She knew that her brothers Declan and Patrick were there in the crowd somewhere. She hoped they were safe. Declan had the sort of reckless high spirits that often led him into trouble. Patrick was quieter but still likely to be led astray by his older brother. She’d told them to be careful, that morning over breakfast, but neither of them had taken any notice. If they saw her there in her uniform, a head taller than anyone else in the crowd, they would be more likely to kill themselves laughing than be injured by a flying deckchair leg.
‘Excuse me, miss?’ It was someone asking the way to the railway station. They’d had enough of Brighton and who could blame them? People always asked the police for directions. Or the time. How did the old music hall song go? Her dad sang it sometimes, when he’d had a few drinks in the pub. If you want to know the time, ask a policeman. Time you got a watch, Meg wanted to say, but she couldn’t, of course. The first rule of policing. Be civil to the public.
The public weren’t being very civil today though. On the promenade below, the rival gangs clashed together with shouts and a hail of missiles. Then, a few minutes later, a smoke bomb went off and spectators staggered back from the railings, gasping and choking. Meg stayed put, wiping her eyes. And, as the smoke cleared, she saw a figure walking towards her, like something from a mirage. It was as if all the Bobby Soxers’ dreams had come true.
She was looking at Bobby Hambro himself.
Emma watched until the girls reached the top of the street and went into the shop. It should only take them a few minutes. Mrs Minton was unlikely to be busy today. She looked at her watch. Ten forty-six.
Jonathan laughed suddenly. Emma turned round and saw that he’d somehow reached onto the table, got hold of the flour and emptied it over his head. He grinned at her, like some awful white-face clown act, blue eyes very bright amidst the powder.
‘You horrible child! What have you done?’
She fetched a cloth and, when she next looked at her watch, it was ten fifty-five. The girls should be home by now. She was on her way to the door when she heard running footsteps. Thank goodness. Though it was silly of her to be worried. It was broad daylight and they’d only been to the end of the road. She opened the door with a welcoming smile, ready to relate Johnno’s latest awfulness.
‘Mummy!’ It was Sophie, crying so hard that, at first, Emma couldn’t make out her words. ‘Mummy! Marianne got in a car with a man. She’s gone.’
Twenty-Eight
‘What do you mean, “she’s gone”?’ said Emma, but her heart had turned to ice.
‘She’s gone,’ wailed Sophie. ‘She was cross with me because I wanted sweets. She left the shop first and I saw her getting into the car. Then it drove away.’
‘Sophie.’ Emma’s grabbed her daughter’s arms. ‘Can you remember what the car was like? What colour was it? Was it like Dad’s? Bigger? Smaller?’
‘It had a flag on,’ said Sophie. ‘Like the Queen has.’ Emma thought of a Rolls Royce with a flag on the bonnet. Her dad had once owned a Rolls. Who else in Brighton drove a car like that?
‘You said there was a man in the car. What was he like?’
‘I don’t know.’ Sophie started crying again. ‘He was just a man.’
‘Stay here,’ said Emma. She ran up the road to Mavis’s house and knocked on the door of the basement flat. Thank goodness, Mavis came to the door at once. She had her slippers on and was holding her knitting.
‘Mavis. Marianne’s gone missing. Can you sit with Sophie and Jonathan while I get Edgar?’
Mavis must have seen the panic in Emma’s face because, for once in her life, she didn’t ask any questions or start an anecdote. She simply followed Emma back to the house, still wearing her slippers.
Emma ran upstairs to the phone. She asked for Superintendent Stephens and, sure enough, soon Rita’s supercilious voice was on the line.
‘The superintendent is out. Who shall I say is calling?’
‘It’s his wife. It’s urgent. Has he got his radio with him?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘Well, when he rings in tell him to telephone Emma immediately. Is DI Willis in?’
But Bob was out too. They must all be on the seafront trying to prevent the mods and rockers killing each other. But Bob did apparently have a radio set with him. ‘Tell him to go to Emma Stephens’ house immediately. It’s urgent. There’s a child missing.’
‘Will do,’ said Rita. But Emma had no confidence in her.
Emma put the phone down. In the chaos of the seafront Bob might not even be able to hear his radio. Officers were meant to check at a police box every hour but that was impossible when you were being pelted by pebbles and deckchair legs. Emma couldn’t just sit there waiting for the phone to ring. She had to try to find Edgar. She was sure that she’d be able to spot him in the crowd.
She turned to Mavis who was sitting on the sofa with Sophie on her lap. Jonathan had fallen asleep in his high chair, still covered in flour. ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long. If the police come, tell them what happened.’ She squatted down to Sophie, who was still hiccoughing quietly. ‘Sophie, tell them about the man in the car. You’re not in trouble. You’re a very good girl. We’ve just got to find Marianne and you can help them. Understand?’
Sophie nodded.
‘I’m going to find Dad,’ said Emma.
‘Bobby?’ said Meg before she could stop herself.
The man looked at her. Close up he was unmistakable, the clean-cut boyish face that she’d seen beaming down from the walls of Rhonda’s bedroom. The man who was the intended bridegroom of hundreds of teenage girls.
‘I’m sorry.’ The American accent was unmistakable. ‘You must be thinking of someone else. Excuse me, ma’am.’ He pushed past her and continued along the pavement, head down.
‘You’re Bobby Hambro,’ said Meg but she was speaking to empty space. There was a man with Bobby, a mod wearing a pork-pie hat, and he looked back at Meg. He was very young and she thought he looked scared.
The smoke bomb had frightened some of the crowds away. Down below, there seemed to be a temporary ceasefire. Meg watched as some PCs—she thought she saw Danny Black amongst them—bundled a few of the ringleaders into the back of a police van. Four police horses cantered slowly along the promenade. There were shouts and catcalls from the remaining spectators by the railings. The mods and rockers were in small groups, nursing injuries or planning their next attack. Meg saw a girl, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead, sitting on the side of the road. Maybe she should go down and help. That’s what she was there for, after all. She looked for the nearest steps.
‘Stop!’ A woman was running towards her. A blonde woman in a tweed skirt. There was something in her face, a kind of frozen terror, that made Meg move towards her.
‘What is it?’
‘Are you Meg Connolly?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got to help me. My daughter’s been abducted. And I can’t find my husband.’
‘Your husband?’
‘Superintendent Stephens.’
So this was the famous Emma Stephens, née Holmes.
Meg Connolly. The famous WPC Connolly. Emma had spotted her immediately. She really was incredibly tall, a head higher than anyone else in the crowd. She would know where Edgar was, and Bob too.
Meg led her to a bus shelter where Emma grasped her arm and poured out her story. Tramps sometimes slept in the shelter but now it was empty apart from an old blanket on one of the seats.
‘Can you get hold of Edgar? Superintendent Stephens? Have you got a radio?’
‘No. WPCs don’t have radios.’
‘Well, can you find him? He must be down there somewhere?’
‘He was by the pier earlier.’ Edgar had said that Meg was so bright but now she seemed maddeningly slow. She just stared at Emma as if she couldn’t understand what was happening.
‘My daughter’s been taken!’ Emma shouted. ‘Find Edgar. Hurry!’<
br />
‘Emma? What’s going on?’
She swung round to see, of all people, Max, elegant as ever in a pale grey suit and trilby hat. And, beside him—this was starting to feel like a dream—Sam.
‘Marianne’s been taken,’ said Emma. ‘I let her go to the shops on her own and a man took her away in his car.’
‘Did you get a description of the man?’ said Meg, sounding like a detective for the first time.
‘No. My youngest daughter, Sophie, was there but she just said he looked like a man. She said that the car had a flag on it, like the Queen’s.’
‘Like the Queen’s car? A Rolls Royce?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t question her very closely. I rang the station but Edgar and Bob are both out. So I came to find them.’
‘We’ll find them,’ said Max. He sounded so confident and capable that Emma turned to him with gratitude. He put his arm round her. ‘I’ll find Edgar. I’m good at finding people.’
‘A flag,’ said Sam. ‘Like the Union Jack?’
‘What?’ Emma was momentarily confused.
‘The car. You said it had a flag on it. Like the Union Jack.’
And Emma remembered. The drive along the seafront with Jonathan on her lap. His delight in the ramshackle car with the Union Jack painted on the bonnet.
‘Harry,’ she said. ‘The photographer.’
‘Harry! He took photographs of you and Marianne,’ said Sam. ‘He must have taken the other pictures too. The ones of Louise and Sara. I bet he photographed Ruby loads of times.’
‘Where does he live?’ Emma had left Max’s side and was staring intently at Sam. Meg and Max were looking between the two of them as if they were watching a tennis match.
‘Rottingdean,’ said Sam. ‘But I think he was in London yesterday.’
‘Where in Rottingdean?’ said Emma, grasping Sam’s arm.
‘Above a shop.’
‘The Smugglers’ Cave?’
‘That’s the one.’
Harry had known about the smugglers’ tunnels. Emma remembered him mentioning them that day. Was that where he had taken Marianne?
‘We have to go there,’ she said. ‘Now. Has anyone got a car?’
Meg seemed to come to life. She stepped into the road, raised her fingers to her lips and emitted the loudest, most ear-piercing whistle that Emma had ever heard. Seconds later two Lambrettas were pulling up beside them.
‘My brothers,’ explained Meg. ‘Emma, you get up behind Declan. I’ll go with Patrick.’
In a daze, Emma climbed onto the bike behind a brown-haired boy in a mod suit.
‘Take us to Rottingdean,’ said Meg.
‘You’d better hold on,’ said the boy to Emma. She put her arms around his waist as the moped moved forwards.
Twenty-Nine
Max looked at Sam.
‘Who’s Harry?’ he said.
‘Harry Payne. He’s the press photographer,’ said Sam. ‘I can’t quite believe it though. He seemed such a quiet bloke. Inoffensive.’
‘They’re always the ones,’ said Max. ‘To commit a crime you need to be able to fade into the background.’
‘We need to find Superintendent Stephens,’ said Sam. ‘Tell him what’s going on. He’ll have to send some men after Emma and Meg. They could be in danger.’
For all Max’s words to Emma, it was harder to find Edgar than to make a woman disappear. The promenade seemed to be full of policemen in white helmets but Edgar, who would be in plain clothes, was nowhere to be seen. Sam recognised a few people and they all claimed to have seen Superintendent Stephens ‘just a few minutes ago’. Eventually they found him, speaking to a group of officers by the entrance to the Palace Pier. Max could see the gypsy caravan in the background. Madame Astarte Zabini. Horoscopes. Tarot Readings. Genuine Romany Second Sight.
‘Max!’ said Edgar, looking up. ‘What are you doing here? Don’t you know that this is a war zone?’ He seemed tired but rather exhilarated, hatless, in shirtsleeves, a streak of dirt on his forehead. Max’s heart was wrung for him.
‘Ed,’ he said. ‘Something’s happened. It’s Marianne.’
‘What?’ Edgar was at his side immediately.
‘She’s been abducted by a man in a car. Emma’s on the trail of the man she thinks took her. They’ve gone to Rottingdean.’
‘Rottingdean? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘It’s Harry Payne, the photographer,’ said Sam. ‘We think he’s the one who’s been kidnapping the girls.’
‘What are you doing here?’ said Edgar, sounding angrier than Max had ever heard him. ‘Looking for a scoop? Bloody hell, you people are like vultures.’
‘Ed,’ said Max. ‘The important thing is to go after Emma. Can you get hold of a car?’
‘They’re all full of casualties.’ Edgar looked round. ‘O’Neill,’ he shouted. ‘Get me a panda car now.’ A thickset man detached himself from the group and set off towards Madeira Terrace. ‘Where’s DI Willis?’ said Edgar to another man. ‘Find him for me.’
‘I’m here, sir.’ Bob arrived, out of breath and as anxious-looking as ever. Well now, reflected Max, he had something to be anxious about. ‘I’ve had a message to ring Emma,’ said Bob.
‘Marianne’s been abducted,’ said Edgar. ‘I’m going to Rottingdean after Emma. You go to the house and wait for me there. O’Neill, you come with me.’
A panda car had drawn up. Edgar and the thickset man got in, leaving Max, Sam and Bob looking at each other while, behind them, a voice exhorted them to try the coconut shy on the pier.
It was the first time that Emma had been on the back of a moped and, at any other time, she might have enjoyed it. The wind flew through her hair as they passed Black Rock and Roedean, her old school high on the cliffs, as forbidding and impassive as ever. Emma now felt oddly numb. It was as if her brain had closed down, allowing her only room to breathe and to have one thought in her head. Find Marianne. Find Marianne. She thought of her daughter, the inquisitive tilt of her head, the way her nose wrinkled when she was thinking, the glorious softness of her cheek when Emma laid her face against hers. Marianne was Emma and Edgar’s first child and for two years, until Sophie was born, she had been the absolute centre of their world. They used to sit in the evenings and just stare at her, marvelling at the back of her neck as she bent over her toys. She would go to sleep in Edgar’s arms because neither of them could bear to put her in her cot. How different it was with Jonathan—sometimes Emma felt she only came alive in the rare moments during the day when he was asleep. Marianne claimed to remember those early years very well and said that she had never been that happy again. Certainly she had resented Sophie when she was born (such a funny, dark-haired little scrap, with none of Marianne’s cherubic beauty). Should they have made more of Marianne, told her more often that she was their adored eldest daughter, the light of their lives? If they found Marianne, when they found her, Emma would tell her this every day.
Emma thought of Marianne going round the field on Toby. Look at me, Mummy! She thought of Marianne prancing around the room on the day that Harry took the pictures, desperate to be noticed, of Marianne with her tutu over her pyjamas, the evening that Edgar and Emma had gone to the Grand for dinner with Max. And she remembered Mavis’s words, as she smiled indulgently over her knitting. ‘You look the spit of your mum.’ Emma had thought that she could lure the killer into action but she was too old, too faded, too much of a mother. But she had practically offered him her daughter on a silver tray.
They screeched around the St Dunstan’s roundabout, Emma now hanging on for dear life. She could see Meg in front, leaning in unison with Patrick, seeming completely at ease. But presumably riding on motorbikes was nothing new for the intrepid WPC Connolly.
Rottingdean High Street was deserted. It was midday on a Bank Holiday Monday, everyone was probably indoors eating lunch. The little village was only four miles from Brighton but it could be on a different planet. All the shops were
shut and the shutters were down outside The Smugglers’ Cave. On the doorbell though was a piece of paper saying, simply, ‘Payne’. Emma pressed so hard that her finger went white. Meg stepped back to see if she could see in the upstairs window.
‘I don’t think he’s in,’ she said.
‘Harry!’ shouted Emma. ‘Harry Payne! It’s the police.’
A first-floor window opened and a head appeared. It wasn’t Harry though, someone older and more authoritative.
‘What’s all this noise about?’ Then the man seemed to notice Meg. ‘Oh, it’s you. What do you want?’
‘Tony,’ said Meg. ‘We need to speak to Harry Payne urgently. Do you know where he is?’
‘He lives in the flat upstairs but I think he’s out.’
‘Have you got a key?’
The head withdrew and, a few seconds later, a tall man appeared at the door with a key fob in his hand. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a warrant,’ he said mildly.
‘It’s life or death,’ said Meg. She grabbed the key and ran up the stairs, two at a time, Emma on her heels.
The flat was small and smelt of vinegar and not-very-clean clothes. It seemed to consist just of a bed-sitting room with a sink and gas stove. Emma looked around wildly: the bed was unmade, there were fish and chip wrappers on the floor and about a month’s worth of the Argus on a small coffee table. Nowhere for anyone to hide.
‘Is this all there is?’ said Emma.
‘There must be a bathroom,’ said Meg, ‘or at least a toilet.’
She went out onto the landing and Emma heard doors opening and shutting.
Now You See Them Page 22