‘So, he has no memory of the accident at all?’
‘Nope. Last things he remembered with any clarity were a few days before it happened. He’s done contract work for Nexon for the last five years. Had jobs all over the country. The ages of his kids match the ages of those we found at the park, so the working theory at the moment is that it’s some kind of attempt to replace the family he lost, although why he kills them instead of just keeping them alive, we don’t know.’
‘Any luck on his whereabouts?’ Dee Williams asked.
Styles shook his head. ‘He’s got a one bed flat in Forest Gate. We sent a car round an hour ago, but no answer. Neighbours haven’t seen him in a few days either.’
‘That’s just down from Wanstead Flats, isn’t it?’ asked Glenn Waters.
‘Gold star for Glenn,’ said Porter. ‘When we find him, and we will find him, we’ll be speaking to him about Libby Hallforth as well.’
Porter glanced at the picture they had stuck on the whiteboard, committing it to memory. A shot of Gibson taken pre-trial, but after his release from hospital. Bruises spreading under his eyes like stage make-up, stubble roughing up his jawline, eyes looking through the camera and beyond.
‘We’ve got eyes on his place if he turns up back there,’ Styles said. ‘Also, I spoke to someone at Nexon earlier. They told me Gibson is still down against the Valentines Park contract, but he hasn’t showed for work these last few days.’
‘What do you need then, boss?’ Sucheka asked.
‘We’ve got a list of his previous jobs from Nexon. Dee and Glenn, you two pair up, and Kaja and Gus, if you can work together. Between you, I want each place checked out, park managers spoken to, and get around as many as you can in person. If we’re lucky, someone he worked with might remember something to point us in the right direction. Any mention of a girlfriend, friends from work, that kind of thing. I want to know which parts of the parks he worked in. Have a word with Kam, tell him we need some of his people sent out with you.’
The unspoken part of that, what every one of them in the room was thinking right now, fearing, was that Victoria Park might not be the only secret rose garden in London.
‘Only other thing registered in his name at the moment is a plot at Leyes Road allotments, down near the ExCeL. Nick and I are going to head down there now and take a look.’
He saw Styles reach into his pocket, checking his own phone, frowning.
‘She’s not gone into labour already, Sarge, has she?’ Waters said, laughing louder at his own joke than anyone else.
‘Don’t recognise the number,’ he said, holding the screen to Porter. ‘Am I OK to take it just in case?’
‘Course you are.’
Styles answered, turning away and wandering over to the window. Porter opened his mouth to continue the briefing, but whipped his head to look at Styles, wondering why his partner was saying his sister’s name.
‘Kat, Kat, it’s OK. Calm down. He’s here. Let me put him on.’
Porter took the phone, looking to Styles for an explanation, finding none.
‘Kat? What’s the matter?’
‘It’s the boys, Jake, they’re gone. Someone took them.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Two faces stare back at him in the rear-view mirror, features rigid, frozen in place, too scared to move a muscle. There were shouts at first, as he backed out of the driveway. Fingers tugging at door handles that had already locked. Palms slapped against the headrest, grasping at his shoulders. That has since migrated into tense silence after he braked hard, twisting around and snatching mobile phones from their hands, throwing them out of the window to shatter on tarmac.
He doesn’t want to hurt them. Tells them this and genuinely means it. They’re a means to an end, but he knows that if it comes down to it, he’ll do whatever he has to. This isn’t like the other times. There’s no mistaking either of these boys for Ben. They mean nothing to him, but they mean something to Detective Porter. To the woman he saw last night. His wife, girlfriend maybe? No, when he followed them home from the football game, Porter hadn’t stayed long. He had come back out after an hour, heading back to a house near Pinner. Family, then; sister, maybe?
A pen rolls back and forward on the passenger seat, next to a white napkin, as he takes a corner, waiting for the next round of headlines and the confidential police hotline number. This happens on his terms or not at all. The fate of the two boys will rest with the detective. He isn’t asking for anything that isn’t already his. He saved them, all those children. Saved them from a life where no one cared enough about them to keep them safe. But they saved him in return, in those darker moments, when he felt at the bottom of the well, looking up at a pinprick of light. Caring for them. Tending to them. Giving him a reason to keep going, even when at times the search for his own children seemed an impossible task.
He glances in the rear-view every thirty seconds or so, watching the boys, checking the traffic behind them. Until he makes contact, they have no way of knowing who he is, how to find him. This is about more than just getting the children back now, though. Once he does, he can’t stay here. Can’t return them to the park. The search for Ben and Marie will be harder now.
The landscape changes as he drives. Less residential, more industrial, fewer prying eyes. Another glance in the mirror. The stares looking back at him are somewhat glassier now, the shock of the situation well and truly set in. What will Ben and Marie think of him when they’re finally reunited? Of the lengths he’s gone to in order to make that happen? He hopes they’ll understand, that he never gave up trying. That’s what a parent does: they go the extra mile for their kids. Make the hard choices. Even do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
He offers up a silent prayer. Hopes that the detective loves these boys as much as he loves Ben and Marie. That he’ll make the right choice for them. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
CHAPTER SIXTY
‘Two minutes.’ Kat sniffed. ‘Wasn’t even that long. I came out and they were gone.’
‘Did you notice anyone hanging around the street?’ Porter asked. ‘Anyone acting suspiciously?’
She shook her head, fresh tears flowing freely down her face. ‘Who would want to hurt my boys, Jake? You have to get them back. Promise me you’ll get them back.’
‘I promise,’ he said, breaking one of his own rules. Never make a promise on the job that you can’t guarantee. ‘We’ve got half the force looking for your car. We’ll find them, Kat.’
‘Who would do this, Jake?’
He wanted to tell her he had no idea, but an image of the van from yesterday swam to mind. A coincidence? His own paranoia? Either way, he couldn’t bring himself to lie, not even a little white one, so instead he just reached out, pulling her in close. She didn’t resist, and it was as if the action scraped away the last ounce of control she had. His hard-faced, tough-as-nails, handle-anything-life-can-throw-at-me sister melted into him, and stayed there.
Whoever it was, he’d make damn sure not only were they found, but that everything was done to the letter of the law. Overriding his anger that someone had messed with his family was an overwhelming urge to make sure they couldn’t wriggle out of what they had coming to them.
‘I’ve spoken to Dad. He and Mum are on their way over to sit with you. Will you be OK until then?’
She lifted her head away from his chest, wiping tear-trails from her cheeks and sniffing.
‘I’ll be fine. Go, please, find my boys.’
He kissed her forehead and headed out, leaving a uniformed constable parked outside the door. He jumped into his car, connected to Bluetooth and scrolled to find Styles in his contacts.
‘You at the allotment yet?’ he asked, when Styles picked up.
‘Ten minutes out. Anything?’
‘Not yet. Should have ANPR any minute, but there’s no guarantee whoever took them actually triggered any cameras, and that’s if they even stay in their own car.’
Could be that this was a simple crime of opportunity. Someone passing by, hearing the idling engine, seeing the empty driver’s seat and taking a chance to make an easy buck. There’d been similar cases before, and kids had been left on street corners once the thief realised the empty car they’d nicked had passengers. This felt different, though. Kat didn’t live in that kind of neighbourhood, and the inescapable feeling that he’d been followed not once, but twice, just felt like too much of a coincidence. What if whoever drove the white van had seen him with the boys? Maybe targeted them because of him? The thought that they might come to any harm because of their connection with him made his stomach swoop.
‘Call me as soon as you get there.’ A double beep on the line. Another call coming in, this one from the station. ‘Got to go.’ He toggled to the second call.
‘DI Porter.’ A snap to his voice, no time for pleasantries.
‘Boss, it’s Dee. We’ve had a call come in, someone looking for you.’
‘I’m a little busy at the minute, Dee,’ he said, pulling away from the kerb.
‘You’re going to want to take this one,’ she said. ‘This guy, says he has the boys in the back of a car.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
The seconds of silence as he waited for the call to connect stretched to the point where Porter thumbed the button on the wheel to up the volume, wondering if he’d lost connection. There was a brief series of sounds, like someone fumbling for the handset, and Dee Williams came back in the line.
‘Connecting you now, boss.’
‘You better be recording this, Dee,’ he said, but she’d already gone, replaced by static and soft breathing.
‘This is DI Porter,’ he said. ‘Who am I speaking to?’
Something between a grumble and a cough, someone clearing their throat. No background noise that he could make out. Nothing to give away a location. He hoped to God that Dee and the others were tracing it if the call was genuine.
‘My name doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you do what I ask.’
The voice was soft, giving nothing away, no anger, no fear, nothing.
‘And what is it you want?’
‘You have something of mine, now I have something of yours.’
‘Let me speak to Tom and James,’ Porter said.
‘Not how this works. You get them back when I get my children back.’
‘Your children?’
‘From the park.’
‘Graeme? Is that you?’
A pause before the man responded. ‘I get my children back, you get yours back.’
‘Your children? Do you mean Ben and Marie?’
Another pause. ‘I heard those lies about them on the radio. Saying they’re dead. That I killed them.’ Porter caught a hint of something now, anger. Milburn’s press release had gotten under his skin. Sounded like the prison psychiatrist had been spot on. Gibson believed they were alive, out there waiting to be found.
‘We don’t have Ben or Marie, Graeme,’ he said, ‘but I’m happy to help you look for them. How about you drop Tom and James off somewhere? Tell me where to pick them up, and then you and I can talk.’
‘So, they’re not dead, then?’ he shot back. ‘I knew it. I knew that was just … how could you think I’d believe that?’
‘You’re right,’ Porter said, thinking on the fly, how to play this with a man not entirely rooted in reality. ‘You sussed us, Graeme. It won’t happen again. You just tell me where and when, and we’ll meet up and talk this through.’
‘You’re not bloody listening.’ Gibson came back louder this time, tense and snappy. ‘There’s no talking to do. You took them from me. The others. I need them back. They need …’ He trailed off, and Porter could hear the breathing on the other end a little more ragged.
‘Graeme, whatever happens, I’m going to need proof that Tom and James are alright before we do anything.’
Silence apart from breathing, becoming slower, more measured, back under control. Porter slowed at a set of lights, watching pedestrians amble past him, oblivious to what was playing out right in front of them.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you where to come. Only you. Bring my children to me, alone, and nothing happens to your boys. You want them back, do what I say and it’ll all be fine.’
Click. The line went dead. Porter stared at the console for a beat, then hammered his palm against the wheel. Once, twice, a third time.
‘Aggghhhhhh.’
His frustrated groan filled the silence, loud enough for the last of the pedestrians to hear, frowning as they squinted to see through his windscreen. Not the time to let his anger get the better of him. Stay cool, he told himself. Had to do this as a copper, not their uncle. He called Dee as he started up again, crossing the junction.
‘Please tell me you got something from that?’
‘Too short to trace, boss,’ she said, sounding like she’d let him down personally.
‘ANPR?’
‘We got a hit a couple of miles from your sister’s house, heading east towards Edgware, but nothing since then.’
‘I had a white van following me yesterday. Get hold of someone from Nexon. I want to know what he drives for work, whether he has access to any of their vehicles. Get those checked out too.’
‘Will do, boss.’
Porter ended the call, gripping the wheel tight, wondering where the hell the boys were, how scared they’d be. If anything happened to them, he’d never forgive himself. How would he face Kat? His parents? Knowing that they were taken because of his job, because of him. He could have stopped this in its tracks. Twice yesterday he’d seen the van. Known something was wrong. Gibson must have trailed around after him, watching him. Watching the boys. Jesus, he must have literally followed Porter back to Kat’s house. How had he not seen that?
Kat’s words echoing in his head.
Find my boys.
He’d promised her he would. Gibson hadn’t given him any proof of life, though. No chance to speak to the boys. What if it was too late, if that promise was already broken?
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Styles crawled his way through a bottleneck of traffic courtesy of whatever convention the ExCeL was holding this week. Leyes Road allotments were set back from the main road, just past the ExCeL and penned in behind six-foot-high gunmetal grey fencing. No houses overlooking them, backing onto the Royal Docks Academy playing fields. Isolated enough to guarantee privacy, but close enough by to be accessible. A short drive from Libby’s home at Wanstead Flats. Another short hop to the west took you to Victoria Park. Three points on a triangle.
He climbed out of the car and looked around. The gates stood open, two cars parked on a tight rectangular area that might fit half a dozen at a push. Neither of them was Kat’s, but that didn’t mean that Gibson and the boys weren’t here. He could have switched vehicles by now. If he was, it wouldn’t hurt to make things a little more difficult for him. Styles jumped back in the car, reversing up to the gates, blocking off the car park.
He wandered towards the two vehicles, glancing up at the power lines above humming like angry bees. A quick glance through the windows of both gave nothing away. An envelope on one passenger seat, face down. Yesterday’s Evening Standard in the other. Nothing to indicate Porter’s nephews had been in either car, though.
Walking deeper in, looking both ways, the plots sprawled out from a central crossroads, spreading out either side of the paths. Gibson’s plot, according to the guy from Newham Council, was in the far north-east corner. A crunch of tyres on gravel behind him, and Styles turned to see a grubby once-white Ford Fiesta pull up, Newham Council logo splashed across the side.
The driver didn’t so much climb out as heave himself through the open door. He had the kind of beer belly that took years of hard work to cultivate, and a swollen red drinker’s nose to complete the look. He reached back into the car, re-emerging with a pair of bolt cutters, and lumbere
d towards Styles.
‘You the chap from the police?’
‘Detective Styles,’ he said, nodding, holding out a hand that the big man took an age to get close enough to grasp. ‘Thanks for coming out so quickly.’
‘Phil Woods,’ he said, grabbing Styles’s hand with a clammy one of his own. ‘What’s he gone and done, then? Better not be growing anything dodgy in there. You hear about people having their own weed farms.’
The last part came out with peculiar emphasis, like he was trying it on for size, showing that he knew the lingo to impress the cool kids.
‘Can’t really say just now,’ said Styles. The guy clearly hadn’t heard the press release, naming Gibson as a person of interest. Best keep it that way, crack on, fewer questions and less time wasted. ‘Really do appreciate you letting me take a look around, though. Are there any limitations on access for people who have an allotment here?’
Woods shook his head. ‘They get a key for the front gate, then they come and go as they please. Even get some of them up here with torches in the winter months.’
They bore right at the mini crossroads, limited to the ambling pace of Woods, finally stopping at the far end of the path.
‘This is his, here,’ said Woods, pointing to the last plot on the left. Nestled in the shadows of the electricity pylon, looming over them like a mini Eiffel Tower. Where most of the plots had been bordered by fencing no more than a foot high, more of a token border, this one was better protected. Dark green polythene mesh fencing wrapped around the plot, coming to just above the top of Woods’s head, sealing it off from prying eyes. It helped that Styles had six inches on the council man, and he saw the top of a greenhouse poking up, set back from the entrance. Two posts either side of the entrance, and a wooden gate, padlocked. Compared to neighbouring plots it was practically Fort Knox, but Woods stepped forward, snipping off the padlock like slicing through butter.
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