by Erin Kinsley
‘So, you know what I’m after,’ he says. ‘This is all connected to the Ferrers case, the abduction.’
Heron shakes his head.
‘A bad business,’ he says. ‘The sooner someone’s doing time for it, the better.’ He has a copy of the original report of the Focus theft and places it in front of Hagen. ‘The theft was reported online.’
Hagen glances over the printout. Birch gave his full name and his address in Chelmsford. The phone number he provided is a mobile, the same one that’s since gone dead.
Heron opens up Google Maps and finds the location of the reported theft: Chatham Road.
‘It’s an interesting one, this. Bearing in mind the seriousness of the offence, we’ve done you a favour and pulled in what CCTV we can find, which has come from some interesting sources. What line did you say the car’s owner is in?’
‘Pneumatics,’ says Hagen. ‘Allegedly. Offshore wind farms, stuff like that.’
‘See, if your man was interested in wind turbines, he’d need to be down the coast a-ways, down at Redcar. The only offshore wind farm plans they had for around Hartlepool got turned down last year. Which makes you wonder why your man was parked up on Chatham Road, in an inland residential area. So we got CCTV from the Costcutter where he says he was and from another place of possible interest.’
Heron zooms in on the Google map, grabs the tiny figure to switch to Street View, and lands it on Chatham Road. The screen changes from a map to 360-degree-view photographs and the outside of the Costcutter. With a few twists of his mouse, he’s refocused on another building further down the street.
Hagen stares.
‘A children’s centre.’
‘Run by the council, mostly for the benefit of children under five.’
‘Well, what the hell.’
‘Begs the question again, what was your man doing parked up near there?’
‘Have you looked at the footage?’
‘Not yet. Thought I’d leave that to you. There’s an office you can use down the hall.’
Hagen starts with the images from the Costcutter, quickly finding the date and time Birch reported the car stolen and working back from there. He goes back an hour, two hours, three. In seven hours of footage, there’s no sign at all of the red Ford Focus.
He switches to the footage from the children’s centre, scrolling backwards through the hours from late morning to the middle of the night, watching in the daylight hours a parade of parents and pregnant women with small children and babies. Sticking with this one in case there has been, after all, a mix-up with the dates, he backtracks all the way to the previous morning, then goes back to the Costcutter footage and does the same with that. Up and down Chatham Road for forty-eight hours, there’s no sign at all of a red Ford Focus.
Brian Birch’s report of his car being stolen appears to be false.
Hagen takes out his phone and texts Naylor the outline of what he’s found, and he’s about to put away his phone when he sees an unfamiliar icon on the screen. With a jolt, he realises there’s email in his new account, the one set up for non-existent Mick Rutter as bait for the fake Petersen’s website. He clicks the link and opens up the message.
It’s from a generic-sounding address – [email protected] – and it’s short. We have a range of products to suit a variety of tastes. Prices vary according to requirements. Please supply a phone number and a convenient time for us to call and discuss your needs. There’s no signature and no attachments, but it’s a reply. Whatever the status of the website, the Contact Us link is live. Now all they have to do is find out who’s on the other end.
Hagen forwards the email to Naylor without adding anything to it and texts her again.
Like Naylor said, progress at last.
THIRTY
4 September
It’s a while since Naylor’s been on shift this early, but this is an operation she couldn’t bear to miss. Hagen’s done the driving and she’s dozed some of the way, but she’s still grateful when he pulls into a twenty-four-hour petrol station and comes out with hot coffee. He offers her a chocolate croissant, but she declines.
‘Too early for me.’
‘It’s never too early for breakfast,’ says Hagen.
He eats his croissant and hers as they drive the last half-mile, and finds a place to park behind an unmarked police van.
Twenty minutes before first light, the birds are singing, pitting themselves against the background of traffic already running on the A12. She and Hagen join the group from the Essex force gathered in a residents’ parking area around the corner from Pentland View. They’re talking quietly but are fired up and raring to go. The operation’s commander is young and keen, checking one last time everyone knows where they should be, making it clear to Naylor and Hagen they’re bringing up the rear.
At ten to the hour, the signal’s given, and the team heads for the property, the tramp of boots heavy on the air. When they reach the house, those designated to cover the rear melt away, and Hagen and Naylor find a safe spot behind a neighbour’s car.
There are lights on in the house, and that makes the commander wary. He’d rather deal with a target still asleep.
The officer with the big red door key – the locker-room name for the battering ram – moves into position, and the commander raises his hand, glancing round to be sure everyone’s ready. Talking quietly into the microphone clipped to his flak vest, he receives confirmation they’re all set round the back.
He drops his hand and hammers on the door.
‘Police!’
The big red door key goes into play, pounding against the door to break the lock. A woman’s voice starts shrieking inside the house, and as the big red door key persists, the shrieking turns to shouting. In a couple of neighbouring houses, lights come on.
When the door slams back, men rush through it, pushing past Sheila Birch who’s wailing in the hallway.
‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’
The men disregard her, taking the stairs two at a time to check the bedrooms, striding into the downstairs rooms. There’s a thundering of feet overhead, and the shifting of the hatch as they check the attic space.
‘Target not found!’
Sheila’s face is red with rage and trauma.
‘What are you doing!’ she yells. ‘If you’re looking for Brian, he isn’t here!’
By the time Naylor gets to her, Sheila’s sitting on her chair, dabbing at tears. Naylor offers her a glass of water, but Sheila declines.
‘Where is he, Sheila?’ asks Naylor.
‘Spain. And that’s where I’m going.’
The claim makes sense; she’s decked out for travelling, fully made up despite the early hour, dressed in a bright skirt and jacket which couldn’t be anything but holiday wear. If further proof is needed, there’s a large suitcase and a carry-on bag in the hall.
The commander makes his initial report.
‘We haven’t recovered any electronics yet, no laptops or phones, and there’s not much stuff in the wardrobes either,’ he says. ‘Looks like your man’s done a runner. By the way, there’s a taxi outside says he’s got a booking.’
‘That’s my taxi,’ says Sheila, struggling to stand up. ‘All of you, out. I’ve got a plane to catch.’
‘Tell him he’s not needed,’ Naylor says to the commander.
‘Of course he’s needed,’ Sheila objects. ‘Tell him to hang on, I’m getting my stuff.’
‘Sorry, Sheila, no airport for you today,’ says Naylor. ‘We need you to tell us where we can find Brian.’
‘I’ve told you, he’s in Spain.’
‘What’s he doing over there?’
‘He’s told me not to talk to you, so I’m saying nothing more. And if I miss my flight, I’ll be wanting compensation, same as for the door, for the damage you�
��ve done there. That just wasn’t necessary, all that drama. If you’d just knocked and waited, I would have let you in.’
The early morning’s taking its toll, and by the time they’re back at Ashridge Naylor’s dog-tired, running on the sugary fuel provided by the peanut butter Krispy Kreme doughnuts Hagen picked up en route. When she asks him why he chose the peanut butter, he tells her they have valuable protein.
Campbell’s pleased to see them because he’s expecting a good result. When they tell him Birch has slipped the net, he slams both hands on his desk.
‘Goddammit! Did the wife have anything to say?’
‘Soon as we put her in the interview room, she went no comment,’ Hagen tells him. ‘Obviously Birch told her how to play it. Without a reason to hold her we had to let her go, but she’s been left in no doubt her holiday’s cancelled.’
‘Maybe it was less of a holiday and more of a permanent move,’ Naylor adds. ‘She wouldn’t even tell us what she’s done with the dog.’
‘You wonder what he told her about why we might come to visit,’ Campbell says.
‘Probably he fed her some line about embezzlement,’ suggests Hagen. ‘People see that as a nice, respectable crime.’
‘We’ve come away empty-handed all round,’ says Naylor. ‘And Birch did a first-class job of clearing his tracks. Nothing’s left we might get a trace on, not even a recent photograph we might have circulated. So all we can do now is get in touch with Border Control and the airlines, see if we can find out when he left and where he went with a view to extradition, if he can be tracked in Spain. That’s an almighty task, given we’ve no idea where he’s been since I spoke to him when he was in Aylesbury. He might have been gone for weeks by now. When you think about how many flights there are to Spain on a daily basis, and from how many airports, even I would say that’s an expensive job.’
‘You’d have to include the sea ports too,’ says Hagen. ‘And we don’t even know what car he’d be driving.’
Campbell sighs.
‘It’s a massive job, I agree,’ he says, ‘and we can’t do it with existing resources. I’ll have a word upstairs. But we’re not quite empty-handed. Let me cheer you up with some good news, and tell you that we’ve had a result from digital forensics on the email received via the fake website. They’ve pulled an address for the computer which sent it. Dallabrida’s got the details, but rather improbably it seems to have originated in a library in Wolverhampton.’
THIRTY-ONE
6 September
Bobby Gillard is smiling.
Hagen’s not delighted to be back in Wolverhampton, but Naylor’s kept his spirits up, persuading him Gillard’s the key to Evan’s case.
‘Here’s the thing, Bobby,’ says Naylor. She leans forward across the desk, and Gillard slouches further back in his chair. The duty solicitor’s sitting beside him, a diminutive woman who looks far too delicate to be spending time with low-lifes like him. Naylor’s met her kind before. Undoubtedly, she’s tougher than she looks. ‘Library records show that at the time this email was sent, you were the only person signed in to use the computers, the only person issued with a password. You signed in with that password, so we’ve got you at the keyboard.’
From her file, she takes out two sheets of paper and slides them across the table, one to Gillard, one to the solicitor. The solicitor reads what’s on the sheet. Gillard doesn’t even glance at it.
‘For the recording,’ says Naylor, ‘I have handed Mr Gillard and his advocate a copy of an email sent from the email address [email protected]. The text of the email is as follows. We have a range of products to suit a variety of tastes. Prices vary according to requirements. Please supply a phone number and a convenient time for us to call and discuss your needs. Would you like to tell us what products and tastes you’re referring to there, Bobby?’
Bobby’s foot-tapping becomes faster, but his smile grows.
‘No comment,’ he says.
‘Can I ask,’ says the solicitor, running the point of her pen along the sender line of the email, ‘whose is this email address? With who was my client corresponding?’
Naylor turns to Hagen, who raises his chin.
‘Is that relevant?’ he asks.
‘I think you know it is,’ says the solicitor curtly. ‘If this is a private email – and even if it isn’t – I think what we see here is a possible case of entrapment.’
Bobby Gillard grins.
In the canteen, the coffee looks awful. Naylor chooses tea.
Hagen looks dejected, showing no interest in the cherry cake Naylor’s bought him as he over-stirs his grey latte.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Naylor. ‘The library computer’s gone to forensics, and I don’t doubt for one second there’s stuff on there Bobby Gillard doesn’t want us to see. When we find it, his feet won’t touch the ground. Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred pounds.’
‘I made a rookie error,’ says Hagen. ‘When I got the initial response, I should have ignored it, and sent another from an official account.’
‘And made a possible entrapment official? What difference would that have made? It doesn’t matter, Brad. Admissible or not, it’s flushed Gillard out of the undergrowth. We’ll be able to see where his online travels have taken him, and that’s bound to throw up something new. Really, don’t worry about it.’
‘What if he does a runner, and disappears like Brian Birch?’
‘He hasn’t got the resources, unless he’s had a big win on the horses, and he didn’t look much like a winner to me. The only choice he’s got is to sit at home and wait for the knock on the door.’
Hagen remembers Gillard’s words about the misery of his home life.
‘Maybe it’ll come as a relief to him,’ he says.
In the two weeks since their visit to Wolverhampton, Naylor knows all they’ve done is chase their own tails. The knowledge that Evan Ferrers’s case has stalled again is tough on them all.
‘So you’ve nothing new?’ asks Campbell, at the weekly case review.
‘Apart from Gillard being back inside, no,’ says Naylor. ‘That was a good result.’
‘How have your approaches to the family been taken?’
Naylor shakes her head.
‘No joy at all there,’ she says. ‘Evan’s making progress, but he’s still not speaking.’
‘The Petersen’s website’s been taken down,’ says Hagen. ‘Which suggests that if Gillard was one administrator, there’s at least one more still out there. We should be going after them.’
‘And how will you do that, Bradley?’ asks Campbell.
Hagen and Naylor are silent.
‘I’m afraid the time has come,’ says Campbell. ‘Unless and until we receive new information, I want you to keep your main focus on your other cases.’
Somebody Else’s Child
THIRTY-TWO
13 October
Jack never meant to fall asleep, but he’s had so little rest this past couple of weeks. He lay down next to Dora just to hold her hand for a while, but the comfort of that feeling with the softness of the pillows was a seductive combination. How long has he been asleep? He doesn’t know. Probably not long, as the sun’s still high, and the shadows in the bedroom look no different to what they did when he lay down.
What’s woken him is the shaking of the bed: not just the play of springs as Dora turns on to her back, but a full-on, bone-rattling shaking. Drowsy and disoriented, he looks around for the source, and finds it in Dora herself. Everything about her is trembling; her eyelids are fluttering over the whites of her eyes, her back is rigid and arched and she’s drooling mucous liquid from the corner of her mouth.
In panic, Jack runs around the bed, stands over her and tries to hold her down, thinking he can somehow force her out of the fit, shouting her name to snap her out of
it. It can’t go on long, he thinks, but the spasms won’t let her go, and he begins to think of stories of people choking on tongues and vomit and of the recovery position. He’s seen pictures of it and rolls her on her side, all the while calling her name, praying he can break through the wall of the seizure and bring her back. When he thinks she’s in the right position, he takes the pen from her book of word-search puzzles and jams it in her mouth, doing his best to anchor her tongue flat.
This is an emergency, and Jack won’t leave her. At the bedroom door, he listens to hear who’s downstairs.
‘Claire! Claire! Are you there?’
His shouts fall into silence, so he runs to the bedroom window and throws it open. The red roses in Dora’s favourite vase are past their best, their petals scattered on the sill. On the bed, Dora is momentarily still, so still Jack fears that she’s dead. When she begins to shake again, it’s almost a relief.
‘Claire! Claire!’ His voice sounds loud across the yard, but Claire’s car isn’t there.
Evan appears from the barn and looks up at his grandfather, his face showing his concern.
‘Evan! Evan, your grandma needs an ambulance. Go and ring them, son! Ring 999, and tell them where to come.’
Evan’s still looking up at him, hesitating.
‘Just do it!’ Jack orders in desperation, and Evan runs away round the house and in through the kitchen door.
Upstairs Jack is crying, pressing Dora’s trembling hand to his lips. In the hall where the photo of him and Evan stands near the phone, Evan picks up the receiver and dials 999. When the operator answers, Evan’s voice is clear and loud.
‘We need an ambulance quickly,’ he says. ‘My grandma’s very ill.’
THIRTY-THREE
15 October
‘Where’s Dad? Dad?’ Thinking Jack must be in the bedroom, Matt calls up the stairs but there’s no reply. He puts his head round the lounge door and glances into the dining room. Jack isn’t there.