by BL Pearce
“What did you find out?” Rob asked.
“Ramin Parvin has remarried. He now has two sons from his second wife, aged one and three.”
Rob’s eyes widened. “He didn’t waste any time.”
“Indeed. Anyway, my contact managed to track him down. After making some discreet enquiries, she discovered that there is no sixteen-year-old girl living at that address. Only the two boys.”
“So Arina isn’t there?” Rob breathed.
“Not according to the neighbours, no. They’ve never seen a young girl with Ramin. They didn’t even know he had a daughter.”
He thought for a moment. “Do you think he’s married her off already, or sent her to live with a relative?”
“It’s possible,” said Jo, “But that’s not something my contact can uncover without compromising herself and the organisation.”
Rob took a deep breath. “It doesn’t look like Arina ever made it to Tehran.”
“Which means she really is missing, probably dead.”
He exhaled. “It might be time to reopen her case.”
“I most certainly will not authorise a forensic search of a lake on Bisley Common,” Lawrence bellowed the next morning in his office.
Rob calmly walked over and shut the door. He’d expected this reaction, even though it was his duty to inform the Chief Superintendent of his new line of enquiry.
“Sir, if you’ll just give me a moment to explain.”
“Don’t sir me, DCI Miller. I thought I’d made myself clear that we were not to focus on this serial killer theory.”
“Actually, you said we could look into it, but not make it a priority. Well, we did, and I can’t rule out the possibility that the cases are linked.”
Lawrence sunk into his chair. “This is why I’m retiring, Rob. Because one day, you’re going to give me a bloody heart attack.”
Lawrence was a good copper, with more experience than the rest of the department put together. He wouldn’t let a potential lead go unfollowed, no matter how high the risk of cardiac arrest.
“What new evidence do you have? What is it that makes you think these other girls are connected to Katie Wells' disappearance?” he said.
Rob took a seat opposite him. “Anthony Payne has lived all over Surrey since his parole in 2014.”
Lawrence raised his bushy eyebrows so they collided in the middle. “Tell me he wasn’t living near to where these other girls disappeared?”
Rob nodded. “Two of them, sir. Three, counting Barnes. Not the same towns, but close enough.”
“Jesus Christ.” A long moment passed. The Chief Superintendent studied him. “What has this got to do with the lake?”
“You know Katie’s backpack was disposed of in the old reservoir?”
He nodded.
“Well, we thought maybe Arina’s was too. There’s a deep pond, used to be a quarry, near where Arina disappeared. If it was Payne, who’s to say he didn’t do the same thing with her?”
Lawrence took a moment to gather his thoughts. Rob could see him trying to figure out how he was going to justify this to the Police Commissioner.
“What the hell,” he said finally, throwing up his arms. “I’m retiring at the end of the year. May as well go out with a bang, eh?”
Rob grinned. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll allow the search of the lake. If, and only if, they find something in there, will I speak to the Police Commissioner about getting Arina Parvin’s case reopened. Until then, we don’t tell anyone what we’re doing. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. And thank you.”
Lawrence gave him a hard look. “I mean it, Rob. If this gets out, we’re all toast.”
The divers went in first thing Tuesday morning.
The wait was excruciating. He couldn’t concentrate, the reports swum before his eyes. Needing a distraction, he ambushed Harry who had just arrived.
“Did your friend’s uncle find out anything?” he asked before the sergeant had time to take his jacket off.
“Yes, sir. I was going to come and speak to you as soon as I got in.”
He was a little flustered at having been caught off guard. Rob took a step back to give him some space. “And?”
“He looked into Ramin Parvin and found no reference to a daughter. Apparently, he has two sons, but no daughter.”
“You’re sure?” This was a second confirmation.
“Yes, if she’s in Iran, sir, it isn’t under her own name.”
Right, that would have to do for now. It wasn’t hard evidence, but it backed up what Jo’s source had said, and justified the search of the lake.
The morning passed in a blur of impatience. The only highlight was when Jenny told him they’d found the mole who’d leaked the story about Payne’s arrest to the press. The guilty party, a short, stocky bloke who looked more like a bouncer than a telephone operator, had been sacked on the spot. It turned out he had a gambling problem and thought he’d make some extra cash on the side.
“I don’t know how we missed it,” said Jenny. She was close to tears.
“Not your fault,” he told her. At least they’d got to the bottom of that. If the search of the lake had got out, Lawrence would sack the lot of them.
Finally, just before lunch, he got the call he’d been waiting for. He pounced on it before the end of the first ring. “DCI Miller.”
He listened, heart pounding. “You did. I see. Thank you.”
He hung up, dazed. He couldn’t believe it.
They’d fucking found it.
“You’re kidding?” said the Chief Superintendent.
Rob had gone straight to him. Apart from Mallory, nobody else knew about the sanctioned dive.
“Yeah, and it was weighted down, just like Katie’s.”
And Rachel’s.
“Everybody, briefing!”
Rob stood up as his team gathered around him. Evan and Harry who were further away, rolled over on their chairs.
“We’ve had a new development.”
He couldn’t conceal his excitement
Expectant faces started back at him. They were desperate for a lead. Well, this was a doozy.
“As you know, we’ve been looking into the disappearances of several other girls Katie’s age in Surrey and correlating it with Anthony Payne’s movements over the last five years.”
Several nods.
“Well, this morning we sent divers into a lake near to where Tessa Parvin’s daughter Arina went missing four years ago. They found her school rucksack in the lake, weighed down by a stone.”
A collective gasp spread around the room.
“According to Arina’s case files, the SIO, DI Purley, didn’t feel the need to search the woods or look at any CCTV in the area, because he was convinced she’d been taken out of the country by her father. He did fly out on the same day. That was enough for them to close the case. We don’t believe he had anything to do with his daughter’s disappearance.”
There was a pause as this sunk in.
“What happens now?” asked Harry. “Do we reopen the case because it’s linked to ours?”
“DCS Lawrence is going to speak to the powers that be and get it transferred,” acknowledged Rob. “There’ll be an investigation into Purley’s actions, but that’s not our concern.”
“If there are four other missing girls, plus Arina and Katie, does this mean we have a serial killer on our hands?” The question came from Evan, who knew the details of the missing girls better than most.
“It’s beginning to look that way.”
The Chief Superintendent slammed his door shut, making everyone jump.
“He’s not happy,” said Rob. “He hates serial cases.”
“Who’s going to do what?” asked Mallory, thinking like a DI.
Rob took a deep breath. “We’ll break it up between us. These cases go back several years. Take Evan, Harry, DC Bartlett and DC Fagan and look into the four missing girls we know nothing about. Get their
cases sent over, contact the detectives in charge, talk to their relatives and get up to speed. You can use incident room two.”
Mallory nodded.
This would give him a chance to lead his own investigation, which was long overdue.
“The rest of you are with me,” Rob said. “We’ll look into Katie and Arina’s disappearances, because there are obvious ties there. Katie is still our number one priority. It is possible she might still be alive. We need to keep tabs on Payne, since he’s our main suspect. In fact, he could be responsible for all the missing girls. If we get him for these two, we might be able to get a confession out of him for the others.”
It was a stretch, but serial offenders loved bragging about their victims. They liked people to know what they’d done. He’d learned that from his friend Tony Sanderson, a forensic psychologist and the UK’s most sought-after criminal profiler. Actually, Tony might have a few insights into Payne, perhaps he’d give him a call. They were due a catch up.
As soon as the briefing was over, he headed outside.
It was time to update Jo.
“Oh, my God!” she whispered into the phone. “Do you know what this means?”
“I haven’t told Lawrence about Rachel,” he said. “He’s having a hard enough time accepting there’s a serial offender operating in his own backyard.”
“It’s got to be linked?” She sounded breathy, like she’d run a mile before answering the phone.
“Let’s get together later and talk about this,” Rob urged. “We need to decide how to handle it.”
“Okay,” she whispered, but her voice had a definite wobble in it.
“Jo, are you alright?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m still processing. With Katie’s backpack it could have been a coincidence, but now with Arina’s…”
“I know. It does make it a lot more likely we’re dealing with the same guy, or a copycat. Payne isn’t old enough to have been involved in Rachel’s disappearance. He’s only in his mid-thirties. Twenty years ago, he’d have been a teenager himself.”
Jo sighed. “I know. I need some time to get my head around this. I’ll speak to you later, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll come to yours tonight, after I’m done here.”
They said goodbye.
Rob scowled at the cigarette butts scattered on the ground where he stood. He’d never felt more like one. Big cases always brought on his craving. He doubted it would ever go away.
A gust of wind blew dust up into his face and he swiped it away, before striding across the road to grab a take-away coffee.
Rachel was the anomaly. Her disappearance was too long ago to be related. It couldn’t be Payne. From Payne’s history, he’d been born and bred in Croydon. There was no mention of Manchester in his file. Besides, he’d have been way too young to commit murder, almost as young as the victim herself.
That meant they were dealing with different killers, or Payne wasn’t their man.
26
Jo sat with a bulky file on her lap. They were in The Old Kings Head, a cosy pub near Jo’s apartment in Borough.
“There’s no mention of a father on Payne’s birth certificate,” Jo was saying, a pint of lager on the table in front of her. “But his mother remarried when he was two, so he had a stepfather. From what I can gather, they didn’t get on. His psyche report makes mention of sexual abuse at the hands of his stepfather when he was a boy and several attempts to run away.”
“Christ.” Rob took a swig of his beer. Obviously, that had a major impact on the young Payne. “I almost feel sorry for the guy.”
“Hold that thought,” said Jo. “He left home when he was sixteen and began selling nude photographs of himself to make money. He stayed in youth hostels and squats in the area.”
“I suppose it’s better than selling yourself,” Rob muttered.
Jo continued, “A few years later, he was cautioned for giving a blow job in a public park. He was let off with a fine.”
Rob just raised his eyebrows.
“Then nothing until his sexual assault charge in 2009. He used to be a primary school teacher at a local prep in south Croydon until a kid complained to a member of the support staff. He claimed Payne had fondled him during homework club. It appears this kid was special needs and required a bit more help with his schooling. Payne had offered to give him extra classes after school and it was here these alleged episodes took place.”
She’d been reading from the file, but she paused and glanced up. “What a creep, taking advantage of a kid like that. He probably thought he wouldn’t understand what was going on.”
Rob frowned. Something had been playing on his mind ever since he’d first met Payne. “You know, there’s something about all this that doesn’t add up.”
Jo leaned back with her drink. “What’s that?”
“He’s gay, right? It’s obvious just by talking to him. The first time he was busted was with another guy, then the kid he assaulted was male too. There’s no evidence that he’s ever messed with girls.”
Jo placed her drink carefully on the table. “I didn’t even think about that. Are you saying that Payne might not be our man? That he might have nothing to do with Katie or the other girls’ disappearances?”
Rob squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a little shake. He was an idiot for not seeing it sooner. “I think I know where Payne was the morning Katie vanished.”
“You do?” Jo leaned in. “Where?”
“I need to check something first.” He pulled out his phone and dialled the squad room. DS Bird picked up. She was on late duty tonight.
“Jenny, I need you to do me a favour…”
After he’d told her what he wanted, Jo’s eyes lit up with understanding. They finished their beers, talking in low voices, while they waited for Jenny to call them back.
Half an hour later, Rob’s phone buzzed. He put it on speaker so Jo could hear.
“Sir, you were right. We picked him up on CCTV outside the boys school on Station Road. Oakhurst Primary, it’s called. They’re running a summer camp during the holidays.”
Rob exhaled low and long. He’d been right. “What was he doing?”
“Just watching, sir. He stood on the opposite side of the road. He didn’t approach any of the boys.”
Payne was a sexual predator, but he wasn’t their kidnapper.
“Thanks Jenny. You can document his alibi and we’ll deal with what this means tomorrow.”
“Okay, guv.”
“Oh, call off the tail on Anthony Payne.”
“Will do. Goodnight, sir.”
“Goodnight, Jenny.”
He cut the call.
“I’m impressed.” Jo smiled at him across the table.
He sighed. “It’s a bugger really. The man’s dangerous, for sure, but now he has an alibi for the time of Katie’s disappearance.” He dropped his head into his hands. “That means he’s going to sue the hell out of us for wrongful arrest and destroying his professional reputation, and God knows what else.”
Jo grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, that’s tough.”
“Yeah, Lawrence is going to have to handle the shitstorm.”
“He’s going to love that.”
“It also means we’ve been chasing the wrong guy. There’s someone else out there kidnapping little girls and we have no idea who.”
She leaned forward. “It also means that it could be the same guy who took Rachel. This guy could have been active for twenty years.”
They stared at each other as her words sank in.
“That’s crazy,” he said. “If that’s true, then we’re looking for a man in his forties or older, who moved to Surrey from Manchester over five years ago.”
“It’s a start.”
Rob sighed. It was a start, but it meant throwing out everything they knew and starting fresh. Again.
“Where do you think he buried them,” Rob asked quietly when they were halfway through their second rou
nd.
Jo frowned. “I don’t know.”
“None of the bodies have been discovered. If the guy is as prolific as we suspect, he must have disposed of his victims somehow. They’re not in the lakes or ponds with the backpacks, so where are they?”
“He could have buried them in the woods where the girls were taken,” said Jo.
“That’s one theory.” He hesitated. “Perhaps they never left to begin with.”
Jo shivered. “That’s an awful thought.”
“We’ll have to search Bisley Common. It’s not very big, only forty-six hectares. We’ll get the dog squad out.”
“Will they pick up anything after all this time?” Jo asked. “It has been four years since Arina disappeared.”
“They’ll find a body,” he said. “That’s what they’re trained to do.”
“I want in,” Jo stated.
Rob stared at her. “How?”
“I’ll speak to my boss.”
“Do you think he’d lend you to us for the duration of the investigation?”
“I don’t know, but this could be my sister’s killer, Rob. I need to be in on this case. Can you speak to Sam?”
“I can try, but I can’t see him going for it. Not with you being so close to one of the victims.”
“He knows I’m a professional. I can handle it.”
She took his hand. “Please, Rob.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She squeezed. “Thanks, Rob. That’s all I ask.”
“I like Jo Maguire,” Lawrence said, early the next morning. “But there’s no fucking way the NCS is going to sanction her involvement. Firstly, it’s not their case. It’s got nothing to do with them. And secondly, if this killer is the same man who took her sister, she has a personal connection. She could jeopardise the entire investigation. Hell, she might even be a witness or a person of interest.”
Rob handed him a take-away coffee he’d got from the expensive Italian café on the other side of town. He needed all the help he could get.
“Look, I know she’s a bright girl, but this is her sister we’re talking about.”
