by BL Pearce
Purley frowned. “What do you want to talk about her for? That was a long time ago. The case is closed.”
“Mrs Parvin is a person of interest in a current investigation, and I’d appreciate your take on what happened. DCI to DCI.”
Purley’s chest puffed out. Pander to the man’s ego and he’ll tell you anything. “In that case... Although, there’s not much to tell.”
Rob waited.
“Arina’s father was a foreign national. He went back to Iran and took his daughter with him. That’s all there is to it.”
“Did you get confirmation that she’d left the country with him?” Rob asked.
The DCI gave a curt nod. “Mr Parvin was booked on a flight out of Heathrow the evening of his daughter’s disappearance.”
“Was he travelling alone?”
Purley coloured. “He was, but that doesn’t mean his daughter wasn’t on that plane. There were several other Middle Eastern passengers travelling with young girls Arina’s age. He could have had a family member or friend assist him. It was an Emirates flight to Tehran.”
“What about airport cameras? Did you check to see if any of the other passengers matched Arina’s description?”
“Several did,” he replied curtly. “And with a headscarf and downcast eyes, it’s very hard to tell which of them were Arina.”
“It does leave quite a margin for error,” Rob pointed out.
Purley shook his head. “Come on. The father disappeared the same evening as his daughter. What are the chances?”
Normally, Rob would have agreed, he wasn’t a big fan of coincidences, but in this case, the SIO could have been mistaken. He recalled Tessa Parvin’s words.
She’s out there somewhere.
“Did you know Ramin Parvin wanted nothing to do with his daughter?”
Purley didn’t reply.
“He wanted a boy. He had no time for his daughter.”
“Then why did he take off the same day as her? If he didn’t have anything to do with her abduction, why run?”
Rob leaned forward, his senses prickling. “How do you know he ran?”
Purley sighed. “The wife was oblivious. She thought her husband was at work, until he didn’t come home. When the daughter didn’t come home either, she panicked and called us. Her first instinct was that her husband had taken her daughter. She even said as much in the 999 call.”
That was news.
“Then, she suddenly changed her mind.” He spread his hands and shrugged. “My Superintendent agreed with me, she was trying to cover for her husband. Maybe he got to her, threatened her in some way. You know how they are? If she talked, he’d harm the kid. I don’t know. But for whatever reason, she changed her story. A few days later, she appeared at the station harping on about a serial killer.”
“She wasn’t in her right mind,” Rob said quietly. “She was trying to make sense of what had happened. Maybe after she’d had time to think about it, she realised it was unlikely her husband had kidnapped Arina.”
Purley frowned. “It didn’t come across like that. The woman was irrational, grasping at anything and everything. We recommended she see a therapist to help her cope with what had happened.”
“How do you cope with losing a child?” Rob said.
Purley slammed his hands on the table. “The husband took her. That’s it. I’m sorry it happened, but what the hell am I supposed to do about it? The Iranians wouldn’t talk to us, they didn’t want to know. There was no way of finding out whether she was there or not.”
“So, you assumed she was and closed the case.”
He gave a curt nod. “Any detective would have done the same thing.”
Rob stood up. “Not every detective.”
He left the office without saying goodbye.
Katie had been missing for thirty-two hours.
Celeste had widened the house-to-house enquiries to the wider Barnes area. Police officers were searching Barnes Common and the Wetlands, as well as the river path. They even had a team in Richmond Park, assisted by the park rangers.
And behind the police, were the press. Hounding, watching, applying pressure.
Rob’s team had moved to the second phase of the investigation. Intelligence. A sign they had no active leads to follow up on.
It was depressing.
The Chief Superintendent had taken to pacing through the squad room, making everybody nervous. He’d halt at the whiteboard, stare at is as if wishing something new would appear, then ask Rob for the hundredth time if there were any developments.
“No sir. When we do, you’ll be the first to know.”
Lawrence went back to his office, his grizzly jaw taut with tension. Rob had never seen him so stressed. For his final case, this was turning out to be a doozy.
Rob pulled up Tessa Parvin’s 999 call. As Purley had said, she’d initially thought her husband had abducted her daughter.
Hello. My daughter hasn’t come back from school and I’m worried about her. I think–I think my husband may have taken her.
“Who am I speaking to?” the operator asked.
“My name’s Tessa Parvin. It’s dark already and she’s still not back. She should be back by now.”
“Okay, Tessa. I understand. What makes you think your husband may have taken her?”
“He’s, he’s gone too. He packed a bag... I think he’s left me.” A sob. “He may have taken Arina with him.”
“Okay, if that’s the case, we’ll find him for you. What is your husband’s name?”
“Ramin Parvin. My daughter is Arina.”
“Okay, ma’am. I’m going to send a police officer round to your house to get some details from you. Can you give me your address?”
“Oh, okay. It’s…”
The rest was pretty standard. The operator told her to keep calm and someone would be with her shortly.
To give the operator credit, she’d quickly dispatched an officer to the Parvin house. In the case of a missing child, it was imperative to act fast. Even if it turned out to be a false alarm, it was better to err on the side of caution.
Unfortunately, the police detective involved hadn’t felt the same sense of urgency. He wondered who’d been dispatched. Looking it up, he discovered it was a PC Brightman out of Woking. He’d been the nearest available officer and had arrived at Tessa’s house half an hour later, at ten forty-seven.
Tessa had waited until nearly half past ten before she’d raised the alarm and called the emergency services. Most likely she’d been dialling around checking to see if her daughter had gone to a friend’s house.
That’s what he would have done, if he’d had a daughter. He suppressed a shiver. Thank fuck he didn’t. Not if that was the kind of worry it brought.
Yvette had made it quite clear she wasn’t interested in having kids, so he’d gone along with it even though, at one point, he’d quite fancied the idea of being a dad.
He grunted. That ship had sailed, and probably a good thing too. He couldn’t remember to feed Trigger, let alone be responsible for another human being.
He closed the file and leaned back in his chair. Was Arina Parvin somehow linked to Katie Wells' disappearance?
“Hey Evan.” He approached the soft-spoken American sergeant who sat on the opposite side of the room.
“Yeah?” Evan glanced up.
“Would you do me a favour and look into this missing person case from four years back? It’s Tessa Parvin’s daughter.” He handed Evan the file.
Evan’s eyes widened. “The suspect you just interviewed?”
“She’s not a suspect, just a person of interest at this stage, but yes. Her daughter disappeared four years ago, and the case was never solved. Not properly. The DCI in charge made the assumption that her father had taken her back to Iran, but it was never confirmed.”
“You want me to confirm it?”
Rob hesitated long enough for Evan to raise an eyebrow.
He dropped his voice. “Actually,
I’m interested in whether any other young girls went missing in the wider Surrey area around the same time as Arina. Mrs Parvin seemed to think there were.”
“You think it’s part of a wider network?”
“I don’t think anything, yet. That’s what I need you to find out.”
“Got it.” Evan gave him a confident grin. He’d heard from Galbraith what an asset DS Burns was to the team, now he hoped he could prove it.
17
Harry knew a female officer at the Twickenham branch who had ties to Iran. “I think she mentioned her uncle, or some member of her family, was in the police force there.”
“It would be great if she could ask him to make some unofficial enquiries,” Rob said. It was a longshot. “The Chief Superintendent has tried calling the Iranian embassy, but they’re not responding.”
He wasn’t holding his breath, either. Officially, there wasn’t much they could do, but with no definite confirmation from the airport CCTV or the flight details, Rob was hesitant to put a lid on it. He didn’t like loose ends.
“I’ve been looking for an opportunity to talk to her,” Harry grinned.
With his looks, it was a wonder he needed an excuse. Rob had seen how the women in this department responded to him. The handsome, mixed-race constable got more sideways glances and cups of tea than the Chief Superintendent himself.
The Crimewatch lady came up to him and asked yet another question. Harry put on a practiced smile. “No, unfortunately you can’t use the pink backpack, it’s still in evidence, but I can give you a life-size photograph. Will that do?”
Rob backed away, but he wasn’t fast enough. The reporter homed in, pinning him against Harry’s desk. “DCI Miller, could we get a few words from you as the Senior Investigating Officer?”
“DS Malhotra is perfectly capable of speaking on behalf of the team,” he said, then turned to Harry and hissed, “We need to know if Arina is in Iran with her father.”
“I’ll do my best, guv,” Harry replied. The grin was gone now. He understood the seriousness of the request.
Rob left him to it, much to the disappointment of the disgruntled Crimewatch anchor.
“Is he always so noncommittal?” she huffed in his wake.
Rob sunk into his desk chair. If Arina wasn’t in Iran, DCI Purley was going to have to revisit the original investigation, and he wasn’t going to like that, especially when it showed up his shortcomings. But that wasn’t his problem. The DCI should have done the legwork the first-time round.
DS Jenny Bird slid over. “I’ve looked into Tessa Parvin’s properties like you asked, but the house in Barnes is the only one listed. There doesn’t appear to be anything else. Could she have used a false name?”
Felons masked their identities by using fake driver’s licences and PO boxes to rent or hire vehicles or property. Would Tessa Parvin go that far? Would she even know how?
“Thanks Jenny. Let’s look into her financials. If anything suspicious pops up, let me know.”
It was a hell of a coincidence that Tessa’s own daughter had gone missing. If it wasn’t for that, Rob may have dismissed her entirely from the investigation. If she had rented a property in a false name, she wouldn’t be able to hide the money trail.
Rob sighed. Realistically, though, there hadn’t been enough time for her to secrete Katie away. In a way he was relieved. Tessa Parvin had had a tough time of it. He didn't like to think of her as the kidnapper.
“Also, the voice analysis is back from the tech guys,” Jenny was saying. “They’ve emailed you a copy.”
“Yes! Thanks Jenny.”
He spun around, logged on to his work laptop and opened his email. There, at the top of his inbox, marked “urgent”, was the voice recording report. He couldn’t open it fast enough.
The analyst had enhanced the audio and managed to isolate the woman’s voice. Rob read the transcript first.
“Are you alright, dear? Are you lost?”
Then Katie’s voice, “No, I’m waiting for my friend.”
That was it.
The analyst reported footsteps in the background, but she couldn’t isolate them enough to determine whether there were one or two sets. The dog bark was very clear in the enhanced file, and it was likely the lady who stopped to ask Katie if she was lost was a dog walker.
Disappointment hovered. A dog walker concerned about a little girl standing alone on a busy street corner was entirely plausible. It was a friendly neighbourhood, after all. The recording might have nothing to do with the abduction. Just a coincidence, a good Samaritan. There was no way of knowing for sure.
Mallory, who’d been copied on the email, skulked over. By the expression on his face, Rob could see he was of the same opinion.
“Might not be our kidnapper,” he stated glumly, perching on the edge of Rob’s desk.
“I hate bloody coincidences.” Rob rubbed the strain out of his temples. “Would a dog walker kidnap a child?”
“She might have used the dog to lure Katie in,” Mallory suggested, but his voice lacked enthusiasm. “Studies have shown kids are more likely to talk to strangers if they have a dog or puppy with them.”
“I want to listen to the enhanced file?” Rob scrolled down to the attachment. He pressed play and they both leaned in.
The woman’s voice was louder than before, less obscured by traffic.
Are you alright, dear? Are you lost?
She sounded concerned.
Then the dog barked, making them both jump back. That was loud. It sounded like the dog was next to the phone, which would have been in the little girl’s hand or pocket.
“That doesn’t sound like a puppy to me,” Rob stated. A year ago, he wouldn’t have had a clue, but since he’d had Trigger, he was an expert on barks.
Mallory concurred. “It’s close enough to be the woman’s dog. It must have been sniffing around Katie at the time.”
Rob sighed. “Shit, there goes another theory.”
“We still don’t know if we’re looking for a man or a woman, then.” Mallory stated the obvious. “It could be anyone.”
“Back to bloody square one,” snapped Rob.
His mobile phone buzzed on the desk in front of him. Jo’s name flashed across the screen. Mallory returned to his desk, giving him some privacy.
“Yeah,” he said, still thinking about the concerned citizen.
“Hello to you too,” said Jo.
He cringed. “Sorry. I’ve just received some bad news. How are you?”
“Regarding the case?” She dispensed with the pleasantries.
“Yes, but it’s not your problem. How are things? It’s good to hear your voice.” She was a breath of fresh air, dragging him out of the quagmire he was drowning in. “I miss you.”
She laughed. “That’s good to know. Hey, I’m in the area and I’ve got an hour free. Can you meet for a quick coffee?”
He hesitated. He shouldn’t really leave the squad room, but after that last blow, he could really use a decent espresso, and Jo always made him feel better.
“I’d love to. Text me when you’re downstairs and I’ll meet you across the road.”
“I’m downstairs.”
He grinned at his reflection in the laptop screen that had faded to black. A bit like this case. “Great, see you in five.”
He hung up.
Being with Jo these last few months had made him realise what a train smash his previous relationship had been. It had disintegrated so slowly; he hadn’t seen it coming. Before he knew it, he was dancing to Yvette’s tune, pandering to her every whim, placating her increasingly paranoid demands, while trying to focus on his career at the same time. No wonder he’d been so stressed.
He used to hate going home. Now, he couldn’t wait to rush downstairs and see Jo. He told Mallory to contact him on his phone if anything came up and dashed out, taking the stairs two at a time.
“You have no idea how good it is to see you.” He kissed her full on the lip
s outside the coffee shop.
She broke into a wide smile, the kind that reached her eyes and stayed there. “Ditto, DCI Miller.” It had been a few days since they’d last been together.
A gust of wind threw up a mini dust storm. It was a blustery day and people hurried past them to take cover inside.
“Let’s go in.” He held the door open, then followed her inside. Not even the smooth jazz playing in the background or the aroma of roasted coffee beans relaxed him.
“Bad day at the office?”
He rolled his eyes. “You have no idea. This case is driving me nuts. I keep thinking we’re onto something, then it turns out to be another dead end. We’ve got to catch a break soon.”
“I see the vultures are circling.” She nodded across the road to the media vans that lined the pavement.
“Oh, that’s nothing. You should have seen it yesterday. It was absolute mayhem. We’ve got the Crimewatch crew in today. They’re getting to grips with the case so they can do a re-enactment.”
“Really? Wow. Sam’s pulling out all the stops.”
Jo knew DCS Sam Lawrence, the Chief Superintendent from her work on the Surrey Stalker case, as well as the brief input she’d had into the revenge killings earlier in the year. She’d been an instant hit. Maybe it was her cheerful demeanour, or the way her intelligent blue eyes crinkled when she smiled. She was one of the most genuine people he knew.
“He’s under a lot of pressure. This is his last case. He’s retiring at the end of the year.”
“That’s a shame.” She cocked her head to the side. “He’s an institution around here.”
“The murder squad’s never been in better hands,” Rob replied.
They ordered and took a table at the back, away from the door. Every time it opened, a blast of wind blue in a customer with dishevelled hair and grit in their eyes.
Jo, practical as ever, had tied hers back in a slick blonde ponytail. She studied him from across the table. “Why don’t you give me an update? I heard the alerts and it’s been in all the papers.”
“You sure?” He didn’t want to monopolise their coffee break.
