The Keeper

by Diane Saxon

  Impatient for the news, Jenna glared at the young DC. ‘Ryan…?’

  ‘He’s got an airtight alibi.’

  ‘Oh, right!’ Sarcasm laced her words.

  ‘Yeah, no. He has, Sarg.’

  ‘How airtight can it be?’

  ‘As airtight as not being in the country when the incident happened and evidence to confirm it.’ He straightened his shoulders, puffing out his chest. ‘I got to do the follow-up. Had to contact the airport and verify he was on the flight. It wasn’t him.’

  Disappointment warred with relief. In her heart, she’d known it wasn’t him. It wouldn’t stand true to the evidence already available. He was an arse, but she’d not put him down as a killer.

  Most murders were conducted by people the victim already knew, but from the start this hadn’t held the right elements. Ed had no reason to have followed Fliss into the woodland. Jenna touched the tip of her tongue to her injured lip. He didn’t have the balls to cause Fliss physical harm.

  No, this situation smacked of a stranger.

  She shortened her stride as Ryan matched his to walk alongside her. ‘Good work, Ryan.’ She cast him a sideways glance as he flushed to the roots of his hair.

  ‘Did anyone show Ed a photograph of the deceased victim?’

  Ryan’s head bobbed with enthusiasm. ‘Yeah. We pulled a blank there too. He claimed never to have met her. No idea who she was. His eyes went kind of glazed as he stared at the photo. I thought he might spew, but he caught a hold of himself.’

  Not entirely convinced Ryan’s answer was the one she was looking for, Jenna shot him a tight smile. ‘Keep an eye on the progress and let me know as soon as you hear any developments. I shot DI Taylor a list of Fliss’s friends.’ Jenna shook her head. ‘It’s a long list.’ She ground to a halt, turned to face Ryan. ‘Also, could you let DI Taylor know that I phoned the school head this morning, as agreed, and let her know Fliss wouldn’t be in. I kept the details sketchy at this stage.’

  Ryan bounced on his toes in his enthusiasm. ‘Yes, Sarg.’

  Tempted to pat the kid on the shoulder, she gave him a brisk nod instead and continued down the stairwell to the interview room, guilt making her feet move faster than ever.

  The big bastard in there wasn’t going to get the better of her this time. She’d asked for him to be shackled to the table next to his solicitor and two of her biggest PCs to be posted at the door. He’d got the jump on her once, but never again.

  She slipped inside the door and took her seat opposite, noting the hate-filled narrow gaze that watched her every move.

  25

  Monday 29 October, 15:15 hrs

  ‘Nothing.’

  Jenna rested her head against her hand and peered at Mason and Ryan from between her fingers, aware of Adrian’s quiet presence in the corner of the room.

  Still nothing. Not a clue.

  ‘Brief me.’

  ‘As I said. Nothing, Jenna.’ Mason rubbed his fingers over his mouth, his skin had turned a dull grey during the day and the red rims around his eyes seemed to glow. Another full day and they’d still not found her. Time was ticking away. Mason looked as worried as she felt, and it occurred to her once more that his feelings for her sister were far stronger than he’d ever revealed.

  Distracted by the incident room door being opened, Jenna paused as Frank and DI Taylor slipped into the office.

  Surprise lightened Frank’s eyes as his gaze caught hers. ‘Sarg.’

  ‘Frank. Hi.’ Jenna cast her gaze over him. He appeared fresher than the rest of them. ‘Have you just come on?’

  ‘Mmmm. Nights.’ He sipped his tea as he scanned the board. ‘You?’

  ‘I’ve been here far too long. I’m only here as an observer. I wanted a catch-up before I go off duty. Just to see if I can see something someone may have missed.’

  Despite DI Taylor’s presence, Jenna took the initiative and turned to Mason. He’d probably kept up to speed on the intel throughout the day.

  ‘Take me through it, step by step.’

  Ryan fidgeted and made her wonder if he was about to raise his hand again. Perhaps she’d take his enthusiasm over Mason’s misery and Frank’s quiet snuffles as he studied the paperwork in front of him.

  She turned to face the younger man. ‘Go ahead, Ryan.’

  He shot up straight in his chair, his spine ramrod straight. ‘It’s a big area, but they’ve managed to cover a lot of the woodland today. The weather’s not been too unkind, just a light drizzle, but some of the local Army pitched up and joined in the search. By lunchtime, we took local volunteers, keeping them as far from the crime scene as possible. The flood defences have been raised as the River Severn continues to rise.’

  Jenna glanced at Mason. He held his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees as he sat in the small chair he’d squeezed his frame into. DI Taylor leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his broad stomach. Frank shot a look in their direction, then ducked his head to scribble another note while Adrian tapped quietly into his tablet. He might appear oblivious, but she suspected nothing would get past him. She’d let him know she needed an update on her sister’s case and, without a fuss, he’d been there. Ready when she was. Coffee in hand to offer her.

  ‘What else?’ She directed her question to Ryan again. She couldn’t fault him for his ability to reel off facts and Mason hadn’t disagreed with anything the boy had said so far.

  ‘Dad said…’

  She nodded encouragement at him as he hesitated for the first time. ‘What did your dad say?’ She’d known his dad for the past ten years; the guy was normally right.

  ‘He said,’ Ryan’s voice gave a little warble, so Mason’s head shot up, a deep frown streaking across his forehead. ‘He doesn’t think she’s on the hillside. He’s convinced she’s been taken. He said if she was dead, then she’d been killed elsewhere, but there was no further evidence of another murder.’

  ‘Okay.’ She’d rather not have heard Fliss may be dead either in the gorge or somewhere else, but she had to face it. She may well be. She tried to keep her imagination from running wild, but experience and knowledge threw up thoughts she didn’t want, making it hard to avoid them. Her police training exposed her to every possibility. ‘Right. What else?’

  ‘They’ve had the underwater search unit out all day. Nothing. They’ve scanned the waters and shore for as far as they can, taking in the rapid current, but the river’s rising fast now and, as I said, the flood barriers have been erected in Ironbridge. The rain in Wales hasn’t stopped for the past two days and rainfall has been heavier than normal today.’ He’d started to sound like a weather forecaster, but she didn’t stop him; he wasn’t doing any harm.

  She tapped her pen on the pad she had on the desk, glanced at Mason while he nodded in agreement and then let her attention wander across to the window. ‘They’ll probably have called off the search for tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, Dad said for everyone’s safety they couldn’t risk searching the area overnight. If she’s gone in the water, then it’s reasonable to assume her body could have been swept downriver for miles. With the water so high, it’s possible the body could have been swept as far as the Bristol Estuary. They’ll check that far down, but it’ll take time with the river as bad as it is and limited daylight hours.’

  It stood to reason. It didn’t make the desire to race out over the hills of Ironbridge and scream Fliss’s name at the top of her voice until she answered any less. She couldn’t let herself believe Fliss had been swept down the river.

  Where could she be?

  The reflection of the stark incident room stared back at her from the single small window, their images watery and blurred as night closed in.

  ‘What about the dead woman?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, we visited the lab earlier. The pathologist had finished the autopsy.’

  Jenna turned, a sneaking suspicion Ryan had turned a tinge of green was backed up by the quick succession of swallows he m
ade.

  Frank fidgeted, pushing a hand through his thinning hair as he nodded at Mason. ‘I have an update. I just heard back from the pathologist. White female aged much younger than we initially thought. Around twenty-five to thirty. Height, five foot two inches. Weight, eight stone four pounds. Hair, short, light brown with a considerable number of grey streaks.’ He studied his notes. ‘No evidence of eye colour.’ He shrugged. ‘The animals, you know…’ He waved his hands over his pale face, his mouth pulled tight.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No. There’s evidence that she recently gave birth.’ Ryan, voice strong, came to his feet and stepped closer.

  Jenna sucked breath in through her teeth and glanced around. Shock and disgust registered on every face.

  ‘Fuck.’ Mason swiped a hand over his eyes.

  DI Taylor’s voice lowered, strain tautening his features. ‘There’s a baby out there without a mother. This is desperate. We need to find it.’ He turned to Ryan. ‘What else have you got there DC Downey? Any more clues?’

  Ryan shook his head. ‘No distinguishing marks, other than the scars already mentioned. No tattoos, no birthmarks. She was underweight, with evidence of being malnourished. Her teeth.’ He grimaced. ‘Her teeth were not good. She’d very possibly not seen a dentist in quite some time.’

  Mason handed Jenna a photograph of the corpse. Eyelids closed in death, skin purple-hued. ‘There’s a good reason to always floss, because if no one else can tell, the pathologist won’t keep your secret.’

  Jenna gave him a wan smile as Ryan gaped at him. Frank shuffled his papers and flashed a disapproving look Mason’s way as though he didn’t appreciate the disrespect.

  ‘Was there anything further, Frank?’

  He sat upright and leaned forward, the ceiling spotlights casting shadows over his face. ‘She wasn’t murdered in his opinion.’

  ‘What?’ She shot up in her seat, leaned over the table. ‘What do you mean she wasn’t murdered, Frank? We found her naked body at the bottom of the hill. Naked.’ She whipped around to face her partner. ‘Mason, did you explain that to the examiner when you saw him? She was naked when we found her. Bloody hell, Jim already gave her a preliminary examination.’

  Mason held up both hands in self-defence. ‘Yes, I know, and yes, I spoke with the pathologist about it, so there’s no need for you to run off and find him. His experienced conclusion was, he thinks she broke her neck in the fall. He’ll give a full report later, but this was just his initial findings while we were in attendance. When he did the nail scrape, there was nothing under there but dirt. No blood, no skin traces and there didn’t appear to be any defensive wounds on her hands.’

  ‘Okay.’ DI Taylor nodded, making his presence known. ‘I take it she was fingerprinted?’

  ‘We have them, but I suspect there’s nothing on file,’ Mason replied.

  ‘That’s on my list to look into.’ Frank fanned a sheaf of paper to indicate how much he still had to log.

  DI Taylor pointed a finger at the board. ‘We’ll check all the anti-natal classes, hospitals. She must be registered if she was pregnant.’

  Frank nodded. ‘I’ll get on to it.’

  Jenna ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Why was she naked?’

  Frank shrugged and scribbled another note. ‘We have no idea. Perhaps someone took the clothes from her body after death?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Ryan stepped up to the board and tacked the photograph of the deceased woman in the middle. ‘Pathologist believes the body was moved post-mortem, dragged into the tunnel, presumably so no one would spot her during the day. The time factors seem to indicate she’d been hidden so that the perpetrator could come back and remove her in their own time. When Dad did the initial in-situ investigations, he found no trace of material from clothes, nothing to indicate that she was anything but naked when she was dumped there. But he could have stripped her elsewhere and dragged her body there. We’ve had so much rain, much of the original evidence would have been washed away or trodden into the mud.’

  Jenna sat back and resumed tapping her pen on the pad, her gaze locked with Mason’s as though they could create enough energy by their thoughts alone to explain why a naked woman with a broken neck would be at the bottom of the Gorge.

  Ryan coughed, and Jenna shot him a quick glance, her eyebrows twitched upwards. He seemed to have plenty to say on the matter. ‘Yes?’

  ‘The examiner did say there was evidence of historical abuse.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘Not abuse, PC Downey. He never said abuse. He said there was evidence the woman had suffered several fractures in recent years, but it was too early yet to tell if this was from accidents or whether her bone density was too thin. He’ll come back to us on that.’

  ‘Nuh-uh.’

  Frank’s eyes widened at the audacity of the kid to disagree with him for the second time in so many minutes, but Jenna shuffled closer to pay attention. ‘What else, Ryan?’

  ‘There were scars on her skin, particularly the insides of her forearms.’ He turned his arm, so the tender side was showing, and slashed his fingers diagonally across it. ‘Several, as though she’d been slashed.’

  ‘Or been self-abusing. That’s what the examiner said.’ Frank pushed his fingers through his limp hair and wrote something else.

  Ryan dipped his head and mumbled into his chest. ‘I’ve seen self-abuse. It doesn’t look like that.’ His head came up and he met Jenna’s gaze full on, the maturity in his expression convinced her he knew what he was talking about. ‘These scars looked deep. It was hard to work out which ones were from where she slid down the hill. The examiner will go through each one over the next few hours and let us know, but he pointed out a couple of deeper, older scars which seemed as though they’d been stitched, tiny dots still evident at the edges. There were several newer ones I noticed on her legs too.’ He flicked Frank a cautious glance, evidently concerned enough not to want to undermine the more experienced man’s opinion. ‘You don’t self-abuse and then stitch yourself up. Someone else had to have done it.’

  ‘Someone else.’ It made sense, but… ‘Why hasn’t she been reported as missing?’

  The men shook their heads.

  ‘Has anyone come forward since the press release?’

  Mason shot her an uncomfortable look as DI Taylor shuffled through a stack of paperwork to snatch a newspaper from underneath. A full quarter page photograph of Fliss stared up at her. The photograph only the police had access to.

  ‘Who the fuck authorised this?’

  Adrian stepped close behind her to look over her shoulder.

  ‘No one.’ DI Taylor shook his head. ‘I’ve spoken with the press office and confirmed what they issued. Someone leaked this to the press.’

  She vibrated with anger as she stared at the front page of the newspaper. Police Resources Stepped Up As Detective Sergeant’s Sister Declared Missing.

  ‘Oh, god.’

  The public would go wild. There’d be a frenzy of phone calls to the station, false sightings, concerned citizens with snippets of hearsay. Exactly the situation the police strove to avoid.

  She read the name under the article. ‘Kim Stafford. The bastard. How the hell did he get hold of this?’

  DI Taylor pursed his lips. ‘We’re already looking into it. Someone on the inside obviously.’

  ‘I bloody hate Kim Stafford. He must know what chaos this will cause. We’re going to spend more time answering fake phone calls than chasing the culprit. For God’s sake!’ She paced across the small office, fingers gripping her hair.

  Kim Stafford, slick bastard that he was. Same age as Jenna, they’d been in the same class at school together. She’d hated him then, she hated him even more now. If he was in the room with her, she’d kick his arse like she did when they were thirteen and he’d snapped her bra undone in assembly. She’d bloodied his nose and every minute of detention had been worth it.

  There was nothing she could do about the situa
tion. DI Taylor would have it in hand. She needed to move on, address the more pressing issue. She picked the newspaper up, gave it one last scan and tossed it on Frank’s desk.

  ‘What about the wedding ring? Wasn’t it engraved?’ They nodded their agreement. ‘No joy on tracing it?’

  Frank shook his head. ‘We’ve sent out enquiries with the local jewellers but so far no one’s recognised it. We thought about putting it in the Shropshire Star, see if it catches the attention of anyone locally.’

  Jenna shook her head. ‘I think we might want to keep this nugget of information to ourselves at the moment. We never know who might make a slip-up if they don’t know about the ring. It could give us an advantage.’

  Ryan almost bounced in his enthusiasm to impart the next piece of information. ‘The pathologist confirmed it came from the deceased, as we suspected. Left hand, ring finger. From the wear on the finger, he estimated it had been there several years.’

  ‘What was it doing off her finger further down the track?’

  ‘No one knows. She never came from that direction, she came from above.’ Mason came to his feet and wandered over to the board to stare at it for a long moment before he pointed. ‘What if…’ He puffed out small bursts of air from between his lips. ‘This is a long shot. What if the woman fell, broke her neck because she was being chased and, for some reason, your sister was there.’

  Jenna got to her feet too, to join him in front of the board. ‘It makes no sense.’

  ‘Nothing makes any sense, Jenna. Nothing. It makes no sense for your sister to disappear. It makes no sense Domino is virtually dead.’

  ‘He’s fine. I visited him this morning.’ At his flash of annoyance, Jenna placed her hand on his forearm. ‘I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it. The vet thinks he’ll be fit to come home in a couple of days.’ She shot him a wry smile. ‘I may need your help.’

  He raised one brow as he peered down at her.

  ‘You know you love her dog.’

  The other brow joined the first to wrinkle his forehead. ‘I’m not having him.’