The Missing

by Jane Casey

  It took me an age to unlock the front door: I fumbled with the keys and the bolts were resistant. I swore under my breath as I struggled with it. A familiar silhouette loomed outside and I hoped against hope that Blake would understand that I was trying to get the door open, that there was no need to ring the bell or use the door knocker, that if he did, Mum would be sure to wake up … The last bolt thudded back and I pulled open the door. Blake’s face changed from set professionalism to amusement for a split-second, as he surveyed my cow-print covered bottom half.

  ‘Nice outfit.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting visitors. What’s going on? What’s the emergency?’

  ‘We got a call–’ he began, but broke off looking irritated when I shushed him. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘I don’t want Mum to know you’re here.’

  With a dark look in my direction, Blake reached in and took the front-door keys from the lock, then grabbed my arm and drew me out of the house, letting the door close behind me. I dragged my feet as I followed him down the path, suddenly self-conscious as I noticed how many people were standing around, watching us. When we got as far as the garden gate, I said, ‘This is far enough. And I’d like my keys back, if it isn’t too much trouble.’

  ‘OK then.’ He dropped them into my hand and I pushed them into my pocket, curling my fingers around them, out of sight. ‘I’ll tell you why we’re here if you tell me what your pal Geoff was doing in this neck of the woods. He doesn’t live anywhere close to this estate, and yet this is where we find him in the middle of the night. Anything to do with you, by any chance?’

  I was mortified. ‘He hasn’t been causing trouble, has he? I thought he would just calm down and go home.’

  Something flickered in Blake’s eyes and his face went very still, with that coolly amused look that I recognised as his poker face. ‘So he was here to see you.’

  I squirmed. ‘He came over. I didn’t want him to – I mean, I didn’t know he was coming, and I didn’t let him in.’

  Blake waited, saying nothing. I bit my lip.

  ‘He brought flowers. Quite a big bunch. I – I didn’t want them.’

  ‘Those flowers, by any chance?’

  They were becalmed in the middle of the front garden where Geoff had flung them, an unlovely tangle of broken stems and crushed petals. The plastic wrapper was pebbled with condensation.

  ‘Look, I don’t want to get Geoff in trouble,’ I said, meaning it, to my own surprise. ‘He went a bit over the top last night. I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm. He was a bit frustrated that I wasn’t – that I didn’t—’

  ‘Reciprocate,’ Blake suggested.

  ‘Thanks. Yes. And so I left him out here to calm down.’

  ‘OK. What time was this?’

  ‘Half past ten, maybe?’ I frowned, trying to remember. ‘It was after ten when he rang the bell, and then we talked for a while. I couldn’t get rid of him.’

  ‘And you didn’t let him into your house.’

  ‘I didn’t even take the chain off the door,’ I said simply. ‘He was in a strange mood.’

  ‘Did he scare you?’

  I looked at Blake and suddenly understood that he was angry – furious. But not with me.

  ‘Well – yeah. I don’t know if I was right to feel threatened, but the whole situation with Geoff – it was just a bit out of control. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ I found myself blinking back tears and stopped, gathering what was left of my composure. ‘You’d better tell me. What did he do?’

  At that moment, one of the paramedics jumped out of the back of the ambulance and shut the doors before hurrying around to the front. He turned the ambulance with competent economy of effort and drove out of Curzon Close, lights still whirling, followed by one of the police cars, also lit up. As the sound of the engines faded away towards the main road, I could hear the sirens begin to whoop. I might have been imagining it, but there was compassion on Blake’s face. Before he spoke, he looked past me and straightened up, his face neutral. ‘Hello, guv. Sarah was just asking about Mr Turnbull.’

  I turned. Up close, Vickers looked more than ever like a tortoise, wrinkled and ancient.

  ‘Bad business,’ he said. ‘Did you hear anything, Sarah? Anything out of the ordinary?’

  I shook my head, wrapping my arms around myself, suddenly cold. ‘What is it? What should I have heard?’

  The policemen exchanged a glance and it was Blake who spoke at last, Vickers having silently pulled rank. ‘A call came in from Harry Jones, the local milkman, about –’ he checked his watch ‘forty-five minutes ago. He’d found something.’

  Instead of explaining any further, Blake put his hand on my arm again and drew me forward, and this time I didn’t resist him but stepped through the garden gate onto the pavement. To my left, Geoff’s car was parked, two wheels on the pavement, facing away from me. The tyre on the right had been slashed and formed a puddle of tattered rubber on the roadway. The back window was a haze of fractured glass and more glass glinted on the road. My hand had gone to my mouth in shock. I took a few more steps on legs that were slightly unsteady. From that angle, I could see the side windows were dark and empty, the glass smashed to bits, jagged teeth poking up from the window frames.

  ‘But why would Geoff vandalise his own car?’ I asked Blake, still not understanding.

  ‘He didn’t. Your milkman found him in the front seat. Whoever did the damage to the vehicle did the same to him, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What?’ My heart thudded in my chest, my throat as tight as if someone was squeezing it. I rounded on the two policemen. ‘He’s not …’

  ‘Not dead, no.’ Vickers ground out the words, his voice sounding rusty and worn. ‘But he’s not in a good way, my dear.’

  ‘Head injuries,’ Blake explained. ‘It looks as if his attacker laid into him from close range with a blunt object of some kind, very violently. You can see the damage that was done to the car.’

  I could, and I couldn’t imagine how anyone could survive an attack like that.

  As if he had read my mind, Vickers nodded towards the car. ‘Being in there might have saved his life. The frame would have protected him from the worst of it. Confined space, you see. No room for a decent swing.’ He mimed striking a blow and my stomach turned over. I swayed, feeling sweat break out across my back and prickle beneath my breasts. My hands and feet were like ice and my head spun. I shut my eyes on the scene, as if I could make it go away if I didn’t look at it. The darkness was so close; it would be so easy to slip down into it, away from everything. Hands that I knew belonged to Blake held on to my shoulders and squeezed, hard.

  ‘Easy now. Deep breaths.’

  I took in a few good lungfuls of the clean night air, keeping my eyes closed, dimly aware that he was turning me away from the car, away from the patch of ground that was slick with blackish liquid, liquid that I now understood was blood. He manoeuvred me to the garden wall and pushed me down so I could sit on it, holding on to me until I was able to wave him away and assure him that yes, I wouldn’t fall.

  A long way off, I could hear him explaining to Vickers that Geoff had been in Curzon Close to see me, but that I hadn’t seen him after ten thirty. A silence fell between the two detectives. I could almost hear Vickers’ mind working.

  ‘OK,’ he said eventually. ‘So our lad came here and got sent away with a flea in his ear. But he didn’t go far. Why?’

  I had recovered enough to speak. ‘He said he wanted to hang around for a bit. He said – he said there were weird characters about.’

  ‘Is that the exact phrase he used?’ Vickers asked swiftly.

  I nodded.

  ‘What did he mean by that?’ Vickers wondered, mostly to himself. ‘Maybe he’d seen something.’

  ‘Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to hang around,’ Blake said.

  I felt myself blushing. ‘That’s what I assumed. I thought he just needed to calm down before going back home. He w
as having a cigarette when I looked out.’

  Vickers rubbed his face with his hands, producing a dry, rasping sound from the bristles that were beginning to frost his jawline. ‘So the lad is all hot and bothered and doesn’t know which way is up, and he decides to cool off out here.’

  ‘I think it was partly to show me he wasn’t going to go away just because I asked him to.’

  Vickers nodded. ‘More than likely. So he’s sitting out here, minding his own business as far as we know – you’ll check around when it gets to be more knocking-on-doors o’clock, won’t you, Blakey? Just ask if anyone heard anything strange in the small hours. Though this is the closest house to where the incident took place.’ He looked at me. ‘Is that your bedroom up there, right at the front? Well, if you didn’t hear anything, I wonder who would have. No new mothers along this road, are there?’

  I shook my head, amused in spite of myself, and he looked disappointed. ‘Best witnesses in the world, they are. Up at unsociable hours, nothing to do but feed their babies and look out of the window. Nursing mothers and pensioners, they’re my two favourite kinds of witness.’

  Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I looked at the boxes and bags by the road and frowned.

  ‘What is it?’ Blake asked, his eyes watchful.

  ‘Nothing – just that there was supposed to be a charity collection this morning. I thought I heard them earlier, clattering around. I was half asleep – I don’t really know what time it was. But it’s still too early for them now, isn’t it?’ I looked at my wrist distractedly, only to realise that I hadn’t put my watch on. I looked back up to see Blake and Vickers exchanging meaningful glances. ‘You don’t think – I didn’t hear it, did I?’

  Neither of them responded, letting me come to my own conclusion. ‘Oh, God.’

  Blake cleared his throat. ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’m going to have a word with the uniforms. We need to sort out retrieval of the vehicle.’

  ‘Can’t leave it sitting there,’ Vickers said, nodding. ‘Get plenty of pictures before they move it though – make sure the SOCOs take this one seriously. It’s an attempted murder anyway.’

  I looked from him to Andrew Blake, reading in their faces what neither of them was saying out loud. They were planning to treat this as if it was a murder investigation. Which meant there was a good chance that Geoff might die.

  Blake crossed the road to where one of the police cars was still parked, and the two occupants levered themselves out to talk to him. I watched them chatting and joking while Vickers continued to speak, dropping words as dry as dust into my ear, more for his benefit than mine.

  ‘So he’s sitting there, middle of the night. Maybe he’s walked around for a bit to help himself get over the little scene he’s had with you. Did he embarrass himself? Thought so. Made a bit of a tit of himself in front of the girl he likes, and now he’s getting over it. He drives a Golf. Nice little car, but you don’t attack someone to take their car if they drive a Golf. A Merc or a Jag or a BMW maybe, but not a little VW. Plus, you don’t attack someone in their car if it’s the car you want. Blood and all sorts all over the inside. Who wants to drive around in a mess like that? You drag him out onto the road, give him a few lumps to stop him getting up and causing you problems, then drive off, sweet as you like.’

  Vickers sighed, his eyes focused on the rear of the car. I could tell he wasn’t seeing the wrecked car that was parked on the road, but the car as it had been hours before, perfect, carefully kept, clean and shiny. ‘I come up, ready to do damage,’ he said softly. ‘I start off with the driver, don’t I? Stop him from driving off. I get the door open and I start bashing. He fights back, or maybe he doesn’t get the chance, but he slides over towards the passenger seat and I don’t have a great angle on him any more. I think I’ve done enough to take care of the driver, but I’m still angry. I don’t feel like I’ve got satisfaction yet. There’s still the car, though. I can work off my feelings on that. So I break the windows on my side of the car and go round to the back to do the rear window. Nice big target, that. Then I get out my knife and I do the tyres. I can’t be bothered, for some reason, to come round to the left side of the car. Why is that?’

  ‘Not enough room?’ I suggest. The neighbours’ hedge needed a trim; leaves boiled out over the footpath. There was barely enough space to walk between the parked car and the overgrown bushes.

  Vickers frowned. ‘Could be. But it could also be that I don’t see the car from that side. I’ve been looking at it from the right – gazing at it, maybe. It’s become the focus for all I’m feeling. I identify it strongly with the person I’m attacking.’ He turned to look across the road to the houses that faced us. ‘It’s as if someone was watching. I wonder if any of your neighbours saw someone funny lurking around.’

  I looked in the same direction, suddenly seeing the front gardens as potential hiding places, feeling that prickling sensation that had plagued me for days, the feeling that I was being watched. I wondered if I should say anything to Vickers. I wondered if I was going mad.

  Before I could speak, Vickers continued. ‘The one thing this crime scene does tell me is that the attacker knew his victim and knew that the car meant a lot to him. So we can ask Mr Turnbull about his associates when he’s up to talking to us.’ The tone of his voice gave away what he was really thinking. If he’s up to talking to us.

  Geoff had always been fussy about his car. He would groom it before getting into it, whisking dead leaves and detritus out from under the windscreen wipers, inspecting it front and back for signs of damage. ‘The car was in mint condition. You could have guessed he loved it,’ I said slowly. ‘You wouldn’t need to know him for that.’

  ‘But you would need to know him, or know something about him, to attack him like that, do you see?’ Vickers countered. ‘I’ve seen a fair bit of violence one way or another, and that scene there is all about raw feeling.’ He looked at the car again, hands on his hips, and shook his head. ‘I just wish I knew how this fitted in.’

  ‘Fitted in? Fitted in with what?’

  Vickers gave me a look. ‘You don’t think that this is connected with what’s happened to poor little Jenny Shepherd? Why else do you think Blake and I are here?’

  ‘But I don’t see –’ I began. He put his hand on my arm.

  ‘Sarah, look at the facts. We’ve got a young girl dead. This man, who was known to her, who is one of her teachers, turns up far from home in a street that, as the crow flies, is not far at all from where Jenny lived. He’s been half-killed by person or persons unknown. Jenny’s suffered a violent death. This is too much of a coincidence for me to ignore it. Anything that happens on this estate – anything – could have something to do with Jenny’s murder. I’ve now got two very violent crimes that are well outside the usual run of criminal activity in this area. If I look at each of them in isolation, I’ll make a bit of progress here and there; I might get lucky and run across a witness, or my murderer might just be waiting for a chance to confess. Not very likely, but it does happen. If I keep them separate, I’m waiting for a breakthrough that might never come on both of them. But put them together, and I start seeing all sorts of patterns, do you understand? Points of coincidence. It’s like algebra; you need two parts of the problem to get the third.’ The DCI’s face was bright with enthusiasm for his job; he really loved what he did. I was momentarily sidetracked by the reference to algebra, my mind off chasing a rabbit that was the memory of being told I had no mathematical capabilities, none at all …

  Vickers went on, ‘Now, don’t be fooled into thinking I’ve decided that whoever killed Jenny is also to blame for this. It’s a possibility, and it’s got to be explored, but I’m not fixated on that, you understand. There are lots of ways these two crimes can be connected, Sarah. Lots of ways.’

  I caught a sideways look from those sharp eyes and, like a good pupil, offered a suggestion. ‘Revenge?’

  ‘Right you are.’ He beamed at me in an
avuncular way. ‘Our boy Geoff could have been up to his neck in what happened to Jenny, and it doesn’t take a genius to spot that. He’s a bit of a lad, I’ve heard. We know Jenny was sleeping with someone, and he certainly had the opportunity to get to know her, to tell her she was special, to get her to do whatever he asked of her. Wouldn’t be the first time a teacher took advantage, would it?’

  ‘But that doesn’t fit in with what Jenny told Rachel,’ I objected. ‘Or the photograph she showed her.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Vickers said carefully, ‘believe every word of what Rachel told us. Jenny might have lied to her, to put her off the scent. And Rachel might be lying to us, even now. Someone might be trying to get us to look in the wrong direction. We haven’t found the photograph, you know, or anything else that would prove Rachel was telling us the truth.’

  I couldn’t believe that Geoff had been sleeping with Jenny; he wasn’t like that, but I knew that the chief inspector wouldn’t listen to me any more than he had listened to Rachel. ‘Jenny was pregnant. Can’t you check the DNA to find out if he was the father?’

  ‘Don’t worry, we will. But it will take a while for the results to come back. Besides, the point just now isn’t whether Geoff Turnbull was guilty of abusing Jenny Shepherd, but whether someone might believe that he was. Someone puts two and two together. Maybe they have a bit more information than we do. Maybe it’s just a hunch. But whatever it is, they feel they have to do something to get justice for Jenny, and they aren’t prepared to wait for the Old Bill to get around to it.’

  In my mind’s eye I saw Michael Shepherd, a man transformed by grief, a man with a dark look in his eyes, and knew that Vickers saw the same thing. I could imagine the explosive power that might be unleashed if that combination of rage, guilt and suspicion acquired a target.