The Family Lie

by Jake Cross

  ‘Junction of Meadow Street,’ the responders finally announced. ‘Corsa’s pulled on to the kerb outside the Early Language Teaching Centre.’

  ‘Who does he know at that place?’ Miller asked. She looked at all three family members in turn, and three heads shook.

  ‘He’s waiting outside.’

  Numerous eyes bored into the radio in Miller’s hand.

  ‘IC1 male just exited. Both men in the car now. Heading northeast on Meadow again.’

  Nick had just met someone? Someone he’d planned to meet, using Josie’s phone? What did that mean?

  Bennet was on his phone and he reported to Miller: ‘You can order those responders away now. Second unit, plain clothes. Got him in sight.’

  Miller told the responders to back off. ‘Who’s the new guy?’

  Bennet told the room that an off-duty constable had been giving a lift home to a female mugging victim after his shift when he heard the radio call to base. Nearby, he swung in for a nosey, clocked the Corsa, started following. He was in contact with base by mobile.

  ‘Get him to call me.’

  Bennet relayed that order and Miller’s mobile rang a minute later. She introduced herself, asked the caller’s name and location. She put her phone on speaker and laid it on the coffee table.

  ‘Just tailed the Corsa east off the roundabout, four hundred metres along the A61. He’s… yeah, just taken a left.’

  ‘The driver isn’t to be stopped. And don’t get spotted. Keep reporting.’

  ‘He’s at Kelham Island, approaching the Fat Cat pub.’

  Bennet announced that he’d contacted another two teams of responders, now en route, moments away. Two cars, four officers.

  ‘Stopped outside a residential block near the Fat Cat. I’ve pulled in a hundred metres back. No movement, though. He’s just sitting there. There’s a guy in the passenger seat.’

  ‘Who does Nick know there? That area of the Kelham Island Quarter is an industrial zone. He’s picked someone up and now he seems to be awaiting something. What’s he doing there?’

  Because of Miller’s alien abrupt tone, it took Anna a moment to realise she was the target of those questions. Her answer to all: I don’t know. But her hopes that Josie could be found very soon were rising.

  ‘Some kind of works pick-up truck just arrived. Turning in. Yeah, it’s pulled up next to the target car.’

  The off-duty guy relayed the registration, and Bennet hauled his radio to get on to base for a trace. Everyone waited. A minute in:

  ‘IC1 male exited the pick-up. And a woman’s exited the residential block. McDonald’s uniform. Now they’re all out. Approaching her. Might be this woman… hang on.’

  ‘Nothing outstanding on the pick-up,’ Bennet announced. ‘Registered to Barker Land and Gardens. Nick’s old company. Waiting for info on that address.’

  Someone Nick worked with? She felt her heart rate go through the roof. A friend of Nick’s, which looked good. He would want people he knew to help if he—

  ‘It’s not the woman. They went past her. Inside the block of flats now. Looks like they waited for someone to open the security door.’

  Anna pushed away from the wall on legs covered in goosepimples, and took a step closer, towards that phone. If Nick was involved in the kidnap, he wouldn’t want Josie to be hurt, or uncomfortable, and so he would want his daughter to be in a nice place – like a flat in a residential block. And he would want to show her a known face here and there. She willed that radio to blast the air with good news.

  ‘Could this really be the end of it?’

  That question from Anna turned all heads. Jane moved towards her – ‘Annie, please, you shouldn’t listen to this, let me take you to the bedroom’ – but her reaching hands were pushed away – ‘I’m fine. It’s okay.’

  ‘Responder teams have just arrived,’ Bennet said. ‘Ready to go in. I’ve ordered radios on open.’

  ‘Two pandas just turned in. So this is something big. I’m off-duty, remember, but I want in. Are we taking this guy, or what? Can I ask what he’s done?’

  Across the radio waves, both mobile and radio, came shouting and thudding footsteps. Someone asked someone if they’d seen three men. Someone shouted, stairs. Someone else ordered someone to damn well get out of the way. The tinny screech of action sliced into Anna’s head like nails on a blackboard. Shouts of there he is and stop and that door, go made her legs feel weak. A door slammed. Someone ordered it kicked open. After that, the symphony of noise became too much to fathom beyond a wild mêlée, like a bar-room rumble. Cops tackling bad guys in a small room. She tried to tell herself that the ruckus constituted an endgame, like the final action scene in a movie, and that she would have Josie back in her arms soon. But when a fragile voice screamed, Help, terror overwhelmed her and she fled the room with Jane right behind her.

  Anna didn’t go for the bedroom, her safe haven, though: she went for the front door. Jane ordered her to stop. When Anna reached for the hook where they hung their keys and remembered that Nick had taken the car, she dropped to her knees and was unable to prevent a flood of despairing tears. Jane hugged her from behind.

  ‘Just for a moment there, I thought… I hoped Nick had taken our Josie.’

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Annie. Please.’

  Anna shrugged her off and got up. Angry – in part with herself for wild hope – she yanked open the door and stepped out. She could feel her neighbours staring through their windows, eager to know what was… ‘Going on?’ she yelled at the road. ‘Do you? Well, everything’s fine here. So go back to your TVs.’

  ‘Annie, no, please, come here.’

  Jane managed to drag her back inside, but caught her own head on the door and yelped. Anna immediately felt for her and forgot her own anguish. Look at the pain she was causing to those who loved her. She grabbed her sister and hugged hard, and spouted apologies.

  ‘False alarm.’

  Both sisters turned their heads at the voice, but only Anna saw the gloom on Miller’s face.

  ‘It seems Nick was just following a hunch. What you witnessed was Nick and a pair of friends breaking into the home of someone we’ve already questioned as a possible suspect. It’s over and he’s not hurt. No one is.’

  If Miller expected joy, she got a shock when Anna made a wailing sound. ‘Over?’ she yelled. ‘Was Josie there?’

  Jane tried to soothe her. Miller shook her head. ‘Sorry, dear, truly. Josie isn’t there. The man in that flat is someone we cleared of involvement quickly. Solid alibi.’

  ‘Then it’s not over, is it?’

  Strangely, she hated Nick in that moment, for giving her useless hope. For not being the man who took her daughter. Because the nightmare continued. Josie was still missing. And nobody knew where she was.

  ‘Thinking? What was I thinking? There were nearly thirteen hundred child abductions last year, and most of those were girls for sexual abuse. So have a guess what I was thinking?’

  Bennet had been sent to collect Nick. No explanation for the responders and the off-duty officer, who’d been left clueless after their prisoner was taken out of handcuffs, out of a police car, and whisked away in the DS’s vehicle.

  ‘You’re lucky you didn’t hit him. I’d feel quite bad arresting someone whose daughter got kidnapped.’

  ‘I haven’t hit anyone since I was at college. It was a scare. I just wanted to… I felt someone should talk to this guy, that’s all. So I did your job for you.’

  ‘We’ve already got people looking at all the registered sex offenders in the area.’ Bennet watched him in the rear-view mirror. ‘It was the first thing we did. This guy was cleared while you were still in the police station. How did you learn about him?’

  ‘Someone outed him at a neighbourhood meeting for something a few months back. Everyone around our way knows about him. And if you people told us more about what you’re doing, we wouldn’t be out here. But how do you know he’s clear?’

&n
bsp; ‘You’ll get information as soon as we get it, Nick. But you’re waiting on positive news that moves us forward, aren’t you? Not useless information like leads that went nowhere. In regard to the man back there, he has no car, no contacts, and every single one of his neighbours blanks him. He gets spat on in the street. It’s why he holes himself up in a secure residence. That’s the life some of these people live, once they’re burned. He was the only one you knew of?’

  ‘That’s not proof. Where was he last night? How do you know he hasn’t got a prepaid phone hidden?’

  ‘He’s on the sex offenders register. Every time there’s a report of some child being so much as flashed, we knock on that guy’s door. He’s been cleared. Trust me.’

  Nick scoffed. ‘This quick? How many of those sick bastards live within fifty miles of me? There were nearly ten thousand sexual assaults on girls under thirteen in 2018. That’s a lot of predators. You cleared them all already?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. But that guy’s cleared. We’re on it, okay? We’ve been playing at this police lark quite a while and we kind of know what we’re doing.’

  ‘How many others are there? Where are they?’

  ‘If you really want to know, call a station about the Disclosure scheme. I’m not about to tell you where these people live so you can go strong-arm every single one of them. What you did was wrong, and you could have got in serious trouble.’

  ‘Yes, that’s my biggest worry right now.’

  ‘Nick, all you did was sidetrack everyone for half an hour. And maybe caused some damage. Our door-knocking teams are being very secretive so word doesn’t spread, and you might have ruined that if you mentioned a missing child. What did you tell those two work colleagues who helped you?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I didn’t say my daughter was missing. I told them that sick bastard was spotted hanging around her school and needed to be informed what a bad idea that was.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Nick, I was told you accused your victim of taking her. So your vigilante friends have been arrested and we’ll have to keep them at the station for a good part of the day. To maintain their silence. We’ll see if you’re all still friends afterwards.’

  ‘My new biggest worry, of course.’

  ‘I don’t mean to moan at you, Nick. I just want you to let us do our jobs. Now, let’s go back to your house and wait for the next phone call. Your father-in-law has the money ready. And gargle some mouthwash or something before you talk to your wife.’

  Nick turned his head so he wouldn’t breathe more vodka fumes on the detective; he’d swigged from a bottle in the child molester’s house, and wasn’t even sure why – Dutch courage? He wished he had more. ‘And I’m sure her dad’s asked if his money will be insured. He’ll make us pay it back. What’s to stop these people just taking the money and killing my girl? I mean, how many kidnapped kids actually get returned? Are we supposed to just trust them?’

  ‘At the minute, that’s all we can do.’

  When Nick came back into the house, Anna was waiting at the door. They stood awkwardly, as if not sure whether to hug.

  ‘That was risky. Don’t do something like that again. I want you here, Nick. You stay with me, okay? We stay with each other until we get Josie back.’

  And then you’ll kick me out of the house, he wanted to say. But chose instead: ‘It’s about time someone did something. The police seem to be just sitting around.’

  ‘And attacking child molesters is the way to do things, is it?’

  Both of them turned their heads at the intrusive voice. It was DC Nabi, but they couldn’t see him. Then the toilet flushed, and he walked out.

  ‘What did you say?’ Nick hissed.

  But the detective walked away, shaking his head.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ Nick said.

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t like us. I don’t like him being here.’

  Nick said he needed water and went into the kitchen. He actually wanted alcohol, but stopped dead when he saw Middleton at the kitchen table, typing something on his BlackBerry while eating a McDonald’s burger. Unwilling to back away, he aimed for the sink and got a glass of water. Middleton ignored him until Nick was almost out the door.

  ‘You need to leave this for the police to sort out.’

  Not the scolding he’d expected. Reckless, but perhaps his beef with the known paedophile had shown Middleton that he cared deeply about his daughter. Or maybe Middleton sensed that he was still worked up and ready to fight. He continued his journey out of the kitchen.

  Bennet was at the living room doorway, also eating a McDonald’s burger. He jerked his head: come in. Nick entered, but Bennet left. Nobody else in the living room, but through the room divider he could see Anna and Miller sitting at the dining table. He went there. There were three McDonald’s bags full of meal trash, as if someone had gone out to fetch food for the detectives.

  Miller got out of her chair as he appeared and indicated he should sit. Her eyes were droopy with tiredness. ‘It’s time I gave you both an update. Sit, please, Nick.’

  Nick sat. He suspected that Bennet had relayed Nick’s frustration that not enough news was being shared.

  ‘First, we’ve spoken to your former colleague at Barker Land and Gardens, the one who was driving your old van in Sunderland yesterday afternoon. He’s clear, that chap. The Sunderland clue was nothing but a coincidence.’

  Nick almost asked if they’d spoken to the school receptionist, who was from Sunderland. But that was just a coincidence, too. He simply nodded. Miller stood behind the couple, leaning between them to work the laptop. He caught her body odour.

  The laptop showed a map of central England, focussing on Sheffield. Then a switch of Windows displayed a photograph of a littered, pockmarked road, something left to rot, and a grass verge before lock-up garages, one of which was cordoned off by police tape. Nick recognised where the police had found him. As Miller spoke, she cycled through various photographs of the area, some wide, to give perspective, others close, including of the bare interior, and then a close-up of the grass verge out front of it, and a close-up of one side of the metal doorframe.

  ‘Alfredon Lane, near Meadowhall, a couple of miles from here. The lock-up where you were found. Your phone, Nick, it was tracked by a cell tower near these garages not long before that text message was sent, and again not long afterwards. Now, no signal. We found tyre tracks in the grass. Not wide enough to be a van.’

  ‘They swapped vehicles?’ Nick said. ‘Into a car. So where is the van?’

  ‘We don’t know. Not at the site, though.’

  ‘So Josie might still be in the van?’

  ‘I don’t think so. These people can control their routes and locations to avoid CCTV, but not here, not around your house. It’s the danger zone. The van could be compromised. It’s probably why they swapped it so quickly. I expect to find that van a smouldering wreck some time soon. But here, look, we think the car scraped along the side of the garage doorframe as it left. We found green paint.’

  ‘So, the contact and exchange principle,’ Nick said. ‘So you can do a solvent test to match it when you find the car.’

  A child doing applied mathematics wouldn’t have got such a surprised look. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘You police like to let TV companies film your investigations. You give up all your tricks—’

  ‘Just tell us what you know,’ Anna said, visibly upset and clearly impatient.

  ‘I’m sorry, dear, of course, yes.’ She hit the keyboard, pulling up a still from a high CCTV camera covering a garage forecourt. A car barely visible on a portion of the main road at the top of the screen had been circled in electronic ink. ‘A631, heading south. We reckon this is the car. There’s another camera later, further into Brinsworth, but we don’t see the car on that camera. It might have stopped somewhere between.’

  ‘Josie is being held in Brinsworth?’ Anna said. ‘That’s only a few miles away.’

&nb
sp; ‘It could have turned off a side road. Or they could have swapped vehicles. They swapped from a van to this green Volkswagen Passat, so maybe they swapped again. Please, let’s not assume anything until we know.’

  ‘A Passat? So you know which kind of car. Are you tracing Passats?’

  ‘Of course, yes. Yes. Now take a peek at these.’

  Anna grabbed Miller’s wrist, preventing her from working the keyboard. ‘But have you searched Brinsworth for this car? There can’t be many green Passats there.’

  ‘There are none seen so far, dear. Sorry. We’ve driven the area. We’re still looking, but it takes time. Now have a look here. Do you recognise anyone?’

  Four photographs. Four police mugshots. Three men and one woman, each of whom was registered as owning a Volkswagen Passat, and a criminal record.

  ‘You said the first caller was a woman pretending to be a man, for whatever reason,’ Anna said, jabbing the mugshot of the sole female. ‘Is it her? Have you arrested her?’

  ‘They would have already said, wouldn’t they?’ Nick said. A little too harshly.

  DCI Miller jumped in: the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency had provided details of current Passat owners, but these four were the only owners from South Yorkshire with criminal records. There was the whole country to check. Not all Passat owners would be in police files. Some cars might have been sold on or scrapped without paperwork being updated. These searches would take time. And although they had no such reports so far, it was likely that the target Passat was stolen, which would make all owner traces useless. No good news yet, in other words. Did they recognise any of the faces?