Three people sat amid the chaos: a small, smiley woman with blue hair, a younger man – whom Lockhart recognised from his photo on Smith’s Paxford whiteboard – swathed in a huge jacket – and a well-dressed, middle-aged woman with a sleek blonde bob who studied Lockhart with an expression of curiosity.
‘Kieran Meade?’ he asked, turning towards the man. But the older woman spoke before Meade could answer.
‘Thanks for coming, Inspector. I’m Susanna Chalmers, the director.’ She touched her chest but didn’t get up, and Lockhart briefly wondered whether people would ever go back to shaking hands. ‘Was Detective Sergeant Smith?…’
‘Unavailable.’ He didn’t say why. Digging around in a hedge didn’t sound like the most convincing excuse, even if it was true: Smith’s project to find Charley’s mobile. ‘Sends her apologies.’
‘Right. Well, thank you for visiting.’
‘Sure.’ He scanned the interior briefly. ‘You worked with Charley Mullins, I’m told.’
‘That’s correct,’ she replied. ‘Well, Kieran was her case manager. We thought it was important to contact you when we realised that.’ She glanced over at Meade. ‘Just sorry we didn’t get in touch sooner.’
‘Appreciate it,’ Lockhart said.
Chalmers gave him a half-smile and held his gaze a little too long. He turned back to Meade and asked if he could have a few words.
‘Take a seat,’ said Meade, gesturing to a battered folding chair. Lockhart pulled it across to Meade’s desk and sat. On the wall, directly behind the young man, was a poster for a drugs helpline. It made Lockhart think of the MDMA from last night, as well as the ketamine traces found in Donovan’s body.
‘Can you tell me a bit about your work with Charley, please?’
Meade fiddled with a cross on a neck chain. Lockhart stared at it as the young man began talking. He was thinking about the religious belief aspects of Green’s offender profile.
‘It was about six months ago,’ said Meade. ‘Not sure how she got our details, but I didn’t think it was a self-referral.’
‘You don’t ask?’
‘Nope.’
‘We respect the young person’s confidentiality,’ Chalmers added from across the room. ‘Many of them reach out to us from extremely disadvantaged circumstances, and we’ve learned that the best way to engage them is not to insist they disclose anything to us as a condition of accessing our services.’
‘I see.’ Lockhart returned his attention to Meade. ‘Go on, Kieran.’
‘Er, so, she visited, we chatted through a couple things. She wanted to do more stuff, make more friends.’
‘How many times did she visit?’
He shrugged. ‘Three, four. Not a lot. She wasn’t a regular. There are some kids who drop in and out like that.’
Lockhart had a basic idea from Smith what the charity did. ‘So, you linked her in with a few things where she might meet people?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’ll need a list of those places, please.’
‘Yeah…’ Meade lifted up some scrappy handwritten notes. ‘Our IT was down back then, so it’s just paper copies.’
‘Better than nothing. What did she get involved in?’
The young man flicked through a couple of the pages, nodded to himself. ‘There was a bursary for a film-making course. She went to, like, one session, maybe two, then disengaged. It’s a shame, you know, because those courses cost a lot.’
Meade sounded slightly detached and Lockhart wondered if he thought it was also a shame that this same young woman was dead. Whether he cared more about the lost money than the lost life. The charity worker went on to describe a conversation with Charley in which she’d told him about her dream to be a fashion vlogger. Lockhart asked a few more questions about her involvement with Youth Rise Up before making his move.
‘This is just a routine question, Kieran, but could you tell me where you were on the following nights, please?’ Lockhart listed the dates of Donovan’s and Charley’s murders and when they were posed in the churches.
Meade shrugged. ‘Probably either at home, or here.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘Ah…’
Lockhart turned to Chalmers on the other side of the room.
She shook her head. ‘I tend to leave here pretty promptly at five every day,’ she said. ‘My mother’s in a care home, so…’
‘Let me see what was in the diary.’ Meade pulled open a desk drawer, rummaged inside and placed some things on his desk. Lockhart was dimly aware of him flicking through the pages of a book he’d extracted. But his attention was mainly on the other objects Meade had removed from his drawer. Among the stationery, a pile of leaflets and two mugs lay something else that had caught his eye.
A flat cap.
Saturday
16th January
Sixty-One
Green Monkey in Tooting was one of Lexi’s favourite local spots. Saturday brunch here was a treat and, as eating out went, it was also a whole lot cheaper than dinner in a restaurant. She was steadily working her way through the menu with each visit and, so far, hadn’t found a dish she didn’t like.
The cosy little café-deli was almost exactly halfway between her home and the CrossFit gym, where she’d just done a barbell class. Her back, shoulders and quads hummed with that satisfying post-workout ache, and she couldn’t wait to refuel with the sweet potato, chorizo and egg hash she’d already chosen.
Sarah had joined her, coming straight from a yoga class, and the two of them were still in their sports gear, warming their hands with cups of coffee.
‘So… when did he say he’d be here?’ Sarah’s eyes flicked from the menu to the empty seat at their table, then to Lexi.
She checked the time on her phone. Tim was supposed to have been here at eleven. ‘Twenty minutes ago.’
‘Has he texted?’
‘No.’ Lexi tapped her PIN once more, glanced at her screen just to be sure. ‘Probably just transport or something.’
‘Hm. It’s just, I’m really hungry, Lex, and, you know…’
‘Yeah, me too. OK, I’ll call him.’
She dialled Tim’s number, but he didn’t pick up, and the call went to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message.
‘I guess we should just order,’ Lexi said.
‘Yay!’ Sarah clapped her hands and checked the menu again. ‘I mean, I like Tim and everything, but…’ she pushed out her lips, ‘don’t be making me wait for my breakfast, is all I’m saying.’
Lexi laughed. ‘I get that. Let’s do it. He can grab some food when he gets here.’
They put their orders in and came back to the table. Sarah pulled the hood of her sweatshirt tighter around her neck and chewed on the drawstring, her face pensive.
‘So, does he do this a lot?’
‘What? Be late?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Not a lot, but…’
‘Enough times.’
‘Right.’
Sarah shuffled her chair closer to the table. ‘You talked to him about it? I mean, it’s like, if a guy’s always late, what does that say about how much he values your time? You deserve better than that, Lex.’
‘I know. It’s not cool.’ She paused. ‘He’s got some stuff going on right now, though.’
‘What stuff?’
Lexi spun her coffee cup in its saucer. ‘Uh, there’s like, some family issues that he told me about.’
‘Shit. Is he OK?’
‘I think so. I don’t know.’
‘Is he not telling you much about it?’ Sarah sucked her teeth. ‘Typical man.’
‘He has, it’s just… maybe I’ve not had enough brain space to listen. What with my dad and all.’
Sarah asked how Lexi’s dad was doing with his Covid-19 symptoms. There wasn’t much good news to share. His cough was getting worse, but he was still playing everything down. They had another video call scheduled tonight.
It wasn’t long
before their dishes arrived, and there was still no sign of Tim. They began to eat, and Lexi realised how hungry she was. The food was delicious and she pretty much inhaled it.
‘You wanna another coffee?’ she asked.
Sarah checked her phone. ‘I’d love to, but I gotta run. Mo’s driving me to IKEA.’
‘Mo?’
‘Yeah.’ A broad grin broke across Sarah’s face. ‘What?’
‘Is there something going on with you two?’
‘No! He’s our housemate, in case you’d forgotten.’
Lexi held up her hands. ‘Hey, just asking…’
‘I need a couple of things from there; he’s borrowed a car…’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘He offered.’
‘Sure.’ Lexi shook her head, smiling too. ‘Whatever.’
‘Anyway, so what if I think he’s hot? Don’t you?’
‘I’m not looking.’
Sarah burst out laughing. ‘Come on!’
‘OK, he’s cute. Just a little young for me.’
‘Oh yeah? That’s right.’ Sarah prodded her in the arm. ‘You like slightly older men.’
‘I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You know exactly who I mean.’ Sarah chuckled and picked up her yoga mat. ‘All right, I’m off. You coming back to the house?’
‘No.’ Lexi sighed. ‘I’ll wait a little longer.’
‘OK. See you in a bit, yeah?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Sarah stood to leave. ‘Sorry about Tim not turning up. He’s a dick.’
‘Hm.’ Lexi wasn’t about to argue. He could at least have let her know if something was up or if he couldn’t make it anymore. She didn’t imagine Dan would do that. He was a whole lot more reliable. A man who, for all the trauma he’d been through, still had his shit together. The thought was broken by Sarah leaning in and hugging her.
‘See ya, hun.’
‘Later. Enjoy your shopping trip.’
‘I’ll bring you back some meatballs,’ Sarah called over her shoulder as she headed out.
Lexi got herself another coffee. She’d given up waiting for Tim, but this was a good opportunity to do something she’d already been thinking about for a few days. Researching him a little more. Doing some checks she should perhaps have done a while ago.
She and Tim followed each other on Instagram, so her first step was to check his posts, going back before they met. There wasn’t a whole lot of interest, though. He mainly seemed to enjoy putting up images of nature – woods, fields, landscapes – and pictures of his running club. Scattered among these were occasional photos of school events, and Lexi could see that Tim had been careful not to show any of the students’ faces. The posts only went back to 2016, so she guessed he hadn’t had an account prior to that.
There had to be something more.
Lexi tried to push aside the feeling of guilt at stalking her own boyfriend online as she brought up Facebook. She and Tim had never connected on the platform; she didn’t use it much these days, and Tim had never mentioned it. But, after a little digging, she found an account that, from the dozen or more Tim McKay hits, had to be his. The profile photo wasn’t totally clear in thumbnail, but when she enlarged it, the figure standing on a hillside, arms spread wide, was recognisably him.
There didn’t appear to have been any activity on the account for more than four years. Maybe he’d just stopped using it, much like her. She went into the photos and was amazed to see he hadn’t locked them down. His hair was a little longer and he had a kind of scruffy stubble that looked cute. There was something of the hot surfer dude about him and it struck Lexi how much he must have changed. She scrolled down, going back another year, then two, but there weren’t many other people in the images, until she hit 2013. Tim would’ve been in his early twenties, barely out of college. Here, his hair was short and neat, he was clean-shaven, and his face was fresh and smiley. But the most striking thing was all the people.
Tim had routinely posted – or been tagged in – images with dozens of people in them. Hugging, holding hands, and doing what looked like singing and dancing together. As she studied more of the images, it dawned on her: this was some kind of church. The confirmation came when, in 2011, she found a photo whose caption described Tim’s baptism in a local swimming pool. Head bent over the table, she stared at the picture of him draped in a towel, wet hair plastered to his head, hugging an older man who was maybe the priest or something.
This was weird. Tim had never once mentioned religious faith to her. Sure, he’d hidden the stuff about his family, but that was different, because—
‘What are you doing?’
Lexi’s head jerked up at the voice. Suddenly, her mouth went dry. Nearly an hour late, and with no communication, here he was.
‘Tim.’
Sixty-Two
Lucy Berry stared at the small, framed photograph on her desk. The picture showed Mark, Pip and Kate huddled together on a beach during a holiday in Devon last summer. Sunlight, sand and smiles. Her love for her family was so strong it almost seemed to make her heart ache. And she felt awful that she wasn’t giving them the attention they deserved.
She’d passed up on their usual Saturday morning swimming session together to come into the office and continue working on the missing persons data. Or to be more precise, the missing children data. Lucy reminded herself that this was exactly why she was sacrificing time with her own family; to help children who didn’t necessarily have anyone to take care of them. Children who hadn’t been as lucky as Pip and Kate.
Children no one else was looking for.
She’d finished running the Merlin report queries for all the names on Marshall’s list of anomalous missing adolescents picked out by his computer programme. The reason it had taken so long was the sheer quantity of contact these young people had had with the police.
Nearly two-thirds of them had witnessed crime in their homes or become known to the police through reports of crime by their family members, usually their fathers. Almost another third had been arrested or received cautions for their own criminal activity. In fact, only a handful hadn’t featured in a Merlin report. Lucy wondered if that was simply because the crimes that had affected them hadn’t been reported.
She went back to her phone and re-read Marshall Hanlon’s last text. The PhD student had messaged her twice yesterday, asking how she was getting on with accessing Social Services’ records, and whether she’d be able to supply that data to him. She knew it would be illegal to obtain and share the information without proper consent, particularly if combining it with other sensitive data like police records.
And, yet, a nagging feeling told her that this was the missing piece of the puzzle. If she and Marshall could put all that together with his algorithm for spotting patterns and anomalies, she was confident that they’d find out what linked these children. Potentially more than three hundred of them, spanning two decades.
Did that make it OK?
Hand on her computer mouse, she guided the cursor across her desktop to the Social Services portal icon. The police had access to the records for safeguarding purposes. The information she needed was all in here, downloadable in a matter of minutes. She could have it formatted and sent to Marshall via a cloud drive in half an hour, tops.
She clicked into the portal.
Asked for her login, she got a sudden spike of anxiety. This could be traced back to her. Maybe she should run it all by Dan first, see what he said… But she knew what he’d say about her getting the bulk data. Possibly important. Probably interesting. Definitely illegal. Dan wasn’t one to hold back on bending or even breaking rules when there were lives at risk. But here, with some young people who’d already been missing for years, was it justified?
Lucy knew that her boss, perhaps more than anyone, understood how important it was to keep people who had disappeared alive in your memory, not to give up on looking for them. But even he would know that, under current data regul
ations, they could both stand to lose their jobs if she did this and it was discovered.
If it was discovered.
She shut the portal down and sat back in her chair. Looked at the photo of her laughing, happy children. Her husband, wrapping them both in a hug, protecting them.
There had to be another way to do this.
She just couldn’t think of one.
Sunday
17th January
Sixty-Three
Lockhart watched through the binoculars as the older man crossed the deck of the small fishing trawler and disappeared from view inside its cabin. He checked his phone again, scrutinising the image he’d found of Jonah Tharpe. An article from a couple of years ago, on the website of a local paper, contained Tharpe’s picture as part of a feature about family businesses in Whitstable. Standing in front of his nearby shop in apron and wellies, proudly cradling a massive dead fish. Lockhart was pretty sure he was looking at the same guy now.
His gaze wandered over the other shops featured in the piece, all with their family owners outside. A butcher’s, a hair salon, a restaurant… Then something hit him.
Lockhart went back to his gallery and pulled up the photo he’d taken of the Nick-and-Jess selfie. Enlarged it on the screen. Behind them was some distinctive gold lettering above a doorway. He couldn’t make it out, but it looked very similar to the restaurant exterior in the newspaper article. Chances were, it was the same place. But Jess hadn’t been to Whitstable with Nick for years, not since they were teenagers. Not that he knew about, at least.
His wife could’ve gone there with her brother while Lockhart was on overseas duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, of course. But that was the sort of thing she’d have told him about during their weekly call. And she’d never mentioned it. He thought about the fact that she looked a little older, too, though the image quality meant he couldn’t be certain about that. Was there even a vague possibility that this photo was taken after she disappeared? Could it tie to the sightings of her in Whitstable, around two years ago? Lockhart’s suspicions that his brother-in-law knew more than he was letting on had just grown. For now, though, he had good reason to focus on Tharpe.
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