Mummy's Favourite

by Sarah Flint

  As she arrived at the grave, she noticed the flowers, freshly planted, bright rainbow colours. She knew who they were from immediately and the knowledge only added to her loss. Closing her eyes, she stood silently remembering, trying to focus all her thoughts on the light, not the darkness, the happy not the sad. It was still so hard, even after all this time. Black was so much harder to erase than white, covering any brilliance in shadow. A raft of memories started to dance before her eyes. She concentrated on his face and felt tears spring up at the sight of his smile. She smiled back at him through the tears.

  She didn’t know how long she stood guard at the graveside. Nothing else mattered except clutching hold of all that remained of Jamie. Her reverie was broken at last by the screech of the crow. She opened her eyes and saw it land on top of the tallest conifer. The branch swayed and bent but held its weight. Her time with Jamie was over and she needed to return to work. It was, after all because of him that she had joined, to give others the justice that he had never had.

  She glanced down at his name and age engraved in the headstone; ten years old. Way too young for his name to be etched in granite. She knew who the flowers were from, but like a wound that refused to heal, she decided to rub salt into it, pick at the scab further.

  Bending down, she lifted the card and saw the neat, precise handwriting that she recognised so well.

  To my dearest Jamie,

  Always in my thoughts, my brave little man. Lots of love Mum xxxx

  She placed it back in the same position, rubbing at the tears that were running freely down her cheeks. Why couldn’t you have waited for me, Mum? Why turn me down and come by yourself. Why leave me alone when we both feel the same pain?

  Touching her fingers to her lips, she blew a kiss towards the graveside before turning and marching smartly away.

  ‘Goodbye, baby brother. Sleep tight.’

  Chapter 26

  A small, but steadily growing contingent of press were setting up outside the front of Lambeth HQ. Charlie noticed the group bustling for the best view as she approached the building and was immediately irritated. She was not in the mood today to deal with nosey reporters and pushy cameramen. Plus, after her earlier visit to the graveyard, she was now late.

  Deciding she didn’t want to elbow her way through the media scrum, she broke into a jog, before vaulting the car park barrier and waving her warrant card towards the attendant. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know her. But to her annoyance, he started to give chase.

  ‘It’s only me,’ she shouted towards the pursuing man, who gave up running and shouted at her instead.

  ‘For God’s sake, Charlie! You’re supposed to let me see your ID every time you come in or out. Especially at the moment, with that lot outside.’

  ‘But you know me, so what’s the problem?’

  ‘Because we’ve got our orders and I’ll get in trouble if they see me letting you in without checking.’

  ‘If someone is sat watching CCTV just to make sure that you’re doing your job right, then they’re not doing their job right. There are far more important things to be doing.’

  ‘I’d rather just see your warrant card next time, Charlie. It’s much easier.’

  ‘OK, Point taken. You have my word.’

  She sprinted across the yard, before tapping in the security code and disappearing through the back door into the bowels of the building.

  She could hear Hunter’s voice as she walked towards the office, puffing slightly from the exertion of the sprint and the ensuing jog up the stairs. Everyone else was already gathered and working.

  ‘Where have you been, Charlie? You’re late and I’ve been waiting for you!’ Hunter looked tired; his skin was lacklustre, his cheeks blotchy and his eyes bloodshot. Deep frown lines were etched into his brow and he was squinting towards her, as if trying to focus properly, a clear indicator that he was stressed. He ran his hands up across his face and over his head. She felt the irritation from earlier lift. When the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was being made to squirm, everybody felt the heat. He was clearly under pressure.

  ‘I’m sorry, guv. It’s Wednesday. I had to go somewhere before I came in. You know how it is. Then I got caught in the extra security measures downstairs.’

  Hunter knew she was often late on a Wednesday but he had never asked her why, perhaps guessing it was a personal matter he’d rather not have to discuss. He didn’t mind talking job, or sport with her; but anything else was left for Bet and the others in the office.

  ‘Be that as it may, we need to get on. Tidy yourself up quickly. You’ve missed the briefing, so we’ll talk on the way.’

  ‘Where are we off to?’

  ‘They’ve found the car that was used in the abduction of Helena and Daisy.’

  Hunter was already walking out of the office. He threw a set of car keys towards her and she caught them deftly, stopping briefly to run a brush through her hair, slip out of her trainers into her job shoes and grab a fresh jacket from the coat stand. She pulled a clipboard and several new pens from the top of Paul’s desk, mouthing the words ‘thanks’ before sprinting out. As well as being his driver, Hunter also expected her to make any notes that were required. As she ran to catch up, she saw him talking briefly to the DCI. He motioned her to pass him, so she ran on ahead to get the car, picking him up as he waited by the back door.

  ‘Where are we heading then, guv?’

  ‘Pollards Hill Estate, Mitcham.’

  She swung the car up to the barrier and waited for the attendant to open it before squeezing out through the waiting journalists, many of whom shouted questions as they passed.

  Hunter ignored them.

  ‘Good work by uniform in Merton. A member of the public rang to say a Black BMW had been left half across his driveway at some point, the night before last. He’d expected the owner to return, but by this morning they still hadn’t, so he phoned in. Luckily the call centre staff recalled the circulation of the suspect’s car as being the same model and colour and put two and two together. Got uniform straight there to check it out. It’s almost certainly the right one; even has the cherry shaped air freshener. It’s a hire car so I’ve had officers sent to the rental company. It was picked up by a man who fits the description of the abductor. The employee dealing with him recalls the same scar.’

  ‘Excellent, have we got a name?’

  ‘Yes, but so far it seems to be false. Hired with a fake driving licence and ID.’

  ‘Any CCTV in the office?’

  ‘Not working unfortunately. I’ve already had officers scanning CCTV for the nearby streets. He used the transport network to get to the car hire office but was careful to move around on it a lot, jumping from bus to underground so that we lost track quite quickly. Even when we can see him briefly he always wears a hat and keeps his head buried in a paper so we haven’t any facial image for mapping.’

  ‘He knows what he’s doing then?’

  ‘It doesn’t take much thought these days to know how widespread CCTV is. Every other TV programme shows what people get up to on camera.’

  They were travelling down Streatham High Road now, towards Streatham Common. As they got to the Common, they took a right, past the Greyhound Inn, the scene of the first big pub fight Charlie dealt with on arriving at Lambeth Borough.

  ‘What about the car? Anything of use in it?’

  ‘No, clean as a whistle as far as any possessions being left behind. No obvious blood or weapons either. The abductor must be confident that there’s nothing for us to find, or else he wouldn’t have left the car in such a conspicuous place. I think he’s playing games with us. We don’t really need to attend as it’s just about to be taken off for a full forensic examination but the bosses wanted no stone left unturned. It’ll be good to see exactly where it is though, especially in relation to the rental office and the McPherson house.’

  She nodded. She too was visual. When she’d been there and seen for herself, she would remem
ber. If she was told the details, they would not necessarily stick.

  Mitcham was situated in the most southerly part of London, only a few miles before the borders with Surrey. The estate was a large sprawling council development, made up mainly of blocks of flats set at right angles to each other and serviced by its own shops and community centre. It didn’t take long for Charlie to spot the flashing blue lights and the small crowd of hecklers. The car itself was cordoned off with a length of blue and white tape and a flatbed lorry was waiting to take it away.

  Hunter climbed out of their car, ignoring comments thrown by a particularly vocal, spotty-faced youth who looked like he’d just been sniffing the interior of a bag of glue. Charlie joined Hunter and they were met by two uniformed colleagues from Merton: a detective from the investigation team and a Scene of Crime Officer, dressed in a white overall, gloves and overshoes. Introductions over, Hunter came straight to the point.

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  The SOCO was the one to speak first, directing his comments straight to Hunter.

  ‘I’ve taken preliminary lifts from fresh prints I found in the rear of the car and these have been sent straight up to the lab. They’ve been positively matched as Helena and Daisy McPherson from control samples taken at the McPherson House. So, unless they make a habit of going out in hired BMW’s we can pretty much say for definite that this is the car that was used in their abduction. I’ve also taken some swabs for their DNA, which should confirm that in due course.’

  ‘Excellent. Anything from the driver?’

  ‘There are no obvious fingerprints in the driver’s area. I would say your man was almost certainly wearing gloves and probably also wiped around before leaving. There are a few hairs on the driver’s side, which I’ve already sent up for DNA profiling. One was looser on the seat than the others and looks the most recent, but there are others, slightly more ingrained in the fabric, that I’ve also sent up. As it’s a rental though, there are likely to be a good few profiles in here. I’ll get an ID on the newest to you as soon as I can, but any others may take a little longer. The lorry driver’s just waiting for your say-so to start getting it lifted. You should have an ID for the newest hair by the end of the day, if our man is known.’

  Hunter nodded. She could see he was disappointed not to have a name for the suspect already, but it was never going to be that easy. At least they had the right car. They’d just have to keep their fingers crossed. They deserved a bit of luck, especially after the previous evening.

  ‘OK thanks. Let me know as soon as you have anything; the sooner the better.’

  ‘Will do boss.’ They started to walk away when the SOCO called them back.

  ‘Oh and just before you go. You should also know that the vehicle looks to have been somewhere muddy, maybe a yard or wooded area, or somewhere similar. There are small stones and pebbles caught within the tyre treads. We’ll make sure we get them analysed to see if we can get an idea of the area it’s been in, chalky or clay. Might help to confirm a scene for you.’

  ‘Thanks. We’ll bear that in mind.’

  They climbed back into the car, Charlie throwing the clipboard on to the back seat. Their next stop was the McPhersons’ house, where a reconstruction was to be filmed during the afternoon for a Crimewatch appeal. There were no charges as yet and they all knew that a slot on Crimewatch meant admitting the investigation was stalled and they needed to beg the public for more assistance.

  ‘Well at least, we know we have the right car, with the right people in it and we know what sort of place it’s been driven through.’ She was trying to be positive. ‘And Bet called back to say that she’d found another report of a similar assault between Helena and Gary Savage.’

  ‘Yes, so I heard.’

  ‘She’s still checking to see if there are any links between any of the three McPherson reports and the Hubbards’, but there’s nothing obvious at the moment.’

  ‘And, after seeing him last night, we know that Savage is not our man.’ Hunter snorted. ‘Though how that ignorant bastard has the nerve to blame us, when he’s mown down an innocent woman on a stolen bike and then made his choice to ride on, rather than stopping. He should have been done for murder.’

  They came to a standstill at a set of red traffic lights positioned at a large, noisy crossroads. A cycle was chained to the railings at the junction, painted white; a symbol of another cyclist killed on London’s busy roads. She stared at the bike.

  ‘Well, at least there’s a bit of summary justice this time: Savage won’t be able to destroy anyone else’s life and I wouldn’t like his now.’

  The lights changed to green and she pulled away. She changed the subject.

  ‘How did it go with Hubbard and Latchmere?’

  ‘How do you think? Both made no comment to everything that was asked.’

  ‘I don’t understand why they always make no comment. Why don’t they just say if they had nothing to do with it? I would.’

  ‘Because they both have too much knowledge of the legal system. If they say no comment, they give us nothing. Nothing that we can research. If they don’t give us an alibi, we can’t break it. They leave everything to us.’

  ‘Well we can prove Latchmere has lied throughout the whole enquiry. Hopefully he might be looking at a charge of hindering an investigation, if he wants to carry on insisting his relationship with Julie was purely platonic. And Hubbard is up to his neck in it and is probably the reason why Julie and Richard disappeared. They both have the motivation and the means.’

  ‘But,’ Hunter picked up a pen from the centre console and shoved the end of it in his mouth, ‘and this is the problem. Neither appears to be linked to the disappearance of Helena and Daisy, and at the moment we can’t even prove in what way they were involved in the disappearance of Julie and Richard. Which leaves us with the worst possible scenario.’

  He chewed the pen top, crushing the end into a flat, misshapen lump.

  ‘That we have a random unknown abductor who, according to the DCI is almost certainly going to strike again. He’s got away with it twice in quick succession and we’re reliably informed by our psychological profilers that it is highly likely he will continue at the same pace or even quicker. He’s on a roll and he’s enjoying it. There has been no contact from the abductor, no ransom notes and no blackmail attempts. He has them for his own reasons, and they don’t appear to be financial.

  ‘He’s likely to be a loner who has all the time in the world to plan and execute his next move and he seems to be continually one step ahead of us. We just have to hope that he’ll slip up in his haste to capture his next victims.

  ‘And to make matters worse we are about to lay our investigation open to the public on Crimewatch. He’ll see that we’re desperate and know that he’s winning. It might even make him worse. Let’s just hope that the appeal throws up a suspect quickly and not too many red herrings or else it might end up hindering us, more than helping. We’ll have to wait and see.’

  They were nearing the McPherson house now, both fully aware that they had no answers to any of the family’s questions. Charlie checked the number and pulled up outside the address. There was no mistaking the fact they had the right one. A group of journalists were camped directly at the end of the driveway. As she turned to reach for her clipboard, she saw several of the reporters turn cameras towards them.

  ‘Vultures! Can’t they leave the poor family alone? It’s bad enough having them outside our building, just waiting for one of us to make a mistake, or say something out of place.’

  Hunter placed the chewed up pen back in the centre console.

  ‘That reminds me, Charlie, after we discussed the case, the DCI gave me a pull. He wanted me to reiterate to you that at the moment we have no choice but to use the Press. We need them on our side.’

  ‘OK guv.’ She didn’t understand what Hunter was on about.

  ‘In other words! Seeing as you’re clearly not getting it. Use the corre
ct procedure for entering the building, rather than vaulting the barrier in front of them all.’

  Chapter 27

  The wall was covered with her images. There were photos from Google; with clippings and cuttings from newspapers, reporting on her high-profile court cases. There were photos from more personal moments taken from her Facebook page and there were his own photos of her coming and going from her house. He even had some of her inside her bathroom naked, taken after he’d placed a tiny, hidden camera within a picture frame, on one of his visits. How he loved those especially, following each inch of her body down from her breasts, around her tiny waist and broadening again over her curvaceous hips. He traced a finger down over one of the larger pictures, following the shape of her body back up to her mouth and full lips.

  And then it was time to hear her again. He did it every morning, following the same ritual; sight, sound, smell; sight, sound, smell. Pushing the button on his laptop, he watched as the screen flickered into life. He waited impatiently until it had loaded then logged on to Facebook. It had been easy to invent a name, upload a few photos, make himself out to be a friend of a friend that she had met through law school. People didn’t really care who they added as friends these days, they weren’t scrupulous; the more the better, to share their lives with.

  He waited as her profile loaded, watching as the close-up photo of her dressed in shorts and T-shirt, relaxed on a beach holiday in Egypt, took form. He had that photo on his wall too; it was one of his favourites. Scrolling through her pictures and videos, he found the best one, the one that showed her emerging from the swimming pool, laughing and giggling as one of her kids splashed her with water. He loved her in this one, truly loved her, with all his heart and soul. She was laughing and smiling towards him, she really was. He watched the video again, and again, and again, taking in that moment when her face broke into a huge grin and she giggled with pleasure. She really was beautiful, utterly beautiful, and completely perfect. If only he could have her now.