The Ex (DS Jenna Morgan)

by Diane Saxon

  She stepped into the hall and clicked the nursery door shut behind her, her heart still whipping up a storm. ‘Jesus Christ,’ she whispered under her breath this time as she poked DC Mason Ellis, her partner and her sister’s boyfriend, in the chest with the hard tip of her index fingernail. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He moved back to allow her some room and him some relief from bruises her insistent prodding might inflict. ‘I nipped into the station to do that paperwork I said I needed to shift, but they told me you’d been called out to an incident.’ He rubbed his hand across his chest where she’d poked him. ‘I think the official term is procrastination.’ He jerked his chin in the direction of downstairs. ‘It’s chaos down there, Ted said I’d find you up here.’ He cast a gaze around the neat, naked hallway and winked. ‘Trying to get away from it all?’

  She shook her head as his attention returned to her. ‘They have a little boy, eleven-month-old. Apparently just started walking, still wobbly.’ At his raised eyebrows, Jenna repeated what she’d been told. ‘Like a drunken squirrel.’

  A smile broke out on his face so deep brackets crinkled his cheeks.

  ‘The husband, Zak, tells me he believes his wife, Imelda, had put him down to sleep before she went downstairs.’

  ‘Right.’ In anticipation of a problem, the grin dropped from his face.

  Jenna thumbed in the direction of the door she’d closed behind her. ‘That’s the nursery. It’s empty.’

  Surprise flickered over his features, so she hit him with another piece of information. Didn’t harm to have another opinion before her mind gathered speed and raced off in the wrong direction.

  ‘Paramedic thinks there may be foul play. Imelda has a gash to her face.’

  Mason’s eyebrows lowered. ‘Okay.’

  ‘She fell backwards and smashed her head on the tiles.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘Yes. Ah.’

  ‘Are we saying a little help may have preceded the fall?’ Mason asked.

  Jenna covered her face with her hands while she thought, pressing her fingertips into her screwed-up eyes. ‘I really don’t want to believe it of him.’ She dropped her hands from her face. She stepped her way across the hall to the next door.

  ‘He seems really nice. Genuine. Desperate.’

  Mason’s brow wrinkled. ‘Desperation’s a strange thing. Is he desperate with concern? Worry?’

  With her back to the door, so she still faced him, she turned the door handle and knew she could rely on Mason’s bright mind to work its way through the case along the same lines as her own thoughts.

  He met her gaze, the tough policeman showing through. ‘Is it borne of guilt?’

  9

  Sunday 11 July, 12:10 hrs

  Sunshine poured through the vast windows overlooking the gorge and filled the beautiful bedroom with golden warmth without the stuffy heat. An inviting room with swathes of white linen, which Jenna assumed belonged to Zak and Imelda.

  She raised her eyebrows at Mason. ‘Hardly a practical choice with a child.’

  ‘Not something you could have with a bloody Dalmatian.’

  ‘Maybe babies are cleaner than dogs.’ She couldn’t imagine they were.

  ‘Not as much fur and footprints. Easy to keep a place clean and tidy until the kid reaches full-on “all hell has broken loose” stage, which I suspect he’s about to at that age if he’s just started to walk.’

  She dropped to her knees on the floor and flipped up the valance to search under the huge bed. With nothing under there, not even, it seemed any dust motes, Jenna tugged the valance back into place and came to her feet. A minimalist room with beautiful furniture and very few places for a toddler to hide, it took her a few more minutes to check inside the walk-through changing room lined with clothes hung in colour-coordinated perfection while Mason circled the main bedroom.

  ‘Perhaps he has attempted to murder her.’

  She spun around to look at Mason through narrowed eyes as he lifted the lid on a cream ottoman with antique gold appliqué along the edges and poked inside. ‘Jesus, who could be so flawless?’

  ‘Who would want to be?’ Mason shrugged. ‘I prefer something a little more lived in. Less… perfect. Shabby.’

  Prepared to take offence, Jenna whipped the immaculately draped curtains back and took a peep behind them. ‘Would you be implying my house is shabby?’

  A little choked laughter burst out as Mason made his way to the bedroom door and held it open for her to precede him. ‘I would never imply such a thing.’

  She gave him a heartbeat of a moment to make his follow-up.

  ‘Lived in would be more the term I would use.’

  ‘It never used to be “lived in”, not until you bloody lot descended on it.’

  He nudged her with his elbow as she passed him. ‘You’d not be without us though.’

  She couldn’t dispute it.

  Sweat gathered in the hollow of her throat the moment he closed the door on the coolness of the bedroom. She centred herself back on the landing and opened the next door, the hope she had of finding the little boy there, crushed immediately.

  Jenna looked at the wide expanse of a surprisingly bright and airy bathroom.

  Huge roll-top cast-iron bath in bright white. An original, she’d guess, which appeared to have been recently re-enamelled.

  ‘Nice bath.’

  Her lips twitched. ‘No matter how hot the water is, you’ll still freeze your arse off on a cold day.’ She knew from experience, and many years of living with her mum and sister in a dilapidated Victorian house her mum had never had enough money to do up. Cold and draughty hole that it was, they lived and loved there. There were few things she would have changed. Except the enamel bath. Unlike this one, their bath was never re-dipped and always had an ancient air of filthiness despite her mum scrubbing it to within an inch of its life. Which was precisely why there was no enamel left.

  With dainty clawed feet and open sides, the bath perched neatly on a one-step dais and had nowhere for an infant to hide beneath, raised just a matter of four inches from the reclaimed Victorian black and white mosaic floor tiles. Jenna dropped to the floor and peered under just in case, unsure quite how small this eleven-month-old could be. A little disgusted with herself, she snorted as she came back to her feet and looked up at Mason.

  ‘You’d have difficulty fitting a small kitten under there, never mind a child of any size.’

  Not quite as neat and tidy, this room had a more lived in feel. With jade green towels to give the room warmth and a less clinical touch, a hand towel hung over a towel rail, with another draped over the side of the bath as though it had been discarded after a quick dry.

  Jenna turned on the spot, with no need to walk deeper into the bathroom. Quite able to see the entire square room in one sweep.

  The new white toilet and basin in front of the large, frosted window she assumed looked out over the road had nowhere for a child to hide. She resisted the temptation to open the window and check as she didn’t want to rouse any further conjecture from the people in the street below.

  Jenna moved the little white plastic step she imagined Joshua used to reach the sink where his PAW Patrol toothbrush lay abandoned next to a tube of toothpaste. Blue gel oozed out and clung to the side of the sink on its journey down to meet the white plastic lid that had skidded into the plughole. On the other side of the sink, two electric toothbrushes stood to attention with a Sensodyne pump dispenser placed in front.

  Jenna opened the door to the little storage cupboard underneath the sink, just in case and tried to ignore the squeeze to her heart the sight of the little boy’s existence brought. The small sign of messiness made him more real.

  Zak and Imelda had obviously poured considerable love, effort and money into refurbishing the house with taste and thoughtfulness and the sterile perfection of it was just a little ruffled by the presence of their little boy trailing love and warmth through the room.

 
Mason leaned over next to her. ‘It hardly gives off the vibes of a domestic-abuse situation.’ She was inclined to agree. The whole atmosphere was one of mutual effort and decision-making. A team.

  She pushed the door shut and stepped back into Mason who’d not bothered to move. He gave out a low grunt as her elbow connected with his ribs. ‘You can never tell a book by its cover, Mason. You should know, not all domestics are low income.’

  ‘Statistics say if they’re female and come from a low-income family, they’re three and a half times more likely to be abused.’

  With a huge wet room she couldn’t help but admire taking up the whole of one corner, Jenna swept her gaze all around. Again, nowhere to hide a child within the realms of the clear glassed space.

  ‘Still, it’s not exclusive.’

  Mason grunted his agreement as he swung the door closed behind them.

  Jenna took a brief glance at her iPhone for the umpteenth time: 12:20 p.m. She’d literally only been there fifty minutes from arrival to that moment, but time was ticking past and a child was still missing.

  As she caught movement from below her, light relief tingled through her at the sight of her backup arriving.

  She rested both hands on the stair banister and leaned over to smile at the woman making her way up from below. One of her favourite stalwarts – PC Donna McGuire. If she was on the job, there’d be no stone left unturned. She’d approach it with the calm, quiet confidence and experience both personality and maturity had developed.

  Donna removed her hat and the blue-black swing of her short, sharp bob bounced light refractions from it as she dashed up the stairs. She raised her head and the liquid brown of her concerned gaze met Jenna’s.

  ‘Hey, Sarg. Missing child? I just heard.’ She tilted her head and her hair swung in a curtain around her neck. ‘No joy, yet?’

  ‘No. But I haven’t covered all the ground here.’

  Jenna looked past Donna to the other officer beyond as she reached the top of the stairs. A light puff to her breathing and burnished flames over her rounded cheeks were a dead giveaway that the heat had already taken its toll on her. Still with her hat on, blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun with wisps escaping to stick to the fine sheen of sweat popping out on her temples and jawline, she raised her gaze to stare at Jenna.

  Recognising her as one of the newer officers, one she’d struggled for a while to put a name to for some obscure reason but who’d recently become Donna’s shadow. One she’d gained around the time PC Gardner had been shot. Which was probably why Jenna had memory loss with the woman’s name.

  The new officer hadn’t made a bad move if she wanted to learn the job and still maintain a fresh outlook. There was no one better to teach her than Donna.

  Jenna smiled at her to include her in their small group. ‘You were quick.’

  Donna took another step to pull up in front of her, leaving little room to manoeuvre at the top of the stairs, forcing Jenna to step back into the wide, sunlit space. ‘Yeah, we’d already been dispatched by Morris. We were only down the road a way.’ Her fast grin said it all. Everyone loved Morris. His attitude, his efficiency, his voice. Donna placed her hands on her hips and the smile slipped from her face as she nodded to the mess in the hallway below them. ‘HEMS are here. We saw the helicopter up at Coalbrookdale school.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jenna nodded. ‘Serious head trauma. They’re inducing a coma before they move her.’

  ‘Bloody hell. It’s a bloody mile and a half away, how do they get her down there?’

  Jenna shook her head. That was one job she’d happily leave to the Air Ambulance crew.

  The other woman huffed out a breath behind Donna and her name flashed into Jenna’s mind like a revelation. PC Natalie Kempson. ‘They’re going to transport her by ambulance down the hill, then stick her in the helicopter. Nigel just told me.’

  ‘Nigel?’ Jenna asked.

  ‘Yeah, he’s my brother-in-law. Sort of.’ She shrugged as though the matter was too complicated to explain.

  On any other day, Jenna may have let Natalie run with it, but they were short of time. ‘Good. Right, well, we have a missing toddler, that’s all I know currently as I’d expected to find him in his cot. His dad assumed his mum had taken him for a nap. He’s not where we expected to find him. We’ve checked the kitchen, the nursery.’ She pointed at the closed doors in turn. ‘The parent’s bedroom and the bathroom. Which only leaves this one and upstairs. Donna, Natalie, if you want to take upstairs, Mason and I will finish off here. Let’s get a clip on. It may not seem long, but he could have been missing some time now.’

  Natalie nodded. ‘Yes, Sarg.’

  Both officers slid past Jenna and Mason, and as Natalie bolted up the next flight of stairs after Donna, Jenna called up after them, ‘Be careful up there. Apparently, they were in the middle of DIY. There could be equipment all over.’ She didn’t doubt their intelligence, but a warning of what they might find was only fair.

  Jenna rubbed the heel of her hand across her chest, a sense of foreboding lay thick across her with concern that Joshua was no longer in the house. Surely if he had been asleep, all the activity and noise would have disturbed him. Would he cry?

  She’d deal with it step by step, but they needed to work fast to establish whether he was there or not, or whether they needed to pull in the whole team to start a neighbourhood search.

  The sinking feeling that she was right didn’t give her a sense of satisfaction. On the contrary, she’d have rather been proved wrong on this occasion.

  The likelihood that Joshua was on the top storey and Zak had missed him on his way downstairs was highly unlikely.

  Mason pushed open the door to the final room on that landing. ‘Well, bloody hell, they are human after all.’

  Jenna nudged him aside and stared at the room. A soft blue and white floral wallpaper which evidently had seen its best covered all the walls in what she imagined wasn’t Zak and Imelda’s taste from what she’d seen of the rest of the house. Too big. Too blousy. A huge carpet puzzle filled the centre of the room with only four pieces left to fill, scattered together at the edge of the room. Rainbow-coloured plastic storage boxes piled four high, three sets of them stacked against the right-hand wall.

  Mason lifted the lid on the nearest one and took out a little blue wooden train. ‘Nice train set in there.’ He waggled the train at her. ‘I love trains.’

  Jenna raised an eyebrow. If they weren’t in such a rush, she suspected Mason would have taken himself off to play with the set in a nice quiet corner. Boys and their toys. Did they ever grow out of them?

  There was nothing else to see. Just more boxes. This time clear, white ones.

  Jenna took the lid off the first. Baby’s clothes. Small baby’s clothes she suspected Joshua had outgrown and were stashed for the next child to use.

  ‘Nothing in here.’ The room was devoid of any storage space for them to check.

  They backed out and Jenna clipped the door closed behind her. She looked up as Donna and Natalie trotted downstairs from the top storey of the house, both of them shaking their heads.

  ‘No sign, Sarg. The top room is virtually empty. One enormous room. Stripped bare. No furniture, just newly prepped walls for painting and a door that looks as though it was being sanded. An en-suite – door missing – with a shower. One cupboard, ceiling to…’ she indicated her waist-height, ‘… here. Below that is the boiler. Sealed in. Nowhere for even a small child to tuck into.’ Donna puffed out her lips. ‘Believe me, I made Natalie ram her head in there as far as she could.’

  ‘Okay.’ Jenna placed her hands on her hips. ‘I haven’t checked downstairs, yet. I expected to find Joshua in his nursery.’ The fact she hadn’t rolled a ball of concern in her stomach. ‘The only room I’ve been in is the kitchen with Joshua’s father.’ She pursed her lips and shrugged. ‘I never checked. I didn’t feel the need.’ She visualised the room. Big and airy. ‘I doubt there was anywhere for him to hide, but
we’ll leave that until last.’ She took her hands from her hips and clapped them together, blowing out a breath to cool herself. ‘Let’s get a move on. Don’t get in the way of the medics. As we hit the bottom of the stairs, there’s a room along the hallway, turn right at the bottom of the stairs.’ Jenna put both hands together palm to palm and then arrowed her right hand to indicate the direction she needed Donna and Natalie to take. ‘Mason, you take the downstairs bathroom.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ His deep voice grumbled in her ear. ‘How many bathrooms does one small family need?’

  She opened her mouth and then clamped it shut again. He really didn’t need a reply. ‘I’ll take the remaining room on the left, then all meet me there, so we don’t get in anyone else’s way.’

  Jenna slipped down the stairs with the other three following close behind. She stepped inside the first door on her left. The living room she’d tried to direct Zak into earlier.

  Children could be inventive, but there was literally nowhere for an eleven-month-old child to hide. Not that she knew much about toddlers. Was it likely he’d trotted out the front door? Been terrified enough to hide behind the settee?

  She took a look. Nothing there. Disappointment surged at each failure to locate Joshua.

  Jenna lifted a throw on the settee to peer underneath, but the furniture reached down to the floor.

  She stretched out and gently slid open a cupboard door to peer inside. Nothing but neatly stacked children’s games. She straightened and sucked air in through her teeth as she made her way over to the patio doors, which provided a breathtaking vista of the Ironbridge gorge, the River Severn obscured by the abundance of vegetation in full leaf. She touched the handles and tested them.

  Locked.

  With an element of relief, Jenna blew out a breath, making her fringe flutter over a brow streaked with sweat. At least Joshua wasn’t hanging over the balcony above the sheer drop into the gorge. It wasn’t exactly the most child-friendly area, but then again if the door was kept locked and Joshua was only allowed out there with his parents, it should be safe enough. The wrought-iron balustrades were high enough and the gap between the rails narrow. There were more perilous ones in the high-rise flats.