Nine Elms: The thrilling first book in a brand-new, electrifying crime series (Kate Marshall 1)

by Robert Bryndza

  ‘What about this schoolfriend from Melbourne?’

  ‘Megan Hibbert,’ said Malcolm. ‘It was strange. We go back up to Altrincham every year to put flowers on Sheila’s mother’s grave. Sheila couldn’t go this year, so I went on me own, and when I was at the cemetery this woman came up to me and asked if I was Caitlyn’s dad. It proper shook me up to hear a stranger say her name. It turned out it was Megan and she had come back to the UK after all those years to visit family and she was there to pay respects to her granddad. We went and had a coffee. She hadn’t heard about Caitlyn until a few years later, what with being so cut off back then on the other side of the world. She mentioned that Caitlyn had talked about being in a relationship with a policeman . . . It knocked me for six, because, well, we thought we knew everything about her.’

  ‘Did Megan ever see Caitlyn with this policeman?’

  ‘She said that one evening, when they were at the youth club, they were playing table tennis, and Caitlyn left, saying she was going to the loo. She didn’t come back for a while, so Megan went looking for her, and found Caitlyn outside. She was standing by a car parked up at the front and talking to a man through the window . . . ’ Kate and Tristan saw how Sheila was reacting to this – her face was crumpled up and she was wiping her eyes with a soggy clump of tissue.

  ‘Come on love, it’s okay,’ said Malcolm, getting her a fresh tissue.

  ‘What did the man look like?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Megan said she didn’t really see him, as it was dark. He looked very handsome, in his twenties. He had dark hair slicked back, straight white teeth. The car was new – a dark blue Rover, H registration. She said Caitlyn was laughing and flirting with him. He put a hand out of the window and around her waist, then she got in the car and they drove away. Caitlyn didn’t tell Megan what his name was, but she did say he was a copper. This wasn’t the day Caitlyn went missing. Megan said that Caitlyn came to school the next day, and she was fine. Happy.’

  ‘Did Megan ever see them together again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did Caitlyn say anything else?’

  ‘No. They were friends, but not best friends.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Megan said it was in the summer, towards the end of July. It was just getting dark at around 9 p.m. It would have been either a Tuesday or Thursday.’

  ‘What about the police investigation into Caitlyn’s disappearance? Do you have the names of the police officers who worked on it?’ asked Kate.

  ‘We only ever met two. A woman and a man. The woman was young. PC Francis Cohen, and her boss, a Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Pearson. We don’t know where they are now,’ said Malcolm.

  ‘They were very nice with us, but there was nothing for them to go on,’ said Sheila. ‘By the time Caitlyn went missing, Megan had moved with her family. They emigrated at the end of August. She never said anything to anyone, and it seems that Caitlyn never told Wendy about this policeman.’

  ‘Peter Conway was a police officer in Greater Manchester Police from early 1989 to March 1991, after which he moved to London. Do you know if he worked on the case?’ asked Kate.

  ‘We did a freedom of information request a few weeks ago to ask if he was working on the case, but nothing has come back yet,’ said Malcolm. ‘We heard that he was working in narcotics, and Greater Manchester Police is a big organisation. He did live just a few miles away from our house in Altrincham. He rented a room in a house in Avondale Road in Stretford. It’s written in one of those books about him. We saw the pictures of him too, when he was younger. He does look like Megan’s description – handsome with dark hair slicked back, and he had very straight white teeth. Of course, we know what he did with those teeth.’ Sheila broke down completely and buried her head in Malcolm’s shoulder. ‘Love, mind the tubes, careful,’ he said, untangling one of the blood-filled tubes from his wrist. He got up and went to a sideboard next to the fireplace. He took out a large box file and handed it to Kate. ‘This is everything I’ve kept over the years.’ Kate opened the file and saw stacks of photos and paperwork. ‘There are press cuttings, photos of Caitlyn. There are details of where she went on the day she went missing . . . We don’t think she’s still alive but, as I said, we just want to find her so we can put her to rest.’

  ‘I know this is a difficult question,’ said Kate, ‘but do you have any reason to think that Caitlyn ran away? Was she unhappy about anything, or did you have an argument about something?’

  ‘What? No!’ cried Sheila. ‘No, no, no, she was happy. Of course, she was a teenager, but no! No. Malcolm?’

  ‘I didn’t know of anything. We’d had a lovely Saturday night the day before she went missing. We got fish and chips and watched The Generation Game, and then a James Bond film. All together in here, happy as larks.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I had to ask,’ said Kate.

  Malcolm nodded.

  Sheila regained her composure. ‘I feel like you’re our only hope, Kate,’ she said. ‘You were the only officer who saw through Peter Conway’s facade. You caught him, and you put him away.’ She reached out to Kate, and Kate got up and went to her, taking her outstretched hand. It felt like dry paper, and her yellow skin was so shiny. ‘Please, say you’ll help us.’

  Kate looked into her eyes, and saw so much pain.

  ‘Yes, I’ll help you,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 10

  Ninety miles from London, Enid Conway arrived in a taxi outside Great Barwell Psychiatric Hospital. She gave the taxi driver the exact money – she didn’t believe in tipping – and slammed the door. She was a small, thin, beady-eyed woman with a helmet of jet-black hair and a hard face accentuated by heavy make-up. She wore a long houndstooth coat and had a pink Chanel handbag hooked over her shoulder. She took a moment to admire her reflection in the taxi window before it pulled away.

  The hospital grounds backed onto a line of smart residential houses, and on the other side of the road there was a twenty-foot-high fence topped with razor wire. At the front gate was a small visitors’ check-in building. Enid went to the window, where a hard-faced older woman sat behind a bank of television monitors.

  ‘Morning, Shirley,’ said Enid. ‘How are you?’

  ‘This weather ain’t good for my joints,’ said Shirley, holding out her hand.

  ‘It’s the damp. You need to get yourself some thermals . . . I’m here to see Peter.’

  ‘I need your visiting order,’ said Shirley, her hand still outstretched.

  Enid put her new bag on the counter between them, making sure the metal-embossed Chanel logo was facing Shirley, and made a show of rummaging around inside. Shirley didn’t look impressed.

  ‘Here you go,’ she said, handing over the order.

  Shirley checked it then pushed a visitor’s pass through the hatch. Enid slipped it into her coat pocket.

  ‘You know the rules. All visitors must clip their visitor’s pass to their person.’

  ‘This coat is brand new, from Jaeger. You might not have heard of Jaeger, Shirley, it’s a very expensive brand,’ said Enid.

  ‘Clip it on your belt then.’

  Enid gave her a nasty smile and walked away.

  ‘Someone’s come into some money,’ Shirley muttered, as Enid stalked up the driveway. ‘You can’t polish a turd, though.’

  The hospital was a vast sprawl of Victorian red-brick buildings, with a new futuristic-looking visitors’ wing tacked onto the front. Enid came to the first security checkpoint and unbuttoned her coat.

  ‘You one of the new ones?’ she said to a small skinny lad who waited by the airport-style scanner. He had a turn in his left eye, and a shock of very thin black hair barely clinging onto his oversized head.

  ‘Yeah. My first day,’ he said nervously. He watched as Enid took off her coat, revealing smart slacks and a crisp white blouse. He held up a tray for her and she took off her high heels, a gold bracelet and earrings and placed them inside. She placed the Chanel bag and
a carrier bag full of sweets in another tray. She went through the scanner, only for it to beep.

  ‘Bloody hell. I’ve taken everything off. Surely you don’t need me to take out my bloody hearing aid?’ she said, tilting her head to show it in her left ear.

  ‘No, that’s fine. Have you got a metal plate in your head, or any bones pinned? Sorry, we have to ask.’

  Enid glanced over at her things as they moved along the conveyor belt towards the X-ray machine. Through a hatch in the wall she could see the control room where two officers sat behind a bank of screens.

  ‘No. It’s probably the underwire in my bra that set it off,’ she said.

  The conveyor belt had stopped, and the tray containing her Chanel bag and the carrier bag was going back through the scanner. The two officers in the control room were peering at the X-ray image, one pointing out something. Enid reached out and grabbed the young lad’s hand, pressing it to her breasts.

  ‘Here! Check it, have a feel,’ she said, raising her voice. He tried to pull away. She then moved his hand down and pushed his fingers between her legs.

  ‘Madam! Please!’ he cried.

  ‘Can you feel that? That’s me, nothing but me,’ she said, leaning her face close to his. She looked over at the control room and saw she had the officers’ attention. They were now staring with wry amusement. The tray with her bags continued through the scanner and she released the young lad’s hand. The scanner beeped again as she went through.

  ‘See. My underwire,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. That’s fine,’ said the lad, his voice shaking. Enid collected her coat and bags and went to a thick glass door, giving the two older men in the control room a wink as she passed. After a moment, she was buzzed through the door and into a small square room with mirrored glass, where a sign read:

  STAND WITH FEET APART

  AND LOOK UP AT CAMERA

  There was a yellow square painted on the floor containing faded footprints. She stood in the square and looked up at the camera. There was a faint whirring as the lens twitched and focused in on her. The door opposite beeped and popped open a few inches. This led through to another checkpoint, where her bag was searched again by a tall black officer, who Enid didn’t like. He then looked in the plastic bag and pulled out packets of sweets and chocolate.

  ‘You know I always bring in sweets for Peter,’ she said as he looked at each packet of sweets. She was nervous that he might open one of the bags. ‘You think you’ve got X-ray eyes? They’ve been through the bloody scanner!’ He gave her a look and nodded, waiting as she repacked the sweets into the carrier bag.

  He then shone a small flashlight into her mouth, and she lifted her tongue. He checked her ears and her hearing aid. Finally, he waved her through.

  Peter Conway was still classed as a Category A violent patient, and was dealt with as such, but Enid had successfully lobbied to have face-to-face visits with her son without a glass partition between them.

  They met twice a week in a small room. Their meetings were recorded on CCTV and hospital orderlies were always present, watching them through a large observation window. The room was starkly lit, with just a square plastic table and two chairs bolted to the floor. Enid was always placed in the room first, and then Peter was brought in. She’d had to sign numerous legal documents to say that she met Peter at her own risk, and she had no legal recourse if he attacked her.

  She waited in the room for ten minutes before Peter was led through by Winston and Terrell, cuffed and wearing the spit hood.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Conway,’ said Winston. He guided Peter to the chair opposite Enid, then undid the straps at the back of the spit hood and removed the handcuffs. Peter rolled up his sleeves, ignoring both of the orderlies as they backed away to the door, one with a baton, the other with his Taser drawn. As soon as they were through, there was a buzzing and the sound of a lock being activated.

  ‘All right, love?’ asked Enid. Peter reached around to the back of his head, pulling the hood off. He folded it neatly and placed it on the table, as if he had just shrugged off a sweater.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Another new guard,’ she said, indicating the orderly watching them through the glass. ‘Do they specify fucking ugly on the application form for this place?’

  She knew their conversation was being broadcast outside the room, and she got a kick out of the fact that they had no idea what was really going on during their visits. The orderly outside didn’t react and watched them impassively. They stood and Peter leaned over and kissed Enid on the cheek, and they embraced. He stroked his mother’s back, tracing down her spine to the curve of her buttocks. Enid pushed herself against him and gave a little sigh of pleasure. They held the embrace for a long moment, until the orderly knocked on the glass. They reluctantly broke apart and sat down.

  ‘I brought your sweeties,’ she said, picking up the carrier bag and pushing it across the table.

  ‘Lovely. Thanks, Mum.’

  Peter took out three bags of boiled sweets, three bags of jelly babies and three bags of chocolate eclair toffees.

  ‘Ah, my favourite, the chocolate eclairs.’

  ‘Something to enjoy later with a nice cup of tea,’ she said with a knowing smile. ‘Any luck getting your kettle back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bastards. I’ll contact Terrence Lane again, get him to write another letter.’

  ‘Mum. They won’t give it back to me, and it’ll be another few hundred quid in solicitors’ fees.’

  ‘It’s a basic human right to be able to make yourself a cup of tea!’

  ‘Seriously, Mum, leave it.’

  Enid sat back and pursed her lips. Just you wait, she thought, looking at the guard staring at them through the glass. You lot won’t know what’s hit you. She picked up the pink Chanel bag and placed it reverently between them on the table.

  Peter whistled. ‘Jesus, Mum. Is that real?’

  ‘Course it’s bloody real!’

  ‘How much did that cost you?’

  ‘Never you mind. But it’s as real as the money what bought it . . . ’ She sat back, smiling, and bit her lip. She had to stop herself from saying more, and wished for the thousandth time that they could speak freely.

  ‘Seriously, Mum?’

  There was a knock on the glass and they turned to see the orderly signalling to put the bag back down on the floor.

  ‘What difference does it make if my fucking bag is on the table or the floor? They’ve already searched me!’

  ‘Mum, Mum, please,’ said Peter. Enid pulled a face and put the bag on the floor.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past them to stick a camera up my arse to see what I had for breakfast,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what they do to me,’ he said.

  She reached out and took his hand. She went to say something but stopped herself.

  ‘Peter. The chocolate eclairs. When you get back to your room, open them, yes?’

  She patted his hand, and a look passed between them.

  ‘Of course, Mum,’ he said, nodding. ‘I’ll do that.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Kate and Tristan stopped at a motorway service station on their way back from meeting Malcolm and Sheila in Chew Magna. It was still early, and they both ordered fish and chips and found a quiet corner in the dining room before the lunch rush. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Tristan shovelled his food in, but Kate pushed hers around her plate. The greasy battered fish was making her feel queasy.

  ‘I just felt so sorry for them both,’ said Tristan. ‘They looked broken.’

  ‘When you went up to the bathroom, I was asking them about the psychic they went to see. The one who told them Caitlyn was dead. She charged them three hundred quid.’

  Tristan swallowed and put his fork down. ‘And they believed her?’

  ‘She was the first person who gave them a conclusion. I’ve seen it before in cases I’ve worked on. When a loved one vanishes it’s not only devastating
but it plays with the mind. If there’s a body, it’s closure. You heard Sheila say she didn’t want them to move house, in case Caitlyn came home,’ said Kate.

  ‘Do you think you’ve got enough information to make a start?’

  ‘This man Caitlyn was seeing. There has to be a reason why she kept it a secret. It could have just been that he was older, but she hid it from her best friend.’

  ‘It’s a shame the best friend isn’t here to answer our questions,’ said Tristan.

  ‘Her husband is,’ said Kate, looking over at the box file sitting on the edge of the table. Even though it was just paperwork, she didn’t feel comfortable leaving it in the car, knowing how valuable it was to Malcolm and Sheila. She wiped her hands on a napkin and opened it.

  On the top was Caitlyn’s last school photo, the one that had been cropped for the newspaper. All the girls in the class were in two rows. The girls on the front row were sitting, knees together, hands clasped in their laps. The picture was taken on a grassy field, and behind the class was a white Portakabin where sports equipment was stacked outside: hurdles, a bag of netballs and a pile of crash mats. There were twenty-four girls in the class. Kate turned the picture over. A small sticker on the bottom listed the names of the pupils, the teacher and the photographer.

  ‘I want to start by tracking down her classmates. Are you on Facebook?’

  ‘Of course. Are you?’ asked Tristan, chasing a pea around his plate with the tip of his fork.

  ‘No.’

  He stopped, his pea-laden fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Seriously?’

  Despite the sombre mood, Kate laughed at his shock. ‘I don’t want people knowing my business, especially with my past. Can you help me with looking them up?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, shoving the last of his chips in his mouth.

  ‘I also want to talk to the friend in Melbourne. Sheila gave me her email address.’

  Tristan wiped his hands on a napkin, took the school photo from Kate, and studied it closely. ‘She doesn’t look happy, does she, Caitlyn?’