by Rob Roughley
She nodded and straightened her shoulders, trying to regain control of her fragile emotions.
‘Now what time did she leave for the party?’ he asked.
‘Half past seven, she’d arranged to go with two girlfriends and the van picked her up at the end of the drive.’
Lasser leaned forward, the chair sunk three inches. ‘Van?’
She blinked as if suddenly realising he was there. ‘The camper van, I mean, Jonathan arranged the transport. Kelly always has to be different; you know what these proms are like, big sparkly dresses and skyscraper heels. But she decided she wanted to go dressed as a hippy, she didn’t want the princess dress or the glittery tiara,’ she smiled forlornly at the memory, the damp tissue clasped beneath her chin.
It was hardly surprising, Lasser thought, looking at this place, tiaras and sparkly dresses were probably everyday clothes for Kelly Ramsey.
‘Do you have the address for the company that supplied the transport?’ he asked.
For a moment she looked around the room, as if expecting to find a butler hovering in the doorway. ‘I think I have it somewhere.’
Bannister squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t worry, Suzanne, you can find it later.’
‘So, the last time you saw your daughter was half past seven last night?’ Lasser asked.
‘That’s right, according to the itinerary the party should have ended at midnight, but these things rarely do...’
‘And you waited up till...?’
Bannister flicked Lasser a warning glance.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ she looked at Lasser in confusion.
‘Sergeant Lasser is asking if you waited up for Kelly to return?’
Her eyes hardened, her lips set in a size zero line. ‘Kelly is sixteen, not five and she wouldn’t take kindly to having her parents standing on the doorstep when she arrived home.’
‘I understand, Mrs Ramsey,’ Lasser paused and waited for his boss to start asking the obvious questions, but Bannister looked a million miles away. ‘Tell me, does Kelly have a boyfriend?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘But she has in the past?’
‘Well, nothing serious,’ she paused. ‘I mean, nothing long term.’
‘In my experience when you’re sixteen, every relationship is serious and long term,’ Lasser said.
She slipped her hand from Bannister’s grip and folded them in her lap, the image of the anguished mother was still there but he could see cold anger bubbling beneath the brittle surface.
‘My daughter is a level-headed Grade ‘A’ student...’
‘Very admirable, but I didn’t ask about her grades. Now, what was the name of her last boyfriend?’
‘I...’
‘What about the young lad from Scotland?’ Bannister asked in an effort to diffuse the situation, his face like thunder.
She ran a hand across her eyes as if she had the beginnings of a migraine. ‘James was a good friend but they were never going out as such, besides he was only here for a few months.’
‘So he’s gone back up north?’
‘Yes, yes he came for the summer because he had relatives down here; as soon as the holidays ended he went back to university.’ She was beginning to sound exasperated; they should be out there combing the streets not lounging here asking stupid questions as if they had all the time in the world.
‘And as far as you know, Kelly has no other serious boyfriend?’
‘Look, shouldn’t you be out there looking for her, I mean...’
‘But you teach at your daughter’s school, so wouldn’t you know if she was involved with someone?’ Lasser asked.
Bannister eased forward in the chair, his eyes suddenly blank, his forehead a corrugated slab. ‘Sergeant Lasser, Claremont is a Girls’ School.’
Suzanne Ramsey looked at Lasser as if he were an idiot.
3
Bobby Finch hauled the strand of barbed wire tight as old Stan Burrows hammered in the staple.
‘OK, you can let it go,’ Stan dropped the hammer onto the grass and rubbed at the sharp pain in his lower back.
‘Are you all right Stan?’
‘Bloody lumbago’s playing up again,’ he grimaced, his face a mass of cavernous wrinkles.
Bobby stared at him blankly, aged eighteen he had no idea what lumbago was.
Stan looked at the boy’s doleful face, they had been working together for just over three weeks and as far Stan was concerned Bobby Finch was an idiot. Always asking daft questions and picking his bloody great hooter as if mining for coal, though he had to admit the boy was a strong bugger. The other day they had shifted over a ton of cobbles, it was a job Stan had been putting off for almost twelve months, and to give the lad his due he’d lugged them all into the back of the flat bed van without complaint and it had only taken him a, couple of hours.
‘So, do you think they’ll find that missing girl?’ Bobby asked, pulling off his work gloves.
Stan bent down slowly to retrieve the hammer, wincing all the way. ‘She’ll have wandered off with some lad, I mean, I’ve caught ’em more than once at these fancy do’s shagging in the bushes.’
Finch’s mouth dropped open, his bottom lip hanging like a cut of prime steak, ‘No way!’
‘It’s the truth, I tell you, dressed up to the nines with their drawers around their ankles.’
Bobby grinned at the image. ‘Jodie from the gift shop said the place was full of coppers this morning, searching the woods.’
‘Aye well, good luck to ’em, but when these kids have been drinking then all bets is off.’
They headed back to the van, Stan carrying the hammer, Bobby swinging the heavy bucket of nails from one huge hand.
‘Hey, look,’ Finch pointed toward the golf course, the imposing Hall in the distance with its sandstone honey coloured in the late spring sunshine.
‘What’s up, boy?’
‘You can see the coppers from here.’
Stan squinted, but his eyes were long past their sell-by-date. ‘Where, I can’t see ’em?’
‘In the woods near the car park, there’s got to be at least thirty of ’em, in high viz vests; they’ve even got a couple of dogs.’
Stan peered in the direction Bobby was pointing but he couldn’t see anything apart from the dark smudge of woodland.
‘Maybe they’ve found something.’ Bobby said with more than a hint of excitement.
‘I doubt it, like I said these young ‘uns don’t give a toss, she won’t be bothered that folks are out looking for her.’
Dumping the bucket into the back of the van, Bobby swiped at the sweat on his forehead. ‘I don’t know, it must be serious if they’ve got all those coppers out searching.’
‘Bollocks!’ Stan clambered behind the wheel and started the engine, a moment later the young lad slid into the passenger seat and unscrewed the lid of his flask.
‘Maybe the police know something we don’t?’
Stan fumbled in his battered old tobacco tin and slid out a roll up. ‘It’ll be that bastard Jansen kicking up a stink.’
Bobby frowned; everything came back to Rod Jansen. If Stan thumped in a nail and it twisted then it was Jansen’s fault. Last week they’d been shifting dead leaves from the front of the Hall and Stan had stood in a big pile of dog shit. For the rest of the day he’d cursed about it, the name Jansen mingled in with the profanities.
‘What’s Jansen got to do with it?’ he asked.
Stan flicked the wheel on his old Zippo and lit the smoke. ‘Well think about it, the Hall relies on weddings and these bloody prom things to make money and it won’t go down well with the punters if word gets out that this girl’s gone missing, will it?’
Bobby pursed his lips. ‘But wouldn’t he want to keep it quiet rather than calling in a load of coppers?’
Stan spat a flake of tobacco onto the dusty dashboard. ‘It’s obvious you don’t know Rod Jansen, son. I am sure that man is an escaped Nazi.’
> Bobby hadn’t done well at school but even he knew that Jansen was way too young to be a Nazi.
4
‘Right, I want you to check it out, find out who drove this camper van and then meet me up at the Hall.’
They were standing on the block-paved driveway of the Ramsey home; Lasser could see the river Douglas running behind the properties, the water sparkling in the late spring sunlight.
‘No problem.’
‘I want her found, Lasser, and I don’t mean dragged out of some river or pulled from a ditch. I want her alive and well, is that understood?’ When no reply was forthcoming, he turned. ‘I asked you a question, Sergeant?’
Lasser looked uncomfortable. ‘Come on, you know more than most that we can’t make promises like that.’
Bannister glared and then his shoulders slumped. ‘I’ve known the girl since she was born; Sergeant, I want this sorted.’
‘Sorry,’ Lasser mumbled.
Bannister dredged up a parody of a smile. ‘No fuck ups.’
‘Understood.’
‘Right,’ he patted the pockets of his jacket checking for his car keys.
‘Just one thing, sir.’
Bannister looked up. ‘Go on.’
‘Four of the houses have cars parked on the drives.’
Bannister turned full circle, his eyes scanning the properties. ‘And no one is sticking their oar in.’
‘Seems strange, I mean, you would have thought at least one concerned neighbour would have been here comforting her, especially in a place like this.’
Bannister frowned. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘Well, I thought these gated communities were meant to be close knit...’
‘Just because people can afford to live here doesn’t automatically mean they get on with their neighbours, Sergeant.’
‘That’s exactly my point.’
Bannister dragged out his keys. ‘Check the van and I expect to hear from you by one o’clock.’
A minute later, Lasser was pulling through the gates and heading back to the main road. Suzanne Ramsey had found the small business card, ‘Larry’s Luxury Limos’ – a car for every occasion printed in miniscule writing across the top.
The town centre was congested as the local water authority had decided to spend the weekend digging random holes throughout the town. ‘Road closed’ signs seemed to be everywhere; detours had been set up funnelling traffic down narrow side streets which had become gridlocked in a matter of minutes.
Lasser sat in the queue drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and pulling hard on a cigarette. Watching in mounting aggravation as the clock on the dashboard ticked away the minutes. By the time he cleared the road works his annoyance had morphed to anger. As he passed the man working the temporary traffic lights he slid down the window.
‘Thanks a lot for that, pal,’ he snarled, the man smiled back at him and popped the middle finger.
Larry’s Limos turned out to be a one-man outfit situated in a small industrial unit off Swan Lane. The owner, Cliff Williams, was a rotund individual with thinning ginger hair and the makings of a moustache etched across his top lip, as far removed from a hippy, as it was possible to get.
‘I thought Larry’s Limos sounded catchier,’ he explained. ‘I mean, Cliff and limos don’t really go together, do they?’
Lasser had found him polishing the inside of a pink Cadillac, his face red from the effort of wielding a yellow duster, a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and he swiped it away with the back of a meaty hand.
‘So, after you dropped them off what did you do?’ Lasser asked.
Cliff unscrewed the lid from a bottle of Coke and took a swig. ‘I went home for a few hours, caught the last half of the match. I mean, I wasn’t going to sit up there till twelve twiddling my thumbs.’
‘And what time did you arrive back at the Hall?’
‘Dead on half eleven, but I could tell the party was a long way from over, so I got in the back of the van for a kip.’
Lasser looked around the lockup, he could see the hippy van parked in the corner and the sight of it made his eyes throb. The paintwork was luminous, daffodils and tulips adorned the sides. As well as the pink Cadillac, Williams also owned a black Hummer with tinted windows, the words ‘Bling Machine’ stencilled across the gleaming bonnet.
‘What happened then?’
Williams hitched up his trousers. ‘Well, one of the girls knocked on the window at twenty past twelve...’
‘Do you have her name?’
‘Sorry, governor, I try to keep conversation to a minimum.’
‘And why’s that?’
Cliff leaned towards him, his piggy eyes gleaming. ‘Well let’s just say young girls can get a bit rowdy and I’ve found it’s easier just to get my foot down and get them to their destination ASAP.’
‘What do you mean by ‘rowdy’?
For the first time Cliff looked uncomfortable. ‘When they’ve had a few drinks they tend to let their hair down, you know, get a bit wild. I tell ya some of the things they come out with makes even me blush.’
‘And what about the girls last night, did they make you blush?’
Williams stifled a burp. ‘Nah, compared to some they were bloody angels, there were no effing and blinding. In fact, they seemed like sensible girls to me,’ he scratched one of his chins. ‘It made a nice change, I can tell you.’
‘So, the girl knocks on the van door and you let her in?’
‘That’s right, she got in the back and I waited outside for the others to arrive.’
‘Why wait outside, it was cold last night, wouldn’t it have made more sense to stay in the van?’
Cliff’s eyes grew wide. ‘No way, I never stay inside the van, not when there’s just one of them. I’ve heard of blokes being accused of all sorts, so I always wait outside, it doesn’t matter if it’s warm, cold, or blowing a bloody gale.’
Lasser couldn’t help but smile. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, the other girl turns up at just gone half twelve.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘She looked as if she’d been drinking and wasn’t used to it but don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t staggering about like some, she just seemed subdued. But the ale does that to me, I get tired and all I want is my bed.’ He smiled, folded the duster, and slid it into his pocket.
‘What about the last girl, did you see her at all?’
‘Ah well, the one I thought was a bit pissed said her friend had made other arrangements and we could leave.’
Lasser felt a flicker of interest. ‘She said that?’
‘Aye, I mean, I wouldn’t just drive off and leave a young girl without knowing she was OK.’
‘So you believed this girl?’
‘Well yeah, I had no reason not to. She said Kelly, I think that was her name, had already left for home. So what was the point in hanging around?’
Lasser fiddled with the cigarette packet in his pocket, flicking the oblong box end-over-end. ‘Right, well thanks very much for your help.’
‘I mean, I don’t see what else I could have done.’
‘Absolutely,’ Lasser headed for the door then stopped and turned. ‘One more thing, you’ll be getting a visit from forensics...’
‘Forensics!’ Williams looked shocked.
‘Just to check the van,’ Lasser smiled. ‘Believe me, it’s nothing to worry about.’
5
Bannister looked around the huge ornate room. Haigh Hall had been built by a family who’d made their fortune in the mill industry, it stood on top of a natural rise with a view of Wigan town centre obscured by over a mile of thick woodland. He supposed that a hundred and fifty years ago the owners had wanted to blot out the view of endless factory chimneys spewing shite into the air. The site of hundreds of underpaid workers trudging towards another day in purgatory might have put them off their tea and scones.
The evidence of last night’s party was all around him, the burgun
dy carpet littered with dozens of party poppers. Colourful streamers hung from the three huge chandeliers. Tables had been bunched together to form one long platform that ran down the centre of the room, the white tablecloth stained red with spilled drink. He could see a stack of speakers in one corner and a couple of turntables, the DJ’s hidey-hole.
The view from the mullioned window showed the golf course sloping away to the edge of the canal. In the distance he could see a bright red narrow boat chugging along the thin stretch of water, a plume of blue smoke trailing from the stunted chimney.
‘Excuse me; are you the man in charge?’
Bannister turned; the man looked to be in his mid-thirties. Tall and fashionably thin, dressed in a charcoal coloured suit with a claret coloured shirt, a sprinkling of grey in his dark hair. His pale green eyes agitated behind a pair of Jarvis Cocker glasses, ‘geek chic’.
Bannister nodded. ‘How can I help you?’
‘My name’s Rod Jansen, I’m the estate manager,’ he thrust out a hand and Bannister gave it a cursory shake.
‘What can I do for you, Mr Jansen?’
Jansen looked around the room and then took a hesitant step forward. ‘I realise this is a delicate matter – but I was wondering if you could tell me when I’ll be able to send in the cleaners?’
Bannister blinked, ‘The cleaners?’
Jansen smiled and wheedled in closer. ‘It’s just that we have a wedding to cater for tomorrow and we really need to get this place cleaned up.’
Bannister looked down at his shoes and pondered the stupidity of the man. When he looked up, Jansen was see-sawing his hand from side to side. ‘Just a rough idea, then I can at least make plans.’
‘Look, Mr Jansen, as much I would hate to spoil anyone’s wedding day, I need to make sure there’s no evidence contained within this room...’
‘Of course, of course, but this wedding has been booked for over two years and if you could sort out in here first then it’ll a great help to me, and...’
‘Perhaps you think I should grab a brush and start the clean up? I mean, why bother waiting for forensics it’s only a sixteen year old girl that’s missing.’ Bannister snapped.