by Wonny Lea
‘OK, then that rules out a few things,’ continued Matt. ‘Jason didn’t go forward in your direction and I agree with you that it is highly unlikely he would have gone into the fields on his own, so that just leaves two possibilities. Either he had company and he braved the fields, or he managed to pass at least twenty people who know him without being spotted by one of them.
‘A number of the people I’ve spoken to have been taking photographs with cameras and phones and one of the fathers owns a new iPad and has been photographing anything and everything. I spoke to Charlie, our IT expert, and she’s on her way here and will gather together every photograph that has been taken.’
‘How will that help us find Jason?’ asked Tina, who had reverted to being the confused and despairing woman Martin had first met, and as he responded to her question he wondered how she was going to receive his next suggestion.
‘The people DS Pryor has spoken to were all bound up with sorting out their own children, taking photographs, and generally looking around the area. In spite of what they say they could easily have missed your son, especially if he had decided it would be cool to get past them without being spotted. The photographs may pick up people passing in the opposite direction who would have no apparent relevance but who may when questioned be able to help us sort out the direction taken by Jason and anyone who was with him.
‘As you know, Tina, it is my belief that your son has been taken by someone who will want money for his safe return. Please concentrate on what I just said – I said his safe return. You need to focus on that as it will be what will help you through the next hours or even days before we get Jason back.’
Tina freaked out. ‘What do you mean days? Are you serious? Do you really mean days? Jason has never been without me for one night of his life – he will be terrified and he doesn’t even have Ron Weasley.’
She twisted the Lego figure around in her hands and Martin wondered if she was thinking that maybe Harry Potter and his friend would do a better job of finding Jason. He knew his carefully considered suggestion would go down like a lead balloon but he had to make it.
‘Tina, we need to get you back to you home. If Jason’s disappearance is the kidnapping I believe it to be then I suspect that you will be contacted there.’
‘No way, no bloody way,’ shouted Tina. ‘I am not leaving here until I find Jason.’ She leapt to her feet and made her way to the door. She was right about having long strides as she had almost reached the children’s play area before Helen caught up with her.
‘Tina, calm down, just wait a minute. Let me try and explain why we need you to go back to your house. It doesn’t mean that people will stop looking for Jason here, in fact there are already experienced search officers conducting a much more organised and thorough search, and it’s best we leave that to them.’
Tina did slow down a bit and Helen was able to keep up with her. ‘I can’t possibly imagine what pain you’re going through but what I do know is that if ever there was a crisis in my life I would willingly put its resolution into the hands of DCI Phelps. He is the best person you could possibly have on the case and he will work around the clock and get others to do the same until Jason is found.’
Tina came to a full stop and instinctively reached into her pocket for the one thing that would be of some help to her but realised immediately that she had left her cigarettes on the table when she had walked out.
There were lots of people staring at her and Helen asked if anyone of them could spare Tina a smoke. Instantly a cigarette was lit and Tina broke off the filter tip before taking several puffs in quick succession.
‘Thanks,’ she said, not even knowing who had been her benefactor but turned away as some people she did know started to ask questions about her son.
The situation helped Helen, who quickly explained that if they walked around outside they would be bombarded with questions and expressions of sympathy that although well-meaning would be distressing.
Tina walked more slowly back toward the room she had left less than ten minutes ago and Helen took the opportunity of telling her about the team that would be put in place to find Jason.
By the time they got back to the room Helen had managed to convince Tina that she would be more use to Jason if she went back home and waited to hear from whoever had taken him.
Martin expressed his gratitude to Helen and suggested that she drive with him and Tina to her house and that Matt continue the investigations at St Fagans. Matt nodded in agreement and then diverted his attention to Charlie, who had just wheeled herself into the room.
Martin caught sight of Charlie as he was leaving and wondered how she would cope with a missing child. She was the best they could ask for in terms of interrogating all forms of modern-day technology and he watched her manoeuvre her wheelchair to one of the tables and set down her laptop.
There were no outward signs of her pregnancy, it was still early days, but Charlie and Alex had been unable to keep their secret for long and everyone who worked in Goleudy knew that around next Easter time the couple were going to hatch an egg of their own. It was business as usual for Charlie apart from having to fight off uncharacteristic bouts of overwhelming tiredness but these moments were becoming less frequent and she was determined to carry on regardless.
Being confined to a wheelchair since her early teens had not held her back and something as normal as a pregnancy was certainly not going to get in the way of her life. What concerned Martin as he saw her getting down to the business of transferring images from a variety of gadgets was that she would be more vulnerable than usual to the feelings of a mother who had lost her son.
He allowed himself to consider for a moment the possibility that Jason had not been taken to satisfy someone’s love of money but to satisfy a more sinister love that some men have for little boys. It was not impossible that Jason had been stalked and snatched for this sick and disgusting purpose but Martin was convinced it was a well-planned kidnapping and that the perpetrator would soon be in touch with his or her demands.
As he directed Tina to where he had parked his Alfa Romeo Martin reminded himself of the need to keep an open mind and to consider every possible reason for Jason’s abduction. To close his mind to anything at this stage could lead to the loss of vital time and possibly unspeakable consequences. If Jason had been taken for any form of sexual gratification he could be in immediate physical and psychological danger. He let Tina and Helen into the car and phoned Matt before getting in himself.
‘Check on the list of sex offenders and in particular check the addresses of any known paedophiles. If anyone has served time and recently been released we will need to pay them a visit today, along with anyone with a history of taking small boys.’
In response to Matt’s question Martin continued. ‘No, I haven’t changed my mind, I still think that Jason has been snatched for money, but for now we have to consider every possibility.
‘The chance of Jason still hiding is virtually nil, and like you I believe he is no longer at St Fagans. What we need to discover is how he was taken. Check all vehicle movement out of the site after the time his mother left him; there are some CCTV cameras. See if anything Charlie gets from the phones ties up with anything from the surveillance equipment.
‘I don’t need to tell you, Matt, how precious time is in these situations, so pull all the stops out. I’m taking Tina to her house and we could find a clue already waiting for us there, or it may still be a question of waiting for a kidnapper to show their hand.’
‘Finally Matt get everyone geared up for a two o’clock briefing and make sure everyone is aware that no comments must be made to the press other than through me. A child’s life could be at stake and I don’t want the media antagonising whoever has got Jason by printing some off-the-wall headlines.’
Twenty minutes after leaving the museum Tina pointed out a housing estate to Helen. ‘That’s where we lived when I left home. First of all I stayed with a woman who worke
d with me at the supermarket. Peggy was kind to me but the house was chaotic and I had to share a bed with her eldest daughter. Still, the overcrowding worked in my favour, and what with being pregnant and everything it wasn’t long before the council and the welfare found me somewhere to live.
‘I got away from my father because he wanted me to abort my baby and then I was terrified that the social service busybodies would think I couldn’t look after him, and now this … and now this. Maybe someone up there thinks I’m a rubbish mother and that Jason will be better off without me.’
Helen had been very impressed by the way that Tina was holding herself together, but now Jason’s mother was filling her own mind with self-doubt and the tears were returning as she squeezed Ron Weasley almost to the point of destruction.
Quickly Helen gave her something else to think about, indicating that neither she nor Martin knew this area of Cardiff very well and needed her help with directions to her house. Tina lifted her head and looking through the window told Martin that he needed to take the first left.
In terms of distance Tina had not moved far from the small maisonette that she and Jason had called home, but in terms of perceived social standing she had jumped over the moon. An imposing red brick wall surrounded a prestigious development of just eight houses. There were no gates at the entrance but there was what looked like a state-of-the-art security system and as they drove towards the house that Tina was indicating Martin had the feeling that he was being caught on camera.
Each of the eight houses was individually designed and each protected its owner’s privacy by the use of strategically placed trees, hedges, and walls. From Tina’s drive it was only possible to see a tiny section of the side wall of her nearest neighbour’s house and apart from that there was no sign of another building. Helen looked around and mentally applauded the architects and builders who had produced such an elegant arrangement that only very serious money could afford.
As they followed Tina to the front door Martin noticed an arched gate that presumably led to the back of the house and catching his eye Tina explained that she had been standing just the other side of that gate when she had taken Jason‘s photograph that morning.
‘Mind if I take a look?’ asked Martin.
‘The gate’s not locked,’ confessed Tina. ‘I’m not the most popular person around here as apparently my lack of security puts everyone at risk. There’s an association that manages the security of these houses and we all pay an annual subscription, but as far as I can see that’s all these people think about. Their houses, their cars, and their golf clubs are their gods. I’m the only one with a child who doesn’t go to a private school and quite frankly I hate them as much as they hate me being here.
‘This house came on the market when the person for whom it was being built apparently went on holiday to Turkey and was picked up as part of an international group bringing drugs into this country. The press called him the “careless leftie” but I can’t remember why, it was probably something to do with him wanting to stand as a Labour candidate.’
Helen interrupted. ‘No, it was a big case and I remember it well. He was the main UK man and his network was getting heroin from Afghanistan via Kazakhstan and refining it in Turkey. He was checking out the part of the organisation that transported it from Turkey to Greece when he reverted to his British way of thinking and was caught by the traffic cops in Athens driving on the left-hand side of the road.
‘It was such a simple mistake but it led to the closing down of a complex drugs operation and the man who could have been living here is confined to a cell somewhere.’ As she spoke Helen considered the differences between the two styles of living and gave a mental thumbs-up to the Greek traffic police.
The scene they were now looking at was the exact one from Tina’s phone – minus Jason. ‘I’m surprised you could drag him away from here,’ said Helen. ‘I remember being excited about school trips but if there had been a choice between my own swimming pool and a bus ride I know which one I would have taken.’
‘Jason hates the water,’ responded Tina. ‘The gardener is responsible for keeping it clean and at the right temperature but it’s money for old rope for him because it’s never used. When we first moved here some of Jason’s school friends came round, but their clapped-out cars weren’t welcomed by my snooty neighbours, and anyway I had rows with their parents about money.’
Martin wanted to hear more about these rows and to get details of the people Tina had quarrelled with. They may well have decided to get the money they wanted from Tina via a different route, and he would need to speak to all of them.
They followed Tina back towards the front door that opened onto an imposing hall and then through into a very modern spacious kitchen. Everything looked new, clean, and expensive but nothing looked like the sort of home in which Tina and Jason would have been happy.
Almost as if they had been deliberately set apart from the grandiose setting were a modest wooden table and chairs. Tina made for this corner of the kitchen and sat down. She had already had one cigarette in the garden but as she was now in her own home and could smoke as she pleased, so she lit up again.
‘What did you expect, Inspector? Did you think the kidnapper would be here waiting for me or what?’
Martin shook his head. ‘No I didn’t think that but I thought there could be the possibility of some sort of message being left here. If the kidnapper knew the day he was going to take Jason he could have sent a letter the day before so that you would find it today. I didn’t notice any mail in the hall when we came through – was there anything before you left the house this morning?’
‘We left before the postman had been,’ responded Tina. ‘That was another thing that upset Jason, the postman is one of the few people around here who even bothers to speak to Jase and they play a game of peek-a-boo through the letter box.’
‘Do you always have the same postman?’ asked Martin.
‘Unless he’s on holiday or off sick,’ replied Tina. ‘Why do you ask?’
Martin looked through the faint haze of smoke that surrounded Tina and explained. ‘The next couple of hours are going to be very uncomfortable for you because we are going to ask you to think of everybody you know. Family and friends obviously but also people like your postman, hairdresser, gardener, anyone you regularly meet at the supermarket, teachers, dinnerladies, and so on. You will be amazed at the length of the list by the time we are finished and then will come the nasty bit of attempting to rule individuals in or out of the kidnapping equation.’
Tina looked horrified as Martin had suspected she would be. ‘No way!’ she whispered but it was said without total conviction. ‘Surely no one we know would be this evil. Isn’t it more likely to be a stranger just doing it for the money?’
Martin shook his head. ‘I am utterly convinced that you will know the person who has taken Jason and it is very likely that someone as close as your father or Jason’s father will be involved. Think about it, Tina. We haven’t yet been able to establish how Jason was taken from the grounds of the museum but from what you tell us he would not have gone with anyone he didn’t know. I’m sorry to have to ask again but it could be vital that we know who Jason’s father is and I promise you that the information will be kept in the greatest of confidence and only shared within the team on a need-to-know basis.’
Before Tina could respond they were interrupted by the doorbell and Helen went to answer it. Realising who it might be Martin explained to Tina that they were going to have to place taps on her phones and install a direct link between the house and Goleudy.
Tina nodded but her thoughts were on the question Martin had raised about Jason’s father. She knew she would have to tell the inspector but there was something about actually speaking his name that for her was too real. Tina had always known who had fathered her son but she had never spoken his name and she knew that once the secret was out it could never be totally put away again.
For
years she had considered what to tell Jason but ironically today had been the first time he had really broached the subject. She remembered almost the last thing he had said to her. ‘Have I even got a dad? I didn’t know I had one. Have I got a dad?’
It was, as expected, the technicians who had arrived and they needed Tina to show them where all the phones were and they also asked about computers and email addresses. Tina told them she had a computer but that she only used it for Facebook, and then only to play games and not for keeping in touch with people.
She showed them where the phones were situated and then lighting the inevitable cigarette re-joined Martin and Helen, who were sitting at the table discussing strategy.
‘I’ve just asked DC Cook-Watts if she will remain with you for the time being and she has agreed. I would prefer to have someone from my team here and she seems to have gained your trust.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tina, and then she took a deep breath.
‘In answer to your question, Jason’s father is a man called Dan Painter but he doesn’t know about Jason. He’s old enough to be Jason’s grandfather and in fact he is the grandfather of Megan, one of Jason’s friends at school. Dan and my father used to go to the pub together and then come back to the house. He’s a decent enough bloke and I don’t blame him for getting me pregnant – it was me who made a play for him. There is no way he will have had anything to do with this and that’s a fact.’
Chapter Six
Use the media
It was coming up to two o’clock and the team that were now heading up the search for the missing seven-year-old Jason Barnes had assembled in one of Martin’s preferred venues – Incident Room One. It was certainly one of his most successful venues and he could easily think back over the past few years when some seriously deranged criminals had been brought to justice as a result of the soul searching and the good old fashioned teamwork that had gone on within these walls.
