by M J Lee
‘This won’t take long, Colin. As I told you over the phone, I’m seconded to the coroner’s office. In 2009, you took a statement from the parents of a missing girl, Jane Ryder.’
‘I did?’
‘You don’t remember?’
The man shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘2009? I was a PC then, attached to Sale station, I think.’
Ridpath passed across the missing person file. ‘Is this your signature on the bottom?’
Dowell glanced at it. ‘That’s me.’ He read through the document. ‘I remember now, this was the runaway with the weird mother who kept knitting all the time.’
‘Runaway?’
‘Yeah, she’d gone off to some music festival and didn’t come back. Must have met some guy or other. With a mum like hers, I wasn’t surprised she did a runner.’
‘Is that why you put her down as a medium risk even though she was sixteen at the time?’
‘Because of the age, I was going to put it down as high risk, but I talked to the boss—’
‘Ron Roper?’
‘That’s right. Sad about him. Retired and two years later collapsed from a heart attack on the golf course.’
Ridpath ignored the last remark. ‘What did he decide?’
‘We consulted with the missing person’s manager and the social worker and decided to make her a medium risk.’
‘What was the name of the social worker?’
Dowell shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who remembers social workers?’
‘Why not make Jane Ryder high risk?’
‘It was twelve years ago, Ridpath, I can’t remember.’
‘Have a think.’
Dowell sucked in air between his teeth, making a whistling noise. ‘She had a history of running away, and the manager spoke to Social Services. The girl was known to them, I think. I also chatted to her best friend—’
‘Rose Gray?’
‘I can’t remember the name. She said there was a possible boyfriend who the parents didn’t like. So we put two and two together and—’
‘Came up with five.’
‘What’s all this about, DI Ridpath? Why is the coroner looking into it after all this time?’
‘The parents have asked for a presumption of death certificate, so I’ve been told to investigate. The inquest could be as soon as next week. You’ll be called to give evidence.’
‘I’m off next week.’
Ridpath smiled. ‘Not any more. I’ll get our office manager to send you a note to make yourself available.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘You’ll be subpoenaed and arrested if you fail to appear. Not a good career move, Colin.’
The sergeant remained quiet, but Ridpath could see his face gradually becoming redder and redder, a blood vessel pulsing on his temple.
‘Who was the missing person’s co-ordinator?’
‘A woman, Doreen Hawkins. A civilian officer with the Missing From Home lot. I’ll leave the missing person report with you to help refresh your memory before I go.’ Ridpath stood up. ‘One last thing. You said you interviewed Rose Gray, but there’s no contact report in the file.’
Colin Dowell shrugged his shoulders. ‘Of course I reported the interview. But you know what our filing system is like. I’m surprised you’ve found this form.’
‘What about her friend, Andrea Briggs?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘Never heard of her.’
‘See you next week, Colin.’
‘Do I have to, DI Ridpath, can’t somebody else do it?’
‘Sorry, with Inspector Roper no longer available, you’re it, I’m afraid.’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘First time off in six months. Me and the missus were planning on going to Wales.’
‘Come to Stockfield instead. Not as pretty, but the bacon butties are better.’
‘Ho bloody ho.’ Then a look of recognition came into Dowell’s eyes. ‘Ridpath, I remember you. Wasn’t your missus killed by some nutter? Shot down in her hallway?’
Ridpath nodded slowly.
‘OK, let me think about this Jane Ryder woman, see if I can remember anything.’ He stood up and stuck out his hand.
Ridpath hated sympathy, he never knew what to say. The words always came out wrong, or sounded clichéd. So he just took Colin Dowell’s hand saying, ‘Thanks, anything you remember could help.’
Chapter 47
In the car park, Ridpath put Bowie on the car’s stereo, listening intently to the opening bars of ‘Aladdin Sane’. As the piano chords struck home, he was transported to dancing with Polly in their living room, being watched by Eve, a half-chewed rusk in her mouth.
Immediately, tears stung his eyes as he thought about the unfairness of it all. They should have grown old together; him balding as she greyed, enjoying the long walks and holidays they had planned. Instead, her body was lying in a graveyard, cold and silent.
He beat the steering wheel with his hands in frustration.
Pull yourself together, Ridpath, this is not helping.
He concentrated on going to his safe place on the mountain above the reservoir, feeling the wind through his hair. A sense of peace washed over him.
She was gone and wasn’t coming back; he couldn’t change the past. All he could do was look to the future, ensuring Eve had the best childhood she could.
He shouldn’t play Bowie any more, it brought back too many memories. It was funny the way music transported you to a time and a place so easily. As if memories were embedded in the chords, woven through the melody and knitted into the chorus.
He put the radio on instead. An announcer on Radio Manchester was talking about the latest easing of lockdown, the stupidity of the owners of football clubs, and the cricket scores at Lancashire.
Polly was dead, but life carried on.
He forced himself to think about the case. The two investigations were operating and he was running to catch up with both of them. Could he presume Jane Ryder was dead? Nobody had heard from her since that fateful June morning when she had left for a festival to meet somebody. Had she been murdered? Had she simply vanished? Why had she not contacted her parents? And where were the reports, the ones Colin Dowell said he had filed?
Perhaps it was time to advise the coroner to postpone the inquest for a few more weeks. There were too many unknowns at the moment.
And what about the other case? The hands in the backpack. It didn’t seem to have advanced much either. True, they knew one of the victims now, but what about the other two? And what happened to the rest of the bodies? Why were the hands placed in the old children’s home? And why were only hands taken? Where they trophies for some killer, or did they have some deeper meaning?
Again, it felt like he was swimming through treacle. Two investigations going nowhere fast and him paddling like a demented poodle desperately trying to stay afloat.
Luckily, he didn’t have to pick up Eve tonight. The neighbour would do it for him.
Sitting there in the car park of the ugliest police station in Manchester, Ridpath remembered something he had forgotten to do in all the rushing around, something he had promised Eve.
It was time to get it done.
‘Christies Hospital, appointment booking service, Dora here, how can I help?’
After he’d booked the check-up, he relaxed for ten seconds before his phone rang.
‘Ridpath, it’s Sophia.’ He could hear the excitement in his assistant’s voice. ‘You need to come back here right away, I’ve got something to show you.’
Chapter 48
When Ridpath walked back into the coroner’s office, Sophia was already waiting for him, sitting on the edge of the desk, her whole body charged with excitement.
‘I checked up on the festivals. The Mad Ferret was held at Platt Fields Park in Manchester on June 12 and 13, 2009.’
‘You told me already. It was the same dates as the Isle of Wight Festival and Download at Donington Park.’
‘Now we
know Jane left on Friday morning and was due back on Sunday evening as she had her last week at school.’
‘That’s what Mr Ryder told me.’
‘It seems too far to travel all the way to the Isle of Wight, doesn’t it? So for me that left Donington Park and Platt Fields, with the latter being the most likely.’
‘I’m with you…’
‘I checked on the Wayback Machine.’
‘What the hell’s that?’
‘It’s a website archiving old web pages no longer in use. I found some pages for the 2009 Mad Ferret Festival. Guess how much it cost for a ticket?’
Ridpath smiled. ‘It wouldn’t happen to be fifty-five quid, would it?’
‘Right first time. And there’s more. The website also has pictures taken on the first day of that year’s festival. I was scanning through them and saw this.’ She tapped her laptop and a picture came up. A blonde girl with her back to camera was dancing in the middle of the park with her arms raised. In the background, an out-of-focus band played on the stage.
Ridpath moved closer, squinting his eyes. ‘Is that who I think it is?’ he said tentatively.
‘The hair looks right, doesn’t it? And the clothes match the description given by Jane’s parents; a red and white striped T-shirt and jeans.’
‘But those clothes were pretty common for the period, especially at festivals.’
‘So I hunted through the rest of the pictures. There are fifty-eight, in total but most are of the band and the stage.’
‘Damn…’
‘Except two.’ She tapped the laptop again and another picture came up. This time, the picture was taken from the stage looking back into the crowd. ‘See the girl here. She’s sitting on somebody’s shoulders.’ Sophia zoomed in and the picture began to break up. ‘But we can see her face, and it matches Jane Ryder.’
Ridpath stared at the screen. ‘It certainly looks like her. Who’s she with?’
‘I can’t make out his face. The man in front is shielding him.’
‘I’ll ask the photo specialists at the lab, see what they can do.’
‘Hang on, there’s one more.’ Another picture appeared on the screen. ‘Here we see her from the side. The photographer, Gary Trueman, must have liked her. She’s talking to a man but he has his back to us and we can’t see his face.’
Ridpath leant in closer. ‘What’s that at her feet?’
Sophia moved closer. ‘It looks like her backpack.’
‘Or his?’
‘Didn’t the parents say she had taken a backpack with her?’
Ridpath moved even closer. ‘But what they didn’t say was that it looks like the same backpack in which we found three human hands. Get on to the photographer, see if he has any other shots of the festival he didn’t put on the website.’
‘Will do.’
‘Is the coroner in?’
‘I think so.’
‘I need to see her, now.’
Chapter 49
Ridpath knocked on the door and entered without waiting for the usual invitation.
‘Ah, just the man I want to see.’ The coroner was packing her notes and files into a briefcase.
‘I need to talk to you, Mrs Challinor, something has come up.’
As Ridpath was closing the door, Mrs Challinor asked. ‘How is the Ryder investigation?’
‘That’s what I came to talk about.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to make it brief. It’s my grandson’s birthday today, and I’ve promised to dress up as his favourite character—’
‘Which is?’
‘Don’t laugh. The Wicked Witch of the West. For some obscure reason, he’s obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. He’s even made his own Tin Man costume.’
‘Kids. Can’t beat ’em, may as well join ’em.’
‘My philosophy exactly. And during lockdown we were lucky enough to be bubbled together.’ She stopped for a moment and smiled. ‘I can’t believe I said “bubbled”. What strange times we live in. Anyway, for the first time in years, my daughter and I actually talked about life, the universe and everything.’ She laughed to herself. ‘Of course, we concluded the answer probably was forty-two. Have there been developments in your investigation of Jane Ryder?’
‘A lot.’
‘A lot good, or a lot bad?’
‘Both.’
She sat back down. ‘Tell me all, Ridpath.’
‘I checked her missing person report and met the copper who interviewed the parents back in 2009. It seems little was done to follow up on her case, despite her only being sixteen when she disappeared.’
‘Why?’
He frowned. ‘It’s difficult to say. She was classified as medium risk because, apparently, she’d run away before—’
‘The parents never mentioned anything to me.’
‘And she was known to Social Services, but there are no attached interviews with any social workers. In fact, the only document in the file is the missing person report.’
‘Is that common?’
‘For a girl of her age, probably not. The reports may have been misfiled or gone missing. The policeman involved, Sergeant Dowell, told me he did interview the friend and talked to the social worker, but doesn’t remember her name.’
Mrs Challinor glanced at the family picture on her desk. ‘This may show police negligence at the time, but does it impact a finding of a presumption of death? Nobody has heard from her since 2009. Has she appeared on any passport applications, driving licence records, been arrested or even applied for a bank account?’
‘We couldn’t find any records of her doing any of those things. However, we did find these.’ He passed across copies of the photographs of Jane Ryder at the festival. ‘They are from the 2009 Mad Ferret Festival. She told her parents she was going with a friend to this festival, but it was a lie. I believe she met somebody else there.’
Mrs Challinor stared at them. ‘Is this her?’
‘We think so.’
‘Pretty girl.’
‘It’s obvious she either knew this man or met him at the festival.’ He pointed at the man standing next to Jane Ryder. ‘But even more important is this.’ His finger moved down to the backpack at her feet. ‘Exactly the same backpack was discovered at Daisy House Children’s Home. Inside were three embalmed human hands.’
The coroner looked more closely. ‘How can you be sure it’s the same backpack?’
‘We can’t. But we know only three were sold in the Manchester area. It’s a limited edition, manufactured by a skateboard company.’
Mrs Challinor put the photographs down. ‘So what are you saying, Ridpath?’
Ridpath pulled down his bottom lip. ‘I think the two investigations are linked, Mrs Challinor. I don’t know how yet, but they are. You may need to postpone the inquest.’
‘I can’t do it, Ridpath.’
‘But, Mrs Challinor, one of the hands we discovered in the backpack was a young girl’s. The pathologist thought she was around seventeen years old. What if the hand was Jane Ryder’s?’
‘It would prove conclusively she was dead.’
‘But if the cases are linked, this now becomes a murder inquiry, and Coroner’s Rules state all inquests should be postponed until the police have completed their enquiries.’
A small smile played on Mrs Challinor’s lips. ‘The training has been effective, Ridpath. You are now able to quote my own rules back at me. But you make the presumption that the backpack belonged to Jane Ryder and her embalmed hand is inside. If these are both true, then I can issue a presumption of death.’
‘And if they are not true?’
‘In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, her total lack of documentation for the last eleven years and the lack of any communication for the same period means I can still issue a certificate.’
‘Despite there being no body?’
‘Despite the lack of a body.’
Ridpath sighed loudly. ‘But, Coroner, I just need m
ore time and I can give you the proof of her death.’
Mrs Challinor ran her fingers through her grey curls. ‘What if we proceed with the inquest next week, calling the parents, the friends and the police to give evidence? You can introduce the backpack and request more time to follow up. I will then postpone the inquest. But at least we will have begun the process and there will be no need to waste time instituting a full inquest later on. When you have finished your enquiries, as quickly as you possibly can, I can simply call a short inquest to grant the certificate. What do you think?’
Ridpath knew Mrs Challinor was trying her best to give him more time and still accommodate the needs of the family.
‘It’s the best I can do. This family needs closure and to put their financial affairs in order before Mrs Ryder dies.’
Ridpath finally nodded. ‘We still have a few more days. Perhaps we can solve it in that time.’
‘But you don’t think so, Ridpath?’
‘For some reason, I have a feeling this is only the beginning.’
The phone rang on the coroner’s desk. ‘Just a minute.’ She picked it up and began listening. ‘OK, I understand. It does change everything. Thank you for the call.’
She put the phone back on its cradle. ‘That was Mr Ryder. His wife has now been taken to St Jude’s Hospice in Cheadle Heath. The doctors have decided she doesn’t have long to live and she needs end-of-life care.’ A long pause as Mrs Challinor made up her mind. ‘We have to go ahead with the inquest next week, Ridpath, whatever happens.’
Chapter 50
The traffic must have been light. Either that or he drove fast. Ridpath tried to remember how he had arrived at Stretford nick, but the details of the journey eluded him. He remembered getting in the car outside the Coroner’s Court and working out the journey, heading towards Stretford up the A6, past the O2 Apollo and onto the Mancunian Way.
Since then, it had all been a bit of a blur. He must have been on autopilot, his body driving the car but his mind thinking about the two cases he had to solve quickly. They both seemed to be linked, but how to pull it all together?
He locked the car and strode up the steps and through the lobby. The sergeant in charge merely nodded as he passed. They had become used to the arrival of the detective inspector from MIT now.