by John Moralee
“Rachel’s only nine,” her mother said, squeezing her husband’s hand. “I’m really scared.”
“So am I,” her husband added. Stephen had the tanned, rugged look of a gardener. “We don’t know where the hell she is. We don’t understand what’s going on. Some things don’t make any sense. That other policeman wouldn’t even listen to us. He thinks she’s run away. I tried to tell him … He wouldn’t listen.”
“We will,” Riley assured them. “Why don’t you tell me everything somewhere comfortable?”
“Okay.” Stephen Harper said. “Come into the living room. I’ve got something to show you.”
Before Amy went with her husband, Lee said to her: “Mrs Harper, I’d like to visit Rachel’s room, if you don’t mind? Can you show me?”
“Yes,” she said, and led him up the stairs.
Good move, Riley thought. It was often a good idea to talk to parents separately. Sometimes, one parent could dominate the opinion of another, making interviewing them harder.
Amy stopped at Rachel’s bedroom door as if afraid to go in. Opening the door, Lee saw a typical nine-year-old girl’s room. Pop idol posters. Hardcopy books. Computer games. When he stepped in, a pink teddy, tucked into the bed as if sleeping, suddenly sat up for a hug. “Rachel!” it said. The bear lay down again when its recognition software realised he wasn’t Rachel. Amy let out a tiny sob. She stayed in the doorway, rubbing her hands together. Crossing the light and airy bedroom, Lee opened the wardrobes, which were filled with brightly-coloured clothes.
“Mrs Harper, are any clothes missing?”
Amy shook her head, nervously brushing her fingers through her hair. “No. Nothing.”
“Do you have a recent image of Rachel, say a photograph?”
“Yes. You see that album on the bedside table. It has a recording of our last holiday. Rachel looks the same age as now. It was filmed only two weeks ago.” Lee opened the video album’s luxurious leather cover. The screen came to life. He watched Rachel on a beach in Greece, the Mediterranean behind her. She was playing volleyball, running and laughing. Rachel was a pretty girl with short, wavy blonde hair and a loveable smile.
“Look how happy she was.”
“I don’t like asking this, but can you recall what was she wearing the last time you saw her?”
“Her favourite blue dress, blue coat and her white Air Nikes.”
Lee walked to the chest of drawers by the window. He felt like a pervert as he looked through her underwear and socks. He found a hand-written diary tucked away in her bottom drawer. He lifted it out and showed Amy.
“I didn’t know she had that.”
“Can I read it?”
“Yes. Yes.”
Lee saw the diary contained nothing unusual, just the private thoughts of a nine-year-old girl. Rachel had a crush on someone called Neal - her best friend Lucy’s ex-boyfriend. She liked riding her pony, Amber, ice skating and shopping for new clothes. She bitched about her allowance, wanting more, but who didn’t want more money? She’d had a row with her dad last week because she stayed out late. She liked her teacher Mr Lincoln for giving her an A-grade for a hologram she made in her graphics lesson. She was jealous of a girl called Sarah for getting her first period before her. She wished she had a sister, as she was bored with being an only-child. She wanted to be thinner, like the supermodels in her favourite magazines, Elle Online and Teen Vogue.
Lee found nothing suggesting she might have run away.
She didn’t have a drug problem.
She didn’t seem depressed, scared or angry.
Her final last entry, the date before yesterday, was upbeat about an ice skating competition next week.
Discreetly, he collected a hair sample from her brush in case he needed to match her DNA.
Already, he was thinking of finding her dead.
*
Riley liked the living room. There was a very natural feel to the furniture – it seemed to flow into the floor. He wondered if it had all been grown from seeds. The room smelled like a rose garden. As Stephen poured himself a drink, Riley looked at a family pictures on the wall. They looked happy. It was a huge contrast to the misery etched on Stephen’s face as he downed a glass of malt whisky, gasping afterwards.
“I don’t normally drink,” he said. “But this needs it.”
“Take your time.”
“I don’t have time!” Stephen shouted. “Sorry. I’m tense. You just have no idea what it’s been like since this morning, when the school contacted us because Rachel did not show up for class. Amy or I normally make sure she gets to school safely, but last night she stayed at her friend’s house. You see, Rachel called me at 4.30 yesterday, asking for permission to stay the night. Her friend’s parents said they’d take her to school today. I’ll … I’ll show you the video of the call.”
It was just how Stephen had described – Rachel at her friend’s house, asking her dad if she could please-please-please sleepover. There were two adults in the background, a man and woman. They had dark hair, like their daughter, Lucy.
“That’s Michelle and Ben,” Stephen said. “I trusted them to look after my daughter, so I said yes to her staying the night. It was no big deal. I knew she’d be safe. Thought she’d be safe. Until this morning, when I called them to ask why Rachel was late for school.”
Stephen showed him the recording of that call, splitting the screen to show both sides of the conversation. On the screen Ben answered the phone, looking surprised to see Stephen.
“Hey, Ben,” said the Stephen Harper on the videophone, “the school says Rachel isn’t in class - but it’s ten o’clock. Where is she?”
Ben’s eyebrows crunched. “How would I know?”
“She stayed the night with Lucy.”
“That’s news to me,” Ben said.
“But you were right there. You talked to me last night. You gave her permission.”
“Not me,” Ben said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Stephen’s voice rose. “You don’t know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about my daughter! Where the hell is she?”
“Hey! Don’t get angry with me. I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in a week.”
The call ended with Ben hanging up.
“I tried calling back, but he wouldn’t answer. I thought about going over there, but what if he just kept on denying it? I don’t understand it why he’s lying. I mean, we’ve been friends for years. I think they’ve kidnapped her or something, but I don’t know what to do. That’s why I called you. I did the right thing, didn’t I?”
Riley nodded. He asked permission to access the comlink. Stephen granted it. Then Riley closed his eyes so he could fully concentrate on accessing the data. Information appeared in front of him on his i-ware. He traced the origin of the call back through the system until he reached the original webaddress from which it had been sent. The first call was not made from Rachel’s friend’s house. The physical location was a public access videobooth.
Riley downloaded the entire video file into an analysis program, searching for anomalies consistent with a hoax call. He found a telltale microsecond delay in communications. That didn’t sound like a lot of time, but it would be sufficient time for any half-decent computer to generate a realistic-looking fake. Diagnostic checks verified his suspicions.
“What is it?” Stephen asked.
“I’m afraid the call was a fake.”
“Fake?”
“Yes. It was done on a computer from another location. You were talking to a virtual reality simulation.”
“You mean someone pretended to call me to ask permission for Rachel to stay over? Why – why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I’ll find out, I promise.”
“This is even worse than I imagined. Are you telling me somebody could have kidnapped her yesterday?”
“It’s possible,” he said. “Do you know of any reason why someo
ne would want to do that?”
“What kind of reason?”
“Money. Revenge. Anything like that?”
“No. Amy and I don’t have a lot of money. We’re not rich. We don’t have any enemies. None I know of.”
“When was the last time you saw Rachel for real?”
“For real? That was – God - yesterday morning – eight-thirty-ish. I kissed her goodbye before Amy dropped her off at school.”
Riley contacted Lee on his i-ware. Thirty seconds later, Lee walked into the living room with Amy. Amy confirmed that she had taken their daughter to school in their SUV. That was the last time she had seen her.
“I’d like you both to stay here, in case whoever made that fake call contacts you.”
Riley walked out into the hall, followed by Lee.
“What now?” Lee said.
“I’m going to visit the school. You see if the videobooth gives up any clues.”
It started to rain as Riley parked in the staff parking lot of Quantum Hill Primary School. The head, Mrs Candice Reed, met him. She seemed as concerned about Rachel’s disappearance as her parents - a fact Riley appreciated. She told him that Rachel had attended school all day yesterday. Her final lesson ended at four. If he wanted to know more, he would have to ask her teacher. Reed showed Riley to Rachel’s classroom.
And he stepped into the middle of a Martian landscape. He could not believe the realism. He and twenty children were standing in a crater. The boys and girls were looking at the rocks and other objects in the crater. Their teacher was talking about a huge mountain in the distance called Olympus Mons. The pink sky lit the red rocks casting deep shadows. The simulation was so real Riley could see the dust under his feet billow out from under his shoes.
Riley remembered the hard plastic chairs, rocky wooden desks and blackboards of his own childhood.
“All our classrooms have virtual reality simulators,” the head said. “They are the best teaching tool.”
“Heck,” he said, remembering to watch his language. “I remember coloured chalk being a teaching tool.”
“We’ve come on a long way since those days,” the head said.
The teacher halted the lesson when he saw Riley. He was a tall white man in a grey suit. “Class, we’ll have to stop there. SIM OFF.”
The simulation ended abruptly, leaving Riley in a normal-looking classroom. He could see the holographic units on the walls. Little chairs and desks moved themselves away from the walls into position. The children sat down, glaring at Riley for interrupting. Nine-year-olds were small, very small. Riley had almost forgotten how small until surrounded by twenty little people. The teacher walked up to him. The head introduced Riley.
“I’m Mr Lincoln,” the teacher said, shaking hands. “I’m very concerned about Rachel. I’ll help you every way I can.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
“Rachel is a nice, quiet girl, good at maths and science. She has a lot of friends. Everyone likes her.”
“Any social problems?”
The teacher shook her head. “No. She didn’t have any difficulties at schoolwork. Her parents are good people, very supportive. I wish all parents were that caring.”
“Could she have been bullied?”
“This school has a no bullying policy,” the head said, stiffly. “We have a counsellor that makes sure nobody is bullied. Rachel has never reported any problems. Isn’t that right, Mr Lincoln?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
Riley knew that not all problems were reported to teachers. When he was at school, there’d been an unwritten rule about not telling on each other, like a child’s version of omerta.
“I’d like to address your class,” Riley said.
“Okay,” Mr Lincoln said. “Just don’t upset them.”
Mr Lincoln introduced him as a policeman.
The kids had questions.
“Have you killed people?” one boy cheerfully wanted to know.
“No,” he said. “I carry a stun gun. Police in England aren’t allowed to kill people. It’s against the law.”
“Aw! That’s no fun!”
You little psychopath, Riley thought.
“I want to find Rachel because her mum and dad are very worried about her. But I need your help. Does anyone know anything that can help me?”
Several hands shot up.
The videophone was on the corner of a quiet, suburban street midway between Rachel’s home and her school. On arriving in PC Keller’s vehicle, Lee hoped he would find some physical evidence inside the booth. Unfortunately, the booth was clean. Too clean – there were no fingerprints or anything on any surface. Anybody could have plugged into the modem port and accessed the internet, making the fake call to Rachel’s father.
He walked back to the vehicle, where PC Keller was stuffing his face with a massive doughnut. Keller didn’t seem bothered by the fact a kid was missing, as long as he had his mid-morning snack.
“You find anything?” he said, his breath stinking of coffee.
“No. It’s clean. Are there any security webcams nearby I can log into?”
“In Quantum Hill? You’re joking, mate. We’re a low-crime town with no need for the Big Brother routine. I mostly arrest drunks and stimmies. Minor stuff. We don’t need cameras.”
Lee cursed. In any major city, he could have accessed a thousand webcams on any street. No crime could be committed in public without it being recorded. But here? No cameras? What kind of backwater place was this? He had no way of tracking the videobooth’s user unless he found a witness. Frustrated, Lee did what police had done since the beginning of crime investigation – he canvassed the area. Knocked on doors hoping for eyewitnesses. Unfortunately, he soon found out nobody had seen a thing because no one was at home between four and five, just like there was no one at home that morning.
He prayed Riley was having more luck at the school.
*
“I didn’t walk home with Rachel,” Lucy told Riley, tears running down her cheeks. “It’s my fault she’s missing.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because we always walk home together but I was mad at her.”
“Why were you mad at her?”
“Because of Neal.”
“You don’t like Neal?”
“Not any more,” she sniffed. “He used to be my boyfriend. But now he’s not. He dumped me for her.” She paused to wipe her eyes. “He probably walked home with her.”
“Okay. Where’s Neal?”
She pointed towards a little redheaded boy. He had big, soulful eyes and so many freckles his skin reminded Riley of Bambi. The boy shuffled his feet when Riley approached him.
“Hi, Neal, did you walk home with Rachel?”
Neal looked around at the other boys, clearly uncomfortable with the fact that he had been walking home with a girl. What would be something to boast about in a few years was acutely embarrassing at the age of nine.
“Did you walk home with Rachel?”
“Uh-huh,” he mumbled.
He wasn’t going to be more forthcoming in front of his friends. He looked down at his shoes.
“Would you like to talk outside?”
Neal nodded. Riley went out into the hall with him.
“You walked home with her?”
“Kind of. I wanted her to play computer games with me, but she had to get home for dinner. She said her dad would be mad if she was late. He didn’t like her playing with boys, she said. We sort of had an argument and she walked off in a huff. Has she run away because of me?”
“No,” Riley assured him. “Neal, do you remember seeing anything else on your way home with Rachel?”
Neal looked at Riley blankly. “Like what?”
“Did you see anyone watching you?”
“Um. No … but there was a man jogging. I didn’t like the look of him. He was wearing a real stinky tracksuit. He stopped to ask me the time, but I didn’t answer because I just
wanted to get home. I didn’t like him. He went down the same street as Rachel.”
“What colour was the tracksuit?”
“Um – blue with sort a white stripe.”
“Light blue or dark blue?”
“Just blue. Like the paints in art lessons.”
“What did he look like?”
“I didn’t see his face because he had his hood-thing up. But he had sort of long, girlie hair.”
“What colour was it?”
“Black.”
“What did he smell of?”
“Sweat. He was really smelly. He should’ve washed.”
“Did he say his name?”
Neal shook his head.
Riley asked him more questions, but the boy couldn’t add many more details.
A dark-haired man wearing a sweaty blue tracksuit. It wasn’t much to go on. But Riley hoped it would be enough. He contacted Lee with the information that he had a suspect. Lee said he was lucky, as he’d come up blank so far. Riley left the school and returned to his car. He accessed satellite images from yesterday, hoping to see the jogger on an aerial view. The satellite images were easily detailed enough to do that. Unfortunately, most of England had been overcast with clouds. Quantum Hill was no exception.
Next, he checked the paedophile register for Quantum Hill.
He was shocked to see a list containing 134 names.
He narrowed the search by physical characteristics and profiling the likeliest suspects.
Top of the list was a suspect called Gregory Petrosian.
Petrosian had once been a member of an international paedophile ring calling themselves The Fatherhood. The Fatherhood was suspected of having over 60,000 members. Each member had to prove worthy of membership by providing proof of their abhorrent behaviour. Gregory Petrosian used to be a caretaker at a day-care centre in Manchester. He liked to abuse children in the toilets. When parents suspected their children had been molested, Petrosian was arrested and charged with seven counts of child-molestation. He was suspected of abusing even more kids at the day-care centre, but the kids were too young to be witnesses. He had served fifteen years and he was now on probation.
