by Andrew Lowe
‘Love, they’re just—’ Jayne tried the arm squeeze again, but Paul shoved her away.
Sawyer stood. Paul’s nose had reddened, and there was something new behind his eyes. Something he was struggling to carry. ‘Sorry to have troubled you. There’s one final thing. A phrase that’s come to light as part of the investigation. I wonder if it means anything to you. “Creepy crawly”.’
Jayne Manning wrinkled her brow in confusion and shook her head.
Paul squeezed his eyes shut again and dropped back down into the sofa. ‘No. Never heard that before.’
Back in the Rover, Shepherd looked over at Sawyer. ‘Please don’t say that went well.’
‘If I did say that, it wouldn’t be sarcastic.’
‘What do you mean?’
Sawyer raised an eyebrow. ‘Paul Manning was way too eager to get us out of there. He knew the name Luka Strickland. And he was lying about the other thing, too. About “creepy crawly”.’ He gunned the engine. ‘I’ll drop you at the station so you can run the show. I need to see Luka’s mother.’
43
Sawyer showed his warrant card to the officer outside the hospital Relatives’ Room and stepped inside. Three plain chairs surrounded a beech coffee table. Box of tissues. Stack of untouched magazines. More pastel, punctuated by teal. More design to dampen emotion.
Maggie and Eva Gregory sat side by side, both staring into the wood of the table. They startled at Sawyer’s entrance.
Maggie reached across and took Eva’s hand. ‘Any news?’
‘Not yet, no. I’m sorry.’ Eva’s head dropped. ‘We’ve met before. I’m Detective Inspector Jake Sawyer. The team is doing everything they can. Ms Gregory, I have some highly capable detectives overseeing the search for Luka.’ He took a seat. ‘We’re conducting co-ordinated searches on vehicles. Interviewing hospital staff. Our media officer is working with local TV and radio stations to get the message out. He’ll also be using social media. Twitter and Facebook. Mostly Twitter.’
Eva looked up, her eyes loaded with tears. ‘Why?’
‘It’s faster. If anyone does think they’ve seen something, the contact will be pretty much immediate and we can act more quickly.’
Eva stood and paced. ‘I should have stayed with him.’ She stopped, took a breath, wiped her face with a tissue. ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ She steeled herself and turned. ‘He’s all I’ve got. If something happens—’
Sawyer stepped towards her. Again, the urge to touch her. To touch and comfort. The urge to wipe away her pain. This was new. ‘Would you normally have stayed with him? In his room here?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then. There’s no reason to beat yourself up. It was out of your control. We have to forget what’s happened in the past. We can’t change it now. We can only focus on what’s within our control: finding the person who took Luka and getting him back safe.’
Maggie got up and guided Eva back to her seat. Eva re-bundled her hair into a ponytail. She took off her glasses and cleaned the lenses with a fresh tissue. ‘I remember you.’
Sawyer angled his head. ‘Me?’
‘Yes. You spoke to Luka. About the man in the room.’
He nodded. ‘At the time, we thought he was the victim of a crime. Now, we think he was probably the perpetrator.’
Maggie flashed Sawyer a look.
He pulled up the image of the shaven headed man on his phone. ‘Do you recognise him at all? Does he look like anyone connected to Luka? Teacher? Sports coach? Family?’
Eva squinted into the screen, then recoiled. ‘No.’
‘Eva, does Luka have any special needs? Medication? Allergies?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s short-sighted, that’s all. Needs his glasses. And there’s the crash. He’s had dizzy spells. Blackouts.’
The phone buzzed with a call. ‘Please excuse me for a second.’ Sawyer stepped out into the corridor and connected.
‘We’ve got him on CCTV.’ Shepherd sounded hoarse. He’d been shouting. Probably at the others. ‘He gets the boy into a car parked on Corbar Woods Lane. Black Honda. ANPR tags him ten minutes later on Long Hill. Traffic has already found it abandoned off Elnor Lane. Single track. No ANPR or CCTV.’
‘He switched cars. Like we said.’
‘It’s the sticks up there. He could still be in the Peaks or halfway to Manchester by now.’
Sawyer stepped away from the door to the Relatives’ Room. He traced a finger along the edge of a window sill, pecked at the flaking paint. ‘Anything from Sally?’
‘Nothing from facial recognition databases. Some DNA from the hospital. Saliva from glasses. The bed, his drip, blood test. Nothing in the database. Prints, but not in database, either.’
‘So, a guy in his forties. Totally clean. He devises a finely tuned abduction strategy, sets up horrendous deaths for his victims, makes himself an expert in administering a poison that will shut down his victims but leave them aware of their situation at the moment of death.’
‘So he can film their panic.’
Sawyer nodded. He pulled at a fleck of paint and, satisfyingly, it came up in a long, thin strip and clung to the sill. ‘It’s not sexual.’
‘If he’s killed Gary Follett, and assumed his identity, why not bury him in the same way? If that’s his MO?’
‘Feels like it’s more about signature. Why does he feel the need to do it this way? And we’re still stuck on victim selection. Why these people? Why Georgina, Toby, Luka?’
‘And why not Gary?’
The paint broke away. ‘Luka is the interesting one. It’s as if he wants us to know how much trouble he’s gone to.’
‘We’ve spoken to Danny Stoll. He doesn’t recognise the guy. Doesn’t know Luka. You still think the Manning father is hiding something? The “creepy crawly” thing?’
‘Possibly. Let me finish here. Then I’ll be back for a catch-up.’
‘You with the mother?’
‘Yes. She doesn’t recognise the guy.’
A few seconds’ silence. Movement and commotion in the background at Shepherd’s end. ‘Sir, DC Walker wondered if it’s related to the lad’s car accident.’
‘In what way?’
‘As if the accident was kind of a gift, and he’s planned everything around it. To cause maximum distress.’
Sawyer rang off and pushed back into the Relatives’ Room. Eva and Maggie looked expectant.
‘Eva, where’s Luka’s father?’
44
Sawyer bustled into the office and took up position by the whiteboard. He clapped his hands twice; the buzz fell away and the detectives turned to face him. Pre-dawn sun flare filtered through, casting the room in a queasy half light. He was pleased to see the place packed out; even Rhodes had ventured up from his basement lair.
‘Updates, please.’
DC Walker spoke from the front. ‘I couldn’t find any significance in the phrase “creepy crawly”. My mate at Hendon was baffled.’
‘Sally?’
Sally O’Callaghan inhaled through her nose. She was notoriously nocturnal, but her eyes were reddened and sunken. ‘Abandoned car is clean. There’s some saliva on the back seat. Probably the boy’s. I’ll get officers line-searching the route from the hospital to the lane, and possible movements from the abandoned car.’
‘Any hits on the image or composite pic?’
‘Nothing from either,’ said Myers. ‘Too early for the public.’
‘Get both out there tomorrow, Stephen, yes?’
Bloom stood. By his standard, he looked close to dishevelled: upscale knitwear with protruding white shirt collar, no suit. ‘Yes. Local press are running. News channels. We need it, but there will be a lot of pushback. I’ll try to keep the tabloids on side with the abduction but behind the hard news. They’ll catch up, though. They’ll want to know how it happened.’
‘We talked to your prostitute,’ said Moran, slumped at the back. ‘She remembers the tooth ring.’
Sheph
erd stepped out. ‘That’s useless in the hunt for the boy, anyway. No help.’
Sawyer tapped his pen at the edge of the whiteboard. ‘Why keep someone’s tooth on a ring, though?’
Moran shrugged. ‘Because you’re a psycho who buries people alive and abducts children?’
Sawyer scowled at him. ‘As ever, DC Moran, your insight is welcome, but that’s too easy. It’s a question we need to answer. Whose tooth is it and why is it important to him?’ He let a silence settle. ‘Everybody go home. Order, not advice. Grab a few hours while you can. You’ll need your strength for the media shitstorm.’ He patted Shepherd on the shoulder; the order clearly applied to him, too. ‘Bloom, keep me informed about the media heat.’
He turned to leave; Shepherd blocked his path.
‘Sir?’
‘I’m pulling an all-nighter. There’s someone we haven’t seen yet who might recognise our man.’
‘Shall I come with you?’
Sawyer smiled. ‘Reserve your energy. Play a bit deeper, in defence. I’ll cover the attack.’
Dale Strickland lowered himself into the chair, keeping his eyes on Sawyer, standing by the window that looked out onto the guards’ station in the prison’s central atrium. Sawyer set a paper coffee cup down in front of Strickland and slid over a couple of sugar sachets and a plastic spoon.
The guard—short and stumpy and tired-looking—hovered by the door. Strickland stirred the sugar into his coffee and looked back. ‘Thanks, Terry. No problem. No need to hang around.’
Terry nodded and left the two men alone.
‘What’s this about? Haven’t you cunts had enough time out of me?’
Sawyer leaned forward, dipping his head, trying to force Strickland to make eye contact. His gaze flicked up, then back down to the coffee. ‘The sixteen-year-old, Dale. Remember him? You shoved a glass into his face. Hundred and forty stitches. They tried to save his eye. Didn’t manage it.’
Strickland blew on his coffee and took a sip. ‘It was self-defence. Took my spot at the bar. Had a pop at me. Had his hands round my throat. I grabbed a glass. He shouldn’t have been in a pub, anyway. You know all this. You’re CID, yeah? You’ve got the look.’
Sawyer took the seat opposite. ‘The look of a cunt?’
Strickland smiled. ‘That’s the one.’
‘That’s a Germanic word, you know. The etymology is debated, but it’s probably also connected to the Latin for vulva. Cunnus.’
Strickland’s frown lines thickened above his professorial glasses. He lowered his head and patted at his trimmed grey hair. ‘Is this a new fucking course? Copper’s English.’
Sawyer took out his phone. ‘Looks like you might be a free man soon, Dale.’
‘Free to breathe in the stink of the farms. Lucky me.’
‘Not from here, originally?’
Strickland nodded. ‘Never liked it much, though. Why do the police always do this?’
Sawyer navigated to the image he’d taken of the shaven-headed man in the hospital room. ‘Do what?’
‘Ask questions about things they already know the answers to.’
Sawyer shrugged. ‘It gets the suspect talking. From that, you can observe and monitor the cadence of their voice. Loudness, for insistence. Body language. You basically sit back and watch them incriminate themselves. Makes your job a bit easier. Have you seen this man before, Dale?’
Strickland glanced at the screen, then redirected his death stare back at Sawyer. ‘That your latest boyfriend?’
‘He’s abducted your son, Dale. Luka. We’re keen to trace him.’
‘Fuck off.’
Sawyer nodded. ‘He took Luka from the hospital.’
Strickland jumped to his feet, scraping back the chair, jolting his coffee cup. The door opened.
Sawyer held up a hand. ‘It’s okay, Terry. Bit of a shock for Dale. We’re handling it.’
Terry hovered for a few seconds, then retreated.
‘Dale. Please sit down. I need your help if I’m going to find Luka.’
Strickland took his seat again. ‘You’re fucking lying. Nobody has “abducted” my Luka.’
‘They wouldn’t dare, eh?’
‘What’s happened to him? Where is he? What the fuck are you lot doing about it? I want to speak to Eva.’ He flushed red and looked like he was wrestling with the urge to throw a punch.
Sawyer unwrapped a purple boiled sweet and slipped it into his mouth. ‘Let me take those one at a time. Luka was taken from the hospital and driven away in a car parked nearby, we believe by this man. Where is he? We don’t know that. If we did, I wouldn’t be here at this time in the morning. A team of well-trained detectives are doing everything conceivable to find him.’
‘He’s only just recovered from an accident.’
‘I know. I met him at the hospital. Lovely lad. Smart and charming. Chip off the old block, eh?’
Strickland fixed Sawyer with what he presumably thought was an intimidating stare. ‘Where’s Eva? Does she know?’
‘She’s being cared for. Now. Once more. Do you recognise this man? Have a really good look.’
Strickland leaned in close to Sawyer’s screen. ‘Never seen him before.’
‘Has Luka ever had any problems at school? A teacher he’s complained about, or a football coach or similar? Someone you’ve fired?’
Strickland tipped back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Do I look like a man who employs staff?’
‘Not officially, no.’
Strickland lunged forward, forearms on the table. ‘Look, if you know who’s taken him, it can’t be hard to find him.’
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘For you, maybe.’
Sawyer raised an eyebrow. ‘Going to call on your own investigation team?’
Strickland leaned forward. ‘This is what you fuckers don’t get, isn’t it? You’re good at putting innocent men inside for defending themselves, but you get a real crime and you haven’t got a clue. If I waited for you lot to work it all out, I’d never see my son again.’
45
The weekend was a sleepless flurry of troll phone calls and horror headlines. Luka’s abduction was a steak thrown to the nationals, and they savaged it without mercy.
COPS LET KILLER WALK
CRASH BOY SNATCHED BY UNDERTAKER KILLER
PEAKS POLICE: NO LEADS IN BURIAL KILLINGS
Keating and Sawyer shuttled around TV studios and radio cars, treading the same furrow: they were dealing with a dangerous, highly intelligent individual whom they had underestimated. The enquiry into procedural failings could wait; the priority now was to find Luka and apprehend his kidnapper.
Stephen Bloom hijacked the media fury to maximise exposure of the CCTV images of the bearded man, and Sawyer’s shot of him shaven at the hospital. He also circulated a cropped image of Luka Strickland at a birthday party: red-framed glasses, peering over his shoulder at a pizza feeding frenzy. Imperious but vulnerable. Eva Gregory gave a tearful press conference, inspiring a group of local parents into a mass search of Padley Gorge and the woodland between Buxton and Cavendish Hospital. They found nothing.
Despite the media glare and public action, there were no reliable sightings of the kidnapper or Luka, together or apart. Keating’s competence was called into question by the Chief Constable, and there was talk of the Sheffield Murder Investigation Team being reviewed, or his command revoked.
Sawyer arrived at Buxton close to dawn on Monday morning. The place was empty, apart from DC Walker at his desk in the far corner, and Keating, alone in his office.
Keating saw Sawyer through his window and waved him in.
Sawyer flopped down in one of the chairs facing the desk. ‘Please tell me you haven’t been here all night.’
Keating shook his head. ‘I might as well have been. Couple of hours’ sleep. It’s the noise in my head. All the voices. Accusations, anger.’
Sawyer leaned forward and took a copy of the mo
rning’s Guardian from Keating’s desk. The splash was some diplomatic fuss over tit for tat spy expulsions, but further down, above an image of a tearful Eva at the press conference:
DERBYSHIRE POLICE IN FRESH APPEAL FOR MISSING BOY
And a caption and sub headline:
Officers ask public for sightings of nine-year-old Luka Strickland, feared to have been abducted by murder suspect.
Sawyer skimmed the story. ‘At least the quality press dial down the hysteria.’
‘Doesn’t change anything. If you were being charitable, you could at least say that the exposure gives us more chance of someone seeing something.’
‘Also helps if he’s taken Luka out of the area.’
Keating took a slug of coffee. ‘Now there’s a happy thought.’
‘Do you want another?’
‘Go on. I can take it.’
‘I’m expecting a bit of vigilante justice. From the boy’s father. Nasty bastard. Dale Strickland. Gets out of Buckley Hall next week. GBH.’
Keating finished his coffee, grimaced. ‘He’ll have to find him first.’
‘We should tail him. Or recruit him.’
Keating managed a smile. ‘Myers has circulated the suspect photos to caving groups. He’s meeting someone today who thinks they recognise the guy in the bearded image.’
Sawyer tossed the newspaper back onto Keating’s desk. ‘We need some kind of foothold. Anything we can chip away at. Sally sent me a voicemail about the new line searches. Nothing. I think she’s bouncing it off me because she can’t stand bringing you any more bad news directly.’
A knock at the door.
‘Morning.’ Walker edged his face into the room. Keating waved him in. ‘DI Sawyer. Phone call, sir. Governor of Buckley Hall Prison. Says he needs to see you urgently.’
