Chloe- Lost Girl

by Dan Laughey

  Sant was startled and unconvinced at the same time. Nothing pointed to Chloe having had sexual relations with this mystery woman – or any other. By all accounts she was as straight as a die. But then again, sexuality wasn’t engraved on anyone’s personal stone in the same way that age and sex were.

  ‘I take it you didn’t allow Chloe the freedom to roam around your lovely home?’ asked Capstick, stifling the sarcasm for all he was worth.

  The smoke seeped from the corners of her mouth in a show of distaste. ‘Certainly not. You gotta keep ya eyes wide open. Dodgy characters everywhere these days. ‘Sides I got expensive stuff in this house… computers, jewelree, designer jeans.’ She paused as if remembering something. ‘Now I come to think o’ it, I got awflee suspicious when she went t’loo.’

  ‘Why was that, Miss Rhodes?’

  She stubbed out the fag in the saucer. ‘Let’s just say, she took an awflee long time about it. Five minutes at least.’

  ‘Your toilet is upstairs?’

  ‘No fancy downstairs loos round ‘ere, luvie.’

  ‘Did you go up and check on her?’

  She spat out a bit of tobacco. ‘That I did, though I kick meself for not doin’ it sooner. There I were, walking up the stairs, and next thing I know she’s hurryin’ past me on ‘er way down. I says “what’s up with ya?” and she muttered ‘bout a migraine, felt sick she said, and that were the last I saw of ‘er. So there’s me thinkin’ she’s been nosing round for stuff to steal, but I know exactly wot I got up there, in cupboards and wot-not, and am certain she left wi’ nowt.’

  Capstick dried his moist palms on his shirt sleeves. ‘You think she was searching for something?’

  ‘Sure of it.’

  ‘Mind if we take a look around?’ Sant asked.

  Miss Rhodes clearly did mind, but she gave silent consent before lifting the younger of her two girls and sniffing at her nappy. Result positive – a new nappy at the ready.

  Nothing out of the ordinary struck Sant and Capstick as they inspected the upstairs rooms. The house was as plain as they came. No elaborate furnishings here. When all else looked normal, so Sant had learnt from experience, two options remained: the cellar and the loft. And since this property had no cellar, the loft was the only option.

  Unfortunately, Miss Rhodes didn’t own a step ladder since she had no use for the storage space. Indeed, she’d never set eyes on the loft; didn’t know it existed.

  But it did. A boarded loft. Not in use now, but the fact that it was boarded meant past tenants had stored things up there.

  A kitchen stool was placed below the cubby-hole and Capstick volunteered his services. He was adept at pull-ups and with the help of a peg-up from Sant, accompanied by the familiar break-a-leg quip, he managed to wriggle his upper body up and over the threshold. He crawled with his arms to a more secure position and searched for a light switch; a non-existent light switch as it turned out. Sant returned to his car, grabbed a torch from the glove box and choked his way back up the stairs through a cloud of fresh nicotine.

  Torch in hand and other hand over nose to shield dust, Capstick scanned the space from top to bottom with a faint but sufficient beam.

  ‘Nothing here,’ he called down.

  ‘Certain?’

  ‘As the day is long.’

  ‘Anything been removed up there?’

  ‘Not sure how I’d know about that, sir.’

  ‘Check for track-marks.’

  Capstick swept the torchlight in a circular motion and saw nothing at first, but as his eyes got more accustomed to the beam, he settled on a small slab of flooring distinctly less dust-laden than the rest. ‘There’s a bare patch right over in the far corner. Not very big.’

  ‘Measure it,’ Sant said, hurling up a tape-measure.

  Capstick shuffled forward on his stomach and let his knees do the work. It was no good trying to stand – the roof beams were too low-slung.

  ‘Twenty centimetres long… twelve across.’

  ‘What’s that in inches, Capstick? I’m an imperial man.’

  ‘A little less than eight inches long… and four and a half across, sir.’

  Capstick crawled backwards to the opening, slithered down the hole, and then dropped the rest of the way to the landing.

  ‘Wot the ‘ell ya doin’?’ came a pleasant voice from below.

  ‘Any idea what might’ve occupied that space?’

  Capstick shook his head. ‘Could be anything. A small box or tin. A book maybe.’

  ‘Interesting. We may need to return here.’

  They thanked Miss Rhodes for her cooperation and made haste, Sant surveying the overgrown garden strewn with loose bricks and a car tyre as they scurried away. He felt like a hound sniffing for clues, his senses in full swing – and no amount of second-hand smoke could dull those senses.

  He felt good. Capstick looked chipper too. They were making headway, that much was certain, though where they were heading the inspector couldn’t decide.

  ‘Superintendent Hardaker has instructed me to update you two on progress,’ announced Holdsworth with a flourish of a flipchart. She pinned up a computer-generated sketch indicating the positions of the dead passengers on each deck of the bus. The deceased were represented by a letter to mark their final resting place.

  ‘Starting with the upper deck,’ began Holdsworth, ‘letter A refers to DS Dryden.’

  ‘We know all about him,’ Capstick said.

  ‘I’m being systematic, Brad. No corner cutting.’ Capstick raised a palm towards her. She nodded. ‘William Dryden, twenty-eight years young. Joined the force five years ago and made rapid promotion through the ranks. We know how ambitious Liam was. Married. No children... a small blessing.’

  Sant felt the impact of Holdsworth’s words. His single worst fear in the event of a premature death. Dying didn’t necessarily freak him out – meditation brought peace of mind on that front – but the prospect of leaving behind two fatherless boys… that did.

  Holdsworth continued: ‘Why Dryden was on the bus remains inconclusive. That’s the official line from Hardaker. And yet here’s the strangest thing.’ She lifted a pair of reading glasses to her self-tanned face and consulted the report she was holding. ‘Forensic officers were unable to retrieve any item of significance from Dryden’s person.’

  ‘His pockets were empty,’ Sant said.

  ‘But how could that be?’ Holdsworth removed her glasses.

  Sant sucked his toothpick. ‘The likelihood is his pockets were emptied. Post-mortem. No-one in their right mind goes travelling at night without cash or cards. And we’ve already drawn the conclusion that Dryden’s missing phone was stolen by his killer.’

  ‘Which means his killer took his other belongings,’ added Holdsworth.

  ‘Correct. No bus ticket was found on him either. Right, Capstick?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Holdsworth cross-referenced the report to make certain and nodded towards a perplexed Capstick.

  ‘But why would the killer go to the trouble of emptying Dryden’s pockets, even taking his ticket?’

  ‘For the same reason he took his phone,’ said Sant. ‘We’re dealing with a professional, intent on leaving no trace. Ensuring nothing Dryden was carrying could provide a clue to what he was doing on that bus, where he’d come from and where he was going.’

  ‘A trained assassin.’ Wrinkles appeared above Holdsworth’s wide eyes.

  Sant nodded. ‘This was no off-the-cuff killing. At any rate, Dryden’s wasn’t. But one thing does puzzle me: the sheer scale of the bloodbath. Dryden was killed in cold blood, but why choose a moving bus as a location for murder? Why not bide one’s time and wait till the journey was over and a darkened street presented itself? Killing sprees are not the stuff of a rational-minded assassin.’

  ‘I suppose once he started he couldn’t stop,’ said Holdsworth. ‘Leave nothing to chance, no witnesses.’

  ‘Unless we’re wrong and we’ve got a rand
om madman on our hands,’ Capstick put in.

  Holdsworth returned to the sketch and pointed a pencil midway along the upper deck at the letters B and C. ‘Sitting directly behind Dryden, in the seats just beyond the stairwell recess, were Kate Andrews and Callum Willis. The recess is about three metres across. So although the young couple were directly behind Dryden, in practice this amounts to a distance of three and a half metres.

  ‘We know a lot about Kate from her parents’ testimony. To recap, she was nineteen, single, a hairdresser living with mum and dad at Coldcotes Walk. Her boyfriend Callum was also nineteen and single, living at Maryfield Avenue. A trainee builder. Lived with his mother. His father flew the nest years ago. Interestingly, Kate and Callum were the only passengers residing in north-east Leeds. The rest lived off the 33 route, as you’d expect of anyone travelling on that bus.’

  ‘That figures,’ said Capstick.

  ‘What figures?’

  Sant followed Capstick’s lead, lowering his voice a fraction. ‘Don’t quote me on this, Holdsworth, but my detective’s nose leads me to think that Kate Andrews and her boyfriend were mates of Chloe Lee, when Chloe lived in Seacroft with her mother. The fact that Kate and Callum lived within walking distance of Chloe is intriguing.’

  ‘And coincidences like that are rarely just coincidences.’ Capstick nodded to Holdsworth.

  ‘Indeed,’ Holdsworth said. ‘I’ll keep that under my hat for now. But whether or not they knew Chloe doesn’t explain why Kate and Callum were on the 33 bus.’

  ‘Kate’s parents were equally bemused,’ said Sant, ‘but Mrs Andrews is hiding something. I’m sure of it. Now’s not the time to probe, though. I’ll leave her to grieve for now. Anything in the young couple’s pockets?’

  ‘Four pounds and twenty pence in Kate’s jacket. A debit card. Nothing else.’

  ‘No phone?’

  Holdsworth checked the report. ‘Right.’

  ‘Everyone carries a phone these days,’ said Capstick.

  Sant tapped the kink in his nose. ‘It may’ve been stolen. If the gunman suspected Kate of being involved…’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Maybe Kate was Dryden’s snitch,’ Holdsworth thought out loud.

  ‘It’s possible. What about Callum?’

  ‘He was carrying a phone,’ said Holdsworth, ‘but the preliminary check revealed no stand-out messages or images. Twelve pounds and fifty pence in loose change. Both Callum and Kate had student passes on them.’

  ‘Who’s next?’

  Holdsworth pointed to a D at the front of the lower deck. ‘The driver. Brian Simpson, forty-nine, married. Lived at Pembroke Road in Pudsey. Served time for armed robbery when he was nineteen, but since then his record’s clean. Worked on the buses for eleven years. Fish-fryer before that.’

  ‘It’s worth looking into that armed robbery. Capstick, you’re good at digging into the archives.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, though Hardaker’s passed on an order already. The other stumbling block is thirty years – it’s a long time. I doubt we’ve got anything on file. Armed robberies are only filed for ten.’

  ‘That only applies to paper records,’ said Holdsworth. ‘Electronic files are removed ad hoc. In practice, lots of backed up information is never deleted.’

  Sant nodded. ‘Ever since the Yorkshire Ripper debacle our force has become so paranoid about storing data that we bend over backwards to save it all.’

  Holdsworth replaced her reading glasses. ‘According to the report, no money was missing from Simpson’s vault. His takings were meagre anyway – thirty-nine pounds and forty pence excluding the float. Clearly Saturday night buses aren’t as crowded as they were when I was a spring chicken.’

  ‘Too many joyriders these days,’ commented Sant.

  ‘No phone was found on Simpson. Only his wallet and First employee card. The bus company says he used another driver’s phone to call the head office before setting out from Otley. He told his boss he was likely to exceed the regular ten-hour shift. Takes a while to complete the return leg back to Leeds.’

  Capstick folded his arms and gasped. ‘Ten hours is a long time to sit behind a wheel.’

  ‘Not continuously,’ Holdsworth said. ‘The maximum stint is five and a half. After that, the driver must take a thirty-minute break. Then he can go on driving for another four and a half hours. But if exceeding the ten-hour limit, the driver must phone in and confirm that he consents to a little bending of the rules.’

  ‘That’s the company protecting their own back,’ remarked Sant.

  ‘I bet no-one’s paid overtime either,’ Capstick put in.

  Holdsworth turned back to the sketch. ‘We’re left with the other three deceased and the two survivors, all located in lower-deck seats to the middle and rear. Furthest forward’ – she pointed to an E – ‘was sixty-two year old Sue Wilkinson. The ticket found in her possession was issued at 23.09, which makes her one of three passengers boarding the bus at its point of departure. The other two have been traced; they got off at a pub in Guiseley and left their receipts on the bus – the two retrieved by forensics. Oh, and Wilkinson’s identification was only confirmed three hours ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  Holdsworth fingered the report. ‘Bullet wounds. Half her head was missing.’

  Capstick swallowed hard, trying to hold down the contents of his stomach. Squeamish moments like this made him regret his line of work.

  ‘Who ID-ed her?’ Sant asked.

  ‘Her husband. It was awkward, and not just because of the injuries she sustained. Sue Wilkinson lived with her husband in Middleton, North Yorkshire, in a millionaire’s mansion. With gardens that need to be seen to be believed.’

  ‘Well off then.’

  ‘You can say that again, Brad.’

  ‘Well off then.’

  Her look narrowed in his direction. ‘Anyway, it’s awkward because, as far as Anthony Wilkinson was concerned, his wife was eating out with friends in Skipton. So why, you might ask, was she riding on a Leeds-bound bus?’

  Sant knew the answer. ‘A bit on the side.’

  Holdsworth nodded. ‘Mrs Wilkinson was on the way to meet a secret lover and dance the night away. Her phone tells us all there is to know. We’ve even located the secret lover – a nightclub owner who’s married with children. They met on the club scene eighteen years ago.’

  ‘Young at heart.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a long time to have an affair,’ Capstick said, shifting his moral compass into gear. ‘Surely the hubby twigged it somewhere along the line.’

  ‘Apparently not,’ said Holdsworth. ‘The man’s inconsolable.’

  ‘Who’s F?’ pointed Sant.

  ‘Seventeen year-old Joshua Smith from Model Avenue, Armley. His cousin had to ID him as no closer relatives could be traced. Spent nine months in Wetherby’s juvenile prison over assault charges. Also convicted for driving without a licence. There’s a long list of criminal-damage offences too. Oh, and he was carrying a ticket issued at 23.16. And cannabis – a hefty supply.’

  ‘Dealer?’

  ‘More than likely.’ Holdsworth pointed to the letter G. ‘Two rows back from Smith was Robert Cameron. Fifty-three. Divorced with one daughter. Scot by birth, known alcoholic, two drink-driving offences to his name. Lived at Hill Crescent in Rawdon with his elderly father. Mother died last year.’

  ‘Happy days,’ muttered Capstick, trying to lighten the mood. No smiles were reciprocated.

  ‘His wallet contained eight pounds in cash as well as bank cards, store cards and a passport-sized photo of his daughter as a young girl. She’s now twenty-five. Training to be a solicitor.’

  ‘Good luck to her,’ Sant said.

  ‘Also found in Cameron’s pockets was a ticket issued at 23.19 – the penultimate receipt from Simpson’s vault. The last ticket was issued at 23.33 but the corresponding receipt hasn’t been found.’

  ‘Odd,’ said Capstick.

  Sant gnawed at h
is toothpick. ‘Not necessarily. My bet is the missing ticket belongs to one of two people.’

  ‘Dryden or Dryden’s killer,’ suggested Holdsworth.

  Sant nodded. ‘Given the late hour and the fact he lives nowhere near the Kirkstall area, Dryden was likely on the return leg of his journey. So his ticket would have been issued to him earlier that night, on the first bus he boarded; the one that took him to Kirkstall. That is, if he didn’t abuse his authority and avoid paying altogether.’

  ‘A mystery that will remain so.’

  ‘True enough. But let’s say the 23.33 ticket wasn’t Dryden’s. And it wasn’t anyone else’s. Everyone on that bus had a ticket we’ve accounted for. And since there was only a matter of a minute or so between the last ticket being issued and the bus crashing, we can assume no passenger got on the bus, paid for a ticket, and got off again immediately – except the one who perpetrated this bloody mess and escaped at the last conceivable moment.’

  Holdsworth nodded. ‘And as only one ticket was issued at 23.33, that means we’re only dealing with one perp.’

  ‘Probably, unless his accomplice was already on the bus.’

  ‘But how could an accomplice know which bus to be on?’ Capstick asked.

  ‘Good question. How about the survivors, Holdsworth?’

  She pointed at the H and J on the sketch. ‘H is David Dixon, forty-seven, lives on Oxford Avenue in Guiseley. Antique dealer by trade. Mother by his side.’

  ‘An ordinary citizen!’ said Capstick. ‘What a refreshing change!’

  ‘Dixon was sitting next to J – Paul Fitzgerald. Forty-one, living at the same Guiseley address. Both their tickets were issued at 23.14 and found on Dixon. They wore identical wedding rings, had a joint back account. They were partners, I figured, so I checked the marriage registry. They tied the knot five months ago.’

  ‘What condition are they in?’

  Holdsworth shook her head. ‘It’s not looking good for Dixon. He’s still in intensive and the life-support is all that’s propping him up. Better news on Fitzgerald. He’s been transferred to the high-dependency unit at LGI, one notch down in severity. Doctors don’t move patients from ICU unless they’re sure of a happy ending.’