‘Have you found her?’ she asked, fearing the worst.
Gillard shook his head. ‘There was a 999 call at around half past eight, from Trish, saying that a man had driven away in Sam’s car.’
One of the uniforms, a sergeant with a moustache, took up the story. ‘Mrs Gibson rang in at 8.27 p.m., apparently from her vehicle, saying that she had decided to follow the stolen vehicle. She described seeing the man close the garage door, he was tall and of a muscular build, wearing a bulky car coat and a ski mask…’
‘That’s the same man!’ Claire said. ‘The one who tried to run you down.’
‘I think he’s got Sam,’ Gillard said. ‘She doesn’t keep her car in the garage. So the only reason it would be seen driving out of there is if he had reversed it in to load…’ His voice cracked. ‘…her into the back unseen.’
‘Oh, Craig,’ she rushed forward to embrace him, ignoring the presence of the two officers.
‘CSI are on their way, ma’am. We’ve got an alert right across London and the Home Counties.’
Craig had already told her about discovering the earring. Since their phone conversation he said he had found a clump of Sam’s hair trapped low in the hinge of the door into the garage. ‘I’ve taken a peek, and there doesn’t seem to be anything obvious, but I thought I’d await CSI rather than step inside.’ He looked around at his home, as if seeing it for the first time. ‘I’ll need somewhere to stay…’
‘Of course, Craig, you can stay with us.’ She turned to the two uniforms. ‘Is there any news on Craig’s aunt, Mrs Gibson? Any ANPR hits? Any further phone messages from her?’
‘Yes, one further phone message to say she was pursuing Mrs Gillard’s car on the A217 heading towards Sutton,’ the sergeant said. ‘Unfortunately, the call handler asked her to confirm that she was using a hands-free phone, otherwise she would be committing an offence. At that point Mrs Gibson swore at her and then hung up. We’ve heard nothing since, but do have two ANPR hits which correspond to a northbound A217 camera.’
The uniformed constable was on the radio to the control room, the very place where Sam had been working until earlier that evening. Squawks and crackles filled the hallway, but the laconic message being relayed by the female call handler was clear enough. A vehicle had been found in a back road off the A217, a gravely injured female inside. Two patrol cars, the fire service and paramedics were on the scene. CSI was due to arrive shortly.
Gillard’s eyes widened. ‘Which vehicle? Is there a description?’
The constable on the radio asked for confirmation of vehicle make or registration number, but was told none was available yet. ‘I’ll get right on it,’ she said.
The arrival of a white van and another patrol vehicle filled the hallway with the glare of headlamps. ‘Come on Craig,’ Claire said. ‘CSI is here. You can’t do anything but get in the way. I’m taking you back home to Staines.’
‘Not until I’ve seen that crashed car.’
She could see the set of his jaw. ‘Okay, Craig. We’ll go there first.’
* * *
She wouldn’t let him drive. Claire took Gillard’s unmarked Vauxhall, allowing her to blue-light it the eight miles to the country lane where the vehicles had been found. During the journey Gillard worked his phone, chasing every little detail of the unfolding incident. The first confirmation came quite quickly that it was Trish’s Ford Ranger that had been discovered, but it took arrival at the scene to take in the full horror of what had happened.
Such was the press of emergency service vehicles close to the little church of St Botolph’s in Banstead that Claire parked 200 yards away, intending to walk. But the moment they stopped Gillard jumped out and hurried up towards the blue crime tape, and the big blue SUV, doors open, just by the lychgate of the churchyard. White Tyvek-suited figures lit by powerful floodlights were busy inside. Bloodstains could be seen on the seat. Claire found her boss by an ambulance, where the crew were in the process of confirming to him that it was an elderly lady who had been inside the car and was now in hospital.
‘She’s sustained severe head injuries,’ one of the paramedics volunteered. ‘I’ve just been on the phone to intensive care. She’s in a coma, with a bleed on the brain. I’m sorry, but the registrar says the prognosis isn’t good.’
Claire took Gillard’s arm. He had no coat or jacket, no lanyard for ID, and was still dressed in his white shirt and dark work trousers, his tie askew. He looked ashen, as if in shock. But her attempts to restrain him were futile. He marched on towards his aunt’s vehicle, recognising one of the CSI technicians, Kirsty Mockett, the girlfriend of Research Intelligence Officer Rob Townsend.
Claire listened in as Kirsty described what seemed to be a savage attack against Gillard’s aunt. ‘I don’t think she stood a chance,’ Kirsty said.
‘Are there any eyewitnesses?’ Gillard asked.
‘Uniforms are doing door-to-door, but no houses look out just here,’ Kirsty said.
Gillard looked around, eyes swivelling crazily, as if there would be evidence ripe for the plucking if only he could spot it. ‘Look for tyre tracks for Sam’s car. She had Michelin radials, front left replaced just three months ago. Look out for her other earring, a tiny butterfly. She lost the first one in the house.’ He barked out another half-dozen pieces of forensic advice to the young CSI, who merely blinked.
‘Come on, Craig,’ Claire said, taking him gently by the arm. ‘Don’t try to do everybody’s job. We need you calm, well slept and focused tomorrow, because there are certain things that only you can tell us. For tonight, there is nothing more you can do.’
He nodded, accepting the advice.
‘I’m sorry about your aunt,’ Claire said. ‘I know you are no great fan of hers, to put it mildly, but she has put her life on the line to save Sam. That’s redemption, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, she has done us all proud.’ He blinked and seemed to be reassessing his least favourite relative. Eventually he emerged from his reverie, and steepled his hands either side of his nose. ‘I can’t sleep, Claire, not knowing where Sam is. There has got to be something I should be doing, because every minute counts. I just don’t know what.’
Friday
Gillard awoke with the dawn chorus in an unfamiliar bedroom. It was 5.17. a.m. A loudly ticking clock metronomed his anxiety, as if counting down the time available to find Sam. The alarm he had set last night was not due for another hour, but he flicked on the light anyway. Claire had shunted out her eldest son to his girlfriend’s place, to make room for him. The posters on the walls were hardly reassuring, dead-eyed skeletal zombies wielding knives above the name of the latest computer game in which they featured.
He grabbed at his phone, a lifeline to hope. He’d been copied in on every development. Trish had undergone an emergency operation to relieve the pressure in her brain, but was still in a coma. Elsewhere there wasn’t much to learn. Sam’s black Renault hadn’t triggered a single ANPR camera since ten p.m. It had just disappeared, much like the Mitsubishi Warrior. He wasn’t hugely surprised. Surrey had an enormous network of tiny back lanes, many of them ancient, even within the great encircling loop of the M25. Those who could read a map could easily navigate a way anywhere within the county without having to use motorways or dual carriageways. He flicked back through all the emails and official notifications going back to the moment that Sam’s car was first reported missing. Then he went through his voicemail, which included many messages of support and encouragement both from his colleagues, and those who worked with Sam in the control room.
He found it too upsetting to listen to them all, and decided to use his energy in a more practical fashion. He shrugged on the borrowed bathrobe, and padded off to the bathroom. The heating hadn’t kicked in yet, and the water was cold, but he welcomed the invigorating chill as he splashed his face. Claire had manhandled him out of his home so fast he had neither a change of clothes, nor any toiletries. She had left for him a new toothbrush, and a deodorant. T
hat was all he needed. He couldn’t quite face a cold-water shave, and dressed hurriedly into last night’s clothes.
Trying not to wake anyone, he padded carefully down the stairs, but on his way into the kitchen ran into Dexter, Claire’s boisterous and waist-high Irish wolfhound. The dog eyed him suspiciously, presumably half remembering the smell from previous encounters years ago, but unsure why someone who was almost a stranger should be sneaking about his mistress’s home in the twilight. A low growl confirmed the animal’s concerns. The detective’s whispered hello and attempt to stroke his head engendered only a raucous bark. A half minute stand-off ended with a sleepy shout from upstairs from Claire, telling Dexter to behave. The wolfhound would have none of it, so Gillard abandoned his plans to leave a thank you note in the kitchen, simply scooping up his keys and racing for the door.
The first blush of dawn was searing a slatey horizon as Gillard fired up the Vauxhall and roared off to Mount Browne. The traffic would be light, and with luck he could be there in just over half an hour. He realised that with Claire’s car at his home, she would be a bit stuck about getting to work. Husband Baz would hopefully be able to give her a lift. For now, he had consideration for just one person: Sam. Where on earth was she, and who had taken her?
Running through the radio for something to distract him, Gillard stumbled across Radio 3. He wasn’t quite in the mood, but nevertheless heard a snatch of some rather enticing violin piece. It made him think of poor Beatrice Ulbricht. A disappearance, dwindling hopes, and a dead body at the end of it.
His eyes pricked with tears as he considered the same fate for his own dear wife. He was approaching the slip road for the M25. Angrily, he flailed for a different channel, and found something with heavy metal. ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC. As the bass drum beat kicked in, he squeezed the accelerator the last half inch, hit the blue lights and blasted down into the fast lane.
He would save her if it took every atom of his being.
* * *
Mount Browne seemed almost deserted when he burst in. No ID, no jacket, no shave. He was lucky that the receptionist was an old buddy, Tony Williams, who had heard the story. He tossed Gillard a spare pass card, and told him that he’d fill in the paperwork himself. Like a man possessed, Gillard strode through the empty corridors and into the incident room. Michelle Tsu and Rainy Macintosh were both there, scouring every report of abandoned vehicles, car thefts and ANPR hits.
Gillard returned their greetings, and sat down at Carl Hoskins’ crumb-flecked desk. There were two terminals side-by-side, and he wanted them both. He was going to search the police national computer for every person who could hate him enough to do this. It was often slow, so while one search was clunking through, he could try another.
Those same dozen or so names had been circulating in his head in the middle of the night, but now he wanted to close down the unlikeliest so he could concentrate on the possibles.
Charles Allerdyce: Lincoln, four years to run on his sentence.
Paddy Kincaid: Winson Green, another nine.
Ronnie Evans: out since 2016. Out? He hadn’t expected that. Evans was a drug smuggler, and very nasty. He’d done some early time for car theft too, which helped tick a box. The only trouble was, he was a lanky individual; there was no way he matched the description of the man in the car coat, now verified by three witnesses: himself, Trish and the bloke who had tried to stop him stealing his Mitsubishi Warrior. No, it couldn’t be Ronnie. At least not just Ronnie. Maybe there were two Ronnies? He smiled at his own joke, the first smile in many hours.
Sam Akos. Well, he was out, but he was black, a huge Ghanaian. Wearing white face under his ski mask would be an interesting disguise. It seemed wrong. Gillard looked through Akos’ record. He was six four. Car coat man was perhaps six one, max.
Skin tones and body shape seemed to rule out another half-dozen drug dealers, organised crime operatives and general lowlifes. Colin Ellis, a double murderer who was definitely out on licence, looked promising. He was the right build, and he was certainly physically capable. But he had spent the entire Internet revolution inside, was probably a bit too old, and wasn’t the brightest spark in the first place. Gillard couldn’t imagine Ellis working out how to send a delayed text message. Posting a letter was probably his limit, so long as someone wrote it for him.
That left Rodney Wells, who was an international fugitive last seen on the Costa del Crime. Wells was certainly smart, and elusive. But why would he come back to Britain? Then he considered those who didn’t have a criminal record. There were a couple of travellers who had made threats against Gillard’s ‘children’ a few years ago after he had arrested them for stealing quad bikes. The two men were unaware that the detective was childless when they claimed to know where his kids went to school.
All in all, it just didn’t seem a very promising crop of possibilities. So perhaps it was someone he didn’t know.
* * *
Detective Inspector John Perry had needed something to keep his mind off the state of his marriage. So he tracked down the man in charge of the original Jane Morris case. Retired Detective Superintendent Wilfred Mottram lived pretty close to the scene of the abduction in South London, just half a mile south in one of the big double-fronted Victorian houses on Bedford Hill, near Tooting Bec Common. The man who answered the door was a Ronnie Kray lookalike, in his late sixties, a sizeable slab of a bloke, with tinted glasses and a big pockmarked face. Mottram led Perry down a hallway past stacks of cardboard boxes through to the conservatory at the back of the house. There were more boxes here, with Samsung and lesser-known electronic brands emblazoned over them.
Seeing Perry’s gaze, Mottram volunteered: ‘It’s my post-retirement business. I buy in mobiles in bulk, and sell them on eBay and other online marketplaces.’ They chatted about the rise of the delivery economy, until the detective inspector decided they’d had enough small talk to lubricate the more serious questions.
‘So as I said on the phone, I’ve come to ask you about the Jane Morris case.’
Mottram remembered the case very well. Over tea and jaffa cakes he relayed to the younger man the difficulties that they’d had.
‘The governor wanted a quick result. We must’ve interviewed five hundred West Indians looking for the guy with the T-shirt. That created a lot of resentment in the local community, which even then had quite a high ethnic population.’
‘What about Harold Garrison, the uncle?’
‘I interviewed him a few times. He was gutted, as befits a fishmonger. Very fond of Jane he was. Frank and Eileen only had the one child, and to lose her like this. Well.’ He shook his head.
‘Was it just a stall he ran at the market?’
‘No, a proper shop. Shellfish, mainly. The old days of jellied eels, cockles, whelks. The old London food. Of course these days, it’s all ciabatta, gnocchi and fucking avocado. The Hildreth Street market has been gentrified to death. Most of the old stallholders and shopkeepers have long gone. Even the halal butchers. The only one I recognise these days is the West Indian hairdresser’s which has been there decades.’
‘Did you ever visit his fish shop? Did it have a big deep-freeze?’
‘Don’t remember. I suppose he must’ve had one, in his line of business. He closed the shop a year or two after her death, and moved away.’
‘Still in the fish business, was he?’
‘No idea. I was moved on to other cases by then.’
Perry had been keeping his trump card for the end of the interview. ‘I can tell you now, that we found Jane’s body floating in a river in Surrey just a few days ago.’
‘You’re kidding me.’ His jaw hung open, revealing tiny white flecks of saliva at the corners of his mouth.
‘I’ve got some photographs,’ Perry said, getting his iPad out.
‘Go on then,’ Mottram said, switching his specs to a half-moon pair. ‘I don’t imagine I’d recognise her after all this time.’
‘I think you wil
l,’ Perry said. He flashed up the image that had been taken in the mortuary, while she was still wearing the skirt and cardigan she had worn on the day she disappeared.
‘Nah, that must be an old photo,’ Mottram said. ‘It’s exactly the same apart from her hair.’
‘That photograph was taken four days ago. The post-mortem showed she has spent the last thirty-seven years frozen solid.’
Mottram blinked, and removed his spectacles to wipe his eyes. ‘Oh Jesus, it’s like time has stood still.’
Perry looked at this big powerful man, and then a few thoughts dropped like coins into his mind: Mottram is the right age to have killed Jane Morris, and even today could still have overpowered Beatrice Ulbricht too. Maybe a bit too unfit to have chased Gillard up a hillside, but the combination of police experience and electronics expertise might give him the forensic nous that their killer had shown. The hairs on the back of the detective’s neck stood up. He didn’t like Mottram, and he didn’t trust him.
* * *
Friday afternoon saw DI Perry sitting in the cavernous and poorly lit basement of Tooting Police Station in South London. He was looking up the original interview notes from 1982 with Jane Morris’ uncle Harold Garrison, and much else besides. There was a huge archive of historic police records kept down there, culled from the various local police stations which over the years had gradually closed. Much of it had been put on microfiche, the favourite archiving system of the immediately pre-computer era, but one that had now been superseded. The librarian had shown Perry how to manoeuvre the lens over the dark blue sheets of microfiche on the light box’s glass plate to get the correct part underneath the magnifying glass, which then projected it onto the large screen, which was very much like a computer monitor. After a few minutes he got the hang of it, and was able to whizz from one sheet of evidence to another. The construction of a misdirected investigation was quite easy to uncover from this perspective.
The Body Under the Bridge Page 15