Hold My Hand

by M. J. Ford

  The page was one of the tabloids, and the headline lurid.

  KILLER CLOWN STRIKES AGAIN, with the subheading, Police search for body as suspect commits suicide. The author of the piece was Lindsay Makepeace, ‘with additional reporting by Rebekah Fitzwilliam’.

  ‘Tell me Stratton got to the parents before they saw this,’ said Jo.

  ‘Wish I could,’ said Carrick. ‘She’s the woman we saw yesterday, right?’

  And then Jo realised what was going on. ‘Stratton doesn’t think that I—’

  ‘Masters, my office please.’

  She turned to see the DCI glaring at her. ‘Sir, I—’

  ‘In private, I think.’

  He turned and waited for her to follow.

  ‘Good luck,’ muttered Carrick. ‘His bark’s worse than his bite.’

  Sometimes it’s better just to get the bite over with, thought Jo, steeling herself.

  She closed the door behind her. ‘Sir, I don’t know how she got hold of—’

  ‘Have you got children, detective?’

  The question threw her. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then you have absolutely no fucking clue what it’s like to lose one.’

  Jo felt her gut physically stir, a reflex. She shut that part of herself down.

  ‘Professor and Doctor McDonagh were going through hell enough already. They were relying on us, and we let them down in the worst possible way.’

  ‘Sir, if I can explain. Rebekah Saunders … Fitzwilliam … We went to school together. We’re not friends – I’ve not seen her for years.’

  ‘Another startling coincidence.’

  Jo didn’t like the insinuation. Boss or not, she knew if she let the accusation pass, that was it. It would dog her for years.

  ‘Sir, you have my word I haven’t told Fitzwilliam, or any other journalist, anything about the case.’

  ‘We didn’t tell anyone he hung himself,’ said Stratton.

  Jo thought back. She just told Phelps it was suicide, she thought. And she hadn’t spilled it to the gardener, Lucas Hardy.

  ‘Maybe it was one of the Singhs? The son?’

  Stratton looked unconvinced. ‘I only took you on here because of Rob’s recommendation,’ he said. ‘He said you were one of his best, but now I’m beginning to doubt that. From where I’m standing, your personal connection to the cases looks like a liability.’

  ‘Sir, if you want me to take a step back, I can.’ It galled her to say it, but there were some battles you couldn’t win. First Dylan Jones, now this. What a fucking week.

  ‘In some ways, that would be the easiest thing,’ said Stratton. ‘But we’re in damage limitation now. The media team will be flat out shielding us, but our job is to find Niall McDonagh and put this whole thing to rest quickly and professionally. We need all hands on deck to do that, yours included. You can go.’

  Jo, bruised but not beaten, headed for the door.

  So much for my transfer request.

  Chapter 12

  None of the rest of the team mentioned Saunders at all. It was heads-down. Stratton was called away to speak to the Chief Constable in Kidlington, and left like a man on his way to the scaffold.

  Heidi Tan and George Dimitriou were back in just after noon, establishing a timeline of events. Trent’s movements up until the kidnap were becoming clearer. According to Peter Whittaker, the head gardener, he never worked Monday mornings at the college, but he’d come in Monday afternoon through Thursday. It was around three p.m. on the Monday that Professor and Doctor McDonagh had brought their son to the college while they collected some items from their respective teaching rooms. During that forty-five-minute window, Niall had been given free run of the college grounds. Another of the groundstaff, working with Alan Trent that day on the cricket pitch, reported meeting Niall by the nets, where he was messing around with the automatic ball launcher. While he went to get the roller from the pavilion, it looked like Trent was alone with Niall for perhaps ten minutes. It seemed likely that they discussed the circus that Friday coming, because on Tuesday morning, before work, Trent purchased the clown mask. Wednesday and Thursday, Trent behaved normally. Friday was something of a blank, until the kidnap itself. According to Mrs Singh, Trent left before eight a.m., returning briefly around dinner time, and she wasn’t sure what time he returned. The pathologist was estimating, from the advanced rigor mortis, that Trent killed himself in the early hours of Saturday morning, not long after Brie from the Shell garage reported him being upset as he purchased just enough fuel to get him home.

  The whats and wheres were all there, the pieces slotting into place, but for Jo, the jigsaw made no sense without the whys. Was this really a case of a man driven by unnatural passion? Had Trent taken Niall somewhere, performed some unspeakable act, then killed him?

  The only person even slightly satisfied was Ben, and he drifted in and out of their investigation like a half-interested spectator. He’d taken a visit to the morgue, to get some preliminaries on Alan Trent. It seemed unlikely they’d get a DNA match with the body of Dylan Jones, but it needed only one shred of concrete evidence and his case was closed. Jo heard one half of a frustrating telephone conversation with Mr Robertson, the former partner at RTA, the architects on the Bradford house. It sounded, unsurprisingly, that he was having trouble remembering the contractors he used who’d put in a swimming pool almost thirty years ago. The name Alan Trent apparently meant nothing either.

  On the wall of the incident room hung a framed, 1:25000 Ordnance Survey map of Oxford’s urban sprawl and its rural environs, the A40 a red line snaking horizontally through the centre. Jo took a black marker, ringing the glass above the pertinent locations. Port Meadow, the Singhs’ house in Warwick Close, Gloucester Close, and then further afield. The Shell garage near Witney. It was thirteen miles give or take, but the ANPR suggested Trent had not used the A40 on Friday night. Maybe, two weeks before, he’d clocked the cameras and selected a different route. Given the time of the petrol stop, just after midnight, it was fair to surmise that Trent had driven straight from Port Meadow to a location where he’d disposed of Niall McDonagh’s body, before returning home, apparently in despair, and taking his own life.

  ‘I hope that wipes off,’ said Carrick. ‘Not saying it’s a sackable offence, but you probably don’t need any more black marks next to your name.’

  ‘Where was he going?’ said Jo.

  ‘Or who was he going to meet?’ said Carrick. ‘You still think he had an accomplice?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She did the maths in her head – the kidnap at 20.30, the Shell garage after midnight.

  ‘How far could he get in two hours?’

  ‘Wales, at that time of night,’ said Carrick. ‘Needle in a haystack springs to mind.’

  Jo’s eyes snagged on a place name. ‘Brize Norton,’ she read aloud – she circled it.

  ‘Air base,’ said Carrick. ‘Not sure it would be the best place to dump a body. Quite a lot of people with guns hanging around.’

  ‘The parole officer – Phelps – she said Trent was based there, before he retired.’

  ‘I read the file,’ said Carrick. ‘Hidden depths and all that.’

  ‘Might be worth a call to them,’ said Jo. ‘Maybe he still has contacts there?’

  ‘Can’t hurt,’ said Carrick.

  Jo started rubbing off the ink when she saw the reflection of a looming presence in the glassy reflection.

  ‘What can we do for you, Harry?’ asked Carrick.

  ‘Front desk let me through,’ said Ferman. ‘Wanted to speak with Detective Masters, if that’s all right.’

  Jo arranged her face into a smile as she faced him. She hadn’t forgotten his brusqueness on the phone the day before.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Carrick. ‘Jo, I’ll call Brize Norton. See what I can dig up.’

  She nodded. ‘Detective Ferman. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, call me Harry,’ he said. He was wearing the sam
e suit and shirt as the first time she’d met him, though she thought he’d polished his shoes again. ‘I wanted to apologise,’ he said. ‘You caught me at a bad time yesterday.’

  Despite whatever aftershave he was wearing, she could smell the drink on him. Brandy. Just like her dad.

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ she said. ‘Been a tough couple of days for all of us.’ Surely he hasn’t come in just for this.

  ‘I saw the news this morning,’ he said. ‘They’re saying it might be the same suspect.’

  ‘It’s one hypothesis,’ she said, being as low-key as possible.

  ‘Is that the same as a guess?’ said Ferman. His eyes twinkled slightly. She imagined he would have been a handsome man, thirty years ago. She wondered briefly about his wife, and if, like the daughter, she was dead too.

  ‘There are some circumstantial similarities,’ she said.

  He nodded knowingly. ‘Keeping your cards close to your chest,’ he said, looking a little hurt. ‘I understand.’

  Jo felt a pang of sympathy. ‘It really isn’t that,’ she said. ‘Does the name Alan Trent mean anything to you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve racked my brains, but no. Is there any link to the burial site?’

  ‘We’re still looking,’ said Jo. ‘Between you and me, I’m not convinced the cases are connected at all. Dylan was much younger, for a start. I wouldn’t want to get your hopes up.’

  ‘And between all of us,’ said Ben, ‘Detective Masters thinks too hard.’ Jo hadn’t even realised he’d returned. He thrust out a hand. ‘Ben Coombs, Avon and Somerset.’

  A slow smile spread across Ferman’s face, and his eyes all but disappeared into creases. ‘I’ve heard the name,’ he said, extending his own hand slowly and shaking Ben’s.

  Ben’s eyebrows shot up. ‘All good, I hope.’

  ‘Oh yes. You’re on the Dylan Jones case, then?’

  ‘Hopefully putting her to bed very soon,’ said Ben.

  The smile on Ferman’s face was slightly disconcerting. ‘This fellow – Trent – you really think he was the one?’

  The tone – bemused, patriarchal – left no doubt that Ferman wasn’t buying the theory, and Jo saw from Ben’s dead stare he hadn’t missed it.

  ‘A few pointers that way, Detective … Sorry, remind me of your name?’

  ‘Ferman. But you can call me Harry. Not on the payroll any more.’

  Ben nodded. ‘Live locally?’

  ‘Fairly,’ said Ferman.

  ‘So you drove here?’ Ben made an exaggerated sniff. He’d smelled the booze too.

  Ferman’s face darkened. ‘No, I got the bus,’ he said.

  An uncomfortable silence followed, and Jo knew from the interview room that Ben was adept at those.

  ‘I only came in to say, we had a list, on the original case – persons of interest. Thing is, we dropped everything pretty fast once we’d brought Clement Matthews in. Might be worth taking another look, cross-referencing with the Bradford-on-Avon house.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about us,’ said Ben, in a particularly condescending way.

  ‘Well, I do hope you’ve got your man, detective,’ said Ferman. ‘Good day to you, Josie.’

  No one called her that any more, but she didn’t react to the name. She watched as Ferman turned and walked back through the door towards the front desk.

  ‘You didn’t have to be rude to him,’ Jo said.

  ‘Was I?’ said Ben. ‘What’s he hanging around for anyway? Guy’s a soak.’

  ‘We all have our demons,’ she replied. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

  She headed to the loos, because it was one place he couldn’t shadow her. On the way, she passed Carrick, and heard a snatch of his conversation on the phone.

  ‘It would have been in the nineties … yes, do. I’m not going anywhere.’ He cupped the phone away. ‘They’re going to pull his personnel file.’

  Jo headed on towards the toilets, passing the incident board where Trent’s mugshot looked back at her. The oddly vulnerable face. God, Phelps is rubbing off on me …

  In the toilets she heard the unmistakeable sound of retching, and was about to turn and walk out again when the toilet flushed and Heidi Tan came out.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. She cradled her stomach. ‘Morning sickness is a bitch.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Jo. ‘First?’

  She nodded. ‘Haven’t told Stratton yet, if you wouldn’t mind keeping it under wraps.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Tan began to wash her hands.

  ‘Detective Coombs seems nice,’ she said, meeting Jo’s eyes in the mirror. ‘You worked together a long time?’

  ‘Too long,’ said Jo. Had she somehow picked up that they had history? Time to change the subject. ‘Is Stratton always so uptight?’

  ‘He’s a fair-weather boss,’ said Tan. ‘When things are going great, he’s your best friend. He’ll be putting you up for a medal next week – you’ll see.’

  Jo laughed. ‘Can’t see that happening.’

  Someone knocked at the door and Carrick stuck his head round. ‘Jo, Heidi – I might have got something.’

  They left together, and Carrick was already over at the map on the wall. Ben and Dimitriou were up too, sensing the shift of adrenalin in the room.

  ‘So I spoke to a warrant officer over at Brize Norton. Someone does work on a Sunday. Trent checks out. Exemplary record before honorary discharge. But get this – he wasn’t at Brize Norton for the full service term.’

  ‘His colleague said something about being at sea,’ said Jo.

  ‘No,’ said Carrick. ‘He was seconded to another airbase – Bampton Castle.’ He pointed to a position on the map about two miles south-west from Brize Norton and three south of the Shell garage at Witney.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ said Ben.

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Carrick. ‘It was wound down in the nineties. Completely abandoned since 2006. The officer said it was like a ghost village, tucked away in farmland.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Jo, and she knew she spoke for everyone. ‘That’s the place.’

  * * *

  They travelled in convoy, three unmarked cars and a squad car, and made the twenty-mile journey in just under half an hour, arriving shortly after one o’clock. RAF Bampton Castle, used predominantly in the Second World War, was a sorry-looking place, reached by a single-track country road and adjoining vast acres of flat pasture. Two rows of ten-foot tall chain-link fencing ringed the site, topped with rolls of barbed wire. From the road all Jo could see were rows of single-storey wooden and brick cabins with reinforced glass windows amid gravel-coated concrete and burned-up patches of pale grass. Beyond was a tall signal mast. The flat countryside around shimmered with a heat haze.

  It’s perfect. Not overlooked. Completely private. I could scream my lungs out here and no one would come.

  Jo swallowed thickly. The whole place felt lonely and forgotten. Devoid of life.

  She checked the imposing front gates, thinking they must be secured. But a closer inspection showed the locked bolts had been cut through. She pushed them open with a creak. There was a guardhouse, the windows smashed. Inside, a desk remained, strewn with broken glass and a few scraps of newspaper.

  The others followed her in.

  ‘Split up,’ said Carrick. ‘Look for any signs of activity.’

  ‘You mean like car oil,’ said Dimitriou, pointing at a shimmering patch on the ground. It might not be from the Cavalier but it was recent.

  Ben latched onto Carrick and herself, while Tan and Dimitriou took an opposite path around the main building. They tried the doors as they went, but they were all secure. Jo wasn’t losing hope. The disguised bolts made it clear someone had been here and didn’t want anyone else to know.

  She tried to peer through the windows of the buildings, but all the glass was reinforced and filthy. They had a battering ram in one of the cars, and if it came to it, they’d take the doors down o
ne at a time.

  A weed-infested car park sat behind the main building, empty and desolate, and the remains of a raised helipad too, with ground lighting spaced around the square. Beneath the main signal tower was a large semi-cylindrical Nissen Hut of corrugated metal. Jo wasn’t sure why she was drawn to it, or why she had the sudden urge to call out.

  ‘Niall!’ Her voice vanished into the air, muted and desperate. She felt a little foolish too.

  The dead can’t hear.

  She saw Dimitriou and Tan coming from the other direction. ‘Nothing yet,’ he called.

  Twenty feet from the hut, Jo saw the padlock and chain on the double doors at one end and called back to the uniforms. ‘We need bolt cutters! And a torch!’

  She broke into a jog, her breathing already laboured. The others converged.

  The padlock and chain looked new – no sign of rust or weathering. Her mind wandered to the third key in Alan Trent’s back pocket.

  Jo tried the doors anyway.

  The uniform came running up with the bolt cutters. Jo jammed the cutting edge into place and, with a single slice, the lock fell off. She hauled out the chain, then opened the door.

  Inside, the air was musty, and organic. The hut was about fifty feet long. She saw several rats scurrying away at the far end. It had been used as some sort of workshop by the looks of it. There were a number of wooden benches and trestles, stacked untidily near the door. Jo shone the torch to the far end, where there was more furniture, and what looked like the remains of an engine or pump on a wheeled trolley.

  But no sign of Niall McDonagh.

  ‘Hello?’ called Jo.

  Her voice echoed off the steel ridges of the walls and roof.

  She followed the torch arc inside, playing the light over a broken bulletin board, and a stack of metal-framed chairs.

  ‘He has to be here,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Maybe he was at one point,’ said Carrick.

  ‘Let’s check the other buildings,’ said Dimitriou.