The Crossing

by Christina James

  “I think on Tuesday or Wednesday. I’m pretty sure it was Wednesday, because yesterday she needed some time off, to visit her mother at the hospital.”

  “So you spoke to her quite soon after the accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “Quite pleased to be staying at Alice’s. I wouldn’t say she was upset.”

  “Was there anything at all in her behaviour that gave you cause for concern?”

  “Only that she was almost unnaturally calm about it all. I did wonder if she might be in denial, and therefore suffer some kind of delayed shock reaction later on. I told her to come and see me if she wanted to talk again, or if she needed any help at all.”

  “Thank you. My next question is rather delicate. I’d like to ask you both what kind of impression you’ve formed of Philippa’s parents. I don’t mean to sound prejudiced, but have you ever thought there was anything . . . odd . . . about their relationship with Philippa?”

  There was a pause. At length, Alex Cooper said, “I don’t think I’ve ever met them, have you, Susan?”

  “No, I’m sure I haven’t. They’ve never been here, as far as I know.”

  “But you have parents’ evenings, open days, that sort of thing?”

  “Of course we do. But we can’t make the parents come to them if they choose not to,” said Alex Cooper.

  “Isn’t it rather unusual for the parents not to show interest when their children attend a school like this?”

  “Yes, it is. Unusual, but not unheard of. And as I’ve said, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “Thank you,” said Ricky. “I think you’ve answered my question.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  “YOU’D BETTER COME to my office,” said Louise Butler. “This isn’t something I want to discuss in the public waiting area.” Tim and Juliet followed her back to the lift.

  “Take a seat,” she said wearily. “We’re going to have to be quite quick about this. I must get back to the patient soon. There’s also the question of confidentiality, although I have concerns that the young woman you’re interested in has been subjected to abuse. Perhaps you can advise me.”

  “If you think that someone has put her life in danger, or that she’ll be in danger if she’s returned to that person, you have a duty to tell us all you can,” said Tim. Louise Butler gave Juliet a quick question-mark look. Juliet nodded. The interchange was not lost on Tim.

  “OK. The woman who was sent here from Spalding’s Johnson Hospital earlier today is principally suffering from kidney failure. I’d say she’s been afflicted with it for some time. Undoubtedly she will have had symptoms several days ago, perhaps longer, and these have become acute. She’s now in a coma. It’s an extremely serious condition. Her case is so advanced that I’m worried all of her organs might shut down. If that happens, we probably won’t be able to save her.”

  “Can you tell what caused it?”

  “There are several possible explanations, but in her case there are other clues. Her gums are bleeding and some of her teeth appear to be loose. Her hair is in poor condition and her skin is unnaturally white. And she is very underweight, with under-developed muscles. She’s almost certainly malnourished. Putting all these things together, I think that she’s been living in conditions of acute deprivation for a very long time.”

  “What do you mean by that, exactly?”

  “It’s difficult for me to be more precise without straying into conjecture, but I think she’s been held in a confined space with no access to natural light, possibly for many years.”

  “About how old is she?”

  “She’s probably younger than she looks at the moment. The mother gave the year of birth as 1995 on the consent form provided by the Johnson Hospital. I’ve no reason to doubt that’s correct. Odd, of course, that no day or month was included. And the name the mother gave is also strange: Ariadne Helen, with Lucy Helen in the space for details of next of kin.”

  “I understand the man who took her to the Johnson Hospital said he’d come to visit her here after he’d taken the mother home. Has he shown up yet?”

  “No. We wouldn’t let him see her at the moment, anyway, unless he’s a relative.”

  “Do you have the form the mother signed?”

  “We have a copy of it. The Johnson Hospital kept the original.”

  “Could you copy it again for us?”

  “I’ll have someone do it, if you wait here. And now I really must go.”

  Tim cleared his throat.

  “Thank you very much, Dr Butler,” he said. “I suppose there’s no chance we could see this patient, is there?”

  “None whatsoever,” she replied sternly. “It wouldn’t help you, in any case. She’s in a deep coma. If she comes round, naturally we shall allow you to speak to her then.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “WE’D BETTER TOUCH base with Thornton,” Tim said, as he and Juliet drove away from the Pilgrim

  Hospital. “Then I think it’s time we paid Matthew Start a visit. Do you have his address?”

  “Yes. He lives in Blue Gowt Lane. It’s quite a substantial house: I’ve looked it up on Streetview. Part of it is Victorian, but there’s a large extension, integrated impeccably with the original structure. It’s a good advert for the Start construction company – the upmarket bit of it, anyway.”

  “Let’s call in there before we go back to the station. It’s on our way, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but he might still be at work. It’ll only be late afternoon when we get there.”

  “It’s Friday. Most firms round here knock off early on Fridays. I think it’s worth a try.”

  “Veronica might be at home. I think the school day finishes at 3.30.”

  “Will that make it tricky for you?”

  “I don’t know her well. And I don’t know him at all. Besides, we’re not trying to charge him with anything, are we?”

  “Not at the moment. But he’s got quite a lot of questions to answer about that girl in intensive care. The tale he told the nurse doesn’t hang together at all.”

  “I don’t see how he could be responsible for the girl’s condition. He . . .” Juliet suddenly stopped speaking.

  “What’s wrong?” said Tim, looking across at her.

  “I’ve just remembered some of the details of that cold case I started looking at. Matthew Start was the last person to see the Finnish au pair who disappeared. He said he’d taken her to the station to catch the train to London. He claimed not to know what her plans were.”

  “I’m sure you’re leading me somewhere with this, but I’m not quite with you yet. We want to see Matthew Start in connection with the sick woman now at the Pilgrim Hospital, don’t we? We have no reason to suspect him of abducting Cassandra Knipes or Philippa Grummett.”

  “That’s right. Not at the moment, anyway. But everyone who’s seen them both has remarked on the physical similarity between Cassandra and Philippa. And Verity Tandy thought the photo in the cold case file of the missing au pair showed a resemblance to both of them.”

  “I seem to remember that we were both sceptical about that. I certainly thought Verity had Philippa lookalikes on the brain.”

  “OK, I agree it sounds far-fetched, but I’m convinced there’s a link that we can’t quite see yet. As you’ve always said, coincidences are suspicious.”

  “I do usually say that, but I’m not sure it applies to lookalikes. Both girls grew up in this area, but apparently they’ve never met and they come from quite different backgrounds. What are you suggesting? That they’re each the product of donated sperm? I could believe it of the Knipes parents, but I don’t think Ruby Grummett’s the kind to go in for IVF.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of IVF, but perhaps some other, hidden, familial link. The girls are unusual to l
ook at: they both have silver-blonde hair and very pale skin and they’re both tall and strong – and very dissimilar to their parents in both cases. I was struck by something Louise Butler said when I was talking to her at the hospital the other day, about all the children in a village near Bourne being descended from the same great grandfather.”

  “Now you really have lost me, unless the point that you’re making is that sperm travels in an occult sort of way.”

  “I suppose that is what I mean, but I’m trying to get at something beyond that. I’ll have another look at that cold case file when we get back to the office. Perhaps I’ll be able to think a bit more clearly then.”

  “Whatever, I’m sceptical. But you’ve sown enough doubt in my mind to persuade me not to call on Matthew Start without seeing Thornton first. We’ll need to interview Start soon, and his wife, but separately. If you’re right and he is involved in the abductions, we have to tread carefully – and the abductions are Thornton’s case, as he’ll be the first to point out.”

  As if on cue, Tim’s mobile started to ring. Tim took the call on hands-free.

  “Yates? Where the hell are you? You seem to have been in Boston all day. Get back here, will you? I want to have a briefing session. Is Armstrong with you?”

  “Yes, I’m here, sir.”

  “Good. The way Yates is dreamboating around today, I thought he might have forgotten you and left you behind somewhere.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  SUPERINTENDENT THORNTON WASN’T as ebullient as he’d sounded when Tim and Juliet joined his briefing session half an hour later. He’d assembled all the officers involved in the case so they could report quickly on the progress of their various enquiries. This was essential in order to keep everyone up-to-date and avoid failure to connect linked pieces of information, an occupational hazard. Tim knew only too well how difficult it was to keep tabs on all the elements of major incidents as more officers were drawn into the investigation. Tim also suspected the Superintendent’s keenness to hold the meeting stemmed from his having so far drawn a complete blank.

  Thornton had decided to piece together the events of the day as the police had dealt with them. He started with Verity Tandy. She gave a brief account of what had happened after she’d been sent to the Knipes household. She mentioned Tim’s visit and how he’d instructed her to stay with Cassandra Knipes’ parents until police liaison arrived. She said that after that officer had come, she’d conducted a fingertip search around the bus stop in Woolram Wygate, but her search had produced no results that could be linked to the kidnapping.

  “What were her parents like while you were alone with them?” the Superintendent asked.

  “They were distressed and worried, of course. They showed it in different ways. The mother tried to be stoical, though she got quite upset some of the time. The father reacted with a kind of anger. He’s severely disabled, and I had the impression that in his mind he linked her disappearance with his infirmity in some way.”

  “Do you mean he was angry that he couldn’t save her because he was physically incapable?” It was Tim speaking.

  “Perhaps. But there seemed to be some underlying criticism of his wife involved: it was as if she’d made a decision that had caused the family to take a wrong turn.”

  “What makes you say that?” said Tim.

  “He was clearly annoyed with his wife. She tried to pacify him, but they made no attempt to comfort each other. At one point he started to say, ‘this wouldn’t have happened if . . .’, but she cut in.”

  “How did she do that?”

  “She said that they were both upset and that he shouldn’t say something he might later regret.”

  “Did she actually use that word? Regret, I mean?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Yates, this isn’t an exercise in etymology. Thank you, Tandy; if that’s all you have to tell us, we’ll move on to Chakrabati. Well done.” Superintendent Thornton added the perfunctory praise too belatedly. Tim and Giash Chakrabati both noticed Verity’s dejection. Giash gave her a pat on the arm before taking over.

  “I went to Spalding High School as you instructed, sir, and spoke to Richard Lennard. He was outwardly helpful, though cagey, I’d say. He was very keen to cancel tomorrow’s netball match. He tried to say it was inappropriate for the netball to go ahead under the circumstances. But there’d been an altercation with Councillor Start earlier because of some kind of meeting he’s organised at the school tomorrow. The Councillor doesn’t want the netball event to coincide with the meeting. In reality, Mr Lennard was keen to cancel the netball to ingratiate himself with Mr Start, who is the chairman of the governors.”

  “I’m not sure that this has any bearing on . . .”

  “That’s very interesting,” said Tim, cutting Superintendent Thornton short. “Is the netball going to be cancelled?”

  “I said I thought it should go ahead. Mr Lennard more or less said it wasn’t my place to advise him and I said I’d check with Superintendent Thornton to see what he thought. And yourself, of course, sir. I said that you’d probably want the match to go ahead because we might get some clues from it.”

  “I think you’re right. Superintendent?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. I want to know what Councillor Start’s meeting’s for and this is one way of finding out. As the chairman of the governors, you’d expect him to be much more interested in locating the missing head girl of the school than in ensuring that he and his friends aren’t disturbed. Do you know what he said?”

  “I didn’t speak to the Councillor himself, sir, though I did see him in the distance.”

  “So he was at the school earlier today?”

  “Yes. Mr Lennard didn’t tell me much about the meeting. He just said it concerned a ‘charitable organisation’ that the Councillor is involved with. I think it’s not unusual for schools to hire out their premises out of hours.”

  “Quite. But I’m intrigued by this ‘charitable organisation’. I’m surprised Lennard hasn’t checked with me already, if he was as keen on cancelling the netball as you say. But I’ll get on to him as soon as the briefing is over.”

  “I think I may know the name of the charity concerned, sir,” said Juliet. “It’s quite obscure – secretive, I’d say – so I haven’t been able to find out too much about it. But it’s called The Bricklayers.”

  “Really? It sounds like some kind of working man’s guild.”

  “It may have started out like that, but from the very limited amount of information I have, I’d say it was more akin to the Masons.”

  “Oh.” Tim thought he saw the mildest of flushes colour the Superintendent’s face. “Well, nothing wrong with them, is there?”

  “No, sir, not as far as I know. But I believe there are groups that have outwardly modelled themselves on the Masons to mask more sinister purposes.”

  “Really?” said the Superintendent again. “Well, try to find out more about this lot, will you? We’ll need to be armed with fact tomorrow. Is that all you have to report, Chakrabati?”

  “Almost all. There is one other thing, though it may not be of any significance. As I was leaving the school, with Mr Lennard escorting me – I got the impression he was glad to see the back of me – a female reporter appeared. He’d obviously clashed with her before. Their conversation was short and extremely hostile. He asked me to confirm that she was trespassing on school grounds and I had no option but to agree with him.”

  “Well, I can understand his annoyance. She’d probably got wind of Cassandra Knipes’s kidnapping.”

  “I don’t think she did know about the kidnapping, sir. She said she was there because she had evidence that the school premises were being used for unsuitable activities. That was why Mr Lennard was so annoyed.”

  “What was her name?” said Andy, suddenly joining the conversat
ion from the back of the room.

  “Jocelyn something. She gave me her card,” said Giash, fishing in his pocket. “Here it is. Jocelyn Greaves. She . . . er . . . said she knew you.”

  “That’s right, she does.”

  “In what context?” asked the Superintendent.

  “She’s one of my sister’s friends. I took her out for a drink the other night.” Andy ignored the smiles and knowing glances that flashed around the room.

  “I see. I’m not sure that police officers should consort with journalists. However, on this occasion she may prove to be useful.”

  “In what way, sir?” said Andy tautly.

  “She may be able to tell us a little more about these Bricklayers. I don’t suppose she’s mentioned them to you?”

  “As a matter of fact, she has.”

  “Good. Well, after this meeting’s over, get in touch with her and find out exactly what she knows about them.” Andy’s reply was inaudible, but the Superintendent didn’t notice.

  “Well, Yates, it seems you saw the Grummetts as well as the Cushings after all. Tell us about it. As quick as you can, please.” He consulted his watch.

  “DC Armstrong and I were present on both occasions, sir. I think the Cushings are above board . . .”

  “What do you mean by that, exactly?”

  “I think they’re telling the truth and not holding back on anything. It seems that yesterday was a pretty normal day. Nothing unusual happened in the evening after the two girls returned from school. Philippa Grummett and Alice Cushing were sharing a bedroom. They went to bed at the same time, but Alice thinks she may have turned out her light first. When she awoke in the morning, Philippa had gone. Peter Cushing was downstairs at 6.30 a.m. and, although he didn’t realise the girl had gone until Alice got up, Philippa almost certainly left the house before that. My guess is that someone arranged to meet her with a vehicle: she would have had to walk miles, otherwise.”

  “OK. And the Grummetts?”

  “Ricky – DC MacFadyen – interviewed them first, as you instructed, sir. DC Armstrong and I went to Boston to find out more about the woman in the coma as you instructed and DC MacFadyen met us at the hospital. He said he was having trouble getting a straight answer from Mr and Mrs Grummett.”