair pulled another picture towards him, the one of Jake at fifteen years old. Clutching the super eight camera, the teacher who had helped him with his filmmaking standing behind him and Max Harriman at his side, grinning at the camera.
‘This teacher Mr Wright,’ Mike said. ‘How close was Jake to him?’
Alastair thought before replying. ‘Jake used him the same as he used everyone,’ he said, ‘but the teacher didn’t know that. He believed in Jake, thought he had a great future, and I think Jake respected him. He went to his funeral at least.’
‘He died in a car accident,’ Mike reminded himself.
‘That’s right. Not long after Jake won the prize for making the film. Jake actually cried at the funeral.’ He shook his head, disbelieving. ‘The family were so impressed by that. It meant so much that their father and husband had made a difference. It was all sham, of course, but they didn’t know that.’
‘The film,’ Mike said, ‘tell me about it.’
‘I can’t tell you much more than the paper did,’ he said, referring to the article that accompanied the photograph. ‘There was a strike, a big, long-term strike at one of the local factories. We’re talking the time of the recession and the three-day week. You remember that?’
Mike nodded.
‘Like having the Victorian times back again. Oil lamps in the blackouts and candles selling out in all the shops. I remember the kids running about the streets with flashlights and all the parents yelling at them not to waste the batteries.’
Mike smiled. He’d been only a kid at the time too. For him it had meant missing school because the heating didn’t work and half the time there was no power.
‘The strike?’ he reminded Alastair.
‘Ah, yes. It was at a local pit. When we still had such things as coal mines back hom
e. They’d been on the three-day week, like all the rest of us, short of cash, and, believe me, where we lived everyone was short enough without adding to it. It was a crazy time to call everyone out, but they did it. I forget the reasons behind it. Showing solidarity or some such, as I recall, but it fascinated Jake. He went round interviewing management, strikers, pickets, anyone that would talk to him. Went into their houses, showing how hard up they were and how much they must have believed in what they were doing if they were putting their whole livelihood at risk by acting like this. Saw himself as a proper documentary filmmaker.’
‘And Max, what was his part in this?’
‘Max just tagged along so far as I could see. Carried stuff. I think he helped with the editing, but I don’t know much more than that really. Max idolized Jake. I don’t think he needed to do much to be happy, it was enough just to be there.’
‘And yet Jake allowed him to take equal credit.’
Alastair shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Who knows why Jake does anything? Maybe the teacher made him give Max credit. I don’t remember, Inspector. It was a long time ago.’
Mike nodded and was about to speak again when someone called him from across the room. He excused himself and left Alastair to his thoughts.
That had been a strange, eventful period. Alastair himself had been on short time. By then he was working in a hardware store and the pay was average at best. He was looking forward to Jake leaving school that summer so he could at least contribute to household expenses, but the teachers wanted him to stay on. Alastair had not been happy. The idea of another two years supporting his son was not something he relished. Already Jake worked four nights a week in the local chip shop, keeping late hours as they stayed open to catch workers coming off the closing shift, though even they had been affected by the three-day week. But Alastair couldn’t see the point in him staying on at school any longer. Just what did Jake plan on doing with his life anyway?
Jake had loved that winter. No streetlights, walking home in the pitch black or through streets lit on one side while the other showed only candlelight through the curtains. Alastair had never been able to work out the way the power zones worked. Why, for example, their neighbours three doors down had power when they did not or vice versa. It had been a fine time for Jake, the streets around their home almost deserted and no one to watch what he did or where he went.
Alastair frowned. He needed to talk to Max again.
* * *
Peterson had arrived at his daughter’s house accompanied by two local officers.
‘As you can see, sir, the back door’s been forced, but it was only when it blew open that anyone noticed. Your daughter asked the postman to give her letters to a neighbour but didn’t leave the keys with anyone to switch lights on or anything.’
‘She had a lot on her mind,’ Peterson commented.
The officer nodded. ‘If you’d take a look around, sir, but nothing’s been disturbed as far as we can tell and there’s nothing obvious missing.’
Peterson walked slowly through his daughter’s house. The children’s rooms, filled with their toys, the youngest’s bed still unmade. The room his daughter and her husband shared, bed made, everything tidy but for a shirt sticking out of the laundry bin in the en suite shower room.
Downstairs, everything looked normal. As tidy as a house could be with three children in it. TV and VCR still in their place. Stack system and CDs on the shelf in the comer. Nothing missing as far as he could see.
In the kitchen, an unwashed mug sat in the sink, traces of lipstick on the rim. Other breakfast pots, washed and in the drainer. His daughter, Peterson remembered, had always been very organized. It was no real surprise that she would have everything done before she had to take the children to school. The post had arrived, she’d said, just before she’d been about to leave. She’d opened the mail, seen the pictures and left for his house.
Everything done, except for that unmade bed . . .
Peterson turned to one of the officers. ‘When’s SOCO due to arrive?’
‘Probably not until tomorrow, otherwise it’ll be Monday.’
Peterson nodded. Like many scenes of crime units, this one was now civilian-run. They’d have to come out from Bristol and, with there being nothing missing and his daughter not being here, this would not have been graded as priority.
‘I just want to look at something again.’
He beckoned to the officer and led him back upstairs to the room shared by the youngest children. The smallest one had her bed under the window. It was stacked with teddies, all neatly arranged at the end and the bed covered with a Barbie quilt and pillow. The quilt was pulled back, whereas all the other beds were neatly made.
Peterson eased the quilt back a little further. In the middle of the bed, decorated with blue and yellow beads, lay one of Essie’s braids.
Chapter Seventeen
Macey was ecstatic. He sat with the stack of nationals in front of him, explaining to Liz and anyone else who would listen that this was definitely ‘it.’ Macey had finally made it big. Liz, having pored over the copy he’d pushed under her nose and done her best to congratulate him effusively enough, wanted to move on, but Macey, despite his worldly wise, done-it-all air, was like a sponge, in need of constant praise.
‘How’s Charlie getting along, anyway?’ Liz asked him.
‘We’ll find out later on today,’ Macey said. ‘I tried to call him this morning but he was having his physio or something. Those hands.’ Macey shuddered elaborately.
Liz cast him an amused glance. ‘I like him,’ she said.
Macey nodded agreement before looking up sharply. ‘Knew it would only be a matter of time,’ he said, then more loudly, ‘Inspector Croft, nice to see you again this morning.’
Mike didn’t bother replying. He grabbed a chair from a nearby desk and sat down, leaning forward to study Macey’s newspapers.
‘How did you know?’ he asked.
‘Saw your lady on the TV appeal and recognized her,’ Macey said. He reached into his desk and pulled out a folder of clippings, found the one he wanted and gave it to Mike. A local journalist had caught them both on camera during an earlier case Mike had worked on in Norwich. Maria had been professionally involved with a woman suspect. Mike had forgotten that this particular picture even existed.
‘There are others,’ Macey said. ‘Things your lady’s been involved in and dragged you along to. Some sort of charity ball, I think one of them is. You look nice in a dinner jacket. Want me to find it?’
Mike shook his head. ‘I’ll pass’ he said. ‘And you didn’t think of the consequences, that we might not want this information released?’
‘Oh, you’re asking me so nicely, Inspector. It makes me nervous. Is the bad cop waiting round the corner?’
Liz glared at Macey, before asking Mike anxiously, ‘You think it will make things worse?’
Mike shook his head slowly. ‘I doubt it will make much difference’ he said. ‘Not to Essie or to Jake. To the family, though, now that it’s publicly confirmed Jake Bowen has their child, I don’t imagine it’s going to be easy for them.’
‘Or for you’ Macey said. ‘How does it feel to know she was taken because of you, Inspector Croft? That this little girl has been kidnapped by a psychopath because you’re dating her auntie?’
‘Macey!’ Liz was outraged, but Mike was wearied beyond retaliating. It was something he’d been charging himself with every hour since Essie disappeared.
‘How do you think it feels, Mr Macey?’ Mike said softly. ‘If I could trade places with her, then you can be certain that I would.’
He got up then and walked slowly back towards the door.
‘He didn’t deserve that, Ed,’ Liz told him angrily.
Macey threw her an apologetic look. It lasted all of a second and she almost missed it.
‘Can I quote you on that, Inspector Croft?’ he shouted at Mike’s retreating back.
* * *
/> Peterson was back at Honiton by the time Mike got there. Mike had driven slowly along the Dorchester road, allowing cars to rush past him on the dual carriageway and vaguely aware of impatient drivers behind him when the road narrowed for the villages.
He didn’t care. Macey’s words had bitten all the harder for being true. He should have come back at him, Mike thought, told him what he really thought of someone who could expose his guilt so openly, but Mike knew he’d only have regretted it. He’d done his best to stay professional and calm, knowing Macey was merely being Macey, riding high upon the moment and made brave by success.
He would, though, do anything to know that Essie was safe once more. Would, as he had told Macey, willingly have traded places with her. He wondered if Macey would print his parting comment and how he himself would have to respond if Macey did; and if, in some half-conscious way, he had been hoping to use Macey to deliver a message to Bowen.
His despairing mood was not lifted as he drove back into Honiton.
Police were still doing the last of the house-to-house calls, with extra officers drafted in from wherever they could be spared. The incident room was full to overflowing, desks crammed in wherever they could be fitted. Notice boards and stacks of paper vied for space with empty cans and sandwich bags.
Peterson waved him over as soon as he came through the door.
‘I need a couple of hours, Mike. If anyone asks, you can’t raise me. My battery’s flat in the mobile or something.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m getting my family out, Mike. I just need a couple of hours to make arrangements.’
‘Certainly, but out where?’
Peterson shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mike, I’m not telling even you. I’ll be leaving something with my bank, saying where they can be reached should anything happen to me, but I’m telling no one else.’
Mike had never seen Peterson so rattled. ‘What did you find at the house?’ he said.
Peterson led him over to where the evidence was being filed and pulled from the box the bag containing Essie’s hair.
‘This was on my granddaughter’s bed.’
