Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  The gate opened on well-oiled, silent hinges. Ten paces short of the Jardines’ front door, his mobile buzzed. A reprieve.

  “Jones speaking.”

  “Control here, sir.”

  He recognised the clipped, efficient tone of the evening shift’s Comms Officer. “What do you have for me, Alan?”

  “We have CCTV pictures, sir. A campervan circled the park behind Hollie Jardine’s school this afternoon. Twice. First time … fifteen-thirty-one, and again twelve minutes later. Second time, it stopped for twenty-three seconds, and then drove off, heading south towards the motorway. The camera was a long way off and the pictures are grainy. The techies don’t hold out much hope of extracting a licence number.”

  “Any sign of the girl?”

  “Possible. There was someone on the pavement before the van stopped, and they’d gone when the van left. We assume it was the girl and she got into the van.”

  “Voluntarily?”

  Jones hoped the girl had gone somewhere with a friend without telling her parents, but an image forced its way into his head—the image of a blonde girl battling an abductor, arms flailing, scratching, screaming.

  “The camper blocked the picture. It’s impossible to tell, sir.”

  “You’ve released details of the camper?” Jones rubbed his eyelids. The tension-headache moved from the back of his head to stab behind his left eye.

  “The bulletin’s gone out and we’re treating this as a Priority One Alert. Every patrol car in the county is on the lookout. I’ve allocated my best team in traffic surveillance to go through the CCTV recordings along the projected routes.”

  “You said the camper headed south?”

  “Way ahead of you, sir. I’ve notified the motorway traffic boys and they’re on full alert. Not expecting much though. The driver’s had an six-hour head start. The camper could be anywhere in the country by now.”

  “Yes, I know.” Jones sighed. “Good work so far. I’m at the parents’ house. Call me the second you have anything more.”

  He rang off, searched the phone’s the directory, hit the number, and waited for Pelham to pick up. A chill easterly wind ruffled his hair. He dragged the straggly tufts into place behind his ear, and then scratched his chin. The electric razor in the Rover’s cubbyhole would have a workout later—when he found the time.

  Detective Sergeant Charlie Pelham, the Serious Crime Unit’s entry for Sloth-of-the-Year, and its interim second-in-command in Phil Cryer’s absence, answered on the eighth ring.

  “Hello, boss.” Pelham yawned.

  “Evening, Charlie. Keeping you up are we?” Jones hated the idea of Pelham running anything more important than a bath, but needed to put up with things the way they were, at least for the moment.

  Pelham cleared his throat. “Sorry, boss. Been a long day.”

  “Status report please, Charlie.”

  “So far we’ve contacted the girl’s form teacher and ten of her classmates. We’re having trouble getting hold of the others. Mobiles either engaged or go straight to voicemail.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  Pelham sniffed. “A couple of the girls fought with the Jardine girl in the last couple of weeks. They said she’d become a little uppity recently. According to her so-called schoolmates, Hollie Jardine’s become, and I quote, ‘a bit of a tart’. Whacha reckon? Possible runaway?”

  “Hell, Charlie, ‘tart’? She’s a child for God’s sake.”

  “Weren’t my description, boss.”

  “Perhaps not, but she’s fourteen, go easy on repeating it. We treat this as an abduction until we know different. Have you made arrangements to search her school locker yet?”

  “The headmaster’s unavailable so we can’t get his permission. The Deputy head’s gone AWOL too.”

  “For God’s sake Charlie, sort out an emergency warrant. Break into the damn school if you have to. What’ve you been doing for the past two hours?”

  “Hang on, boss, that’s a bit harsh. Phone’s been ringing off the hook. We’ve already been fielding phone calls from the press, and there’s only the two of us.”

  “For God’s sake. Tell the switchboard to route the calls through to the media officer. That’s her job, isn’t it?” Jones paused. It wasn’t like him to shout at his team, even Pelham, and he knew it didn’t help. “Sorry, Charlie. I’m on a short fuse today. Draft in some uniforms to help with the grunt work. Tell the Duty Officer, I sanctioned it. Get Ryan to contact the other schoolmates while you sort out the locker. And have one of the uniforms, check the Missing Person’s database for similar cases. Use Ben Adeoye if he’s on shift. Remember that girl in Nottingham, Amanda Barton? Went missing on her way home from the shops? She was a blonde, too. And there was that lass from Derby the other month.”

  “You think there’s a paedo gang targeting a specific type? I wondered why you was so quick off the mark on this case, boss. Hollie Jardine’s only been missing ten minutes.”

  “Just get on with it. And let me know the second you have anything.”

  “Yeah, right. Will do, boss.”

  Jones broke the connection. He took another breath and stepped through the threshold into a narrow hallway. Magnolia paint on the walls, two panelled doors on the right, and a stairway on the left. The first door, like the front, stood wide open. It led into a lounge-dining room with beige carpet, mid-value furniture, a leather lounge suite, and a modest flat-screen television. Nothing too flashy or expensive. As expected from the outside, here was a well-maintained, comfortable middle-income home.

  A man and woman he took to be Mr and Mrs Jardine sat close to each other on a couch.

  The Family Liaison Officer, a small policewoman Jones had met before but couldn’t name, sat beside the distraught woman. She’d offer as much support as she could, which, given the circumstances, would be precious little.

  Detective Constable Alexandra Olganski, the Serious Crime Unit’s female officer, sat in a chair opposite the Jardines. She stood as Jones entered, introduced him to the parents, and handed him a photograph of their missing child.

  “Taken three weeks ago, boss,” Alex said.

  As Jones studied the photo, his blood chilled. No way he’d able to keep this case at arm’s length. The missing girl, had flowing blonde hair, sapphire eyes, dimpled cheeks, clear skin, and a pale complexion—a child with the innocent girl-next-door look.

  Oh, God.

  Phil Cryer’s daughter, Jamie, would be the dead spit of Hollie Jardine in four or five years.

  He cleared a chalk-dry throat and asked the questions he already knew would give no real answers. “Has Hollie ever been late home before?”

  Mr Jardine answered. “She always tells us where she is and never stays out unless she has permission. Our Hollie’s a good girl.”

  He had the look and demeanour of a town clerk, dark suit, shirt, and tie still tight to the collar, metal-rimmed spectacles, bald with a Donald Trump comb-over. His lower lip trembled, but he wouldn’t let the tears fall. Like Jones, he belonged to the ‘men don’t cry’, generation.

  No. We don’t cry. Not in public.

  Mrs Jardine, a small woman in her late forties or early fifties, mature for a woman with a teenage daughter, kept her eyes fixed on the tissue crumpled in her hand. She dabbed at puffy, bloodshot eyes and clung to her husband’s arm as though frightened he would disappear, too.

  Jones studied Hollie’s photo again. He’d seen similar images a hundred times before. Here was a fourteen-year-old girl on the cusp of adulthood. A little make-up, a few pieces of jewellery, and an evening dress would allow her to pass as a twenty-something woman.

  He needed to dig deep but knew his questions would add to the parents’ pain. It would hurt them, sure, but he couldn’t let sympathy for the parents interfere with finding their daughter.

  “How has Hollie been lately? Any abnormal changes in personality? Fights, tantrums, boyfriend trouble?”

  Mrs Jardine found her voice, though it
was weak. “Hollie’s good as gold. Always has been. Studying hard for her exams made her a little more temperamental than usual, but nothing out of the ordinary for our baby.”

  A teenage girl without tantrums? Yeah, right.

  She shot a furtive glance at her husband, who didn’t appear to notice.

  The warning mechanism in Jones’ head, honed by thirty-nine years as a police officer, thirty-three of them a detective, tingled. They were hiding something.

  Change the subject. Try something easier.

  “How did she get to and from school?”

  Mr Jardine extricated his arm from his wife’s death grip and stood. “If it’s dry she walks with her friend, Amy. It’s only a mile or so if you cut through the park and take the footbridge over the dual carriageway. On rainy days, either Emma drives them, or Hollie takes the bus.”

  “A sunny day like today she’d have walked?”

  The father nodded. “I drove her normal route three times and there’s no sign. I phoned all the hospitals but there’s nothing. That’s when I called the police.”

  He crossed to the window overlooking a well-tended rear garden, his back stooped in defeat. Mrs Jardine remained on the couch and stared at the carpet. For all the good it did, the FLO rested a hand on Mrs Jardine’s forearm.

  “And the friend she walks with, Amy. Have you spoken to her?”

  “Amy’s been off sick since Monday. Says she hasn’t seen Hollie for days.” Mrs Jardine’s timid voice barely carried across the six-foot gap separating her from Jones.

  “Can I have Amy’s full name and address? DC Olganski can go and have a word.”

  Jones jotted the information into his notebook, stood, and signalled for Alex to join him in the hallway. He closed the door behind them. “Did you get a description of the clothes she left home in? Jewellery she wore?”

  “Yes, boss. School uniform, no jewellery. I have circulated the full description.”

  “Great. Call me when you’ve spoken to this Amy girl. Push her hard. We need to know what Hollie’s been up to recently. According to her schoolmates, there is a boyfriend involved. I’ll be here for a little while.”

  Alex pointed to Hollie’s photo and shook her head. “Fan också. She looks like Jamie Cryer, ja?”

  “Really? Hadn’t noticed.”

  She offered a knowing smile and hurried from the house.

  Jones returned to the lounge. Mrs Jardine hadn’t moved from the couch. Mr Jardine remained at the window, head lowered and eyes closed.

  Jones cleared his throat. “I’d like to take a look at Hollie’s room now, if I may, Mrs Jardine.”

  She stiffened and looked at him for the first time. “Why?”

  There it was, the defensiveness he expected.

  “The more I know about Hollie,” he said evenly, “the better chance I have of finding her.”

  “Steady, Emma, old girl.” Mr Jardine turned and spoke quietly, his voice firm. “If it helps find our girl you can search the whole damned house, Chief Inspector.”

  They might well have to do that, but first things first.

  “This way.”

  Jones followed him up the stairs to a room overlooking the back garden, Hollie’s holy-of-holies. It offered few surprises. A poster of the latest boy-band flavour-of-the-month and a still from a vampire movie with a pale, emaciated-looking leading man adorned the faded pink walls. A dressing table buckled under the weight of cosmetics, mirrors, and inexpensive jewellery—silver and plastic, much of it pink. A queen-sized bed, complete with a dozen stuffed toys, occupied the wall adjacent to a wide picture window, pink curtains.

  Jardine crossed to the bed and picked up a one-eared, no-eyed teddy bear. He stared at it as though it would tell him where they could find his daughter. Jones’ breath caught. He’d given Jamie Cryer a bear exactly like it for her first birthday. Even after eight years, the thing held pride of place on her toy-shelf. He’d given Paul Cryer, the latest addition to his sergeant’s family, a stuffed giraffe, and the toddler cuddled it every night.

  Along the left-hand wall, a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe opened to reveal an assortment of clothes, school uniforms, skirts, blouses, tops, and the occasional dress. None was frivolous, or inappropriate, but gaps in the rail and empty hangers told a tale. A few of the skirts seemed closer to ‘micro’ than ‘mini’, but fashions change and Jones didn’t have a clue what passed muster for respectable fourteen-year-old girls these days. He knew what disreputable fourteen-year-olds wore—his work told him that.

  “How tall is Hollie?”

  “As tall as you, Chief Inspector. She outgrew Emma and me last year.”

  Definitely ‘micro’ then.

  “Are any of her things missing?” he asked.

  Jardine’s lower lip trembled again, and his eyes glistened. A response Jones expected, given the empty spaces in the wardrobe.

  “We checked before calling you. A suitcase and some clothes are gone.” He hesitated before adding in a whisper, “She’s taken her passport too.”

  Jones knew it.

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before, Mr Jardine?” He kept his voice level and controlled.

  The desperate father lowered his head. “We didn’t think you’d try as hard to find her.”

  Jones hesitated until Jardine looked up and they locked eyes.

  “Sir,” he said, “Hollie’s a minor. We’ll try our very best to find her, believe me.”

  Jardine broke eye contact, stared down at the stuffed toy again, and nodded. Jones knew how it felt to lose a child, and felt Jardine’s pain.

  “Our miracle baby,” Jardine said, almost to himself.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “We’d been trying for years without luck. Just about given up hope. And then … IVF. Emma fell pregnant in her thirty-eighth year. I was nearly forty. Most people think we’re too old to have a teenage daughter. Sometimes get mistaken for her grandparents. Old fuddy-duddies. We probably smothered her.” His voice broke and he looked up.

  Jones spoke quietly. “You’ve tried her mobile?”

  “Goes straight to voicemail.”

  “We’ll put a trace on it. As soon as she makes a call, we’ll know where she is.”

  Jones tried to bury the thought that Hollie couldn’t answer the phone because she was already dead, but it kept digging its way to the surface and haunting at him.

  “Does Hollie have her own computer?”

  Jardine took a deep breath. “No, she uses the family PC downstairs in the office.”

  Unfortunate. Jones doubted they’d find anything useful on it.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll have one of our technicians take a look at it. She may have been talking online to someone she shouldn’t.”

  “Oh no, I’ve put full parental controls on the internet usage. I’m a software engineer, and know about computers. We didn’t allow Hollie to use social media. But please feel free. If it helps, take the bloody thing away.”

  “Thank you, sir. We will.”

  Jones hated the next step, but couldn’t avoid it. He didn’t want Hollie’s father to see him rifling through his daughter’s private life.

  “If you don’t mind, sir.” He waved a hand towards the door. “I won’t be long, and I won’t make a mess. Promise.”

  Jones never made a mess. It was one of his things, a matter of pride.

  Mr Jardine hesitated, stole another look at the room, and turned away. He took the ragged bear with him.

  Once alone, Jones dragged open the top drawer of the dressing table, already knowing what he’d find. Underwear: silk, sheer, neatly folded, bras with a cup size revealing the shape of a woman, not a child. Spaces showed some of the items were missing.

  The other drawers held nothing of particular interest.

  He searched the rest of the room and his gaze alighted on a large bowl of potpourri on the windowsill. He shuffled the dry leaves, but found no hidden baggies. The textbooks on the single shelf over the bed gave up n
othing, no hidden papers, no jottings in the margins, no photos.

  The wardrobe proved more informative. In a battered shoebox, he found the thing he hoped for, an old-fashioned, pen and paper diary with a feeble lock. He didn’t have to worry about operating systems, passwords, or something equally difficult—like finding the on-switch.

  He flipped to the most recent entry, dated the previous day:

  “We kissed! Finally. Oh God, it was lovely. Tongues too. I think E’s going to ask me today, and I’m going to say yes. Says he can’t wait to see me naked at last. He’s so hot. I want him to touch me, play with ….”

  Jones thumbed backwards through the entries. Numerous references to ‘E’ stretched back eighteen days. The timeline matched the information given by her school friends. She met ‘E’, an older man, judging by the references to his having a car, she kept his identity secret, and her personality changed almost immediately. A classic sign of grooming.

  Jones dropped one of Hollie’s hairbrushes into an evidence bag in case they needed it later, for identification, and hurried back to the front room.

  “Mrs Jardine.” She turned towards him and his heart stalled at the torment in her eyes. He’d seen the same look of desperation and fear so many times before. “Has Hollie ever mentioned a boy with the initial ‘E’?”

  Her eyes flicked towards her husband, and her chin quivered. “No, we told you. Hollie’s a good girl … doesn’t have a boyfriend. She’s too young and concentrates on her exams. She doesn’t waste her time on … boys.”

  A flickering shadow of recognition passed behind Frank Jardine’s eyes.

  “Mr Jardine, might I have a word, please? In private”

  Mrs Jardine blew her nose and turned away as Jones escorted the father back into the hall. He closed the door behind them and showed Mr Jardine the bag with the brush and the diary. “I’ll need to take these with me. Is that okay?”

  Mr Jardine nodded.

  “I read the most recent entries. There’s a chance Hollie may have run away with this ‘E’ person. What do you think?”