Already it was becoming harder to picture her father. Occasionally she would remember his face vividly, as though in a confusing dream in which even on awakening, for a moment everything looked and sounded real, but these times were brief and infrequent and his face would fade until the details of it disappeared.
Kate needed to remember. Without the memory of her father, how would she recognise Daniel when she found him?
She knew what he would look like now. He would look like her. In her head, in her dreams, she had seen him a thousand times and knew what she was looking for and was sure she’d recognise him when she eventually found him.
The game that had been started all those years ago would never end until she found him. He was still hiding. She would keep seeking.
Thursday
Fourteen
It hadn’t looked like a body at first. From a distance – and with his eyes not being what they used to – it looked more like a heap of discarded clothing, or a pile of rubbish bags that had been abandoned in the shadows beneath the line of trees. Bloody fly-tippers. If the dog hadn’t been with him he may even have walked on, not bothering to cross the grass and take a closer look.
The dog had become agitated and was whining uneasily by the time the old man had crossed the grass and the path that bordered it. The dog stopped a few metres from the heap on the path, digging her claws uneasily into the gravel; resisting her owner’s pull on the leash.
‘Easy, girl,’ the man reassured her, running his hand over the thick fur at the back of her head. ‘Easy.’
The dog growled, straining against its owner’s pull on the leash. The man squinted at the heap, saw what he thought were feet, and slowly realised he was looking at a body. He felt bile rising in the back of his throat and stopped in his tracks, suddenly uncertain and off balance, not wanting to go any nearer, but steeling himself he loosened his grip on the leash and stepped tentatively forward. He had lived through a World War, but despite this had somehow successfully managed to avoid any close encounters with a corpse. Given the choice, he didn’t want to change the habit today.
He could see the body was that of a man. He could tell this from the shoes he was wearing: shiny brown like conkers, lace-up, office-style shoes that belonged to the type of man who looked after himself; someone who had a bit of money and appreciated good quality.
The man pushed his scarf up closer to his throat. It was a bitter morning and the park was otherwise deserted, not even any early morning joggers braving the eerie chill of the park at that hour. He wondered if the man had been there all night. A miserable way to go, poor sod, he thought sadly, left out in the cold, alone, on a night like last night. Or maybe every way was as sad as the next, no matter what the time of year or the temperature outside. Maybe meeting death in a deserted park was no worse than dying in a warm bed with a husband or wife beside you in the darkness. How could there ever be a good way to go? The light gone forever, the day always night.
The man’s body had fallen – or been lain – at an awkward angle. His left leg was trapped beneath his right and his torso was twisted; his head lay face down, covered by a black woollen scarf. At first, the man could see no evidence of how the person on the ground in front of him had died. If he hadn’t been lying in such a distorted manner – and if the location had been other than a quiet suburban park at half past five in the early hours of a November morning – he could easily have believed he was just sleeping.
He nudged him with his foot. ‘Hey, mate. Are you ok?’ Stupid, he thought as soon as he’d done it. He cursed himself for kicking a corpse; what kind of disrespect to the dead was that?
It was only when he cautiously pushed aside the black scarf that covered the head, and only when he saw the congealing mess of blood that the man’s was lying in, that he realised he was staring at murder.
*
The day was dark and overcast again, not yet full light. Clouds of black and grey provided a suitably depressing backdrop to the scene that confronted DCI Chris Jones as he arrived at the park twenty minutes later. The area had been cordoned off. The body had already been shut away from view, with white tenting placed around it, yet already – even at such an early hour – a small crowd of morbid spectators had gathered; the usual rubber neckers, all eager to pass on hot gossip and rumours to friends and colleagues as soon as they got to work. By lunchtime, there would be something else to talk about and the events of the morning would already be yesterday’s news. Cynical world.
A team of scene-of-crime officers was already scouring the area for evidence. So far, Chris had received little information. Male, aged around 40, no ID. He had no idea yet how long the body had been lying there. The old man who had discovered it while out walking his dog was being interviewed by a uniform.
And now there was no question of the lack of coincidence. Michael Morris, now this. There was no chance on earth that the deaths of these two men weren’t connected.
‘Anything for me?’ he asked, crossing the grass and approaching a short-tempered female pathologist he’d been unfortunate enough to work with before and had been at the scene at Michael Morris’ house on Tuesday.
‘Blunt force trauma to the head resulting in extra dural haematoma,’ she replied, echoing her words of Tuesday evening. ‘If you want it in kiddy-speak, his head was bashed in. Late thirties, I’d say. No wallet on him. No ID.’
‘Mugging?’ Chris asked, clinging to the highly unlikely possibility.
She shrugged casually. ‘Possibly. I doubt it though. Too deliberate, and anyway, that’s your job. This area’s not exactly known for mugging, is it?’
Which would make it an ideal location then, Chris thought. He said nothing; he knew better. The woman had a fiery tongue and an opinion for all occasions; she was well known at the station for her acid mouth and ability to belittle grown men with a mere glance. Besides, she’d have to be an idiot not to connect the two murders.
‘May I?’ he said, gesturing towards the tent.
She said nothing, but took a step backwards, giving him room to pass.
The scene was something Chris would never become accustomed to. He had seen murder victims before Tuesday evening, had chased the clues left by criminals and had successfully seen three murderers convicted during his time with the division. But this was South Wales, not London and, fortunately, murder enquiries were still relatively few and far between.
During training people had mistakenly assumed that Chris would be thick skinned and less likely to fall into the trap of emotional involvement in sensitive cases. It was a presumption that had endured and one that he had learned to live with throughout his career with the police. He was six feet two inches tall with broad, rugby player’s shoulders and a face that looked as though it had seen a bit of wear. His appearance gave the false impression that he was some sort of macho man: able to switch on when he began work in the morning and switch off again when it was time to call it a day, leaving what he had seen at work back at the station. He was, nonetheless, only human and he carried all his experiences with him always.
He had been warned during training that the first body would be the most challenging and they hadn’t lied. Nor could they have predicted that the first case would have been such an uncommonly harrowing one. The first dead body Chris had seen was that of a sixteenth month old baby. The case had been a rare one, thank God – had made the national news – a child battered and tortured by his own mother; so badly abused that his tiny features bore little comparison to his earlier photos. The image of his little broken body had been seared onto Chris’ brain. He saw him still. The unnatural, unnerving smirk on the face of the boy’s mother as she was sentenced to life was a thing no one could forget.
What they hadn’t told Chris during training was that it wouldn’t become any easier. He had mistakenly presumed that after the first two, or maybe even three dead bodies he saw, each would become a little less difficult to deal with. He would become immune to the reality of death
and would grow to accept these sights as part of his job description. It hadn’t become any easier and deep down he was still not entirely sure how he was supposed to forget each and move on without hesitation to the next.
He thought of Diane Morris crumpled on her sofa, her features distorted by her heartfelt grief, and of the boy in the picture who would never get to show his father the man he’d become.
He put these thoughts to the back of his mind.
‘How long do you think he’s been dead?’ Chris asked.
The pathologist glanced up from where she crouched by the body; her mouth twisted, like a baby biting a crab apple.
‘Hard to tell with the temperature being so low,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a better idea later.’ Then, as though speaking for the benefit of a recording, ‘As I said, single blow to the head with a heavy object.’
‘Any other signs of a struggle?’
‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘Single injury. Very efficient - probably did the job with immediate effect.’
Chris winced at her insensitive choice of phrase and wondered what had happened in the past couple of days to make everyone he worked alongside so lacking in tact and subtlety. He stepped back outside, relieved by the blast of cold fresh air. What was this man doing in the park on a night like last night, he wondered? He looked respectable enough: smartly dressed, clean shaven; expensive shoes. This was a respectable part of town, edged with popular residential areas. The missing wallet might have indicated a mugging, had it been any other time of day, had it not been so sickeningly violent, and had it not been for the death on Tuesday evening of Michael Morris.
Fifteen
The station was chaos. News of the Joseph Ryan murder had spread quicker than a flame across petrol and the press, Kate’s favourite people, were already plaguing them with a bombardment of phone calls. One particularly resilient reporter had even been to the station trying to prise information from the desk sergeant.
Kate had to keep her focus on Stacey Reed. She had already decided to watch again the television appeal made by Dawn Reed and Nathan Williams, as well as the CCTV recordings of Taff Street, the main street of Pontypridd, on the day Stacey had gone missing.
On her way home the previous evening she visited the home of Ben Davies’ school friend. Neither he nor his mother had seen or heard anything from Ben. Kate was sure that the boy was telling the truth and the visit had only served as confirmation that Ben hadn’t run away; or at least, if he had, things hadn’t gone to plan. She could only hope and pray that the boy wasn’t with anyone who might cause him harm.
Once again, a child had gone missing. Sometimes, it seemed to Kate, they just vanished as though they had never existed at all. It was only the memory of them that kept them alive, and the people who refused to push those memories into oblivion.
Neil Davies had called at the station again that morning. He had brought his late wife’s address book, although Kate suspected it would be of little use considering it was over six years old. However, he seemed keen to be of whatever help he could and she had promised she would check through it, contact anyone who may have information about Ben’s whereabouts and let him know if she made any further progress.
Kate still hoped that Ben’s disappearance was a deliberate cry for help. There was no reason to connect it to any other case, but Kate had yet to admit to Neil Davies that the more days that passed, the more likely the chances that something bad had happened to his son. It particularly concerned Kate that the weekend was fast approaching and that, if Ben was in any danger, the risks were only likely to have increased. The weekends brought out the drunks and the idiots. Wherever Ben was, nowhere could be as safe as back home with the Jennings.
Neil told her how, a year following his mother’s death, when Ben was just ten years old, he had disappeared for an entire day and eventually been found in the grounds of a disused warehouse on the other side of town. It was a cry for help and for attention: Ben had clearly wanted to be discovered, as he had left his bike on the main road in full view of any passing cars.
Although frustrating when a child wasted police time in this way, it was always a relief when a disappearance was intentional and nothing more sinister. Though she had no children of her own, Kate more than understood the anger that would greet a missing child when they returned from an intentional absence. It was a parent’s natural reaction; an outburst of relief at the realisation that the worst, though feared, had been avoided.
In ninety percent of cases a missing child turned up within the first forty-eight hours. It was the ten percent of cases that kept Kate in her job. Sometimes she felt she could quite happily quit altogether: get a normal, everyday admin job, where her work stayed at work and her personal life - she thought she just about remembered it - was actually her own. She would be a normal person again; a normal woman with spare time, hobbies – maybe even a love life. Who was she kidding? She knew she wouldn’t change.
Ben Davies hadn’t run away. Where were the signs this time that would lead someone to him? He’d left his bike in full view of passing cars last time, but this time had disappeared completely leaving no clues to his whereabouts. He hadn’t been planning to go anywhere, Kate suspected.
Stacey Reed still looked down at her from the office wall, the girl’s innocent wide eyes watching over Kate as she worked. A photo of Ben, smiling proudly on his new bike, hung next to her. The children’s faces were enough to keep Kate going. The face of Stacey Reed had become her guardian angel, Kate thought; watching over her, keeping her in check. But where was Stacey’s guardian angel? Where was Ben’s? Who was watching over and protecting them?
*
Kate couldn’t explain why, but the connection she felt with Neil Davies had been there again that morning. It was against the better judgement she hoped she was in possession of, but she felt at ease in his presence and relaxed in his company despite the fact that, Chris excluded, she hadn’t felt that way in a man’s company for a long time. Sitting in the station that morning, Neil Davies had made her feel capable; successful, almost. He was confident that she – no one else – would locate his son’s whereabouts and would return him home safely to his foster family. Neil – a total stranger – had made her feel she was worth something. He had a faith in her that most others seemed to lack.
It was this feeling that had restored her resolve in the Stacey Reed case. Though no one else on the case seemed prepared to consider her theories, she knew that Dawn Reed and Nathan Williams had been lying to the police and she suspected they both knew where Stacey was and – Kate shuddered at the thought – whether the little girl, their daughter, was dead or alive. All she had to do was prove it.
In Kate’s mind, the case was a rewrite of a recent story that had made national news. A little girl had been abducted by members of her own family and hidden whilst her parents fronted a community search and made a variety of public appeals for her safe return. They had hoped to claim tens of thousands of pounds in reward money offered by national newspapers, but their plot had been uncovered before they’d had any chance to get their hands on the cash. They now had plenty of time on their hands in prison to figure out where they went wrong. Idiots.
Surely Dawn Reed and Nathan Williams were not so stupid as to expect to succeed where that couple had failed?
The television appeal made by Dawn and Nathan was saved as a file on Kate’s computer. She loaded it now and watched as the mother and her partner lied and performed their way through the appeal. Dawn Reed played the grieving mother perfectly. Her mascara streaked her cheeks as she pleaded with viewers to contact police with something, anything that may bring their daughter safely home to them.
Kate replayed the tape from the beginning. She paused at key moments, studying Dawn Reed’s expressions and gestures: the way her head hung loosely to one side and her collar bones protruded painfully from beneath her thin cotton shirt. Her tears were silent and rolled down her cheeks as she spoke. Her words were hesitant, unr
ehearsed, and she looked to the media circus behind the camera with a confused expression of fear and bewilderment.
Kate leaned back in her chair. Dawn’s face, frozen on the screen, was too wracked with suffering to be anything but genuine. She was no body language expert, but it all seemed too perfect to Kate to be a performance; too realistic and heartfelt to be an act. Kate began to wonder if she could be mistaken about Dawn.
Nathan Williams stayed silent by her side, his greasy head hanging low for the majority of the appeal. He looked up occasionally, taking furtive glances at the reporters behind the cameras. At one point, he took Dawn’s hand in his and held it there on the table for all to see what a loyal and supportive partner he was. Bullshit, Kate thought. He was sweating profusely and there was no way on earth it was all due to the glare of the overhead lights and flashbulbs.
Dawn cried at the end of the appeal, when she spoke directly to her missing daughter.
‘Stacey, if you’re watching this, we just want you to know that we love you and miss you very, very much. Try to be brave, sweetheart.’
She was followed by the TV announcer reminding viewers that a local businessman was offering a £5,000 reward for information leading to Stacey’s recovery.
At the time, Kate had felt sorry for Dawn. In the weeks following Stacey’s disappearance Dawn Reed had lost a considerable amount of weight and looked increasingly drawn and tired, as though she was missing sleep for nights on end. She would ring Kate frequently, on the off chance that someone had contacted the station with news of her daughter. Weeks later, it seemed to Kate that the performance had been unsustainable, if what she had witnessed in Dawn Reed’s living room on Tuesday evening was anything to go by.
Or was it unreasonable of her to assume that Dawn might be involved in Stacey’s disappearance just because Kate had seen her eating a take away and drinking wine? Were a take away and alcohol fair indicators that a mother was no longer concerned about her daughter’s whereabouts, or was Kate being too judgemental, too unforgiving? Surely the woman had a right to eat without Kate thinking her a bad, uncaring mother? Didn’t Dawn Reed have to get on with her life as best she could, or should it stop completely until her daughter was returned to her?
Ready or Not Page 8
