by Damien Boyd
Cole had added the role of search coordinator to reporting officer and didn’t feel so bad now about sleeping through much of his night shift. He was watching Scientific Services complete their search of the copse and listening for a shout from the divers still combing the bottom of the lake for Alesha’s phone, the line of bubbles in the murky green water now over fifty yards from the bank.
The occasional rumble of thunder in the distance broke the silence, but it had stayed dry, which explained the crowds arriving to help with the search.
He noticed Sandra MacIntyre walking towards him along the footpath from the end of Tyler Way.
‘What’re you doing here?’ he asked.
‘The mother’s still out of it. One of the Weston lot turned up so I got a lift back. I thought you’d be in bed by now?’
‘No such luck.’
‘Have they found anything else?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, we’ve got Kevin Sailes,’ said MacIntyre. ‘Picked him up at a friend’s house in Bridgwater.’
‘When?’
‘About an hour ago.’
‘Nobody tells me anything.’ Cole shook his head. ‘And I’m supposed to be the reporting officer.’ He handed his clipboard to MacIntyre. ‘Take over the search, will you?’
‘If I must.’
‘You can see where I’ve sent people. Just send any others who arrive somewhere else and mark the map. You know the drill.’
‘I’ll be fine. Where are you going?’
‘I want to find out what Sailes is saying.’
‘He’s at Express Park,’ shouted MacIntyre, as Cole ran over to his patrol car. ‘Says he’s not seen her since yesterday morning.’
Cole slowed to a walk. That made it a stranger abduction, if Sailes was telling the truth. He leaned back against the side of his car and closed his eyes.
‘Let’s go home, Nige,’ said MacIntyre. ‘We’re not going to find anything now. She’s either miles from here or—’
‘Don’t say it.’
‘We did our best.’
Cole nodded. ‘Did you check the loft in the flat? There was that case where a girl went missing and they found her in the loft days later.’
‘I checked it.’
‘And the shed?’
‘Yes. And the helicopter’s been over it with the camera.’
‘I know, I know.’
A large white lorry turned into Parsons Road behind them and they watched it bounce up the kerb and pull on to the grass adjacent to the footpath.
‘Looks like we can go now anyway,’ said MacIntyre.
Chief Inspector Bateman climbed out of a patrol car that had been following the lorry.
‘You’ve heard about Sailes?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘We’re setting up the mobile command unit. You two have had a day and a night of it, so brief Sergeant Dean and bugger off home, the pair of you.’
Dean was behind them, pulling out an expanding section from the side of the trailer. Then he unfolded a set of steps on to the path and clipped them into place. ‘Ready when you are, Sir,’ he said.
‘One last thing,’ said Bateman. ‘We’ll need whoever’s dealing with Alesha in our Safeguarding Unit. Who is it, d’you know?’
‘Jane Winter, Sir,’ replied Cole. ‘She’s on holiday. She went with—’
‘I know that. Where’ve they gone?’
‘The Lake District, I think.’
‘Better get her back then. It’s not as if she’s gone to Australia, is it.’
Chapter Five
Change at Oxenholme – it was going to be a long day – then Birmingham New Street and Bristol Temple Meads. Bridgwater by lunchtime, Dixon had said. Trust him to book a cottage in the middle of nowhere that had a landline and satellite broadband. There really had been no escape.
Six hours sitting on the train. It had taken less than five on the way up in his new Land Rover, once she had got over the embarrassment of being seen in it.
Not just mushy pea green, but metallic mushy pea green!
‘It’s Heritage Green. And it’s a damned good spec for the price, so you’ll just have to get used to it,’ had been his excuse. Still, the bonnet was new and needed a re-spray, so she had time to persuade him to get the rest of the car done at the same time.
Detective Sergeant Jane Winter settled back into her seat and watched the streaks of rain on the window slowly change from vertical to horizontal as the train picked up speed. To be fair to him, Dixon had said that she could take the Land Rover. There were plenty of walks he could do straight from the cottage in Hartsop, then at the end of the week he’d hitchhike down to Windermere and take the train home.
Jane would like to have seen that. She smiled. Hitchhiking with a rucksack on his back and a large white Staffordshire terrier on a lead. It would have been quicker walking home. Monty would have hated it too. And besides, she’d had far too much gin last night to drive at this time in the morning, making the 06.45 from Windermere the safer bet.
Yesterday had been a good day, the only day of her holiday, come to think of it. She slipped off her shoes and stretched her toes out on the cold floor of the train carriage in a feeble attempt to numb the pain now the medicinal gin was wearing off.
‘We’ll start with something easy, don’t worry.’ She should have known she was in trouble from the cheesy grin that went with it and a few hours later she had found herself halfway along Striding Edge on the way to the summit of Helvellyn. She had looked down only once during her trip along the knife edge ridge, coincidentally right after Dixon had shouted, ‘Don’t look down!’ Mercifully, he had been too slow with the camera to capture the look on her face.
The summit itself had been cold, the icy wind whistling across the top and sending them scuttling for the crowded summit shelter. Roger Poland, the Home Office pathologist and a close friend, had rung Dixon when he had a mouthful of ginger cake, but he couldn’t make himself heard over the roar of the wind anyway, although the intermittent signal hadn’t helped. Jane had snatched Dixon’s phone just in time to hear Roger shout, ‘Have you asked her yet?’ then the signal had been lost.
‘Asked me what?’
‘No idea.’
Yeah, right.
Today was to have been a rest day, taking a motor boat out on Lake Windermere, then tomorrow a trip up Scafell Pike. Much to her surprise, Jane had found herself insisting. ‘You can’t come to the Lakes and not go up the highest one.’
‘If you say so.’
But instead she was on her way back to work, to help in the search for Alesha. Poor Alesha.
What the bloody hell have you been up to this time?
‘They’ll have found her by the time you get there,’ Dixon had said, ‘so you can turn round and come straight back.’
Jane frowned. The worst part about it was that they still hadn’t cleared the air. A few short weeks ago he had been talking about marriage, in a roundabout sort of way, a subject he had not mentioned since. But it wasn’t her fault. She had thought he was dead and had told him straight. She could hear herself even now. ‘You’re doing my head in, you really are. You go out sometimes and I never know whether you’re coming back.’ She winced. Then had come the line that hit home. She knew that. And it had changed everything. ‘I’m not sure I can do this any more.’
Both of them had deftly avoided the subject ever since. Or at least Dixon had. She had tried to get around to it, but somehow never got there; the conversation stopped by an offer of tea or gin. Or a bloody film. Monty was getting even longer walks on the beach than usual. And more of them too.
She hadn’t pushed it, though. Dixon had booked the week away and that would be the time to sort it out, or at least it was supposed to have been. And now that chance was gone. The chance to tell him that, yes, he was doing her head in, and, yes, his film collection was crap, but that she loved him despite that, or because of it. She just loved him.
It had been a bumpy ride, t
he last few weeks, one way or the other.
Then there was Lucy, the sister she’d met for the first time at their mother’s funeral. She had only met her birth mother twice, the second time when Sonia turned up at the cottage scrounging money for drugs. Then a few days later her probation officer had phoned with the news that she was dead.
Jane sighed. Thinking about it, it was only a few days afterwards that Louise was telling her Dixon was dead too. Surely he could understand her reaction?
It had been Dixon who had spotted Lucy sitting with her foster parents at the back of the crematorium at Sonia’s funeral. Jane smiled. But then who else would it have been? He had been by her side through it all. And that must count for something. Mustn’t it?
Jane noticed the rain running down the window instead of across it as the train slowed on the approach to Oxenholme station. She slipped her feet back into her shoes and stood up, dragging her bag off the luggage rack above her head.
Only five and a half hours to go.
‘Sorry, Jane.’
‘You’ve not found her then?’ She opened the back door of Detective Constable Louise Willmott’s car and threw her bag on the seat.
‘Not yet,’ replied Louise, looking over her shoulder. ‘Deborah Potter’s putting together a Major Investigation Team.’
‘Detective Chief Superintendent Potter . . .’ Jane hesitated by the car door, her voice tailing off.
‘It’s not looking good. We found Alesha’s phone this morning.’
‘Where?’ asked Jane, slamming the back door shut.
Louise waited until she wrenched open the passenger door. ‘In the lake.’
‘No sign of her?’
‘No.’
‘Where’s the mother’s boyfriend?’
‘Express Park. We’ve got no real reason to hold him, though, apparently. Potter wants you to sit in on an interview this afternoon, but if nothing comes of that she’ll have to let him go.’
‘What’s he said so far?’
‘He and Tanya had a row and he went to a friend’s house. It all checks out.’
Jane was putting on her seatbelt.
‘Says he hasn’t seen Alesha since Saturday morning,’ continued Louise. ‘Did Tanya know he was a convicted paedophile?’
‘She did.’
Louise turned the key, her loud sigh lost in the roar of the engine. ‘How was your holiday?’ A forced smile was the best she could muster.
‘One day of it.’
‘Did you sort things out?’
Jane shook her head. ‘We hadn’t got round to it yet.’
‘What did you do yesterday?’ Louise turned out of the railway station car park.
‘We’d start with something small, he said. Then he took me along Striding Edge. A knife edge ridge with huge drops on either side. I nearly shit myself.’
‘What about Monty?’ Louise frowned.
‘He was fine in his nice padded harness. Nick even carried him some of the way.’
‘And you?’
‘I had to look after myself, but it wasn’t that bad, really. There’s a path along the side.’
Louise smiled.
‘It was a lovely cottage,’ continued Jane. ‘In a little place called Hartsop, right in the mountains. The living room’s upstairs with huge windows looking straight out.’
‘But it’s got a landline.’
Jane scowled. ‘And satellite broadband.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault. And besides, if we can find her quickly I can go back.’
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I’ve just got a bad feeling about this one.’ Louise grimaced. ‘We all have.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘Me, Mark and Dave. We’ve all been seconded to the MIT until further notice.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s a huge team. DCI Lewis told us to drop everything and go.’
‘Maybe they know something we don’t?’
‘While there’s a chance she’s still alive . . .’ Louise’s voice tailed off.
‘The first seventy-two hours and all that,’ muttered Jane.
‘Have you met Alesha?’
‘A couple of times. I went to the flat with the social worker, Diane. It became high risk as soon as Tanya got involved with Sailes.’
‘I wouldn’t get involved with someone I knew had done that.’
‘Tanya came up with all sorts of crap to try to justify it.’
‘I can imagine.’ Louise was leaning forward, peering up at a set of traffic lights. ‘How was Nick anyway?’
‘Fine.’
‘And you’ve left him up there?’
‘Didn’t have a lot of choice.’
‘He’ll get himself killed in those mountains on his own.’
‘He promised he wouldn’t. And he’s going to text me every morning with his route for the day.’
‘What’s today’s?’
Jane fished her phone out of her handbag and read the message aloud. ‘Blencathra via Sharp Edge and down Hall’s Fell.’
‘Have you googled it?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t.’
‘That’s Deborah Potter talking to the cameras,’ said Louise, as she turned into the Bridgwater Police Centre on Express Park.
‘She tried to get Nick to go to Portishead. Offered him a job at HQ after the Manchester thing.’ Jane was looking over her shoulder at the gaggle of journalists while Louise waited for the huge steel gates of the staff car park to open.
‘What’d he say?’
‘Nothing yet, I don’t think.’
‘Don’t you know?’
Jane shrugged her shoulders. ‘Car park’s full,’ she said, changing the subject. Louise was driving round looking for a space, then turned up the ramp on to the top floor.
‘It’s the Portishead lot who’ve come down, and some from Bristol. There’s a briefing at one o’clock.’
‘Odd time for a briefing,’ said Jane.
‘They were waiting for you.’ Louise parked in the only vacant space and switched off the engine. ‘Leave your bag in the car and I’ll give you a lift home later.’
‘Thanks.’
‘The Incident Room’s on the second floor.’
‘I’ll just grab a sandwich from the canteen on the way up. I haven’t eaten all day.’
‘OK.’ Louise swiped her ID card, opened the back door and followed Jane along the landing. ‘I’ll see you up there.’
Jane listened to her footsteps on the stairs. Then DCS Potter’s voice.
‘Where’s DS Winter?’
‘She’s on her way, Ma’am.’
Mercifully, only Detective Chief Inspector Lewis was in front of Jane in the canteen queue.
‘Sorry about your holiday,’ he said.
‘It’s fine, Sir, really. I’d have come back anyway. Alesha’s one of mine and I need to be here.’
Lewis nodded. ‘How’s Nick?’
‘In his element up on the fells somewhere, I expect.’
‘Lucky sod.’
Jane smiled, paid for her sandwich and a can of Diet Coke, then headed for the stairs, listening to Deborah’s Potter’s voice.
‘We need to expand the timeline. The last sighting of Alesha is on the Reeds Arms’ CCTV at five thirty-four yesterday afternoon. Where did she go after that? What did she do? There’s been enough publicity now to run the house to house again, so let’s see if we can’t jog someone’s memory.’
The open plan office on the second floor was a sea of faces, all of them turned towards Jane as she appeared at the top of the stairs chewing on a mouthful of egg and cress sandwich. Officers were sitting at workstations, on workstations and it was standing room only at the back. Jane recognised DCs Dave Harding and Mark Pearce, sitting at the front with Louise, but no one else.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Potter. She was standing at the front of the room. ‘Ev
erybody, this is Detective Sergeant Winter from our Safeguarding Unit, and when she’s finished her lunch I’m sure she’ll—’
‘It’s fine, Ma’am,’ interrupted Jane, dropping the rest of her sandwich in the bin.
‘Right, well, for those of us who don’t know, you can start by telling us what Safeguarding is and how it operates.’
‘We’re an intelligence unit,’ said Jane. ‘We gather information on vulnerable people and children. Then we identify those who might be at risk, do a risk assessment and put in place a safeguarding plan. We also liaise with Social Services and the NHS to make sure nothing is missed and act as a central point of contact for referrals. Our office is downstairs and the team includes social workers and clerical staff from the NHS. It basically means that if a child turns up at hospital with bruises, we get to hear about it. Or if there’s an incident of domestic violence reported to us and children are there, Social Services get to hear about it. It ensures the exchange of information between the various agencies.’
‘And what do you do?’
‘I’m in charge of the children’s team within the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub.’
‘So, you can tell us everything we need to know about Alesha?’
Jane hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘The floor is yours,’ said Potter, stepping back.
‘I can prepare a summary for circulation later on today, but she’s been on the at risk register pretty much since she was a baby. Her father took her to Weston hospital with bruises that he couldn’t explain and the doctor called in Social Services. The SCU didn’t exist back then.’
‘What happened?’ asked Potter.
‘The suspicion was that she’d been shaken, but the medical report was inconclusive. Social Services investigated and she was returned to the family. The social worker monitored the situation for a time and, although there were various reports of domestic violence, none involved Alesha and Tanya refused to make a formal complaint so there was no further intervention.’
‘Anything else?’
‘When she was six, teachers reported some odd remarks she made at school and a further investigation concluded that Tanya was now a drug addict, but no formal steps were taken to remove Alesha from the home at that stage.’