Turn to Dust

by Amphlett, Rachel

  ‘Tell you what, guv, I’ll fetch us all some coffee,’ said Barnes. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’

  ‘Thanks, Ian. Sounds like a great idea. I can defrost my fingers at least.’

  She watched her DS head over to a van selling hot drinks, and then waited until Maxwell had finished his call and wandered over.

  ‘Any luck?’

  He shook his head, and put his phone in his pocket. ‘Nothing at this end, and I hear there’s been no news from the other markets. It was a long shot, anyway. Whoever’s been recruiting from the markets in the past might be keeping out of the way for the time being.’

  ‘And we’ve only got Shelley’s word for it that they were recruited from a market,’ said Kay.

  ‘It was worth following up,’ said Maxwell. ‘And it doesn’t hurt to have a presence here – it might encourage others to come forward if they know we’re interested.’

  ‘That’s a very charitable way of putting it. I hope you don’t think today was a waste of your officers’ time.’

  ‘It’s never a waste of time, guv. Not when people’s lives are at risk.’

  ‘Here you go.’ Barnes joined them and handed out the hot drinks, placing the cardboard tray in a recycling bin outside a shop. He took a sip, and then frowned. ‘Maybe we’ve got this all wrong. I mean, if people don’t escape that often, they won’t need to recruit more people, will they?’

  ‘I suppose so. I wonder what stops them from escaping, though?’ said Kay. ‘I mean, it’s an awful situation to find yourself in.’

  Maxwell grimaced, his takeaway coffee cup halfway to his lips.

  ‘Fear,’ he said. ‘The gangs instil terror in these people. The last thing on their minds is escape. They’re simply trying to survive.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Kay spun her chair from side to side, leafing through the reports she’d printed out of HOLMES2 following that morning’s surveillance of local markets, and bit back a sigh.

  The last team members had returned to the incident room half an hour ago as the stallholders had packed away their wares at the market in Sevenoaks, and were now starting to gather by the whiteboard, their conversation a low murmur.

  Exhaustion seeped into the atmosphere in the room, and despite her concerns for Shelley’s safety, she knew she would have to take drastic action to ensure her team remained focused.

  Dropping the last report to her desk, she pushed back her chair and wandered over to where they congregated.

  ‘Okay, let’s do this briefing and then I’m splitting the team into two for the remainder of the weekend. Debbie, can you make the necessary changes to the roster for me?’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  ‘It’s three o’clock now, so we’ll run a pared down shift this afternoon and evening, with the remainder of you to keep your phones on at all times. Just because you’re getting an early pass doesn’t mean you won’t be called in. I want everyone on standby in case we get a breakthrough, understood?’

  A mumble of consent swept through the room, and she waited for them to settle once more.

  ‘Laura – any luck with that CCTV footage?’

  The young detective constable shook her head. ‘I ran through it again this morning while you were all out at the markets, and I obtained some new film from the council as well. Shelley knew where all the cameras were – she might’ve only been back in town a week or so, but she’s street-smart.’

  ‘Anything from the shelters?’

  ‘Nothing, guv,’ said Gavin. ‘All the organisers and volunteers have been asked to keep a lookout for her, and we’ve let them know we think her life is in danger, but so far nothing at all.’

  Kay leaned against the desk and peered at the whiteboard, her gaze resting on the photograph of Ethan Archer’s mangled body.

  ‘We can’t give up on her,’ she said. ‘She’s out there, somewhere. She’ll be scared, paranoid – she just won’t have the energy to stay ahead of these people if she doesn’t get help soon.’

  ‘Do you think she’s left Maidstone?’ said Barnes.

  ‘I don’t think so. If she’s telling the truth about all this – and I’m inclined to believe her – then despite being held for three years or more, she’s familiar with the town.’ Kay began to pace the carpet tiles in front of her team, her eyes tracing the faded blue-tinged whorls of colour. ‘Having said that, it depends how much money she’s been able to beg off the streets since last week when she said she escaped.’

  ‘If she’s trying to keep out of sight for fear of being caught, then she might not have much money,’ said Laura.

  ‘True, but if she has managed to get some cash together, she’s got two mainline train stations and a bus station to choose from.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her on the CCTV images I’ve checked outside those, but I can take another look, guv.’

  ‘Do it, please. And get two of our colleagues from uniform here to help you so you’ve got fresh pairs of eyes on that footage.’

  ‘Thanks, guv.’

  Kay nodded at her young protégée, pleased that Laura had taken the advice well. Having spent the past twenty-four hours looking at the same camera angles, it would be all too easy to miss something.

  ‘Okay, that’s it for today. Check the new roster with Debbie and if your name isn’t on it, then I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  A flurry of activity swept through the room as officers moved away, and Kay bit her lip as she watched them begin to drift towards Debbie’s desk.

  After the assignments were handed out, some headed towards the door with a bounce in their step and others returned to their computers, resolved to make some headway over the rest of the afternoon.

  Barnes wandered over to her and smiled. ‘Go on, get lost, guv. You look dead on your feet.’

  She smiled, and shook her head. ‘Sorry – I was miles away for a moment there.’

  ‘Like I said, get yourself home. I’ll stay here until six and then the night team can run the place. You’re no good to us if you’re tired.’

  ‘Cheeky. Isn’t that one of my lines?’

  ‘It’s a good one.’

  ‘You’re worried about her.’

  Kay’s hand dived into the bucket of pellets Adam held out before letting the feed run over her fingers. ‘Yes.’

  ‘If she’s managed to survive for three years as a slave worker and escape, perhaps she’s just keeping her head down. Maybe something scared her on Thursday when she was talking to you, and she’s biding her time.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘She knows where to find you, right?’

  ‘Only in person. I never got the chance to give her my card.’

  Adam gave her a nudge with his elbow. ‘Just as well you came by here on the way home. You’d have only sat there worrying about her. I know what you’re like. Being around this lot should take your mind off her for a while.’

  ‘That’s what I hoped.’ Kay tossed the pellets into the stainless steel trough and stood back as three miniature goats tumbled over each other to be first to the food. ‘Christ, you’d think this lot hadn’t been fed for a week.’

  ‘I know – and this is the second lot today. Plus all the kitchen scraps we’ve been bringing in for them.’

  Kay grinned and looked across the network of pens Adam had constructed at the rear of his veterinary practice when he’d first opened for business several years ago.

  Beyond the goats’ pen, two pigs snorted as they furrowed amongst a bed of straw that had been laid out under a wooden shelter, and a donkey raised its velvety nose as they moved along the paddock towards him.

  ‘At this rate, you could open a petting zoo. You’d make a fortune,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what Stephanie said earlier this week. I think if she had her way, she’d have the brochures already designed and on shelves at the tourist information office.’

  Kay laughed.

  Adam’s receptionist was in her fifties and ran the front-of-house part of th
e business as well as an incident room manager. The owner of a smallholding with her husband and a qualified book-keeper, Stephanie was referred to by Adam as his secret weapon against any competitors.

  Kay reached out and squeezed his arm. ‘You’ve achieved a lot here. I’m so proud of you.’

  He grinned, then kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Oi, we’ll have none of that lovey-dovey stuff out there,’ came a shout from the back of the surgery. ‘Not in front of the patients.’

  Kay turned to see Scott Mildenhall peering out from one of the windows, a mock shocked expression on his face.

  ‘Peeping Tom!’

  The junior veterinarian grinned, and held up a four-pack of lager. ‘It’s beer o’clock. Want one?’

  ‘On our way,’ said Adam. ‘Just got the pigeon to check.’

  ‘Pigeon?’ said Kay.

  ‘Yes – he flew into someone’s patio windows yesterday afternoon and completely stunned himself. We’ve just had him here overnight to keep an eye on him. He should be fine. You go inside – I’ll be there in a minute. It’s getting cold out here.’

  Kay brushed pellet dust from her hands and traipsed along the tree-bark-lined path to the back of the surgery, thanking Scott as he held open the door for her.

  ‘We haven’t got any glasses,’ he said. ‘Sorry – we only tend to keep a few beers in the fridge for emergencies, and you look like you need one.’

  ‘That bad, eh? I’ll wash my hands and join you before we head home to feed those fox cubs.’

  Moments later, the three of them were gathered on the sofas in the empty reception area, a dull glow from the back office lending a warmth to the room while they relaxed.

  Kay picked at the label on the side of her beer bottle and then jerked up her head at the sound of her name.

  ‘Sorry, I was thinking. What did you say?’

  ‘I said, I’ll bet that despite having a team that you can rely on, you’ll be back at work in the morning.’ Adam smiled. ‘You’re going to keep looking for her, aren’t you?’

  ‘I have to. I don’t think she trusts anyone else.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Gavin tweaked the volume on the Airwave radio next to his computer monitor before cricking his neck, then ran a pencil over the black typed lines of the report he was halfway through reading.

  A weak sunlight shone through the window on his left, and as his watch blinked half past seven the central heating system gave a half-hearted grumble before the radiator beside him attempted to warm up.

  He’d arrived early, determined to make some headway on the paperwork that had been generated by the previous day’s surveillance activities at the markets. He didn’t mind pulling a twelve-hour shift if he had to, but he wanted some results to show for it.

  Meanwhile, he listened in to the call-outs and the on-scene progress reports from his uniformed colleagues who were on duty around the smaller Sunday markets in the West Division area in case Shelley’s name carried through the static.

  Laura pulled off fingerless gloves as the temperature in the incident room rose above Arctic levels and chucked them onto her desk to the right of his, then pushed her hair out of her face before swivelling her chair around.

  ‘Where’s Carys, then?’ she said, leaning forward and lowering her voice.

  Gavin turned another page of the report and checked off a location point he’d already seen on the CCTV footage. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you two are usually like that.’ Laura crossed her fingers. ‘Surely she’d say something to you if she was going to disappear for four days. I mean, something like this, Carys would usually be in the thick of things, wouldn’t she?’

  Gavin tossed the report onto his computer keyboard, his brow furrowed.

  The same thought had crossed his mind several times since the end of shift on Thursday when Kay had informed her detectives that Carys would be on leave until Monday.

  He’d tried to phone her, but her mobile went straight through to the voicemail service – and she wasn’t returning those messages, or the texts he’d sent her, asking if she was all right.

  ‘Maybe it’s, you know, women’s stuff,’ he said, heat rising to his cheeks. ‘Something she doesn’t want to talk about.’

  ‘Trust me, if it is she’d make an appointment after this investigation was over. She wouldn’t want to miss all this, would she? The waiting times these days for anything like that are horrendous, anyway.’

  Gavin cleared his throat and began to stack the reports into a neat pile, uncomfortable with the way the conversation was heading. It was the same when his mother and his younger sister got talking at family barbecues – nothing was off-limits when it came to their health, and he often fled to do the washing-up with his dad.

  ‘Have you finished making a list of all the other landowners we have to interview with uniform?’ he said.

  Laura gestured to her computer screen. ‘I’ve run a title search encompassing a twenty-five-mile spread from where Ethan’s body was found. We’ve already spoken to three, so that leaves us with a further eight.’

  ‘That’s a lot of landowners for that amount of land.’ Gavin stuck his heels in the carpet and edged his chair closer to his colleague’s desk and peered over her shoulder at the screen.

  ‘Some of them are smallholdings, but I thought we should check them as well.’

  ‘True. Good thinking. So, what have you come up with?’

  ‘A chicken farmer, two orchards, a dairy farm and a mushroom producer. Those are the larger properties, and then there are two smallholdings – one outside Sevenoaks, and the other on the way into Hildenborough.’

  ‘Okay. How did you get on with the CCTV for the train stations and the bus? Any sign of Shelley?’

  ‘No-one of her description. I worked with Phillip and Debbie until we clocked off yesterday and none of us could see her. If we had a clear photograph of her, I could organise uniform to pop over there and ask around––’

  ‘Something might turn up.’ Gavin patted his colleague on the back. ‘This is good work. At least when Barnes gets here you can give him a head start with that list of landowners and he can liaise with uniform to start the property searches.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  Gavin wheeled his chair backwards and picked up his mobile phone.

  Still no word from Carys.

  He wondered whether he should mention her absence to Barnes when he arrived – and if the detective sergeant knew the whereabouts of their colleague. Surely she was fine, otherwise they’d have been told.

  So, where was she?

  Ever since he had joined the team two and a half years ago, he and Carys had been close. They watched each other’s backs while on duty, teased each other remorselessly off duty, and shared a competitive streak that made for lively banter.

  She was like an older sister to him.

  So, why the silence now?

  He glanced over the top of his screen as the incident room door opened and Barnes strolled towards them, his hands laden with paper bags, grease staining the sides.

  ‘Bacon butties,’ he said, grinning as he handed each of them a bag before heading over to his desk. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Gavin, ‘and thanks.’

  ‘Cheers, Sarge,’ said Laura. ‘Where’s Carys?’

  ‘Had to take some time off,’ said Barnes. ‘She’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘As far as I know.’ He pointed at her sandwich. ‘Now eat that, before it gets cold.’

  Gavin caught his eye, but Barnes looked away before he could question him further.

  Battening down his frustration, he devoured the warm sandwich and eyed the next list of tasks that the HOLMES2 database had allocated to him that morning.

  His mobile phone vibrated on the desk as he was finishing his breakfast, and he frowned at the screen as the words “unknown caller” were displayed.

  ‘DC Gavin Piper.’<
br />
  ‘Detective, it’s Jeremy. From the shelter. I need to speak to you urgently. Can we meet?’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Twenty minutes later, Kay waited alongside Gavin at the steps that led up from Earl Street to the Fremlin Walk shopping precinct.

  He’d phoned her while she’d been traipsing alongside the river, her eyes sweeping the towpaths and alleyways as she’d walked a cross-section from there to the amphitheatre and back, desperately seeking the woman who held the answers to Ethan’s murder.

  She wore jeans and a sweater under a leather jacket to blend into the early morning crowds and stopped from time to time to check her messages. There were a number of uniformed teams at markets across the Division’s area that she maintained contact with, but to no avail.

  ‘What’s he like, this Jeremy?’ she said to Gavin.

  ‘Friendly. Helpful.’

  ‘Do you think he can be trusted? I mean, he’s not the sort of person to make spurious claims just to get attention?’

  ‘No, I didn’t get that impression. He sounded genuinely concerned when we spoke.’ He jerked his chin at a lanky forty-something who was hurrying towards them, a sports bag over his shoulder. ‘Here he is.’

  Kay waited while Gavin shook hands with the man, and then introduced herself. ‘I hope you don’t mind me joining you, Jeremy. I’m very concerned for Shelley’s safety.’

  ‘So I understand.’ He peered over his shoulder, then back to them. ‘Can we talk somewhere else? It’s a bit exposed out here, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve heard the café down the road there does good coffee.’

  ‘I’d rather not. What about the park around the back of the shopping centre?’

  ‘I know the one. Lead the way.’

  Kay let Jeremy head off in the direction of Brenchley Gardens, and followed after him and Gavin. Her first impressions of the man were that he was soft-spoken, and some of the bravado her colleague said he had demonstrated when he and Laura had met him at the shelter on Wednesday was noticeably lacking.