Case One
Page 16
Holly thought about it – about the way Ashleigh had dodged her questions earlier, and about the texts she’d read. “No. She thinks she’s in love with him.”
“Right. So the only way to identify him is going to involve costs – either man-hours trawling through CCTV, or Technical trying to trace his phone – that’s if Ashleigh doesn’t warn him and he doesn’t ditch it.”
“Sarge—”
“Wait – but let’s say that we do find out who he is – we’ve still got to have sufficient grounds to arrest him, and there’s nothing: nothing to show they’ve had a sexual relationship.”
“We’ve got his DNA – the semen. That would prove it, wouldn’t it?”
“In theory, but first we’d need solid ground to arrest him. We haven’t got that so we can’t take his DNA to match against the semen sample.”
“What about the texts then?”
“Do any of them specifically say when we had sex yesterday? or, I want to have sex with you again?”
“Not exactly, but I haven’t read them all. There might be something…”
Woods shook his head.
“But if we don’t do anything… She’s not going to stop seeing him. Nothing’s going to change – she thinks it’s okay. She thinks they’re in love.”
“I know. So tomorrow I can put it to the DI – see if she’s prepared to spend the department budget, whether she wants to put the manpower into it and what the CPS view is.”
He put the photographs aside and stood up. And then Holly knew that this was as far as she could go. There wasn’t anything else.
“Okay. Thanks, Sarge,” she said. “Sorry you had to come in. I’ll get back to Custody.”
She started towards the door and had covered most of the distance before Woods said: “You want to know why?”
Holly stopped and turned back. “Why what?”
“Why I came in on my precious Sunday off?”
Holly wasn’t sure what this meant, or what the correct answer should be. “Er, yes,” she said.
“It’s because you don’t know the half of it,” Woods said.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. You don’t know how bad it might be.”
He paused, shifted slightly, then shoved a hand into his pocket. Holly could tell he was thinking something through so she said nothing, hoping this meant he wasn’t quite ready to walk away, despite what he’d just said.
“You asked Ashleigh about Bic, right?” Woods said in the end.
“Yeah. She pretended she thought I meant Bex.”
Again the DS gave it some thought.
“Do you know what grooming is?” he asked then.
Holly nodded. “When a man gradually builds up contact with an underage girl, getting her more and more involved so that in the end she’ll have sex with him?”
“Not just girls, but yes – and it’s not usually just one. A predatory paedophile can be in contact with several kids at the same time. So what worries me is what’ll happen if Ashleigh makes contact with Bic in the next few hours and he finds out we’re interested in him. If he does, the first thing he’ll do is ditch his phone and try to cover any trace of his contact with her. He’ll disappear, but we won’t just lose him – we’ll never know who else he’s doing this to either.”
“Could he do that – just disappear, I mean?”
“Depends how sophisticated he is. But there’s a good chance he’s lied to Ashleigh about where he lives, his real name, his job, everything. He could live fifty miles away and only come to the city to meet her.”
Holly nodded, realising it was true. Then she thought of something. “I don’t think he does though – I mean, I think he’s local.”
Woods frowned. “Why?”
“Because he usually calls her or sends texts every day, but there’s nothing on her phone from him since Friday. No missed calls, no new texts after she was knocked down. So I think he knows what happened, and that she’s in hospital.”
Woods thought about it. “Maybe,” he said.
Then Danny Simmons came in. From his expression it was clear he wasn’t sure what to expect and he looked at Woods – a question.
“Have you still got Ashleigh’s phone?” Woods asked him.
Danny nodded. “It’s upstairs in my desk.”
“You’d better get it then.”
“What about waiting till tomorrow?” Holly said, uncertain.
Woods shook his head. “I don’t think we can now. The cat’s half out of the bag and if you’re right about him being local it means we might have even less time before he tumbles. So let’s work out how we’re going to find him without tipping him off.”
17.
STAINSBY WARD
QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL
16:17 HRS
There was nothing else to do, just wait and try not to keep looking at the mobile which lay on the bedside cabinet, resolutely silent since Bic’s final text.
In the last hour Holly had become familiar with every inch of the hospital room: a single, bare bed, a couple of chairs, a few pieces of equipment. Nothing to hold your interest for more than a few seconds. And the view from the window where Holly stood now was little better. It was of a grey, rain-wet car park and landscaped banks of muddy grass. A few people came and went, but even though she watched every man she saw Holly knew there was no way to tell if one of them was the man they were waiting for. He’d probably look so ordinary that no one would look twice at him – no one except Ashleigh.
Or perhaps not only Ashleigh if DS Woods was correct. And from the seriousness with which Ray Woods was treating this operation, Holly knew that he really did fear the worst – that the man called Bic might not only be abusing Ashleigh Jarvis’s trust, but that of any number of others.
“They’ve cloned the SIM card,” Danny Simmons had told them when he returned to the Incident Room from Forensics. Then he’d passed a rather battered-looking mobile to Woods. “Anything we send from that will look as if it’s coming from Ashleigh’s number.”
“What about her real one?”
“Bagged and tagged in evidence. They copied all the data onto a CD. I called Mrs Jarvis at the hospital and said we’d be returning it tomorrow, just in case Ashleigh asks for it.”
“Okay,” Woods had said, then turned to Holly. “So now you’re Ashleigh. You’re lying in hospital, you’ve got your phone and your mum’s just gone out for a cup of tea or something. What do you do?”
“Text Bic.”
Woods nodded and picked up a pen. “So what are you going to say?”
And so it had started.
The first text had been the hardest because it had to look natural and gain Bic’s attention without raising suspicion. They’d talked about it, changed it and revised it for nearly twenty minutes before everyone was happy. Then Holly had copied the message off the whiteboard and onto the phone and pressed send.
14:23
Babe I feel terrible. Let me know ur there. I need 2 know. Everyones asking questions. A xx
And then the first wait, but only for a few minutes. In the meantime Woods had put in a call to the hospital and Holly had heard him bartering a favour with a nurse. By the time he’d done that the cloned phone had chimed.
14:28
R u ok? R u still in hospital? Im worried about u. xx
“I’ll bet he’s worried,” Danny said dryly when Holly had finished reading the text aloud. “Worried about what she’s saying.”
“And he knows she’s in hospital,” Woods said. He looked to Holly. “Okay, so what’s Ashleigh want to say now?”
“I think she’d want to sound cheerful,” Holly said. “You know, pretend it’s better than it is.”
14:32
Lots of bruises. Doctors say I have to stay here 3 or 4 days. Got a room of my own tho! Wish u could come. U make me feel safe. xx
The next reply was faster, as if the man at the other end of the connection was giving it his full attent
ion now.
14:34
Want to make u safe more than anything. Who is asking questions? xx
“Okay, we’re going,” Woods said. “We’ll reply on the way.”
14:44
Battery low. Mum gone home. No one coming this afternoon til 5. Im in room 7 Stainsby Ward. Please come if u can. Need to know what to say. Luv u xx
Holly had sent the last text from the back seat of Woods’s car as they drove to the hospital. Ten minutes later a staff nurse showed them to the empty room at the end of a corridor on Stainsby Ward – a floor below Ashleigh’s real room – and then the waiting had begun.
“He’ll come or he won’t,” Woods had said in answer to Holly’s unspoken question as they looked round the empty room. “No way to tell.”
And now, an hour later, they were still waiting.
Looking out of the window and watching the afternoon sky getting darker, Holly thought about Ashleigh Jarvis in a room upstairs, oblivious to what was going on below her.
Holly knew it wouldn’t be hard for Ashleigh to put on the make-up and clothes to pass for eighteen or nineteen: they all could. And Holly wasn’t so perfect that she hadn’t blagged her way into pubs and clubs that way herself. Not often, true, and not since she’d been accepted as a TPO, but enough that she understood the ripple of excitement at getting away with it and the addictiveness of being treated as an adult. When it happened the world looked different, and afterwards it was hard to go back to being your real age again.
Pretending to be Ashleigh – if only in texts – had felt strange and Holly had mixed feelings about it. She didn’t doubt that Ashleigh was in love with Bic, but by setting out to find him Holly and the others were going to destroy that. Perhaps worse though – at least to Ashleigh – would be the fact that they had made her feel like a kid again, not the adult she wanted to be.
And maybe she wasn’t so different to Ashleigh, Holly thought. After all, they both had their secrets, and every time she put on her uniform Holly was also pretending to be older and more worldly than she really was. She had just as much chance as Ashleigh of getting in over her head; just as much chance of being exposed for what she really was.
This last thought wasn’t a comfortable one, but Holly found it hard to shift. So when Danny Simmons opened the door of the room with a Coke and a coffee in his hands Holly was glad of the distraction.
“Anything?” he asked, nodding at the phone.
Holly shook her head. “Where’s the DS?”
“End of the corridor. He went to talk to the nurses.”
Danny put the drinks down and looked at his watch. Holly didn’t bother to ask what he thought. She knew there was still no way to tell whether this was going to work.
“Is it okay if I nip out for a couple of minutes?” she asked.
“Best not. Why?”
“Loo break – unless you’ve got a bed pan.”
Danny made a play of patting his pockets. “Sorry, all out – okay, but don’t hang about though.”
“I won’t.”
18
Charlie liked Sundays. Usually. Even though he knew it was supposed to be boring and dull and always the same, it was the predictability of the routine that made it reassuring: Sunday-best clothes, then church, then a roast lunch. Later: ironing, homework, getting ready for the week ahead. Some TV in the evening, bath or a shower, then bed in good time. That was always how it went.
But not today. Lunch had been late, and then the atmosphere had been sullen and quiet because Ryan hadn’t appeared like he was supposed to and that had annoyed their father. Then, after they’d eaten more or less in silence, Leyton Atkins had spent an hour on the phone trying to get the insurance company to provide him with the hire car he thought he was entitled to but which they said he wasn’t. Without the car he’d have to take three different buses to get to work, and after recent lay-offs at the joinery factory, Charlie knew his dad was worried about being late and putting his job on the line.
Charlie was worried too – about what Tyler Smith would do next. And he was also angry with himself – for not having done something before, for not standing up to Tyler yesterday in the stairwell. What he should have done was tell him then: Leave me alone or I go to the cops and say who was in the minimart.
Charlie wished now that he’d told Ryan about all this last night when he’d had the chance. He hadn’t because he didn’t want to seem like a useless kid, but he’d have swallowed his pride and explained things to Ryan if he’d appeared for lunch. So when he didn’t, Charlie knew there was no choice: he would have to do something himself, before it got worse.
“I’m just going down to the rec area,” he told his father.
“Be back before it’s dark,” Mr Atkins said without looking up from the insurance paperwork. Not a request.
Charlie nodded. “Might be sooner. I’ll see who’s there.”
“And don’t get those jeans filthy.”
“I won’t,” Charlie said.
He left the sitting room and slipped into the kitchen for a moment. When he came out he took his jacket from the peg, then went along the hall and twisted the door lock. “See you later,” he called, and he was gone.
19.
STAINSBY WARD
QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL
16:22 HRS
As Holly emerged from the toilet she almost walked into Lauren Booth. The girl was carrying a coat over her arm and a bunch of flowers in her hand. She was looking at the room numbers as she went along the corridor and perhaps for that reason she didn’t immediately recognise Holly. When she did she seemed surprised.
“Oh, hiya,” she said. “I was looking for Ash’s room. Do you know where it is?”
“She’s upstairs,” Holly said. “Hucknall Ward.”
“Oh. I thought it was Stainsby.”
“No. Sorry.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll try up there then. Thanks.”
Lauren turned and started back towards the lifts, just as Holly thought of something.
“Lauren, hang on a sec. Who told you that Ashleigh was here, on this floor?”
Lauren frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Did you call the hospital to find out which ward she was on?”
“No, it was my dad.”
Holly glanced round. “Is he with you?”
Lauren shook her head. “He stayed in the car. Why?”
“Oh, no reason, just wondered. Say hi to Ashleigh for me.”
“I will.”
She waited until Lauren had gone back around the corner, then moved quickly to Room 7.
DS Woods was standing with his back to the window when she entered and Danny Simmons looked up from the chair.
“Find a bed pan?”
Holly ignored him and looked to Woods. “Sarge, the hospital’s telling anyone who rings or comes in that Ashleigh can’t have visitors at the moment, aren’t they?”
“Yeah.” Woods nodded. “Why?”
“I just saw Lauren Booth in the corridor. She was coming here to see Ashleigh.”
“Here? This room?” Danny Simmons asked.
“Yeah. She said her dad had called to find out where Ashleigh was, but if the hospital’s saying no visitors…” She didn’t bother to finish the sentence. She could see Woods coming to the same conclusion that she had.
“Was he with her?” Woods asked.
“No. Lauren said he was waiting in the car.”
Woods took out his radio. “Delta Mike from DS Woods. Vehicle check, please. Any vehicle with a registered keeper Colin Booth, 165 Escott Road.”
“Received. Standby.”
Woods picked up the mobile from the bedside cabinet and turned to Danny Simmons. “Stay here in case we’re wrong,” he said.
“DS Woods from Delta Mike. Re your vehicle check: only one vehicle shown for that address. Registered keeper Colin Ian Booth. A silver Vauxhall Astra. Index Yankee Papa 54 Alpha Alpha Echo.”
“Received. Thanks.”
“Sarge – Colin Ian Booth – C.I.B. Backwards that’s Bic.”
Woods looked at her, then gestured to Danny. “Forget staying,” he said. “Come on. Sharpish.”
And he was heading for the door before Danny Simmons was out of the chair.
20
Taz knew that Bex was putting it on, swinging between tears and anger and making out that it was because of the cider. She’d drunk nearly two cans – her own and most of Taz’s – but Taz knew Bex wasn’t really drunk and she was tired of the pretence. All she wanted to do was go in out of the cold.
She’d finally managed to persuade Bex to go back to hers, but as they headed towards Cranham House Bex spotted Tyler Smith and Skank standing together looking morose. There was no sign of Drew, which was good, but instead of keeping away from the two boys, Bex changed direction towards them.
“They can tell Drew,” she said when Taz protested. “They can bloody tell him I’m not seeing him no more. I’m dumping him.”
When Skank saw them approaching he nudged Tyler. “Oi-oi. Reckon we’ve pulled,” he said.
Tyler looked, but with no real interest. He was still stinging from Drew’s earlier bollocking and he was in no mood for Skank’s lame jokes, or a pair of stupid girls – especially when one of them was Drew’s bird.
“All right, girls,” Skank said with a leer. He moved forward to meet them. “What’s up?”
At first Charlie wasn’t sure that the figure at the back of the group was Tyler Smith. He was with another lad and a couple of girls and Charlie could only see his back. One of the girls was making exaggerated gestures and speaking loudly, laying down the law. It wasn’t until the other lad saw Charlie and said something that Tyler looked round.
In that moment Charlie hesitated. When Tyler came away from the others and marched towards him, Charlie strengthened his determination to go through with this. He had the reassurance in his pocket to help quell the weightless sensation he felt in his stomach, but he could see that Tyler’s expression was brooding and malevolent.