by M K Farrar
“A school governor, Margaret Kebell.” He steepled his fingers on the desk. “What does this have to do with Bethany?”
“Stacey’s body was found in Springfield Park at the start of the week. We believe the same person who took Bethany may also have murdered Stacey.”
The colour drained from his face. “Gosh, yes, I’d heard that a girl’s body had been found. How awful. You think Bethany might be in the hands of a murderer?”
“It’s possible, yes, and so far, the only connection we’ve found between the two girls is this school.”
His hand went to his mouth. “Jesus Christ. I had no idea.”
“Who else is in the school out of hours? Someone who might have known both Stacey and Bethany?”
He thought for a moment. “A number of people. All of the teachers are allowed to stay on the school grounds after hours if they need to do marking or lesson prep and don’t want to take the work home with them. Then we have the cleaning and maintenance staff, too. It takes a lot of work to clean this school.”
“Are they contracted?”
“Yes. Oh, and we have the caretaker, Dennis Moody, who is here most of the time. He deals with things like the toilets breaking.”
“I’m going to need a list of names and addresses of all of those people.”
His lips pinched with worry. “You don’t really think someone who works here might have hurt those girls?”
“It’s certainly a line of enquiry we’re looking at, yes.” She paused and then asked, “Where were you Monday night, last week?”
He raised his hand to his mouth, and his gaze drifted over her shoulder. “Let me think... Oh, I had a friend around for dinner.”
“Are you married? Family?”
“Divorced, unfortunately. It just didn’t work out.”
“Children?
“No, that was part of the reason for the divorce.”
She remained silent, letting him continue. Often silence was the best way to get people to reveal more of themselves than they intended.
“We tried for a long time, but it turned out it was my fault, if you understand what I mean. Sorry, bit embarrassing. Anyway, she didn’t want to go down the IVF route. Seems she just preferred to find a different husband.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. We are going to need to contact your friend to verify your alibi.”
He put up both hands. “Absolutely. Do whatever you need to catch this person and make sure Bethany is okay. Even though she went missing outside of school hours, I still feel like it’s my responsibility to keep these kids safe, and knowing one of them isn’t makes me feel as though I’ve failed in my job somehow.”
“Thank you, Mr Woodhouse. We appreciate your cooperation.”
She got to her feet, and he rose with her. They shook hands again, and Shawn leaned over to do the same.
“One of the school secretaries can give you all the phone numbers and addresses for the people you want to talk to,” the headteacher said as he saw them out. “It’s the next door to your left.”
Erica and Shawn stepped out into the corridor, and a moment later, he shut the door behind them.
“What are your thoughts?” Erica asked Shawn.
“Seems like a decent enough bloke. I’m impressed he manages to know his pupils on a one-to-one basis considering how many of them there are.”
“True, unless there’s a reason for him to know that particular student.”
“It does sound as though Bethany had some issues which would have brought her to his attention more so than a student who could fly under the radar.”
Erica nodded in agreement. “We still need to check out his alibi, though. Until we find Bethany safe, I don’t trust anyone.”
They stopped by the secretary’s office and explained what they needed.
The woman behind the desk was a motherly type in her fifties. “Yes, he’s just phoned it through, so I’m pulling up the correct files now. Give me five minutes and I’ll have everything you need.”
They moved back, giving her space. Erica checked her phone. She was going to need to relay all this information back to Naeema. With so many students, plus the dance class Stacey had attended, and the contacts the headteacher had given them, they were going to need to combine their resources if they were going to find Bethany and close the case on Stacey Ford.
The woman’s voice called her over. “Here you go.”
She held out a sheet of paper. The first two entries were the counsellor’s name and address and that of the alibi the headteacher had given for himself, Jim Mackay.
“These will be our first ports of call. I’m going to speak to Naeema and see what leads she’s following as well, and if she’s got any spare constables to help with interviewing the school’s pupils. We need to at least cover Bethany’s year group, starting with her tutor group and working our way outwards, plus everyone who attended the dance class. We’re also going to need to go through the cleaning staff and anyone else here after hours.”
It was a big undertaking.
They buzzed out of the building and crossed the school grounds to where they’d left the car in the carpark.
A man in casual clothing hunched over a rake as he worked the school’s field. He must have sensed them coming and glanced in their direction. His eyes widened when he saw them, and he quickly put his head down and hurried away.
“Did you see that?” Erica asked.
“See what?”
“The caretaker just looked particularly guilty.”
Shawn shrugged. “I guess now is a good a time as any to go and have a chat with him.”
“Excuse me,” she called to the man’s retreating back. “We’d like to have a word.”
He stopped and slowly turned around. “What can I do for you? I’m kind of busy.”
“Don’t worry, this won’t take too long.” Erica checked her notes. “You’re Dennis Moody, is that right?”
He glanced her up and down, his nostrils flared, and he nodded. “Aye, that’s right.”
She flashed her ID. “We’re investigating the disappearance of a student, Bethany Emerson. Do you know her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know many of these students by name. There are too many, and they change every year.”
“How long have you been working here?”
“Coming up to ten years now.”
“So some of these kids have been at the school for five years. You’re saying you don’t get to know those children after sharing the school with them for that long?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t like children, especially not teenagers. They’re rude and disrespectful, and think the whole world revolves around them. I do my best to stay out of their way.”
Erica frowned. “Why do you work in a school if you don’t like children?”
“The hours are good. During school holidays, I have the place to myself and I’m left to my own devices. They’re off school almost as much as they’re in it. And even when they’re in it, I just keep clear of them. Some of them are right mouthy little shits. They don’t think much of someone who’s a caretaker. Seems to me, the only people they respect are idiots they follow online or those ridiculous television shows where they’re chosen because of their appearance and barely have a brain cell between them.” He sniffed and grimaced as though the very thought had disgusted him.
“You might have noticed this girl more than the others. She suffers from a condition where she pulls out her own hair.” Erica brought up a photograph that Naeema Shariff had sent her. “If you could just take a look at this for me.”
He glanced down at the photograph, and his features softened. “Oh, aye, I’ve seen that girl around.”
“Have you ever had any interaction with her?”
His gaze flicked away. “Like I said, I don’t get involved with the students.”
Erica sensed there was something he wasn’t telling them. “Get involved? Why would you need to get involv
ed?”
“She gets picked on by the other girls. It gets violent sometimes.”
A spark of anger flared inside her. “But you didn’t do anything to stop it?”
“It’s not my business. Teenagers are dangerous these days. Carry knives and stuff like that. I don’t get paid enough to get involved.”
Erica reined in her frustration. It wasn’t as though he was wrong. The whole reason her task force had been set up was because of the rising incidences of knife crime in the capital. But she hated that they’d reached a point in society where a grown man would ignore a teenage girl being violently bullied because he was concerned for his own safety.
“Right.” Her tone was terse. “You never reported it to the headteacher?”
Dennis snorted. “He knows what goes on in his school.”
Was that just an excuse the caretaker told himself to ease his own conscience?
“What do you think of Mr Woodhouse?” she asked, curious about the caretaker’s attitude.
“The man thinks too much of himself. Walks around here like a king in his castle.”
“It must be a big responsibility taking care of a school like this. He’s done a good job, hasn’t he? From what we’ve learned, he got the school out of special measures since he’s been here.”
Dennis sniffed again. “I suppose. Just don’t think much of people who think they’re better than others.”
Erica resisted the urge to ask him if there was anyone out there who he did like.
“Can you tell me where you were last Monday night?”
He frowned at the change in topic. “That’s not hard. At home, with my wife.”
“What about last night?”
“The same. I’m fifty-two years old. It’s not as though I’m going to be out partying.”
“And your wife can confirm that?”
“Yes, of course she can.”
That must be one person at least who he liked.
He carried on talking. “I didn’t have anything to do with the girl’s disappearance. She’s probably just run away. Can’t say I blame her.”
Erica wasn’t about to start giving him any extra information about the case. It didn’t matter if he thought she had run away.
“Okay, thank you for your time, Mr Moody.”
He gave them a nod and turned back to his raking.
“He was a pleasant chap,” Erica said under her breath as they walked away.
“You think we need to look at him in more detail?”
“My gut says no.”
Shawn arched an eyebrow. “Even though he has a clear disdain for teenagers?”
“I’ll get someone to check out his alibi, but I’m buying his story. He doesn’t fit the profile of the person we’re after.”
“Moody by name, Moody by nature,” Shawn said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Erica got Shawn to drive to their next destination while she put a call in to both Naeema Shariff and DCI Gibbs to keep them both updated on where she was with the case. They’d suddenly gone from having no leads to having too many to follow, and she was grateful to have Naeema’s help as well.
They pulled up outside of a block of new-build flats in Hackney. Across the road, a children’s play park contained a cluster of mothers with prams, toddlers running around, or begging to be pushed on swings.
Erica got out of the passenger side and stood surveying the building.
Shawn climbed out from behind the wheel. “Think he’ll be in?”
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
Could Bethany be behind those innocuous walls? Would he have brought her here? Where the school’s caretaker didn’t fit the right profile, she thought a counsellor might. He’d be someone who could create empathy with a younger person, who they might look up to and confide in. He’d know their vulnerabilities and could use them to manipulate his patients. Could he have seen Stacey at her dance class and got talking to her afterwards? It was certainly a possibility.
The block of flats had a panel of silver buttons with names next to them. She searched for the one that said ‘Henniger’ beside it and pressed the button. From deep inside the building came a faint buzz, and that was shortly followed by a male voice coming from the intercom.
“Yes?”
Erica realised they were on a camera somewhere and glanced up to meet the lens. “Police, Mr Henniger. Can we have a word?” She held up her ID at the right level for him to see.
The door buzzed open, and they pushed inside the lobby. The flat they needed was on the fourth floor, but there weren’t any lifts, so they took the stairs.
“This’ll be my exercise for the day,” Erica commented, her thighs beginning to burn.
Shawn took them easily, two at a time.
“Show-off,” she muttered.
They located the flat, and the front door opened to reveal a slightly overweight man with cropped brown hair and a short beard in a lighter shade. His brow twitched in a frown as he regarded the two strangers on his doorstep.
“What’s this all about?” he said. “Has something happened?”
“Mr Alfred Henniger?” she checked without answering his question. She wanted to make sure they had the right person. He could easily have a flatmate.
“Yes, but it’s Alfie. No one calls me Alfred. It makes me sound like an old man. Really, I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she called me that.”
He seemed mild-mannered and friendly, but Erica reminded herself that charm and charisma was all part of the profile, and she shouldn’t take him at face value.
“I’m DI Swift, and this is my colleague, DS Turner. Could we have a word?”
“Yes, of course.” He stepped out of the way to let them through. “Come in.”
If the girl was anywhere in the flat, Erica highly doubted he’d be welcoming them in quite so willingly. That didn’t mean he was innocent, of course. He might have taken the girl somewhere else.
The flat was small but modern and impossibly tidy. Wood laminate flooring in the hallway led to the living room where a U-shaped sofa was positioned in front of a wall-mounted television.
He gestured for them to take a seat and then perched on the edge of the sofa at the furthest distance from them. “What can I do to help?”
“Do you work at Millway Academy as a counsellor?”
He nodded. “Yes, I do, but only part time.”
“What do you do in the rest of your time?”
“I write and illustrate children’s books.” He nodded towards a work station in the corner. “It’s not quite full-time work for me yet, but I hope to get there one day. I combine my understanding of the mental health issues children face today with fun and exciting characters.”
Erica smiled. “Sounds good.”
“Thanks. I could chew your ear off all day about it, but I’m sure that’s not why you’re here.”
“You’re right, it’s not. Do you know a Bethany Emerson?”
He screwed up his forehead for a moment. “Bethany...that does sound familiar.” He clicked his fingers. “She came to see me last week. Is everything all right?”
“Not really. She’s missing. Her mother got up this morning to discover her bed empty.”
“Oh my gosh. How worrying for her family.” He looked between Erica and Shawn. “Has she run away?”
“We think she might have been taken.”
“How awful. I hope she’s found safe. What can I do to help?”
“You mentioned that you saw Bethany last week?”
“That’s right. We had our first session, though I suspect it was also our last.” He must have suddenly realised what he’d said as he blanched. “I mean, not because she’s gone missing. I meant because she didn’t really act as though she wanted to be there.”
“How did Bethany come across to you?”
He frowned. “I don’t want to break her confidentiality.”
“I’m sure you understand that safe-guarding a
child overrides confidentiality.”
He twisted his lips and nodded. “She came across as a very distressed young woman. Her self-confidence was down the pan. I could tell right away that she didn’t want to be there. She was defensive from the get-go.”
“Why come if she didn’t want to talk?”
He shrugged. “Pressure from her parents, most likely. The trouble is that girls her age don’t want to talk to an adult. It’s their peers they listen to, and if those peers are not nice people, it makes life even harder. We talked about her trichotillomania and various methods she could use to try to control it. I got the impression there were problems at home as well, so Bethany didn’t have a safe space. It was no surprise that her stress was coming out in the very physical way of her pulling her own hair out.”
“Do you think Bethany might have harmed herself further? Taken her own life?”
“That’s impossible for me to say. I wasn’t in her company long enough to come to that conclusion, and she certainly didn’t allude to that during her time with me. Like I said, it was only one session, and she walked out after twenty minutes or so. I would say she had a lot of repressed anger inside her, though, and her only way of releasing it was by taking it out on herself.”
The more Erica heard about Bethany, the sorrier she felt for the girl. “Did Bethany ever mention anyone she was afraid of?”
“There were girls at school who bullied her.”
“Does the name Stacey Ford mean anything to you?”
He repeated the name and thought for a moment, before shaking his head. “No, I don’t believe so, though it sounds like a common name. Is she a student at school as well?”
“No, but she did come to the school. She did a dance class at five p.m. every Wednesday.”
“Oh, yes, I have seen those taking place. The girls do great. They’re really talented.”
“Sadly, Stacey’s body was found earlier this week.”
“That’s terrible news. I’m so sorry for her and her family.”
Erica got the impression that Alfie Henniger was genuine. She reminded herself that the person they were looking for was charming and was going to be manipulative, so perhaps this was his way of putting her off the scent, but she didn’t think so in his case.