“I was just realizing that if this was someone who had just recently befriended your sister and there were no real connections leading back to them, then why go to such lengths to hide the body; unless this is something they have done before and plan on doing again.”
A chill ran up Clair’s spine. “So you think there may be other women out there that went missing that met with this person?”
“Oh, I know there is.” Tom was starting to mentally note the best locations in Coppersfield to hide a body. The list was a lot longer than he liked.
*****
He watched silently as the woman climbed from her blue mini. She was tall and slender with long blond hair. Just the way he liked them. He had been watching her for over 20 years. He drew a deep breath and tried to imagine the smell of her hair, the silky touch of her skin. He could imagine the stark deep red of her blood against her pale complexion.
With a sigh, he regained his control. He hated it when he could not have what he wanted. But deep down he knew that she was too close to home, he had learned that lesson the hard way with Angela Harrison. His mind wandered back to the beating he had been given for the choice in his first victim. Never choose someone you know! Never take someone that can be traced back to you! Yes, that had stayed with him, and had served him well. It also, unfortunately, meant he could never have this one. She had been next on his bucket list all those years ago.
He watched as the wind whipped her blond waves around as she entered the café, the only consolation he could offer himself, was the fact that she was now too old to truly satisfy his hunger, but oh, it would have been nice to try.
*****
Lee entered the café. It was much busier than usual for this hour in the morning.
“Gosh, Elsie, what you doing, given out free food?”
Elsie smiled. “No, it’s the hint of spring in the air, dear; brings them all out with full appetites.”
Jim Watt and his friend sat by the window chatting over coffee. Dr Styles, who didn’t talk to anyone before 9am, sat at the other window devouring a cooked breakfast oblivious to the fact that his practice was due to open three minutes ago. Matt was waiting in line for coffee to go as he was heading down to Glasgow on business.
“Don’t worry; I will be back in plenty of time for the girls coming up today.” He assured Lee as he headed out the door.
Lee felt a pang of guilt that Elsie had been run ragged since the shop opened at 8am that morning.
“You sit down and have a coffee and I will deal with the rest,” said Lee. She continued to clear another five tables that had been in use, she gave out some takeaway orders and then as things quietened down she began to clear the kitchen.
Elsie giggled in the corner.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, just Dr Styles. He always forgets to pay in the morning. I would be scared to death if I were his first appointment in the morning. He will come in here at tea time all apologetic, you know, offering a big tip for running out on his bill this morning.”
Lee smiled at the absent-minded old man.
“Sorry you were left to it this morning. Tom didn’t get back from Glasgow until really late so I dropped Jess at school.”
“Don’t give it another thought, dear, I like to keep busy. You know the old saying, the devil makes work.”
“I saw John Caulder this morning on my way in, Elsie. He said all the tickets for his psychic night are already sold out.”
“Yes, I’m looking forward to it, are you?”
Lee avoided answering. “You know, Elsie, you have lived here forever, if I were to ask you about some of the men in the village, the ones over say sixty-five, who would you say were the strangest?”
“Define strange.”
“You know, just a funny vibe.”
Elsie thought about it as she looked round the room. “You see Jim over there. Now he is a sweet enough man, but I think.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He and his little friend there are into cupboards.”
“Cupboards? You mean like joinery, or antiques?”
“No.” Elsie rolled her eyes. “In the cupboard!” she whispered, over pronouncing the words.
Lee swallowed her laughter trying not to offend the older woman.
“I see.” She felt there was probably no point in following this line of conversation any further. Anyway, part of her felt that Tom for once had it wrong. Coppersfield was too small a place for someone to get away with anything like what Tom was suggesting without someone noticing.
*****
At 11am, Tom woke to the phone ringing. An over excited Danny was on the other end. Tom wanted to spend the day reading over his wife’s files, he felt as though fate was pulling him away from it and he was sure that there were answers buried in it somewhere. Reluctantly he dressed and headed down to the station house to see what his prodigy had found.
Danny was sitting at the computer, the printer was spitting out sheet after sheet.
Tom handed him a paper cup from the café. “What have you got?”
Danny gathered up the papers and handed them to him. Tom read through them.
“This doesn’t make sense, Danny. This one is 2007, if this is our guy, then taking it from Susanna Wheeling in 1968, that would mean there is forty years between the first and the last, that’s a long time to be active and go unnoticed. Supposing he was in his twenties to early thirties when he started that would mean he was in his sixties maybe seventies now. That would take a fit man of that age to over power a young woman in her twenties.”
“Not common, but certainly not impossible. And if you are right about him being from around here, farmers are strong men.”
“IF, he’s a farmer. That’s all supposition,” Tom said.
Danny leaned forward and handed Tom a picture of the girl. “You can’t deny the resemblance, she is his type.”
Tom sat back in the easy chair and rubbed his hand over his unshaven chin. She certainly did look like the others.
“So, what else have you got that makes you convinced that she is one of ours?” Tom asked.
Danny picked up a note pad beside the computer and flicked the pages back to the beginning. “Firstly, her name is Chloe Davis. She was twenty-four when she vanished. She was in the service industry, part-time bar work. She was training to be a lawyer at Glasgow University.”
“So she was smart.”
“On the morning of August 16th, she left her home to meet with some friends. Her car was parked in Glasgow and there is some CCTV footage of her walking toward the bar where she worked in, but it was closed at that time. She turns the corner and just vanishes.”
“Let me guess, her car was left behind, no one has seen her since, and no one reported a disturbance in the area at that time.”
“On the money, Sarge. I think she is most defiantly one of ours.”
“Has anyone checked to see if she is on any other CCTV footage anywhere else in the city?”
“Yes, there was no sign of her. This was in 2007; the importance of a young girl disappearing was taken far more seriously. She was on the news for some time. Her family tried to keep the story alive, but there was simply nothing new to report.”
“You said she turned a corner and vanished. Were the cameras down in that street?”
“No, there are no cameras, just a black spot.”
“What about her friends, did they say where they were to meet?”
“That’s the thing, there isn’t anything in here about her friends, I don’t know if the statements are missing or what. Something defiantly worth looking into.”
“Did they recover anything from her, a bag or purse or anything?”
“Nothing, Sarge.”
“What’s the status of her file?”
“Open abduction case. They did not even consider the possibility that she ran off. The difference forty years can make to the force, ehh. If they had taken Susanna Wheeling as seriously, you and I might not have been havin
g this conversation.”
“You could say the same about anyone of these women.” Tom sighed and rubbed his face. “Like everything else, Danny, the force learns from its mistakes.”
Danny handed Tom the completed file he had compiled. He sat silently as Tom looked over the pages.
“I think I will go down and speak to the family, I also think its time we spoke to the DI.”
“You can, but he told me to leave off Angela Harrison. He said it was beyond cold and not to look in to things unless there was new evidence.”
“I know, they’re all on this new drive of closing cases, if they can be done cheaply and easily with little man power. Well, there is not anything here to take to the CPS, but we have to show him what we have so far. If nothing else, we really need to inform the intelligence officer in case someone else is looking into something similar.”
“Did you get anything new on Jenny Phillips?” Danny asked.
“A couple of papers and a shift diary. She was studying economics, so it looks as though he likes them smart. If you can set me up an appointment with Chloe’s family, I will try to match it with the DI. Kill two birds with one stone. I promised to go with Lee to see her Dad at the home today, so call me if you can get hold of the family.”
“Sure, Sarge.”
*****
Tom pulled up outside the café and pressed the horn. Lee appeared with a box of cakes.
“Thanks, Tom, Dad’s been asking after you lately. You’ll have to take Jess up soon; he has been really missing her.”
“I know, I just got caught up with this case.”
“I was asking Elsie if she found any of the older men in the village strange, but you don’t want to know how that conversation went.”
Tom always played his cards close to his chest, although he was close to Lee, she was still a civilian. “Be careful what you say to Elsie, this is an active investigation.”
Lee continued with idle chitchat as they drove down the hillside toward the nursing home in Arrochar.
Jimmy had been living there for three years since his stroke. Apart from a slight mobility problem, he had made a remarkable recovery for a man in his 70s. The home afforded him the freedom of living alone, but the safety of having someone on call at all times.
Tom pulled into the car park at the back of the home. A row of small bungalows backed on to it, each with their own small garden. The main building lay to the right of the bungalows and housed the patients that were unable to care for themselves.
Jimmy was in his garden planting bulbs in a large tub. His face lit with delight when he saw his daughter and only son in law.
“Good to see you, come on in.” Jimmy led the way into his small bungalow. There was one large room that doubled as a bedroom and a living room. At the bottom end there was a door leading to his wet room and off to one side was a small kitchen area with a kettle and a sink, other than a toaster, there were no cooking facilities. All meals, were brought to you, or served in the dinning room.
Lee kissed the old man on the head as he cleared newspapers from the couch. “I brought you some cakes, Dad; I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?”
Jimmy went on about how he missed seeing Jess and made Tom promise to bring her down for a visit.
“I’m glad you and Jess are living in the old place. It’s good to have new life in it again. I still miss it you know, Tom. Having said that, I don’t miss the upkeep or the maintenance.”
“Jess likes it there, Jimmy, and it is good to be close to family again.”
“So, what are you working on, Tom, I hear you’re up for retirement?”
“Well, it’s not finalised yet, I still have a little time left,” Tom replied.
“He’s been looking into the Angela Harrison case, Dad.”
The old man looked over his glasses at him. “Have you indeed.” He took a sip of his tea. “That was an awful time.”
“You remember it?”
“Yes, I was frightened to let my girls out of my sight.”
“Why, she disappeared in Aberdeen, there was never any suggestion that she came back to Coppersfield.”
“Well, firstly, they did suspect her boyfriend at the time. But those of us, who had been around the block a bit, knew that this was not the first time a pretty young girl had disappeared from around these parts.”
Tom looked over his mug questioningly. “What from Coppersfield.”
“Yes, we used to have a youth hostel next to the old church. They would normally be back packers or the like and they would just disappear. There would be an investigation and so forth, but nothing would turn up.”
“When did this happen, Jimmy?”
“Oh, the girls were just babies, maybe the fifties I guess.”
“I’m not that old, Dad; I wasn’t even born in the fifties,” Lee said, faking umbrage.
The old man thought about it, but Tom could see the confusion setting in.
“No, your right, love, must have been the early to mid-sixties, but when Angela disappeared, well, a lot of us thought it was happening again.”
“Angela disappeared in 1978, Jimmy,” Tom said.
“That’s about right.”
“So you’re saying women had been going missing up this way for as many as fifteen years before Angela Harrison?” Tom found this thought very disconcerting, this was going back to a time when he lived and played here.
“You have to remember, son, back then, it wasn’t uncommon to lose someone in the hills around here. Not to mention the lochs. But some of us had our own suspicions as to what had happened.”
“Do you remember the names of any of the girls?”
“No, son. Most didn’t even make the papers. They were back packers stopping off to pick up a couple of days work and the likes. There was one that caused a bit of a stir. She worked in a bar in Arrochar. She was pretty much a local, not a back packer. After that, things went quiet until Angela. Anyway, too long ago now.”
“Did you have any suspicions at the time?”
“We all had suspicions, son. Nevertheless, that was all they were. You don’t ruin a good mans reputation with suspicion.”
“Who was it?”
Jimmy looked at him.
“Well, Jimmy, who did you suspect?”
Tom could see the vein’s on the old mans head standing with frustration as he tried to recall a time long since passed.
“Too long ago, son, don’t remember. Anyway, what are you planning to do with yourself when you finish up?”
Tom could feel the frustration building. He attempted to push a little more but Jimmy had moved on to other things and would not go back. Tom considered the possibility that the old man simply could not recollect, he had suffered a stroke. Nevertheless, he could not shift the feeling that Jimmy was trying to protect him from something.
As the conversation moved on, Tom made a mental note to check for missing persons that varied from their perceived profile and dated back further. However, it did not add up that a man of that age could still be active, not unless he had a much younger accomplice.
*****
At 3.15pm, Jess and Gemma laughed and giggled their way to Ingaldean house. The magnificent building towered at the end of the long gravel drive.
“Wow, I wouldn’t mind living in a place like this Jess. I don’t suppose your uncle has a son?”
Jess laughed. “Come on, there’s Uncle Matt.”
Matt was just leaving the house to meet them. “Hi, girls, ready to meet your new friend, Jess.”
“My new friend?”
“Yep, follow me.” Matt led the girls around to the back of the house to the courtyard where the horses where stabled. A large block on the east side of the estate.
“Now this is important, girls. The horses are kept in the stalls on the north wall; supplies are on the south wall in the empty stalls. We don’t use the stalls on that side ok.” Matt led the girls to the first stall. “This is Harvey, 17 hands high, coat of silk. An
Arabian, only I ride him, got that.” The girls nodded mesmerized by the intimidating beast. The next stall held a much smaller horse. She was fawn with a white main.
“Oh, she is beautiful. What’s her name, Uncle Matt?”
“Well, Jess, that is up to you, this is my other little surprise. I know you have always wanted a horse, this way, she can be stabled up here and be taken care of like the others and you can visit and exercise her anytime you like. However, you have to be responsible for her though. Visit regularly, muck out and so on.”
Jess gasped in disbelief. “Really, she’s really mine. What about Dad?”
“You leave him to me, love.” Matt had always spoiled Jess, but a horse? Even Jess did not see that coming. She opened the stall and stretched out her hand to the beautiful creature. The horse shook her head and nuzzled at Jess.
“What are you going to call her?” asked a grinning Gemma. Although a slight twinge of jealousy lay deep, she was not averse to basking in Jess’s good fortune. The two girls thought while they stroked her white main. Matt looked on feeling proud at the delight.
“How about Shadow or Snowball.” Gemma rhymed off name after name.
“Rain. I think she suits Rain.”
“What, as in pouring down with?” Gemma asked, a little disappointed.
“Yeah, I like it.”
“Don’t worry, Gemma, I haven’t forgotten about you.” Matt walked to the next stall. An equally attractive horse stood nuzzling the hay; he was grey with white spots. “This is Apollo.” The horse shook its main and straw hung from its mouth and lay tangled in its main. “Granted, he doesn’t look as sophisticated as the others at the moment, but he is a fun boy, great character, anytime you come up with Jess, you can ride him.”
Delighted with the generosity, Gemma fell over herself thanking Matt.
Matt went through the safety instructions of the stables and showed Gemma how to saddle up. She had only ridden a horse a handful of times and was not familiar with all the technicalities that had to be checked before taking one out.
“Now, Gemma, do you need to be guided.”
“No, Mr Ingles, I think I can manage.” Saddled and ready to go Jess and Gemma led the horses out in to the yard. They were under strict instructions not to leave the estate where the land was flat and had no traffic.
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