by Linda Coles
Jack looked at the blackened mess up ahead. How the hell they’d get much else from the burned-out building he’d no idea, but he knew there were ways. He’d stay hopeful.
Tom’s phone rang, and he moved away to one side to answer it, leaving Jack with his thoughts. If the girls were not in the building, what the hell had happened to them? And where had the other men gone? There had to be others. Leanne had said there was another male in the van; surely, one man couldn’t have set this up all on his own.
He turned to the DI. “What’s being done to find the missing girls. Is there a search in process locally? If they were in this house, they could be on foot, as Leanne was. Any signs of anything?”
The DI shook his head. “We only found out about the girl that escaped a short time ago, so no, not as yet, but we have a team on their way out. It’s possible they could have been moved somehow, which is what I’m suspecting. Given the two cars parked out front, I’m betting there’s another mode of transport – a van, maybe.”
“Well, that fits with what we have already: a van owned by Martin Coffey, one we’ve been looking for since this all broke loose. He did five years in Strangeways for kidnapping, so he’s someone we’d like to talk to. I’m also wondering if that’s who Leanne stabbed, and whether he’s the charred individual found inside. In which case, someone else is driving that van, and a couple of very frightened girls could well be inside.”
Tom rejoined the conversation. “Then that van is our priority. We need to find it and fast. When the team arrive, I’ll get them focused locally in case they are nearby, but we need that van.”
Jack’s phone began to ring and he excused himself, leaving the two men to talk. The call turned out to be music to Jack’s ears. When he’d finished, he filled the two detectives in with what had happened.
“That was Sussex Police. Seems a young couple picked a girl up late last night near Maresfield, wandering in the road, bound and gagged and severely distressed. Had a bag of some description over her head. She was taken to a nearby hospital and the local police attended, and they have since connected with our investigation. Her description fits one of the missing girls apparently, hence their contact.”
“Which one is she, do you know?” asked Tom.
“They think maybe Kate Bryers. Apparently, she’s too traumatised to talk. Hasn’t said a word since she was found. I’m going to shoot over there now, see if I can confirm it’s little Kate and let her parents know she’s alright.” Jack was already on the move towards his vehicle, hoping he could find his way back out to the motorway without getting lost in the maze of narrow lanes. He didn’t fancy an unnecessary detour. It was late enough already.
“Let us know, eh, Jack?” Tom shouted after him, and Jack waved his arm in the air in acknowledgment. He hoped with all his heart it was one of the young girls they’d been looking for.
And that meant there was only Lesley left to find. What a Christmas this was turning out to be.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Jack had arrived back home to Janine just before midnight, missing not only The Vicar of Dibley but turkey sandwiches for supper with the woman he loved. How his wife stayed so understanding he’d never know. She really was a gem, and he admired her resolve to be as supportive as she was every day of his life. Still, he’d had the pleasure of confirming it had been little Kate Bryers that had been found and had informed her parents, who had then leapt into their car and met him at the hospital. Not wanting to intrude on their time together, he’d waited patiently while they’d sat around the child’s bed and offered their love and support. When he couldn’t wait any longer, he’d sat with all three of them and gently tried to pose his questions, but Kate hadn’t spoken a single word. It had been a nurse that had put a stop to it, conscious of Kate’s need to rest. She’d then given the little girl a sedative, making any further questions pointless.
As for Kate, she had a long road to recovery ahead of her, to repair not only her physical injuries but her mental scarring, too. Her ordeal would take some considerable time and patience to heal from.
There was still at least one more girl to bring home. Where they would now start looking, he had no idea.
The crime scene investigators came up trumps the following day. After the fire brigade had finally left and they’d got the scene all to themselves, they had conducted a thorough examination of the burned-out remains. It had been filthy work, particularly in the downstairs rooms where the ceiling had collapsed onto the floor below. The team had had a couple of feet of charred timber and other building materials to sift through. It had been hard going looking for clues as to what had happened prior to the fire, but they’d found items of interest. The upstairs, or what was left of it, had been particularly fruitful, though getting results from the items they’d retrieved would take a while longer. The remaining upstairs rooms had suffered from mainly smoke and water damage, so there was little chance of fingerprint retrieval from any of the remaining surfaces. Still, there were small pieces of what could be bedclothes, and the crime scene investigators hung their hopes on getting some usable DNA on the fragments they’d bagged.
Other than that, there wasn’t much else to find, even though each room had been searched with a magnifying glass. Then, as a technician was on his way out of the remains of the last room, he had spotted a small, smooth lump on the edge of a table. Why it caught his attention he’d never know. It was merely a small black lump on top of a sooty surface, and it looked like everything else in the room – black. But sometimes fate was on your side, so he took a closer look. Peering at it, he still couldn’t figure out quite what it was, so he had taken his tweezers and picked up the tiny object, slipping it into an evidence bag and labelling it to be processed along with all the other items the team had retrieved between them. After one last look around the charred room, he had made his way carefully back to join his colleagues who were working downstairs.
At the rear of the property, another crime scene technician was painstakingly going through the remains of the rubbish bins; there were dozens of discarded take-away trays in a bag beside him at his feet. Further along, another technician was on her hands and knees removing gunk from a grid cover where a pipe emptied out, more than likely from a basin or bathroom somewhere in the house. Mixed in with leaves and other detritus could be human hair, and if there was even one strand, preferably with its root intact, it could be vital to telling them who had frequented the place. There was barely a sound as everyone concentrated diligently on their work. Life as a SOCO was not as sexy as it was on the TV.
“Bingo!” said a voice excitedly.
Everyone’s head popped up to see what was going on, who had found what.
“Look at this beauty!” the voice said. It belonged to Louise, one of the more experienced techs. She was holding up something familiar to all, a smile on her face the size of a watermelon slice. “And it’s not empty,” she added gleefully. In her gloved fingers, she held the top edge of a used condom, its contents perfectly preserved in the bottom of it.
“Now that’s what I like to find – an easy bit of the puzzle. Let’s hope he’s in the system and he can tell the police exactly what he was doing here and when,” she said, then slipped it carefully into yet another evidence bag to be examined in greater detail at the lab.
By the end of the day, they were almost done photographing, videoing and packaging items of interest. The crime scene vans were packed with items for closer analysis later. It was tough and monotonous work, but important work that sorted the guilty from the innocent.
And they wanted the guilty.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Billy and Chloe were back at work on the streets begging, though with Boxing Day shoppers in a hurry to get to the next bargain, there wasn’t a lot of charitable donating going on. Not even Billy’s cheery way of persuasion was working, and by lunchtime he felt like calling it a day. He wondered how Chloe was faring. Was she having better luck than he?
“Spare a coin for an old ex-leper?” he repeated to passers-by. He sat wrapped up warm against a cold breeze that felt like it was blowing from the North Pole. He hoped snow wasn’t on its way, though it would stop some of the drafts in the old garage if a few inches fell, and it would add to the festive cheer, a cheer he wasn’t witness to right now.
“Spare a coin for an old ex-leper?” he chanted, almost on autopilot now.
“Hello, Billy,” said a familiar voice. He turned and was happily surprised to see Jack, the man who’d given him money, the man he’d helped in the charity store and the man who he knew was a police officer.
“Come to arrest me for deception, Mr Rutherford?” he joked. “Not being a leper and all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about you being an ex-leper, now, would I? Though I can clearly see you aren’t currently suffering from the disease. And it’s not even called leprosy anymore.”
“No? You mean I have to call it something else, change my marketing strategy?”
“Possibly, but asking for a shekel for an old ex–Hansen’s disease sufferer doesn’t have the same ring, in my book.” He grinned down at Billy, who smiled back. Billy put his hand out to shake and Jack obliged.
“Did you have a nice Christmas Day?” Billy asked.
“We did, thank you – when I wasn’t working, that is. And you? What did you and your girl do?”
“We got an invite to a friend’s place – dinner and a bath, actually,” Billy said in mock smugness, touching his coat collar like he was royalty. “It was a real treat. Played Scrabble, would you believe.”
Jack smiled at the mention of the game he’d given the boy, glad they’d had fun with it. He hated wasting anything.
“Well, I’m glad you had fun. Janine and I were going to invite you to come to ours but I couldn’t find you.”
“Well, that was nice of you both. Thanks.”
“As it turned out, Christmas Day was a bit of a write-off. I had to go to Kent, then Sussex for a case I’ve been working on, and I didn’t get back until almost midnight. But it was good to reunite two missing children with their parents. So, it all turned out well in the end.”
Billy lost his smile for a moment, deep in thought at something. Jack picked up on it.
“Hey, I wasn’t making a point at your story – not that I know what your story is. This was a child. She was only twelve.” The two looked at one another, neither sure what to say next until Jack remembered why he was out looking for Billy in the first place. He handed over a bag.
“Janine and I thought you’d appreciate this since we didn’t make a get-together. She’s made a stack of turkey sandwiches. There’s pork pie and Christmas cake and a couple of packets of crisps. Oh, and I slipped a couple of cans of lager in too.” Jack beamed. “Please, take it. She makes the cake from scratch herself. It’s the best there is.”
Billy reached out and took the bag. “I don’t know what to say. Thanks. Thanks very much. Chloe and I will enjoy that later. Please thank Janine for us both.”
“You are more than welcome. Now, I’d better let you get back to work. I’ll see you around, then?”
“Thanks, Jack. You will, I’m sure,” Billy said, and watched him walk off into the distance. He was heartened that there were still some decent folks in the world, folks who wouldn’t judge his lifestyle or his circumstances. Chloe had found Roy from the café, a man who had helped them enormously, and Billy was glad to have met Jack Rutherford, police or not.
On the other side of town, Chloe was finding trade slow too. Her begging technique was somewhat different to Billy’s, and again with distracted Boxing Day shoppers in a frantic hurry to either shop or go home out of the freezing cold wind, she was about to give up herself. Her stomach rumbled. Roy’s Christmas dinner was ancient history and the mince pies she’d eaten for breakfast had long gone. She yearned for a hot mug of tea and a bacon butty. And a friendly face. After a particularly nasty experience, when a shopper had spat at her and hissed, “Why don’t you get a job? Scum!” she decided she’d had enough for one day. She packed her few things together and set off back towards home with tears threatening. She fought to contain her emotions and not let them show. Blaming it on her mixed-up hormones after giving birth and the added stress of abandoning her baby, she braved it out, not letting one salty drop slide down her cheeks and betray her. She would not let herself be undone by the words or actions of a stranger who knew nothing of her or what she was going through.
Nor cared.
The change she’d gathered rattled in her pocket as she walked along the pavement, and while there wasn’t much, there’d be enough for a can of Coke. Chloe slipped into a small corner shop and browsed the shelves for what she could afford. She was conscious of a set of brown eyes watching her from behind the cash register but carried on browsing, deciding how best to spend the money she had earned. She selected a can of no-name cola, which was cheaper than Coke, then made her way over to the fridge. There might be a sandwich going cheap, close to its use-by date as they sometimes were. But she was out of luck; they were all full price, a price she wasn’t prepared to pay. A packet of six sausage rolls caught her eye. At least if she had them she could save a couple for Billy for later – he’d like that – and eat the others with the cola. But the price was too high. If she purchased them, there’d be nothing left, and since she didn’t know what kind of day Billy was having, she couldn’t chance it. There was only one other way. She’d have to steal them.
Checking that the clerk was busy with another customer, she slipped the packet of sausage rolls inside her coat and took the can of cola up to the counter to pay. She was almost clear and walking out the door when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder, pulling her back. It was enough to unbalance her and loosen her grip on the packet within her coat, and the sausage rolls fell unceremoniously to the floor.
“Thought so, you thieving little cow,” snarled another brown-eyed man, and roughly pushed her towards the small office area at the back of the store. “Let’s see what the police have to say to your thieving, shall we?” he said, not expecting her to answer.
There was no escaping for Chloe, though it was the perfect end to such a rotten day. She slumped down into the proffered chair and kept her head hung low, staying silent. If she didn’t say anything, she wouldn’t get in any more trouble.
Or so she thought.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Just outside of Horsham in West Sussex, Beryl and Malcolm, along with their dog Brandy, were taking a welcome Boxing Day walk in the late afternoon before the little sun there was finally disappeared for the day. After another big lunch of leftovers, they’d played hide and seek with the grandchildren until the children had grown tired and cranky. Feeling a little old for such constant entertainment needs, Beryl and Malcolm had breathed a sigh of relief when home time had finally been announced and both sets of children had headed off to their own homes. The pair were heading home now for some peace and quiet, and to plates of leftovers for supper should they fancy a bite to eat. Malcolm belched contentedly.
“That was a bit loud,” Beryl admonished as they walked out towards the green fields and the few trees beyond.
“There’s no one out here to hear me, B, and it’s not good to hold it in,” he reasoned, taking her hand in his as they strolled. Brandy dashed around them as dogs often did.
“She’s probably sick of being indoors too,” Malcolm said, nodding to the beagle. “I love the children to bits, but they’re a bit young yet to know what’s what, and they wind her up terribly. I fear one day she might snap back at them. Won’t you, Brandy?” he added, in that cutesy voice dog owners always seemed to use. The dog sensed she was being asked a question and gave a single bark in reply.
“See? Even Brandy agrees with me.”
“Don’t be daft. She’d bark like that if you asked her the lottery numbers. It doesn’t mean she has them.”
Malcolm squeezed his wife’s hand lightly. “Now wo
uldn’t that be nice, B? What would you do with all that money, at our age?”
“I’d book a cruise, for starters, then figure the rest out while we lay in the sunshine somewhere a long way from here.”
Brandy ran on ahead, sniffing the ground as she went, searching for something of interest known only to her as they headed closer to the trees. Beryl and Malcolm followed slowly behind, bantering companionably.
Suddenly Brandy gave two sharp barks.
“What’s she found now? A poor rabbit or something?” said Beryl. Neither she nor Malcolm could see the dog now.
“I don’t know,” said Malcolm, sounding curious. “It doesn’t sound like her normal rabbit bark, though, does it?” He turned to Beryl and they stood still for a moment to listen. Brandy obliged them with a few more barks.
“I wonder what’s upsetting her, then. She sounds insistent at something.”
Beryl called the dog back, but Brandy stayed put. “Now that’s strange. She always comes,’ she said, and they both took the cue and headed towards the sound of the dog’s barks. When they’d pushed their way through the lower branches and brambles of the small copse, they could see Brandy ahead, but nothing else was obvious. Brandy was sitting still, barking constantly now and looking at both Malcolm and Beryl as they approached.
“What is it, Brandy?” Malcolm asked, Beryl close behind him. Twigs snapped under their feet as they made their way forward. The carpet of fallen, sodden leaves covering the sticky ground made it difficult to see where they were stepping. When they finally reached the dog, it was Beryl who saw what was exciting Brandy, and she gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Malcolm followed her horrified gaze. Partly covered with leaves was a body. Malcolm stepped closer and brushed the hair from its face slightly. It was a young girl. Her face was as white as a bedsheet and she had bruising under her eyes. Instinctively, he knew she was dead, but he put his fingers to her neck anyway.