by George Rufus
Kate stepped outside the room, with the excuse of ringing the station, but also to have a nose about in the rest of the rooms on the bottom floor. She found herself in a passageway with family photos on the walls, various local scenes and certificates outlining both parents’ medical backgrounds. As she waited for the number she had rung to be answered she peered around the doorways of the cottage, which was more of a longhouse in its size, to see equally expensive decor and furnishings.
A study further down the passageway, had a surprisingly large wall cabinet with some heavy duty locks, which from shape and size, looked to be a gun cabinet. This assumption was supported by numerous photos of group shooting pictures and a couple of son, daughter and father poses. These were photos that look like they were taken on Dartmoor after a quick glance. As a local girl, who grew up near the moor and who did the infamous Ten Tor challenge, Kate recognised the familiar steely granite scenery.
Kate' s attention was then snapped back as a phone call came in from the station. She hurried back into the kitchen, apologising for interrupting but asking Rob to step outside so they could talk.
"Bloody hell Rob, we've another missing person report, you wait all day for a bus and then they all turn up at once."
"Right, let's reassure Mrs S about our intentions, promise to return later to speak to the her and her husband if necessary and get to the next. I am assuming there is no one else available?"
"They are both teenagers, albeit this one a bit older, so the chief wants us handing it."
After a lengthier goodbye with Mrs Sellars, than they wanted and a multitude of reassurances to keep her informed, Rob and Kate found themselves back on the road to Tavy to the station.
"Glad we stopped for that pasty earlier," Rob said, "it's going to be a long day!"
Chapter Five
As they entered the station by the front door, they were met by raised voices, as the desk sergeant tried to control a heated situation with a bedraggled young man in his twenties who would not sit down, calm down or shut up.
"Can I help Sir?" Rob offered, hoping to diffuse the ruckus.
"This young man, has come in to report a missing person, Detective, but I can't get a word in edge ways to explain procedure,"
"No one's fucking listening are they? My girlfriend is out there on the moor, for all I know bloody murdered, lying in a ditch and he wants to go through fucking procedures,"
"No need for the language sir", piped up Kate who had been in the background silently watching the reactions of other people queueing at the reception to be see. Her polite but firm having the desired effect, as the young man glanced around at the other members of the public, including a child who were staring anxiously at him.
"Sorry, sorry," he backtracked apologetically, rubbing his whole face in an effort to pull himself together and get himself back on track." Can someone please let me explain what has happened, I am worried sick, I was stuck on the moor, no phone, the bloody.....sorry the car wouldn't start , no one in the bloody farmhouse, I've had to walk miles and I can''...." he stopped, his voice straining with hyperventilation and unable to breathe long enough to talk.
" Let's go through to an interview room sir and take down some details. Somewhere more private."
Rob ushered the apparently knackered, distraught young man through to a back interview room.He sat at a table, totally deflated and barely able to look up, whilst wiping his eyes and trying to control his breathing. Kate appeared with three styrofoam cups of hot drinks and started explaining the reasons for missing person's procedures and asking some simple questioning to ascertain necessary details. As she calmly and clearly asked for the details, Rob sipped on the weak hot water with a remote taste of cheap tea and watched the young man's face. He wanted to believe Ian's story of falling innocently asleep whilst he waited for his girlfriend’s reappearance. His mind wandered back for a few seconds, to the other situation this morning and his fears of foul play. Then he pondered on the links, two girls, one nineteen, one sixteen, both missing, same night though.
He mentally re-joined the room as he heard Kate ask Ian if he had had any disagreements during the previous day with Freda and to go over the details of her injury to her ankle once more, but more thoroughly.
Bursting with frustration and showing a short fused temper, that did nothing for his cause, Ian leapt to his feet, sending his chair clattering to the floor screaming at full volume that they were wasting valuable time.
Instantly Kate was on her feet and prepared to caution or restrain, but Rob merely stood up picked up the chair and asked in low tones for Ian to reseat himself or he would need to cool off somewhere for a while, which definitely wasted time.
Red in the face, eyes frantic and almost hyperventilating Ian pulled himself back to get her and sat on the recovered chair, looking embarrassed at his outburst.
After a further hour of discussion, Rob and Kate left the room to discuss their next move.
"Let's see if we can get a team of volunteers out to do an initial of search the area at Tavy Cleave." Rob put forward.
"That's if they ever drove there and camped in the first place, he's got a hell of a short fuse Rob."
"I can see that. We may also need more man power if this isn't sorted in the next twelve hours, it is the height of the season and we need to locate both these girls."
Within a few hours, they had had more backup and manpower allowed. A team from Dartmoor Search and Rescue had set off to walk around the area with Ian, recovering his alleged route from the night before. His flaky story, no mobile, his car not starting and moreover the somewhat far-fetched story of falling asleep while she had a pee, wasn't washing with everyone. Least of all Kate, who had him summed up as an irate angry man.
Later that afternoon, Rob and Kate found themselves with Dr Sellars talking over his daughter's disappearance. He had arrived at the station demanding his rights as a parent and a pillar of the community, wanting his daughter found as a national emergency.
“Can you rethink again Mr Sellars, why Andrea might have..."
"Dr Sellars actually and I don't like your tone", replied the man in the chair dressed head to toe in an outfit designed for a teenager not a middle aged man.
"Not sure titles matter at this stage,” quipped Rob, trying to avoid the all telling stare Kate was giving him, that was the same as a tannoy announcement of what a bloody hypocrite he was.
“My daughter is a normal happy, healthy, well-loved teenager. Very bright, popular and about to get some outstanding GCSE results, so she can achieve her dreams of going onto medical school'" blurted out the exasperated father, in a tone that suggested the two police officers sat in front-of him had no idea what a real career was.
After a deep breath to steady her contempt for the arse of a man sat in front of her, she decided to rattle his gold gilded cage a little more and go for really personal.
"So there are no reasons why your daughter may have any recent or ongoing unhappiness that might lead her to leave home, unable to speak to either you or your wife about what was troubling her?" Her tone was matter of fact and exacting, demanding an answer and immediately unsettled the doctor, who played with his hands on the table. He breathed slowly and deliberately, whilst he appeared to be pulling at an imaginary piece of skin on the side of his nail.
“Nothing that most families don't go through, little ups and downs, which we deal with and may I say I resent your tone."
"We would equally resent valuable police time and resources, if we felt any information was held back from us whilst trying to relocate your daughter, as quickly as possible, " retorted Kate in as firm a voice, as Rob had ever heard before. The doctors’ arrogance had really got under her skin and he waited for some shred of a conciliatory offering to be given on the doctors part.
“We row like all families, but we have healthy discussions to rectify any unhealthy agendas".
Kate's patience ran out at this point, having spent considerable time earlie
r trying to console Christine Sellars, who had broken down and explained their house had not been a happy one due to her husband’s inability to keep his professional relationship with his receptionist just that. Kate was presuming that is why he had gone into work to ensure some previous commitment, overriding the disappearance of his daughter, which made him a number one scum bag in Kate's eyes.
The conversation was taken up by Rob who decided that without actually being able to arrest the doctor for being insensitive and arrogant, they needed to move on. With the affair aired and a slim recognition by the father that this may have caused some upset to his daughter, they outlined their next steps and the timeframe they worked to in such circumstances.
Later that evening, much later than normal, Kate drove off to her home in Princetown, which she shared with her husband Jeff, a prison officer, vowing to be back in early the next day, unless needed in the night. A second night missing for both girls was concerning, witnesses had backed up some of Ian's details about leaving the car together but little else after that. Meanwhile Andrea's disappearance was still baffling everyone.
With peak season, nothing linking both girls and still a lot of groundwork to be covered, there needed to be a lid on any hysterical links between the two disappearances.
Chapter Six
The phone rang. It rang again, repeatedly ignored, while Rob surfaced from a deep sleep. He hastily picked up and grunted his rank, demanding the time and who it was ringing at this ungodly hour.
He was soon bought back to reality when his eyelids unstuck, realised it was early dawn and that he was being informed that a body had been found. A body of a young woman.
“Fuck! Fuckadoodledo!" He muttered under his breath, as he threw on his clothes and dialled his neighbours number to ask for earlier than planned child care. He knew this was now a different scenario, two missing girls and one female body. Which one? He involuntarily shuddered. Then he shuddered again, when he thought about the possibly of it being neither.
He drove to near Wilsworthy ranges, to a small car park on the edge of the main road, that lead from Mary Tavy towards Sourton. He had a horrible clawing feeling about the disappearance of the young sixteen year old at this point but was too busy trudging over mud, rocks and the uneven pathway created by use as a bridle way that lead to the place where the body had been, to dwell on any theories.
The small reservoir, a fifteen minute walk in, was a hive of activity. Every section of police force investigative forces was there in increasing numbers. Rob flashed his ID, Kate had beaten him there and emerged from a tented area, pale and obviously moved. Rob realised that it was probably her first dead body. Despite her hard hitting approach, her tough prison officer husband and a lifestyle that screamed control, she had a soft centre that right now needed some privacy.
He entered the temporary screened poly tunnel, nodded acknowledgement of those around he knew and watched as the body just dragged from the reservoir was laid in a body bag ready for removal.
“First impression?", he tentatively asked of the senior police pathologist present, knowing the lecture he'd receive about no assumptions prior to autopsy.
"Surprised you'd even ask me," snapped back Barry Osbourne, well known as the grumpiest sod alive, on days when he was called out early in foul weather.
"Presents like a classic drowning to me," naively commented a nearby very young assistant.
As death stares go, the look received and duly noted by everyone in view, was enough to put out the fear of god and total silence descended.
If you walked into the scene you could have momentarily felt it was out of respect for the dead young girl at the scene, but the severe reprimand being handed out five minutes later, to the assistant as the crowd dispersed, would soon have cleared up any confusion.
The detective waited around to ask a few more easily answered questions about the discovery of the body, time, witnesses and impressions, before walking back to his car in the relentless driving rain that so often immortalised the moors. With a light weight promise of autopsy results by eight the next morning, he trudged back to the car realising with a heavy heart he had to ask for a formal identification of the body by closest relative. Not a job any officer relished, but a job he would not shy from. He rang Kate, checking he had signal and asked her to meet him at Britain’s oldest working police station, their base, at Tavistock. It would take the two of them to check the next of kins' details and ensure that the procedure was as sensitive and correctly seen through as possible.
Working through records and the state of the body, it became apparent, over the next few hours, that the body would need to be identified as soon as possible and that would be her boyfriend, who was currently local. Her parents lived in Sweden but they couldn't currently be contacted.
Arriving outside one of the Duke of Bedford's cottages, where Ian was known to be currently staying, Rob rang the doorbell early evening, only to be met by a heavily scowling and flushed woman, who asked in a loud and exasperated whisper what he wanted. He asked if an Ian Jenkins was staying at the house, only to be told to abruptly to wait there.
The door was hastily closed and Rob heard the angry tones of the woman yelling for Ian to get to the door, with a loud after-remark that she hoped he wasn't bringing any more trouble to their door.
An unshaven Ian appeared and invited Rob in, asking immediately, if there was any news about his girlfriend. Rob asked if they could sit somewhere privately, only to find the unpleasant sour young woman making a meal of leaving the room, until he directly asked her to allow them five or so minutes to discuss a police matter. After a bizarre display of tutting, she left begrudgingly.
Ian had sat down quietly, pale at the serious note in Rob's voice and barely able to breathe on the news that a young woman's body had been found and they needed Ian to identify if it were Freda. Completely distraught and pacing the room like a trapped wild animal, Rob found his voice becoming lower and lower, firmer and more deliberate as he tried to regain the shell shocked young man's attention the point in hand.
Eventually after ten minutes of practically leading him from the house, they made their way to the morgue, meeting Kate there. During the entire journey Rob had found himself listening to the ramblings of self-blame, that Ian obviously felt for not safeguarding his nineteen year old girlfriend, on a camping trip, that had turned into a living nightmare, he clearly could not logically cope with it at all. The young man grew silent on entering the building and could barely force himself to look at the body presented in the inner confines of the relatives viewing area of the morgue.
The anguished howl that broke from deep in his body spiralled into a horrifying scream, when he acknowledged Freda's body, slowly and pitifully he relapsed into sobs that racked his entire body, as both Rob and Kate tried to relocate him into another area with seats.
With a positive identification and full autopsy results, showing a massive trauma to the head, Rob and Kate were now leading a murder enquiry, with the disquieting niggle that they still hadn't located the missing sixteen year old, Andrea Sellars. The chief would be breathing down their neck for results.
Chapter Seven
Anger that remains deep within you can make anyone lose all sense of reality. Paranoia can become a part of that daily life that creates vicious feelings of mistrust, like a cancer consuming a person inside and out.
Life becomes a systematic process that you stumble through. It is so much easier to blame others for misfortune than looking at your own twisted perceptions of reality.
Life becomes unbearable and it can take one trigger to spark a tirade of thoughts that give peace with the warped belief that relief will be given if revenge is appropriately taken.
One step further and actually the revenge seems the only viable solution to ease the misery and unhappiness. Actually carrying out that plan is too far for most.But not him.
Not this person. This person was going to inflict pain and suffering, exacting revenge
like a dose of heartburn relief, each act would lessen the heartache suffered and the knock on effect that had created a life not worth living. The past would not go away,but no line could be drawn until dues were paid by those who owed him. Then the future could begin and he was now in a hurry to start drawing that line, so he could live a new life, cleansed by the collection of dues owed to him.
It was a calm clear plan that he felt nothing but steely resolve to see through to the end.
Some owed more than others. There would be various paybacks. Over the years some had moved away and escaped his list, but not all.Right now someone else was about to suffer. The third person on the list that had significantly injured him. He had waited ten years to finish this. It would help set a life back on track. They would die, suffer and be hurt. He had suffered and no one had cared. He did not care.
What goes around, comes around.
Freda was the price that Ian had to pay. Ian had to know what it felt like to lose someone he cared for. Ian had to understand what it was like to be viewed with mistrust and suspicion.
The ridicule and cruelty, Ian had handed out through his changing room banter, had cripplingly hurt and wounded him. Ian had constantly ridiculed him in front of his classmates for being a smelly, badly dressed loner whose own mother had left him and that had hit an ulcerated place that had to be avenged. Ian's dad had worked up at Dartmoor prison and Ian had passed on this information at school, he had let on that his grandfather had done time there. He had made sure all the kids at school knew that little gem about him.
Ian had announced to the whole playground that he was living alone with his equally weird father and that they were probably bum chums. Way too much to let go. No matter they were only fourteen and it was power for the course that everyone was obsessed by slagging off each other's mothers or the possibility of someone being a faggot, but to have the act of being buggered and brutalised by your own father jested about in public and reduced to an act of obliging incest, was beyond any tolerance.
