Dead Lock

by Damien Boyd

  ‘Does she have a mobile phone?’

  ‘I had an upgrade so she’s got my old Samsung. It’s switched off.’

  ‘You’ve tried it?’

  ‘Of course I bloody have!’

  ‘And you haven’t seen her since last Sunday?’

  ‘She came to my work on Thursday afternoon. Scrounging money for sweets.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Jester Prints in Love Lane. We do screen printing. T-shirts and stuff. She was only there a few minutes. I gave her a couple of quid and off she went on her bike.’

  Cole glanced at the can of lager in Daniels’s hand.

  ‘I only drink at weekends. All right?’

  Cole nodded. ‘And when did you last hear from her?’

  ‘She sent me a text yesterday morning to say she’d be over later as usual. Here,’ replied Daniels, handing Cole his phone, ‘see for yourself.’

  Cole peered at the message and then copied it into his notebook.

  C u later dad xx

  ‘What time was that?’ he asked, handing the phone back to Daniels. ‘It just says “yesterday”.’

  Daniels clicked on the message, holding his cigarette between his teeth. ‘Saturday twenty-fifth April, ten forty-two,’ he said, wincing as the smoke drifted up into his eyes.

  ‘And she just never turned up?’

  ‘No. I kept ringing and ringing, but no one answered.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘How the fuck would I know that? I haven’t seen her since Thursday!’

  Cole took a deep breath. ‘Does she have a favourite coat?’

  ‘A green padded jacket. It’s dark green, shiny, with a fake fur band around the hood.’ Daniels dropped his cigarette into an empty can of lager on the side, picked it up and shook it, listening for the hiss as the dregs soaked the burning tobacco. ‘Jeans too. She always wears light blue jeans, torn at the knees, y’know.’

  ‘What about her bike?’

  ‘It’s too small for her, really. Bright pink with a white plastic basket on the front. There’s stuff like tinsel hanging from the handlebars too.’

  ‘Any other distinguishing marks, stuff like that?’

  ‘Braces on her teeth. Fixed, like the train tracks. I’ve got a photo of her on my wall. D’you want it?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Cole was still scribbling in his notebook when Daniels returned with a small framed photograph. ‘That’s her on the left.’ Alesha was smiling at the camera, cheek to cheek with a friend. ‘It’s a selfie. That’s Evie, I think.’

  ‘Can I keep this?’

  ‘I’d like it back though.’

  ‘When was it taken?’

  ‘Six months ago. The half term before Christmas. They’re on the beach.’

  ‘And is her hair still the same?’

  Daniels nodded.

  ‘Has Alesha ever gone missing like this before? Even for a short time?’

  ‘She’s had a sleepover at a friend’s once or twice and forgotten to tell me, but she’s always answered her phone straight off when I’ve rung.’

  ‘Have you tried ringing Tanya?’

  ‘Yes. I told you I went over there too. Monica took me. And I walked over there again this morning. Nothing. There are no lights on even. That’s why I rang you lot.’

  ‘Have you been out to look for Alesha?’

  ‘I walked the route she’d take, yes.’

  ‘Which way is that?’

  ‘Through the Catholic church, along Marine Drive then through Apex. If she was in town with her friends then it’s just Marine Drive and Apex. The path through the park is at the end of the road here.’

  ‘Can you try her again now?’

  Cole watched while Daniels dialled Alesha’s number and held the phone to his ear.

  ‘It goes straight through to voicemail,’ said Daniels, shaking his head.

  ‘Have you left a message?’

  ‘Loads. D’you want me to leave another one?’

  ‘No.’ Cole handed his notebook and pen to Daniels. ‘Write down Tanya’s full name, address and phone numbers.’

  ‘The landline’s been cut off.’

  ‘Give it to me anyway. And Alesha’s mobile.’

  ‘Here,’ mumbled Daniels, handing the notebook back to Cole. Then he cracked open another can of cheap lager.

  ‘Does she have her own room here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘It’s the only tidy room in the flat,’ said Daniels, holding open the door. Cole peered in. It was small, just wide enough for a single bed and a bedside table, with a few teddy bears on the pillows and posters on the walls. The cries of the seagulls outside carried through the open fanlight.

  ‘Her stuff’s in here,’ said Daniels, sliding open a small built-in wardrobe behind the door. A few piles of clothes, a pair of trainers on the floor – the ones with wheels in the heels – odd bits of make-up, an iPod and a pair of headphones.

  ‘Make-up?’ asked Cole, frowning.

  ‘She’ll have pinched it from her mum, I expect. Monica gave her the lipstick though. It was an old one she was going to chuck out, I think.’

  ‘What about her friends?’

  ‘Evie and Mia are her best friends, but I don’t know their surnames. They’re in the same class at school.’

  ‘St Andrew’s?’

  ‘Yes. Tanya will know who they are.’

  ‘Does Alesha have a computer?’

  ‘An iPad. I gave it to her for Christmas the year before last.’

  ‘Is she on Facebook?’

  ‘Used to be, but it’s all Snapchat these days,’ replied Daniels. ‘Never really got the hang of that.’

  ‘Me neither.’ Cole smiled. ‘Where is this iPad?’

  ‘She keeps it at home now. She kept it here for a while when Tanya was threatening to sell it.’

  ‘Sell it? What for?’

  ‘You’ll find out.’

  Chapter Two

  ‘I had a look up and down,’ said MacIntyre, ‘but none of the neighbours are up yet.’ She was walking back along the pavement as Cole ran down the steps outside Daniels’s flat.

  ‘You drive.’ He threw the car keys to MacIntyre and jumped in to the passenger seat. Then he picked up the radio. ‘Control, from QPR three-ten, database check. Over.’

  ‘Go ahead. Over.’

  ‘Tanya – Tango-Alpha-November-Yankee-Alpha – Stevens – Sierra-Tango-Echo-Victor; and Kevin Sailes – Sierra-Alpha-India-Lima-Echo-Sierra. Acknowledge. Over.’

  ‘Control, reading back. Tanya Stevens and Kevin Sailes. Over.’

  ‘That is correct,’ said Cole. ‘Children and Vulnerable Adult check, Alesha Daniels – Alpha-Lima-Echo-Sierra-Hotel-Alpha. Over.’ He turned to MacIntyre. ‘Drive.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Burnham. Worston Lane.’

  ‘Control, received. What is your position? Over.’

  ‘Checking the mother’s address in Worston Lane. Stand by. Over.’

  MacIntyre flipped the siren on as she accelerated along Burnham Road.

  ‘We don’t need that at this time in the morning,’ said Cole.

  ‘Spoil sport,’ muttered MacIntyre. A few minutes later, she turned right in to Worston Lane and slowed. ‘It’s the upstairs flat on the end there. I remember now.’ She pulled on to the grass verge. ‘What number is it?’

  ‘Thirteen B’.

  ‘That’s it.’

  A new front door and windows on the ground floor contrasted with the original metal-framed windows upstairs, the glass cracked in one corner and the black paint peeling off. Cole climbed out of the patrol car and looked down the side of the property.

  ‘The front door’s at the top of those steps,’ said MacIntyre. She opened the front gate and Cole followed her along the garden path, glancing down at the immaculate front lawn as he walked past. The back garden, visible beyond the bottom of the steps, was a jungle: grass and weeds almost up to t
he seat of a child’s swing; a shed in the far corner, the roof collapsed.

  ‘The back belongs to upstairs,’ said MacIntyre, shaking her head.

  ‘Better check it out.’

  Cole walked up the steps and banged on the front door, watching MacIntyre wading through the grass while he waited. Then he squatted down and opened the letterbox.

  ‘Tanya, it’s the police. Are you in there?’

  Silence.

  He heard MacIntyre on the steps behind him and stood up as she reached the top. ‘Garden’s clear,’ she said, brushing her trousers.

  Cole banged on the door again.

  ‘Two doors up there’s a van with a ladder on the roof. See if we can borrow it, will you?’

  MacIntyre sighed and trudged down the steps, leaving Cole peering through the letterbox. He took out his notebook and phone, then dialled Tanya’s number.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said MacIntyre, when Cole appeared around the corner of the block. ‘He’s just throwing some clothes on.’

  ‘Her mobile’s in there. I can hear it ringing.’ He looked up at the front window. ‘We’ll try round the back first.’

  ‘I’ve never understood why people pin blankets up at windows,’ said MacIntyre. ‘I mean, get some bloody curtains at a charity shop. It’s probably cheaper anyway.’

  Cole watched the neighbour standing on the rear wheel of his van to unlock the ladder on the roof. Then he helped him lift it off and carry it around the back of number thirteen.

  ‘Sorry to wake you on a Sunday, Sir.’

  ‘No worries, mate,’ came the reply.

  ‘D’you know them?’

  ‘Not really. They say “hello” if you bump into them, but that’s it.’

  ‘What about the daughter?’

  ‘Nice kid. Seen her out on her bike. Gotta feel sorry for her, though, living in that shithole. It’s no place for a child to be.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You should know.’

  Cole nodded.

  They propped the ladder up between the windows at the back and Cole started climbing, with MacIntyre holding the bottom.

  ‘This must be Alesha’s room.’ Cole was holding on to the ladder with his right hand and the window ledge with his left. He noticed a damp patch on the wall, opposite the end of her bed, peeling wallpaper, and a poster for some girl band he had never heard of lying on the floor, the Sellotape having given up the fight to hang on. Apart from that, the room was tidy, except for the goldfish floating upside down in his or her bowl. He turned and looked down at MacIntyre. ‘It’s empty and the door’s closed.’

  Then he leaned over to his right. ‘Kitchen.’ He shook his head. ‘At least, I think there’s a kitchen in there somewhere. Can’t see anything.’

  ‘D’you want me to carry the ladder round the front?’ asked the neighbour.

  ‘There’s a blanket up at the window,’ said MacIntyre.

  ‘The fanlight’s open,’ said Cole. ‘I can reach in and pull it down.’

  ‘Are you sure we should be doing that?’

  ‘There’s a ten year old girl missing, Sandra.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Seconds later Cole was at the top of the ladder at the front of the property, standing on the top rung, which was resting on the brickwork beneath the window. He was holding on to the open fanlight with his left hand, pulling at the old tartan blanket with his right. Judging by the hairs on it and the smell, some poor dog was missing its bed.

  ‘It’s just drawing pins by the looks of it,’ he said. ‘One more.’ Then the blanket fell down inside the flat. ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Cole looked down at the woman slumped on a brown leather sofa held together with duct tape. Her head was tipped to one side and she was drooling on to a pile of vomit on the cushion behind her. A belt was looped around her left arm, a syringe still clamped in the fingers of her right hand. An empty bottle of vodka lay on its side on the floor in front of her.

  ‘Battering ram,’ shouted Cole, as he reached down for the top of the ladder.

  MacIntyre left the neighbour holding the bottom and raced over to the patrol car, opening the boot with the remote control as she ran. She returned with the battering ram and handed it to Cole, just as he was stepping off the bottom rung of the ladder.

  ‘And an ambulance,’ he said. ‘Suspected overdose. She’s unconscious. Vomited at least once.’

  MacIntyre nodded and ran back over to the car.

  ‘I can put this back. You carry on,’ said the neighbour.

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  Cole ran around to the side of the flat and up the steps to the wooden front door, hitting it just above the lock in one movement. It splintered and swung open. Cole retched, turned away and took a deep breath.

  That’s all you need at this time in the morning.

  MacIntyre was behind him now. ‘Shit, what’s that smell?’ She put her hand over her nose and mouth.

  ‘Right first time,’ mumbled Cole.

  ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘I don’t think so. You check the other rooms.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Once in the sitting room, Cole kicked the empty bottle of vodka away and checked the woman for a pulse. ‘She’s alive,’ he said, when MacIntyre walked in.

  ‘No one else here.’

  ‘Is there a loft hatch?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘You’d better check. Then stay with her and keep her airway clear.’

  Cole ran down to the patrol car and picked up the radio. ‘Control from QPR three-ten. We are at the mother’s address, Tanya Stevens. She’s unconscious, suspected drug use, ambulance requested. No sign of male occupant, Kevin Sailes, or Alesha. Repeat. No sign of Alesha. Acknowledge. Over.’

  ‘QPR three-ten, received. Alesha is the subject of Child Protection Plan. Positive ViSOR match Kevin Sailes. Acknowledge. Over.’

  ‘Received.’ Cole took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks. ‘Is he on the register for violence or sex offences? Over.’

  ‘Not known at this time. You’re the officer on scene, Nige. What is your report? Over.’

  Cole glanced up at the flat and watched MacIntyre opening the front window.

  Why me? Why bloody me?

  The sound of a siren in the distance brought him back to the present. That and the radio.

  ‘C’mon, Nigel. What’s it to be? Over.’

  Cole nodded. He’d got it wrong before, and been a laughing stock for a few weeks, but that was a small price to pay.

  Fuck it.

  ‘Control, Alesha Daniels confirmed missing. High risk. Repeat. Missing. High risk. Suspected child abduction. Acknowledge. Over.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Who’s the reporting officer?’

  ‘I am, Sir,’ replied Cole, spinning round to see Chief Inspector Bateman striding towards him along the garden path.

  ‘Let’s hope you’ve got it right this time, Cole.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Are you on your own?’

  ‘Sandra MacIntyre went in the ambulance with the mother.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘She’s still out of it.’

  ‘And there’s no sign of the boyfriend?’

  ‘No, Sir. He’s on the Sex Offender Register at this address, but gave his mother’s address in Weston when he was on bail. There’s someone on the way over there now.’

  ‘What about his mobile phone?’

  ‘The registered number’s dead, but he must have another one.’

  ‘Well, you did the right thing, Cole.’ Bateman sighed. ‘Let’s get the dogs out and the helicopter up too. Tell them to use their thermal imaging camera and start over at Apex Park.’

  ‘I tried the helicopter, Sir. It’s tasked elsewhere.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Following a stolen car on the M5.’

  ‘Tell them the Bronze Commander is authorising an immediate divert.’

&n
bsp; ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘What about CCTV?’

  ‘Someone’s checking the town cameras now.’

  ‘Does Sailes have a car?’

  ‘Not according to DVLA, Sir.’

  Bateman nodded. ‘We’ll need Family Liaison over at the father’s flat, preferably before I get there. And let’s page the Coastguard and BARB Search and Rescue as well. Get them searching along the Brue and the beach.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  A police van screeched to a halt in the middle of the road and four uniformed officers jumped out of the back.

  ‘You lot, on foot,’ said Bateman. ‘Which way did she go?’ he asked, turning to Cole.

  ‘We don’t know where she started from, Sir, but from here it would have been through the Catholic church car park, along Marine Drive and through Apex Park.’

  ‘Right. You two go that way. You two follow the same route starting from the town.’ Bateman leaned in the passenger window of the van. ‘The rest of you can start at the other end and fan out across Apex. All right?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Check the reeds along the water’s edge and the undergrowth—’

  ‘We haven’t got a description yet,’ interrupted Cole, ‘but she was probably wearing jeans and a dark green shiny jacket with a fur edging on the hood.’

  ‘Remember that’s not been confirmed yet,’ said Bateman.

  ‘We do know her bike was pink with a white plastic basket on the front and tassels on the handlebars,’ continued Cole.

  He watched the van speed off along Worston Lane towards Highbridge.

  ‘What about her friends?’ Bateman asked, turning back to Cole.

  ‘I can’t find anything in the flat, I’m afraid, Sir. I’ve got the mother’s phone, but it’s locked and she’s unconscious.’

  ‘What about the school?’

  ‘St Andrew’s. I rang the emergency number and they were going to get Alesha’s teacher to ring me.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Ten minutes.’

  ‘Ring them again. And stay on it. We need to know what Alesha was wearing.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the father about a Child Rescue Alert?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘All right.’

  Cole watched Inspector Bateman walking up the steps and into the flat while he waited for his call to be answered.