‘We were taking bets on whether you were getting called back into work,’ Evie said, only half-joking, knowing in their line of work it was always a very real possibility.
‘I’ve got time for a cuppa first,’ he said, seeing something between alarm and confusion on Alan Simmons’s face. He arched an eyebrow. ‘Joking, Alan.’
Alan Simmons broke into a smile, trying his best to make out he’d seen through it. ‘Well, I know Julie’s cooking has its off days, but people generally don’t run away until at least after the starter.’
Smiles all round. Porter had taken an instant liking to Alan when they first met. Granted, not the circumstances you’d want to meet your girlfriend’s dad, standing outside a room in A&E, Evie inside with more wires running around her bed than a badly wired house. She’d come a long way since then. They all had. There was something there bubbling beneath the surface, though; whenever work came up in conversation, Alan Simmons seemed to tense up, any smile becoming just that little bit forced. He’d almost lost his only child, so Porter couldn’t blame him for worrying about her decision to come back.
It was hard for anyone not on the job to understand the obligation that came with it. It wasn’t just a job, not if you did it properly. The types of people they chased after didn’t keep office hours, so neither could they. They also weren’t exactly the Marquis of Queensberry types when it came to getting physical either. For as long as she was on the job, there would always be an element of risk.
You didn’t have to be a detective to pick up on where Alan’s thoughts were headed. Both he and Julie had dropped a mention of other careers Evie had nearly followed. How at one point she’d wanted to be anything from a teacher to a social worker. Not that they weren’t proud of her, more that her injuries had brought reality crashing in. There’d been a handful of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it comments about grandchildren as well. Presumably, that’s where Porter came in: their route to grandkids, Evie’s to a life away from the force.
His thoughts skipped ahead like a stone across a pond, only letting himself be dragged back into the room when Julie Simmons popped her head around the door.
‘Perfect timing, Jake. Lunch is ready.’
They trooped through into the dining room, where everything couldn’t have been more perfectly positioned if Julie had used a set square. Slabs of roast beef lay steaming on a platter in the centre, making Jake’s mouth water before he’d even sat down. This is nice, he thought to himself, pulling his chair out, its legs dragging through thick piled carpet. The notion of being part of a couple, adding their family and friends to your extended circle, had felt an alien concept at first, something to rail against. It had been like sliding into a hot bath, giving it time to work into his muscles, relax him, open him up to the possibilities.
‘This smells amazing, Julie,’ he said, stabbing his fork into a thick slice of beef, drowning it in gravy almost thick enough to plaster a wall with. Just how it should be.
‘Must make a nice change both being off on the same day, eh?’ said Alan.
Any other time, Jake would take it as nothing more than small talk, but with where his mind had been minutes ago, it felt more like a side swipe at the job, the hours, the commitment. It wasn’t a coincidence that the police force had one of the highest divorce rates by profession, but that was a million miles away from where Porter’s head was at, even now they’d been together a while. That was one of the things that made it work for him. Evie seemed happy to live more in the moment than years down the line. That had definitely helped him transition from being just a widower into someone open to possibilities.
‘We saw Crimewatch last week,’ said Julie. ‘Still no sign of that poor girl, I take it?’
‘Uhn-uh,’ said Porter, caught with a mouthful of beef and roast potato. She waited politely for him to finish, hoping for elaboration. ‘Nothing new, really. We haven’t had the response we hoped for.’
‘Hate to say it,’ said Alan, ‘but I’d bet my house on her not being found alive at this stage. It’s been what, four months?’
‘Five,’ said Porter. ‘We’re not giving up hope just yet, though.’
‘I don’t know how you do it, you two,’ Julie said with a smile.
‘Neither do we half the time, Mum,’ Evie cut in. ‘Can you pass the carrots, please?’
‘So, this community policing thing Evie mentioned,’ Alan chipped in. ‘Will that mean you’re not working cases like this one any more?’
‘Not if I have anything to say about it,’ Porter said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing, building relationships with the communities and all that, but I couldn’t do that full-time. I’d miss the rest of it too much.’
‘Why don’t you throw your hat in the ring for that, Evie?’ Alan said. ‘Get to spend more time with Jake?’
She looked down her nose at him, a stern look flipping the parent and child roles around.
‘Cos of course that’s your endgame there, Dad, isn’t it? More quality time for us. Nothing to do with wrapping me in cotton wool?’
‘Evie,’ he said, with a hurt expression, trying to bat away her insinuation, failing miserably.
‘Just let them enjoy their lunch, Alan,’ Julie scolded.
For the next few seconds, cutlery clattered against plates as the conversation reset. Porter’s mind scrambled for a safe topic to switch to. Evie had mentioned a holiday her parents had booked, but just as he opened his mouth to ask about it, he felt the insistent buzz of his phone under the table. It could wait. He’d not had a day off in the last ten. It soon stopped, but started back up almost immediately. By the third time he noticed the others looking at him.
‘It’s OK if you need to get that, Jake,’ said Julie, but Alan’s face told him that he didn’t share his wife’s view.
‘Sorry,’ he said, rummaging in his pocket as he stood. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’
He walked back through to the front room, expecting to see Styles as the culprit, but saw that all the missed calls were from Dee Williams.
‘This better be important, Dee,’ he said as the call connected. ‘I was right in the middle of getting my back waxed.’
Whatever she was going to say turned into a series of confused stutters.
‘Joking, Dee,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’
‘It’s, um, sorry, it’s the helpline for Libby Hallforth. We’ve got something.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Tell me again,’ Porter said. ‘From the beginning.’
‘I took Milo here out for a walk,’ said Madeline Archer, nodding down at the tan dog by her feet. Milo was all ears and tail, staring up at him with a you’re going to feed me, right? expression. She started explaining how he was a Pomeranian crossed with Shih Tzu crossed with God knows what else, until Porter cut her off.
‘He’s usually so good, as soon as I shout he’s back like a shot, except this time the little so-and-so ignored me, didn’t you?’
She bent down, fussing over him and ruffling his ears. Could she last two minutes without petting the damn dog? He kept his best friendly smile fixed front and centre.
‘That’s when I saw her,’ she went on. ‘Looked just like the girl from that Crimewatch reconstruction last week. Even down to the clothes, that bright red jacket she was wearing.’
‘And you saw her face?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure this was the girl?’ He held out a copy of one of the pictures the Hallforths had given them when Libby first went missing.
‘Mm-hmm. She was as close as that tree over there, the one with the split branch.’ She pointed at a large yew tree, fifty yards away, a gnarled knot of roots fused together, one of its branches splintered, angling downwards like a broken arm. ‘She was right there. I called out her name, and she ran off.’
Porter scanned the treeline over her shoulder as he listened. Grove Road cut north to south, through Victoria Park. The park was shaped like a giant boot, and Grove Road cut through north to south just above the foot. The t
reeline was twenty metres wide, give or take. Deep enough to lose sight of someone, but nothing on the scale of Epping Forest. Victoria Park Pond lay on the other side, paths and trails criss-crossing the area. Seemed improbable that a seven-year-old could vanish in such a public place, again.
Porter had an officer covering each of the nineteen entrances to the park, another dozen picking their way through various clumps of trees. If she was here, they’d find her. How she’d got here was another question entirely. Victoria Park was over ten miles from where Libby had last been seen in Epping Forest, from where she’d vanished like smoke on the breeze.
Truth be told, Porter hadn’t expected much from the re-enactment that had been screened the week before. Once the blood in the cracks on the phone screen was matched to Libby, the weeks that followed had passed in a blur, a frenzy of activity, one disappointment after another. Simon Hallforth had been the nearest they’d come to a suspect, what with his temper, previous investigations by social services and his behaviour on the day: not wanting to call the police. All circumstantial, though. Barring Libby’s phone, they had nothing. No physical evidence. No sightings, no sign of where she’d gone, or whether she’d gone there alone.
It had been around the one-week mark when the sense of inevitability had started to set in. If she’d run away, that was too long for a seven-year-old to fend for themselves. If she had been taken, then … well, that didn’t bear thinking about. If this really had been her today, though, maybe she’d escaped from whoever had her. Maybe she was trying to find her way home.
‘You said you followed her through the trees?’
‘Mm-hmm, but when I came out the other side there was no sign of her. I even had a wander around the lake,’ she said, as if she’d turned over every stone in the place.
Nick Styles appeared from the direction they’d been staring in.
‘Anything?’ Porter called out.
Styles shook his head. ‘Nothing yet, boss.’
Porter saw Madeline Archer clock the DS, scrape back stray hairs from her face and run her tongue over her lips. He smiled despite the seriousness of the day, watching Ms Archer give Styles a quick once up and down. If the roles were reversed, Styles would be the first to poke fun at Porter, so he resolved to do exactly that as soon as it was just the two of them.
‘Are you his partner?’ she asked, holding out her hand. ‘You could always take my statement if your boss is too busy.’
Styles wasn’t often lost for words, but she managed to silence him for a few seconds while he tried to compose himself.
‘There’s no rush, we’ll finish up the search first and you can always come in and give a formal statement later today or tomorrow,’ he said, gently withdrawing from a prolonged handshake.
Porter couldn’t resist. ‘No, no, Miss Archer. I can spare DS Styles to buy you a coffee and take it here. I think there’s a cafe by the lake.’
Porter saw Styles’s expression, pleading at first, but it soon changed, looking past him, deep frown lines scored across his head. He turned to see what Styles was staring at. A van had parked up by the side of Grove Road; a man and a woman piled out and trotted over towards them. Porter could make out the logo on the vehicle from here.
‘Who the bloody hell called Sky News?’ he muttered.
Beside him, he saw Madeline Archer shrug. ‘Oh, that was me actually,’ she said, all casual, like she’d accidentally spilt a drink.
‘You called them before you rang us?’ he said, his accusing tone leaving no doubt as to what he thought of that.
‘No, no. I called you guys first, but a friend of mine got paid once for calling them about this guy she dated, who had—’
‘Miss Archer …’ Porter started, but then the reporter and her cameraman were beside them.
‘Amy Fitzwilliam, Sky News. Is it true that Libby Hallforth has been spotted in Victoria Park?’
Even as she spoke, her cameraman was rolling, lens pointed at Porter. He sighed, shook his head. ‘There’s nothing I can comment on at this stage. We’re just here following up on a lead for a case.’
‘But is it the Hallforth case?’
Porter gave a tired smile. ‘Amy, was it? I’m DI Porter. Look, Amy, we’ve not met before, but you must know that all I can give you is a “no comment” at the moment. You take that any way you like.’ He turned to Styles. ‘Take Miss Archer to the cafe and get her statement. I’ll handle this.’
Styles nodded and put a hand on Madeline Archer’s shoulder, guiding her away.
‘What do you say to accusations that not enough efforts were made to find her first time around, Detective? And what about the rumours that her dad is still a suspect?’
Porter heard the protests of Madeline Archer over his shoulder, bleating on about how they’d better not leave without speaking to her about her tip-off.
‘I say you should know that you’re not going to get an off-the-cuff comment from me about an ongoing investigation.’
She stared him out for a few seconds, frustration giving way to a wry smile, as she shouted at the retreating figures behind him.
‘We’ll be here when you’re done, Miss Archer.’ She turned her attention back to Porter, and shrugged. ‘Worth a shot. We’ll still get a sixty-second slot even just with the sighting.’
‘Alleged sighting,’ Porter corrected, seeing the cunning in her eyes a fraction too late.
‘Oh, so it is Libby Hallforth then,’ she said. ‘Thanks for confirming. I’ll leave you to it then.’
Porter hated being outwitted, played that easy. Before he could offer any kind of retort, she’d turned her back on him, gesturing for her cameraman to start recording. Porter sidestepped out of shot. Bad enough she’d be cobbling together some bullshit about sources within the police confirm. If Superintendent Milburn saw him in shot as she said it, he’d get a bollocking. Probably heading for one anyway. He began wandering towards the lake.
He’d worked a dozen cases since Libby vanished, but she’d never been far from his mind. That she could disappear, with not even a ripple on the surface, while others were forced to carry on, regardless of the hole her disappearance left in their lives. Last time he’d tried to update her parents, only Ally was home. Simon had left, she said. Left, or kicked out, Porter wasn’t sure. Couldn’t help but feel it was best for all concerned, but Jesus, how much more upheaval could the poor woman have lumped on her? Marcus had moved away too, putting extra miles between himself and what happened. Porter understood that more than most. The allure of running away, pretending the bad shit hadn’t happened. Ignore it long enough and it’ll go away.
Except it hadn’t, not for him. That’s what made this thing with Simmons surreal. He liked her. Really liked her. But he still loved Holly. Didn’t know if he could ever reconcile the two.
He shook himself out of his mental slump, pulled out his phone and scrolled to find Ally Hallforth’s number. They’d mobilised as soon as the call had come in. Hadn’t even notified Libby’s parents yet. No point getting hopes up unless there was some substance to it. He’d have to make the call now, though. No way could they be allowed to see this without some kind of warning. Parents first; Milburn could wait. He’d barely had time to raise the phone to his ear when he saw a figure trotting through the trees towards him. Not Styles returning. As they stepped out from the treeline, he recognised PC Dee Williams. Her trouser legs were dark, damp-looking from the longer grass, fringe matted to forehead, cheeks flushed.
‘Boss, we found something,’ she said, breathy from the jog.
‘What is it?’
‘One of the islands in the lake,’ she puffed, drawing level with him now. ‘One of the lads says there’s something you need to see.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Porter burst through the treeline and skidded to a halt by the side of the lake. Over to the left, a small wooden hut served as a hub for boat hire. Two officers paced along the side, calling out to the handful of rowing boats and pedalos still out o
n the water, telling them to return to the shaky-looking T-shaped jetty. Williams had lagged behind, but caught him up now, still breathing hard.
‘Over there,’ she puffed, pointing at the nearest of three small islands in the lake.
The guy in charge of boat hire had clearly resigned himself to a lost afternoon’s takings, and pointed out one of the rowing boats, muttering under his breath that business had been slow enough without shit like this. Porter beckoned for Williams to join him and, after a brief pause, she stepped down into the boat, looking about as keen as if he’d asked her to wade across. Not a fan of boats or water, he guessed.
He grabbed an oar, shoving off against the side, and saw Amy Fitzwilliam walking across the grass, the cameraman with his back to the lake, filming on the move. Too far away to hear what she was saying, but suddenly the camera swung around, pointing straight at him. Nothing could be done about that now. A glance over his shoulder, and he caught a flash of movement from behind the trees.
‘Couple of our team, boss,’ said Williams. ‘Tessier and Holloway. Tessier thought he spotted something out there. Flash of colour behind the branches, so they borrowed one of the boats to check it out.’
It only took a minute or so to row over. Not far at all, but Porter still felt the first tickle of sweat running down his back by the time he pulled up alongside the island. There was no obvious landing point so he made do with bumping up alongside the boat Tessier and Holloway had taken over, and lashing the guide rope around a rail, tying the two together.
‘You can stay here if you want,’ he said. Couldn’t help but smile when he saw the look of horror on Williams’s face at the prospect of staying on water any longer than absolutely necessary. She followed him, stepping across the two boats in long exaggerated steps, unsteady like a drunk as they bobbed up and down.
The first thing that Porter noticed was the worn trail between the trees. Where he’d first thought there was no natural entry point through the treeline, up close, the vegetation on the bank was trampled down, and not just from a few pairs of feet today. More like a faded hiking trail that nature is constantly trying to erase between footfalls.
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