Righteous Anger: A frantic hunt for a child killer (DCI Rob Miller Book 3)

by BL Pearce

  “Yes, of course. Apart from my own professional curiosity, it often helps to soundboard with someone.”

  She was right. Talking about the case with her might unleash a fresh idea or line of enquiry. He could hope, anyway.

  “Okay, thanks.” He fetched the coffees and returned to his seat. “Where to begin?”

  “How about where she went missing? It was Barnes, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s usually a pretty safe area. She was on her way to school, the friend she usually walks with had gone on ahead, so she was alone.”

  Jo tutted.

  “She never made it. The school rang her mother, Lisa Wells, just after nine to ask if she was sick.”

  “Nightmare,” murmured Jo.

  They both paused as they considered what must have been going through Lisa’s head at that point.

  “Lisa called 999 pretty soon after that. By the time we got there, her soon to be ex-husband had arrived and was causing a stink with her lover, who turned up a short while later. She’d called him to help search for Katie.”

  “Sounds chaotic. And they’re both in the clear?” She knew they’d have searched both their houses.

  “Yep, a search turned up nothing, although Brian, Katie’s father, had planned on secreting her to France for a holiday, against the mother’s wishes.”

  “Hmm…”

  “Yeah, that’s what we thought, but it turns out he just missed his little girl. Lisa has full custody.”

  “What about the backpack? I read it was found in the old reservoir?”

  “The kidnapper must have taken Katie into the nature reserve where he or she ditched the backpack. This hasn’t been released to the public, so don’t repeat it, but we found it weighed down with stones.”

  Jo gawked at him. “Did you say weighed down with stones?”

  “Well, just one stone, actually. More like a small rock. Hey, are you okay? You’ve gone white.”

  She reached for her coffee cup but knocked it over. Luckily, she hadn’t removed the plastic lid, and he managed to grab it before much had seeped through.

  “Jo?” He touched her arm. “Was it something I said?”

  A long moment passed.

  “I’m sorry. I got a fright, that’s all. You just reminded me of another case, a long time ago.”

  “Another case?”

  “I don’t know whether to tell you this or not,” she admitted, flushing. “It sounds foolish after all this time.”

  “Don’t be silly. Spill.”

  She took a deep breath. “When my sister disappeared, her backpack was found in a nearby lake, weighed down with a rock.”

  It took a moment to sink in. Rob knew about Jo’s sister’s disappearance, but that was twenty years ago. Her body had never been found. The mystery around what had happened had haunted Jo, it was the main reason she’d become a cop after finishing her psych degree.

  “Could it be a coincidence?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” She nodded, more to convince herself than him. “It can’t possibly be related. It was too long ago.”

  Twenty years.

  “And it was up in Manchester.”

  Whether naturally or by design, Jo had lost her Manchurian accent. Nobody who knew her now would have guessed where she was from.

  “Nowhere near Barnes,” she added, but there was a tremor in her voice. The similarity to the Katie Wells case had spooked her.

  Rob released her arm. “Run me through what happened to your sister, again? Just so I’m clear.”

  “It’s not related, Rob. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything, it just gave me a fright, that’s all.”

  His eyes bore into hers. “Humour me.”

  “Okay.” She wrapped her hands around her untouched Americano with hot milk. “Rachel was out with a friend, a boy who lived in our street. I didn’t know him very well, since they were a few years older than me. Apparently, they said goodbye and the boy went home. The grocer reported seeing Rachel walk by a few minutes after that. She was alone. When she didn’t come home, my mother and my uncle went looking for her. When they couldn’t find her, they called the police.”

  Another nightmare scenario for the family.

  “How does the backpack come into it?” he asked.

  “She had this cute leather backpack, the kind with the long, thin straps. All the teenage girls were wearing them at the time. I wanted one too, but my mum wouldn’t let me. They found it in a nearby lake, anchored down with a rock, just like Katie’s.”

  Rob pursed his lips as he let this sink in.

  “How old was Rachel when she disappeared?” he asked.

  “Thirteen.”

  Another pause.

  “It’s a common enough thing to do,” Jo pointed out. “If you want to prevent something from being found.”

  She had a point.

  Serial killers don’t care about jurisdiction.

  A chill ran down his spine.

  “Yeah, it’s probably just a coincidence.” There were far too many in this case already.

  They lapsed into silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, Rob said, “Am I seeing you tonight?”

  “Have you got time? This case sounds pretty full on.”

  It was, but he needed to see her, to hold her in his arms. He needed to feel something good, other than the sadness and frustration at work. Jo made him feel human again. But he didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep.

  “Let’s play it by ear. I’ll call you later and give you an update.”

  She smiled, but it seemed forced. “Keep me posted.”

  Rob’s phone buzzed as he received a text from Mallory. “Crimewatch has gone. The coast is clear.”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Jo said, standing up.

  He also got to his feet. “Thanks for stopping by. Sorry I dredged up all that stuff about your sister.”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Talk to you later.”

  Her haunted look told him she was still freaked out.

  18

  Twenty years was a long time. Manchester was two hundred miles away. The cases couldn’t be related.

  Still, as soon as he got back to the squad room, Rob logged into the HOLMES database, the police repository of case information, and pulled up the details on Jo’s sister’s disappearance.

  Rachel Maguire. Thirteen years old. Reported missing by her mother, Valerie Maguire at twenty past seven on the 5th August 1999.

  A shiver snuck down his spine. Almost exactly twenty years ago.

  A subsequent search by the authorities had turned up nothing. It was a local search team who’d discovered the backpack in the lake five days later.

  Rob squinted at the low-resolution photograph of the backpack. It was black with long straps, just as Jo had described. The zipper was open, and the inside was glistening wet. There was the rock on the evidence table next to it. Roughly the same size as the one used to weigh down Katie’s backpack.

  Was he grasping at straws?

  “A PC Brightman called for you.” Mallory came over. He held up a finger with a yellow post-it note stuck to it. Brightman’s mobile number was printed across the top in Mallory’s neat handwriting. “He asked if you’d call him back before five. What’s that?” He peered over Rob’s shoulder at his screen.

  “I’m not sure,” mused Rob. “Probably nothing.”

  Mallory looked at him expectantly. Rob knew he wouldn’t budge until he’d told him. The DI had a silent, stubborn streak that made him a good detective, but also a pain in the arse on occasion.

  “It’s Jo’s sister’s disappearance.” He kept his voice low. He didn’t want the rest of the department to think he’d gone off his rocker.

  Mallory scrunched up his forehead, retrieving long forgotten fragments of information. It was fascinating how his mind worked. “Rachel, right? Disappeared when Jo was young. They never found out what happened to her.”

  “Spot on.” Rob nodded. “A
nyway, it turns out Rachel’s backpack was discovered in a nearby lake weighed down with a rock.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m serious. I thought I’d check the original case notes to see if anything else jumped out at me.”

  “And did it?”

  “Well, it’s almost twenty years to the day. The rock is a similar size. Rachel was thirteen, Katie is eleven.” He glanced at Mallory. “Am I being ridiculous here?”

  Mallory exhaled through pursed lips, making a soft hissing noise. “Could be a coincidence. Spooky, though.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Jo’s pretty freaked out too. Anyway, it’s not worth mentioning at this stage.” He closed his laptop. “How are we doing on the other angles?”

  Mallory cocked his head to the side. “Nothing on those women who knew Katie. Everybody on Lisa’s list of suspects checks out.”

  “That was a longshot anyway, especially now we aren’t even sure the perp is a woman.”

  “There’s still nothing on the CCTV,” Mallory updated him. “Katie’s abductor must have parked in a blind spot. Stills from the ANPR camera at the roundabout aren’t clear enough to make out who is in the vehicles.”

  “Damn.”

  The ANPR cameras weren’t designed to show the individual inside a car, only the license plate, make and model. Without the details of the motor vehicle, they were useless.

  “So, we’ve got nothing.”

  Mallory shrugged. “We’ve looked at every car that passed through that camera an hour before and after Katie’s disappearance. We’ll cross-reference them with the vehicles of all the persons of interest in this case.”

  Rob nodded. “Good work.”

  “PC Brightman is waiting for your call,” Mallory continued. “Do you want me to speak to him?”

  Rob shook his head. “Nah, I’ll do it. Thanks.”

  His DI nodded and went back to his desk, leaving the post-it note on the corner of Rob’s screen.

  “PC Brightman, this is DCI Miller from Richmond CID. Thanks for returning my call.”

  The police officer grunted. “What can I do for you, DCI Miller?”

  Traffic roared in the background. Where was he? In the middle of an intersection?

  “I wanted to talk to you about Tessa Parvin,” he began, shouting to be heard. A couple of heads in the squad room bobbed up.

  “Who?”

  “Tessa Parvin, Arina Parvin’s mother. Remember the missing girl in Bisley four years ago?”

  A pause. Rob thought he heard a sixteen-wheeler thunder by.

  “I remember,” came the response.

  “Could you go somewhere a bit quieter?” Rob asked. “I’m struggling to hear you.”

  “Hang on.” The traffic intensified momentarily, then faded to a muted hiss.

  “Thanks,” he breathed.

  “What about Arina Parvin?” Brightman asked. “I didn’t have anything to do with the case.”

  “You were the first responder, weren’t you? You visited Arina’s mother, Tessa shortly after she called the emergency services.”

  “That’s right.” His voice was guarded. Rob wondered if DCI Purley had given him a head’s up.

  “What sort of state was she in?”

  “She was distraught, as you can imagine. Her daughter had just vanished.”

  “Did she mention her husband at all?”

  “Um, yeah, she did. She seemed to think he’d taken the child and done a runner.”

  “What gave you that impression?”

  “He’d packed some of his belongings. She hadn’t realised until we looked in his room and saw his suitcase was gone.”

  That was new.

  “What about Arina’s room?” Rob asked quickly. “Were any of her things gone?”

  “Not that I can remember,” he said.

  “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? That the father packed for himself but not his daughter?”

  Brightman hesitated. “Maybe. Like I said, I only reported it as a missing person. I wasn’t involved in…”

  “I know,” Rob interjected. “You weren’t involved in the investigation. I’m just asking from an observer's point of view. So, you’re sure nothing in Arina’s room had been taken? No clothes, no suitcase, no personal items?”

  “If there were, her mother didn’t mention it.”

  He made a mental note to ask Tessa about that. “Is there anything else you can tell me about that visit?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like was anyone else at the house with her? Did she make any phone calls? Did anything strike you as strange?”

  “There was nobody with her, but she received plenty of phone calls.”

  “From who? Do you remember?”

  “From concerned friends and neighbours, I think, but it was a while ago. I can’t remember every little detail. DCI Purley interviewed all her daughter’s friends later. Their statements should be in the file.”

  “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”

  “What’s this about then?” Brightman asked, almost as an afterthought.

  “That’s all for now,” Rob said, talking over him. “Thanks again, Constable.”

  And he cut the call.

  The digital clock blinked 08:30.

  Katie had been missing for thirty-six hours.

  “Guv, I’ve got something.” Will beckoned him over.

  Rob pushed himself up from his desk. His limbs felt heavy like he was wading through mud, and weariness tugged at his eyelids. He stifled a yawn. “What is it?”

  Please let it be a lead.

  “I searched the sex offenders register and got a hit in Barnes. Sir, you may want to check this guy out.”

  It was standard procedure when a child went missing to look into local offenders, but according to statistics, eighty percent of child abductions were committed by people known to the victim. Only twenty percent by strangers. The chances of a complete stranger randomly selecting Katie Wells on her way to school was slim.

  Still, they had fuck-all else to go on.

  “Who is it?”

  “A former art teacher called Anthony Payne. He works in a gallery in Church Road.”

  “What’s he on for?”

  “Possessing indecent images, voyeurism and sexually assaulting a minor.”

  “Christ.”

  “Yeah, the trifecta. He did six years at HMP Wakefield. Release five years ago.”

  “Any connection to Katie?”

  Will shook his head. “Not that I can find, sir. I still thought it was worth mentioning.”

  “Okay, thanks Will. Send me the details. I’ll check him out first thing tomorrow.” He stifled a yawn. Despite the espresso, his body was shutting down. The atmosphere in the squad room felt oppressive. He had a sudden urge to escape. A need for fresh air and normality. “Right now, I’m going home. I suggest you do the same.”

  Moral was low, they could all do with an evening off. Sitting here, drumming their heads against the wall wasn’t going to make Katie Wells magically reappear.

  He told everyone to call it a day, then rang Jo. She agreed to meet him at his place in an hour. Perfect. It would give him time to walk Trigger, and he desperately needed to clear his head. He didn’t want to be on a downer when Jo got there.

  When Jo arrived, she moved wordlessly into his arms and hugged him. He held her close, breathing in the warm, vanilla scent of her hair. Slowly, the tension of the last two days began to melt away.

  “You’re so good for me,” he murmured.

  She smiled, moving away. A moment of recognition. “I needed that too. Do you have anything to eat? I’m starving.”

  They went into the kitchen and made a comforting Napolitana pasta for supper, which they devoured with a loaf of chunky farmhouse bread that Rob had picked up on his way home. Fortified, they washed it down with a fruity Australian Sauvignon Blanc.

  Up until now, they’d resisted talking about the case.

  A glass
of wine and Jo said, “You looked into my sister’s case, didn’t you?”

  He suppressed a grin. “How did you know?”

  “I know you.”

  “Yes, but apart from the girls being roughly the same age and of course, the rock weighing down the backpack, there aren’t any other obvious similarities. It’s unlikely they’re related.”

  She gazed into her wineglass. “That’s what I thought too.”

  “The funny thing is,” he continued. “One of the Barnes residents who knew Katie also had her daughter taken four years ago. Talk about coincidences.”

  “Same age?”

  He nodded.

  Jo stared at him. “Two missing girls, three if you count Rachel. I’d say that’s more than a coincidence. Besides, I didn’t think you believed in them.”

  “I never used to, but I have to admit, this case is full of them. There’s the dog walker caught on voicemail who approached Katie in the street seconds before she was abducted, Katie’s father who booked one-way tickets to France, Tessa Parvin and her missing daughter, the similarity with your sister.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And none of them panned out.”

  “None that you know of,” Jo revised. “Any one of them could be related, you just haven’t found the link yet.”

  He sighed. “Do you really think there is one? I’m inclined to believe they’re all dead ends. The woman was heard moving away from Katie with her dog, Brian Wells is a broken man who just wants to spend time with his daughter, Tessa Parvin wanted to help find Katie because she knew what Lisa was going through, and your sister was miles away in another county and another decade.”

  “What about alibis?” she asked.

  “It mostly boils down to the timing. Brian arrived at Lisa’s house within half an hour of Katie’s disappearance, so he didn’t have time to hide her anywhere, and the tail we’ve had on him hasn’t turned up squat.”

  “Hmm…” Jo pursed her lips.

  “Tessa Parvin is a similar story. She was part of the local search team run by Ed Maplin, head of the neighbourhood watch. I spoke to her myself. They wanted to go and search for Katie, but we shut them down. Again, she didn’t have time to stash Katie anywhere.”

  “Unless she was hidden close by,” Jo surmised.