“Did you find anything useful? Did Alex know something?” Rochelle asked, her dark eyes fixed on mine.
“We’re not sure yet,” I said evasively, not wanting to get their hopes up before we had confirmation.
“We’re looking into it,” Stephen assured her.
“Mrs Brown, Mr Brown,” I said, remembering the start of Alex’s account. “Do you remember how Lydia was- how her hair was when she left that day?”
Both parents looked at me in surprise. “I did her hair,” Oliver said. “It was…” He frowned, before he looked up sharply. “Pigtails. I thought it looked too young for her, to be honest,” he said, grimacing slightly. “But she was determined that was what she wanted.”
Stephen and I shared a look. That part of Alex’s story stood up, then.
“And her socks?” I asked.
Oliver shrugged apologetically. “I don’t know. They should’ve been the school black ones, but sometimes she put on different ones. I didn’t always notice.”
I nodded. “Alright. Thank you. We’ll be in touch as soon as we know something for sure.”
Rochelle showed us out and bid goodbye at the door. We drove back to the station in near silence, both of us thinking.
“Alex had a good memory, even if he only saw Lydia and made up the last bit.”
“Aye,” I agreed. “He seemed like a bright kid. We’ll have a look at the camera and see if it holds up. Fingers crossed, hey?”
Stephen smiled and crossed his fingers. “Here’s hoping,” he said.
At the station, Stephen made us both hot drinks while I booted up my sluggish computer and jabbed the memory stick into the port on the side.
“Anything?” Stephen asked, putting my mug on my desk.
“Thanks.” I picked it up and took a scalding sip. “And no, it’s loading.”
He huffed, visibly impatient, and sat down in his own seat. He pulled out his phone while we waited for my computer to get itself sorted out and flicked through his messages.
“Your wife?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No news is good news,” he said, putting his phone down.
We waited another couple of minutes while the computer downloaded the files and then I could open them up.
“This is too far back.”
“Yeah I know,” I said, flicking through them towards the newer stuff. I finally found the date on which Lydia had been taken and clicked to open the file. Stephen was leaning forwards, his chair wheeled close to mine, and so did I.
The footage started when it was dark, at the turn of midnight. I put it on fast forward, and we watched as dawn arrived.
“That’s a van!” Stephen blurted out, as a pale coloured van pulled up in front of the pavement on the black and white footage.
“It sure is,” I said quietly. No-one got out, and I watched as the hours ticked towards the end of school. My heart was beating quickly, and I rubbed a hand over my face. Still, no-one got out of the van, nor did it move and we waited for half-past three, when the kids got let out.
“Nothing,” Stephen muttered.
“Give it a minute. She has to get her stuff together and walk over.”
“I know, I know,” he said, all wound tight.
I swore quietly, startling backwards when the van door was suddenly, violently thrown open. A small figure was visible at the very edge of the camera’s range. A bulky man jumped out of the van’s open door and grabbed the child, swinging them into the van, all in less than a second. The child didn’t even kick.
Stephen inhaled, his face blanched of colour when I looked over at him. The camera’s line of sight didn’t reach the other side of the street where Alex would have been walking. However, it did record him crossing the road to peer down the pavement, clearly looking for where the child had gone. He stayed there for thirty seconds or so, looking everywhere, and I held my breath. Even though I’d seen him just today and knew that he was safe and well, I couldn’t help but be afraid for him on the film, knowing that he was less than a couple of meters from at least one kidnapper.
“Jesus,” Stephen said, sagging backwards when Alex finally turned and walked away. “He remembered it all exactly.”
“Yes,” I said faintly, feeling sick. “Lydia…”
“That was her.”
I swore again and dragged a hand through my hair, the curls already rumpled from how many times I’d done that today.
“Can we see the van’s number plate?” Stephen asked, getting himself back into gear faster than me.
But I leaned forwards at his question, and we both looked closely at the bottom of the van. The angle was difficult and, had it been a lower quality camera, I doubted we would’ve been able to make anything out.
“Zoom in?”
I did so, tilting my head in line with the number plate. “Got it,” I muttered. I grabbed a pad of sticky notes and copied down the van’s plate.
“Finally, a solid lead.”
I looked over at Stephen and grinned. “Yeah.” Tired but relieved, I sat back in my chair, staring at the van on the screen. “I’ll put this one on the system, too. Hopefully, something will come of it.”
“And they didn’t swap the plates,” Stephen said, his mouth pulled down on one side.
“Don’t jinx it. Let’s hope they were too confident about that.”
Stephen’s phone buzzed in his pocket as I was putting it on the system, listing the van as suspicious.
“Everything okay?” Stephen said into his phone, getting to his feet and wandering off into the corridor to take the call.
I glanced after him, hoping he wouldn’t have bad news. I made a start on writing up what had happened today while I waited for him to come back.
“That’s me off,” Stephen said when he came back in.
I looked up. “Yeah? Your daughter-”
He waved off my concern. “She’s okay, just asking for me. Got bored with her mum’s company, apparently.” He gave me a grin.
I shook my head. “Off you go, then.”
He came over to gather up his things. “You’ll head off too?”
“I need to finish-”
“Mate, you can do that Monday,” he said, leaning against his chair. “Go for a run. Have a beer with a friend. Relax a bit. You’ll burn yourself out otherwise.”
I was tempted to tell him to stop nannying me, but it was true that I didn’t have any immediate plans for where to take the investigation next.
“After seeing that video, I…” I said uneasily.
Stephen sighed. “I know. But you can’t do anything for her right this second. She needs you awake, not dead on your feet. We’ve made good progress-”
I held up my hands. “Okay, okay,” I relented, closing down my computer. “I’ll go.”
Stephen smiled, slapped me on the back, and headed out. “See you Monday,” he called over his shoulder.
“All right,” I said, shutting down my computer and gathering up my things. I made my way down to the locker rooms to get changed into my running gear. Might as well get in another run today, I thought, since I’d not brought my car into the station and I didn’t have anything else pressing to get done today.
It was a pleasant day, warm and bright, which made the running easier, but I did have to dodge more people out on the pavements, especially with it being a Saturday. My usual route proved too busy, and I cut through a park, doing a couple of laps around the perimeter before I headed towards home.
I spent the afternoon doing all the things I hadn’t managed during the busy week. I was just coming back from Aldi with bags piled full of fresh vegetables to fill my empty fridge with when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I put the shopping down on the counter to fish it out. I was half-expecting it to be bad news, but it wasn’t Gaskell, or Stephen, but Keira.
I leaned against the counter as I opened up her message, and my lips split into a smile. As I started to put away the shopping one-handed, I called her.
“M
itchell?”
“The one and only,” I teased. “So you’re inviting me to dinner?”
“Only if you’ll be good company,” she said, and I could hear her smile down the phone.
I hesitated briefly at that, thinking of Lydia and the case. It was true that there wasn’t much of anything I could get started with tomorrow that couldn’t be done on Monday. The time pressure on this case hung over me, and the stakes were sickening high with a child’s life on the line, but we couldn’t follow up on leads that didn’t exist yet.
“Darren?” Keira prompted gently.
“Aye, sorry,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “I can’t promise to be my best self.” I gave a self-conscious laugh.
“Well,” she said, “just come round and be company for me, hm? I’ll cook something tasty.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said, relieved that she didn’t seem to mind if I was somewhat distracted.
“I’ll see you at seven?” she said, coy again. “Bring some decent wine with you.”
“I’ll dig some out,” I promised.
“Good,” she said warmly. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Me too.” There was a brief silence, where I could hear her quiet breathing, before she ended the call and I set the phone down. I put a hand to my chest and laughed quietly when I found my heart beating quickly under my palm.
“That’s my evening sorted, then,” I thought aloud. I looked around at the shopping, and set to getting everything sorted out so that I could have a relaxing evening at Keira’s. God knows, I needed it after the week we’d had.
Sixteen
My phone started ringing as I was carrying two full mugs over towards Stephen and I’s desks and I hastily put them down.
“Mitchell speaking,” I said.
“We need you to come over here right away, please.” I hadn’t had the chance to check the caller ID before I picked up and I couldn’t immediately place the frantic, female voice coming over the phone.
“Slow down,” I said, cutting them off. “Who is this, please?” Stephen was sitting at his desk, watching me curiously.
“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s Alicia Kelley. My husband is here. Lawrence is missing. You’ve got to find him.”
My stomach sunk. “Lawrence is missing,” I repeated, partly to make sure I’d heard right, and to let Stephen know what was going on. “Let me put you on speaker. My partner DI Huxley is here with me.”
I put the phone down on the desk and Stephen scooted closer, his brow furrowed with obvious concern.
“Alicia, when did you last see him?”
“Last night. He wasn’t here when I turned up this morning!” Alicia said, and I could hear from her voice how panicked she was. “The nurses didn’t see him leave, and the doctor didn’t check him out. He’s meant to stay in for another couple of days, doing his physio.”
“I see,” I said, glancing over at Stephen. “And you’ve tried calling him?”
“Of course!” she said sharply. “The call doesn’t go through at all. He must have it turned off, or it’s broken somehow.”
“Alright,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “We’ll be over there as soon as we can. Please stay at the hospital.”
“We will,” Alicia said, before hanging up.
“Never boring around here,” I muttered, snatching up my things. I tipped my coffee into a travel cup in my desk drawer, snapping the lid on before we headed out of the building.
“You can say that again,” Stephen agreed.
We got into the car, Stephen in the driving seat and me sipping my scalding coffee. Stephen looked over enviously.
“I should get one of those.” He’d had to leave his tea mostly undrunk.
“You should.”
I fiddled with the radio as we drove over, but my thoughts were on Lawrence and why he might’ve run off. But we wouldn’t know any more until we arrived at the hospital and started looking around and asking questions, so instead, I said, “How’s your daughter?”
“Better,” Stephen said, taking us around a sharp corner. I was almost used to his driving by now, and his liking for screeching to a stop right before the red traffic lights didn’t alarm me quite as much. “Her temperature’s down, and she’s set to leave the hospital tomorrow if all goes well.”
I cracked a grin. “That’s great news.”
He nodded, looking relieved. “Yeah. She’s still on some heavy antibiotics, and she’s coughing, but she’s a lot better. Now we know it’s asthma, we’re hoping we can keep it more controlled in the future.”
I reached over to pat his arm. “I’m sure you will. Knowing what the problem is half the battle, right?”
He laughed quietly. “God, I hope so.”
We were getting close to the private hospital, and he pulled into the car park. We headed in to meet Lawrence’s aunt and uncle, who were seated in the front waiting room.
They bounced up as we came inside and Alicia looked relieved to see us. “Do you know where he is?” she asked immediately.
I blinked. “Not yet,” I said, and didn’t say that she probably knew more than we did at this point. “Have the staff said anything?”
She shook her head. “I asked to see the CCTV,” she told me, “but they wanted to wait until you arrived.”
“Alright,” I said, “let’s go and see that now.”
It didn’t take too long to track down a security guard to show us the footage, and he seemed to have been expecting the request as it took him only a moment to pull it up on his computer.
“According to this,” he said, “he left early this morning, seven am.”
We were all quiet as we watched Lawrence walk slowly down the hall with his crutches to help him. He was still shaky on his feet after so long spent in a cramped space, and with his malnourishment, though even on the grainy CCTV, I could see how much better he was looking.
“He’s not well enough,” Alicia said, her hand to her mouth. “You’ve got to find him. He’ll get ill. He’s fragile as he is at-”
I patted the air with my hands, trying to calm her. “We’ll do everything we can, I promise,” I said. Privately, I thought that the cameras gave every indication that Lawrence had left of his own will. This didn’t look like a kidnapping. It looked like Lawrence deciding he was done with the hospital.
I shared a glance with Stephen over the top of Alicia’s head that told me he was thinking along similar lines.
“Thank you for showing us,” I told the security guard, pulling out a business card to hand him. “Can you send that over to this email address? That’d be really helpful.”
“Sure, I’ll get on that.”
We left him to it and sat back down in the waiting room.
“Have you talked to the person in charge here?” I asked Alicia and Dan.
“Yes,” she said, pressing her lips together. “He wasn’t helpful.”
“We might have to talk to him,” I thought aloud, though I doubted he’d be able to do much, or be willing to, going by Alicia’s frowning expression. “Is there any reason Lawrence might have chosen to leave?” I asked her. “Did he seem restless?”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Not especially,” she said, almost defensively. “He wanted to be up and about, like any teenager. But he never said anything about wanting to- to run off!”
“No,” I agreed, “he kept his reasons to himself, then.”
“Could he really have gotten far?” Stephen asked, looking at me. “He can’t walk well. Does he have money with him?”
I looked back to Alicia and her husband, who looked unsure. “I brought him a rucksack of things from his home,” Dan said, speaking up for the first time. “I don’t know whether his wallet was in it.”
“Could he have stolen some from you two?”
Alicia looked offended by the suggestion, pulling back slightly, but Dan pulled out his wallet to check. After a minute, Alicia grudgingly followed suit.
“I�
�m not missing any, I don’t think.”
Alicia put her purse back. “Neither am I.” She looked defiantly at me, as if I’d disagree with her.
“Alright,” I said. “So perhaps we’ll find him at the nearest bus-stop, or park.” I shared a look with Stephen, who nodded to show his willingness to follow my lead. “We’ll split up then,” I said to the Kelleys. “We’ll take the search on the side closer to the centre, and you can do the opposite side, how does that sound?”
Alicia pulled her handbag closer on her lap. “And what about other officers? Other cars?” she wanted to know. “He’s a vulnerable young man. The kidnappers are still out there, for christ’s sake-”
“Mrs Kelley,” Stephen cut in firmly. Whilst he usually kept a friendly look on his face, he hardened it now into a teacherly sternness. “We’ve no reason to believe that the kidnappers will be looking for your nephew anymore, nor that they want to harm him. Whilst we know he needs to return to the hospital, he’s not a child and can look after himself. The sooner we start looking, the sooner he’ll turn up.”
He gave them an expectant look and Alicia nodded, seeming resigned. Without any more ado, they headed off towards their swanky-looking car and Stephen and I returned to ours.
“Theories?” Stephen asked as we started to crawl our way through the nearby streets, searching for any teenagers with crutches.
I sighed. “Not yet,” I admitted. “It doesn’t make much sense.”
Stephen turned the radio on after a while, and we settled into the search, scanning the area closely.
A thought came to me suddenly, pieces slotting into place as I looked out of the window onto the grey city.
“He wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, was he?” I asked Stephen, though I already knew the answer. Lawrence had been wearing casual clothes.
Stephen frowned and then shook his head. “No. So who brought him those? His aunt and uncle?”
“They said he wasn’t due out for another few days,” I said, “so was he walking around in those anyway because he was well enough?”
“No idea,” Stephen said. “Call them?”
I already had my phone out and gave Alicia a call. “It’s Mitchell-”
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 63