by Eva Hudson
“And so you’ve checked out the generous Mrs Bull, I presume?”
“Ah… yup, though I had to hand it over to Don. There’s an email from him here… Mrs Bull reported her bag snatched about ten minutes after the ticket had been purchased. She’d been collecting her son from LAX. So, I’m guessing that’s a dead end.”
“Sounds like it.” It wasn’t much of a surprise to learn that a girl with Kristyn’s background had acquired the skills of a bag snatcher during a challenging childhood. Ingrid typed in her password and logged onto the embassy’s server. She opened Google and searched for the Nuestra Señora facility in Los Angeles.
“There’s also a scan here of a doctor’s letter declaring her fit to fly.”
“The name of the doctor?”
“It’s not very high res. Van Der Something. From the Nuestra Señora Center for the Family.”
Well that explained why she’d been able to board a plane. “Is it possible she’s still using Mrs Bull’s phone? It’s not like she’s going to be worried about the roaming charges.”
“Um, no. The police report says the bag was found intact, pocketbook, phone, personal fan… I don’t need to go on.”
“Is it possible,” Ingrid said, her brain in hyper-drive, “that Mrs Silver Lake doesn’t even know her card has been used yet? I mean, until she gets the bill… Never mind. Not our problem.” She refocused on what mattered: “I don’t suppose in anything you’ve looked into so far you’ve found out why Kate-Lynn had a passport? The cops in Aurora said they didn’t look for one because girls like her never have them.”
“You know what, that did come up.” Jennifer flicked through her notebook. “Yup, here it is. A Facebook post from a few years ago. There was a photo of her in Hong Kong of all places. Some school sports tour. She was a cheerleader.”
An image of a bright, enthusiastic, typical cheerleader popped into Ingrid’s head, swiftly followed by a mental picture of a slowly putrefying corpse being clung to by a toddler. She shook her head, trying to erase both images. “What else have you got for me?”
“Um,” Jennifer glanced down at her notepad. “You asked about the Labor Day edition of the Sun Times?”
“Uh-huh.” Ingrid was paying attention to the clerk while navigating Nuestra Señora’s website for contact details of its senior personnel.
Jennifer got to her feet and walked over to Don’s desk. “Here it is,” she said, and deposited it in front of Ingrid, who turned straight to the pages that had been missing from the copy she’d found at Cooper’s house. Page three featured a story about a new housing development that at first glance seemed irrelevant. On page four, however, there was a report about the stabbing of a nineteen-year-old male on the forecourt of a Taco Bell in Skokie, Illinois.
“Is that what you were looking for?” Jennifer asked.
“I think so.” Ingrid scanned the article. The victim was named as James Earley: there was no mention of him being in the witness protection program, or that he had been due to testify against Sooty Sutcliffe, but everything else matched the information Agent Dilner had told her about Dion Paphitis. Ingrid was aware Jennifer was hovering, keen to move on to the next item on her list. “Give me a second, I just need to read this.”
“It’s, like, gruesome, isn’t it?”
It was appalling. Paphitis hadn’t just been stabbed fourteen times—he’d had his lips cut off. Ingrid shuddered. Kristyn would have known why: to send a message that anyone who was thinking of testifying against Sutcliffe would be silenced. When Ingrid looked up at the eager Jennifer, she had to wipe away a tear.
“You OK?” Jennifer asked.
“I’m fine. What else have you got for me?”
“Let’s do the ammo dealers next.”
Ingrid pushed back in her seat, her attention momentarily grabbed by the image on her screen of the director of Nuestra Señora, a woman called Nancy Gadd who had the face of a plastic surgeon’s muse: stretched, symmetrical and scary.
Ingrid had forgotten she’d asked Jennifer about finding the source of the mysterious disappearing bullet. “Fire away,” Ingrid said, only realizing the pun as the words left her mouth.
“So .38 caliber, aluminum casing, lead tip. Only match I came up with was the Blazer brand. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to place an order or not?”
“Why would I want .38s?”
“Why did you ask me to find some?”
“Ah.” Ingrid had obviously neglected to tell Jennifer. “Long story. Now isn’t the time to explain, but good work. Thank you. Next?”
“Um…” Jennifer grabbed a different pad from her desk.
Ingrid clicked on her email client and logged into her account. When the software program loaded, she was surprised to see she only had fifteen unread messages. Even though emails came through to her phone, the embassy’s servers didn’t mark them as read until they had been viewed in the office.
“OK, so, social media? You want to do that now?” Jennifer asked.
It took Ingrid a moment to register what the clerk had said. “Jen,” she said slowly, keen to make sure there was no trace of accusation in her voice, “did you look at my emails during the day?”
Jennifer folded her arms, instantly taking a defensive stance. “I, like, don’t even know your password, so, like, no. Totally no.”
“Hey, OK, relax. IT must have done something their end.” She looked up at Jennifer. “Has anyone else been in here today?”
“I wouldn’t know, would I? Been with Simmons and CT. Though Don did mention Louden had come in and introduced herself. I reckon he got all uptight and tongue-tied. Why, is there a problem?”
“I’m probably misremembering…” The lingering traces of Rohypnol meant Ingrid couldn’t quite be sure of anything. “OK. Social media. Anything on Kate-Lynn’s accounts? Anything on Kristyn’s?”
Jennifer took a breath. “A few condolence messages on Kate-Lynn’s, but way fewer than you’d expect, like only three or four. You’d kind of expect a deluge, even if people are just saying how sorry they are for her kid.”
“Any news on how the little boy’s getting on?”
“Local media are saying the authorities are chasing his father.”
“And Kristyn? What have you found out about her?”
“OK, so, there are dormant Twitter and Instagram accounts. She was on Bebo when she was, like, twelve or something. She must be using fake names: no seventeen-year-old, unless they live in Tajikistan or somewhere, isn’t online. Actually, probably even there. But, ta-dah! We did find something interesting.”
“Oh?”
Jennifer stood a little taller, her mouth suppressing a smile. “Kristyn Bowers is a big One Direction fan.”
“Really?” Ingrid was intrigued.
“Yup, and she’s a shipper.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“Duh! How old are you?” Ingrid assumed it was a rhetorical question. Admitting that she was just days away from her thirty-second birthday might bring unwanted cakes with candles and impromptu singing. “She was all over the forums, defending Harry and Louis.”
Ingrid was just pleased that she knew who One Direction were. Individual band members was information she didn’t need to clutter her brain with.
“So, she used the same username in lots of places and if you want I can do you a summary of, like, the sorts of things she’s interested in, you know, if that’d help.”
“That’d be great.” It was actually better than great. People follow patterns and they repeat them: an investigator’s job is to spot the pattern and wait for the suspect to revert to type. Profiling wasn’t always as effective with people of Kristyn’s age as their tastes and habits tended to be more fluid, but with no Facebook and no Instagram to go on, extrapolating from Kristyn’s forum comments was potentially the best way of finding her. It wasn’t like they had much else.
“And the ta-dah info…” Jennifer’s tone indicated she was excited about what they’d found out
. “Don says there’s a big One Direction thing happening tomorrow. Thousands of fans are planning on camping outside Harry’s house in the hope of some, like, big announcement.” She looked at Ingrid, clearly hoping for praise, but Ingrid was too busy clicking around the Nuestra Señora site for a contact number.
“So if she’s such a big fan, and if she’s now lurking in 1D forums rather than posting, and if she’s in London, you know, maybe she’ll go to Harry’s house tomorrow?”
Ingrid ran both hands through her hair and leaned back against the chair. “You know what, it’s the only goddamned lead we’ve got. If we brought in a profiler, they’d probably recommend sending someone. Where is it?”
“North London somewhere. Don’s got the address and I can tell you now he’s going to be totally up for going.”
“He would?”
“You do remember I told you he was gay?”
“Hey, I don’t want to presume that just because the guy’s gay he’s going to be into boy bands.”
Jennifer placed a hand on her waist and jutted out a hip. “One Direction aren’t just any boy band, Ingrid.”
“OK, tomorrow we send Don on a top secret undercover mission. But tonight, what I need from you is…” Ingrid raised her hand and started counting her fingers, “one, a report on Kristyn Bowers’ other forum preferences, anything that might tell us what she’s into and where she might be, apart from at this Harry’s place tomorrow.”
Jennifer sat back down at her desk and placed an A4 notebook squarely in front of her. “Done.”
“Two. I want a summary of the Latin Kings. I’m sure there’ll be an up-to-date file on the Bureau database.”
“Latin Kings?”
Ingrid had forgotten that Jennifer’s civilian training wouldn’t have covered gang culture and history. There was no reason why she should know about the Kings. “They’re a gang. Seriously, there’ll be a file. Just print off the first two pages. I don’t have time to read anything else.”
“I’ll give that one to Don.”
“Three. I want a profile of a guy called Dennis Sutcliffe. Just a couple of pages. His nickname is Sooty. Nasty piece of work.”
“He’s the defendant, right? At the trial we’re trying to save?”
“Correct. And your fourth task,” Ingrid said, pulling on her ring finger, “is a background summary on the victim in that trial, a man named Michael Oboloyo. There might just be something, some connection, I’m not seeing.”
“And number five?” They both turned to see Don in the doorway holding paper take-out bags in both hands. “Oh my God, that smells amazing.”
“Number five? It’s one for Don.”
“Name it,” he said, putting the bags down on his desk.
“Call the maternity units again. Maybe widen the circle. Maybe try doulas and freelance midwives.”
“But it’s nearly eight o’clock,” he said, his deep voice rising incrementally.
“Yes, and babies don’t get born to a schedule. They should all be answering their phones.”
Ingrid picked up a souvlaki that Don had laid out on a flattened bag. “And while you’re doing that, I’m going to call Nuestra Señora and find out just how helpful they’re going to be when I tell them that they have been using an underage surrogate.”
“Let’s get to work then,” Don said.
“Let’s,” Jennifer agreed.
Ingrid took a bite of her souvlaki and hoped their diligence paid off. Right now, the criminal division had to operate like a sales team, generating leads and pursuing them until someone bought what they were selling. Because the way things stood, their only hope of finding Kristyn Bowers was a tenuous link to a boy band.
31
Ingrid pushed the fire exit open and stepped out onto the roof terrace. The cigarette butts at her feet told her Sol wasn’t the only smoker who used this spot, each obeying the smoker’s code to leave the door unlocked. A folded business card jammed near the handle ensured it looked locked when the security teams patrolled, but it was simple enough to pry it open when in desperate need of nicotine.
What Ingrid needed, however, was space, so she climbed the steps up onto the roof where the Stars and Stripes moved noisily on an enormous flagpole. She needed to clear her head. Her infuriating conversation with Nancy Gadd at Nuestra Señora revealed the woman didn’t just have a frozen face, but nerves of ice. If she felt in any way threatened by the thought of an agent from the LA office turning up on her doorstep to examine the paperwork of their other surrogates, or the prospect of Dr Van Der Veelte being struck off, her voice betrayed no sense of panic or concern. Ingrid had heard about criminals having Botox injections in their armpits to stop them from sweating in an attempt to beat a polygraph: Nancy Gadd, it seemed, had had Botox injected into her soul to cauterize her emotions. Still, she was happy to gather Kristyn’s things ready for collection by an agent in the LA field office, although she warned the girl’s room had already been cleared and cleaned.
All the leadership courses the Bureau had sent Ingrid on talked about the importance of stepping back, about thinking strategically, about taking stock. She needed to forget about her tumultuous day, about the glamour of The Belgravia Set, the grime of Vauxhall, the ER, even the blood on her hand, and focus solely on finding Kristyn Bowers. She put her phone on silent so that the only interruptions would come from the sounds of the city evaporating into the cool evening air.
The setting sun was still just visible above the rooftops and tall trees of Hyde Park. Cranes, spires, ornate pediments and modern angular roofs clawed at the sky, vying for attention. Kristyn was out there somewhere, missing in a city of endless possibilities. Where had she gone to? Ingrid closed her eyes and ran through everything she knew about Kristyn Bowers.
Bull’s-eye.
She opened her eyes, retrieved her phone from her pocket and dialed downstairs to Jennifer.
“Criminal division.”
“It’s Skyberg.”
“Might have guessed.”
“I’ve got a sixth thing to add to your list.”
“Go ahead.”
“We know she stole a bag at LAX, that woman from Silver Lake?”
“We do.”
“So let’s check in with the Met, see if there have been any reports of heavily pregnant bag snatchers in the past forty-eight hours.” If they were lucky, there might have been a clutch of them in a particular location. If they were really, really lucky, a pregnant girl in a floral summer dress was in a custody suite somewhere in the city.
“Consider it done,” Jennifer said before hanging up.
The flip side of Kristyn’s kleptomania was that she had almost limitless access to untraceable cash. She wouldn’t be surfacing as soon as Truman’s £500 ran out.
Ingrid inhaled, expanding her chest, and kept her arms by her side. She let her gaze settle on the horizon. Mountain pose. Her breathing deepened and slowed, centering her thoughts on finding Kristyn. She recalled her basic training and the procedures to implement when a case runs cold. She was suddenly back in a Quantico classroom, sitting next to Marshall Claybourne, the good-looking overachiever she wished she’d never accepted a piece of gum from, let alone a proposal of marriage. Go back to the last known sighting, she heard her instructor say.
She worked backwards. The last confirmed sighting was on Wednesday night, almost forty-eight hours ago, when Kristyn had gone to bed at Tom and Truman’s house. But then she had been seen on CCTV footage in their hallway a little after 5am the following morning. Ingrid tried to remember everything she could about the footage.
She pictured the scene in as much detail as possible. Kristyn’s hair was in a ponytail, she was carrying a small canvas backpack and there had been something in her hand as she’d opened the front door. A breeze picked up, reminding Ingrid that—in London as in Minnesota—her birthday marked the beginning of fall. Ingrid thought about the flimsy dress and the small backpack: it didn’t look like it contained more than a sweater
and a spare pair of underwear. If Kristyn was used to California weather, she had to be feeling the cold by now.
Ingrid focused her mind on the CCTV footage again. What was she missing? She replayed it in her head and saw the back of Kristyn’s head as she walked in front of the camera and toward the door. Then the girl had turned round, letting them see the left side of her face, before bending down. Why did she bend down? She wasn’t wearing sneakers, so she wasn’t tying shoelaces.
It was the dog. She was bending down to pat the dog. Ingrid considered if this was significant. She thought about Cully, a good-natured creature that had wanted Truman’s love even when the actor had forcibly pushed him away. What had Tom told her about why the dog wasn’t there the following day? The vet’s. But the dog hadn’t appeared to be in pain or discomfort when she had seen him. Had Tom lied to her? Why?
Something else was bothering her about Tom. She scrolled through her messages to check: not one of them was from Tom even though she’d called him and texted him several times that morning. It was now twelve hours later and he hadn’t bothered to get in touch. It was obvious that Truman Cooper was the driving force behind their move into parenthood, but Ingrid had thought Tom Kerrison cared enough about the baby, and about Kristyn, to ask for an update on the investigation.
She focused again on her memories of the footage. What had that been in her hand? Nothing in the research showed she was Catholic, but it did look like a rosary. Might it have been a necklace? Might she have stolen something valuable from Tom and Truman, something that was bankrolling her disappearance?
Not for the first time, Ingrid tried to put herself in Kristyn’s shoes—it was five o’clock in the morning, in a strange city, and she was close to giving birth for the first time. She thought again about what Kristyn had left behind when she’d walked out on Tom and Truman: money, a comfortable bed behind high-security gates, hot showers… The shower, that was it, Kristyn had had a shower. She’d had wet hair when she’d left. Surely, if she was planning on walking the streets, she’d have dried her hair? Or not washed it in the first place.