Girl Gone Missing

by J M Gregson

  They were making fun of him. Chris Rushton knew that now, quite clearly. But they might still be serious about him doing this under-cover job. And he pricked up his ears at the mention of versatility. It was not a quality which had been noted in him before. Knowledgeable, yes, especially about police procedures and the intricacies of the law; diligent, certainly; and reliable, that old police standby that had been the most important of all in carrying him to the Inspectorate; but versatile? That had certainly not figured in his previous reports and reviews. If he could add versatility to his CV then who knew where he might go? ‘Er, what exactly would be involved?’ he said.

  Lambert tried not to look like a fisherman reaching for the net to bring ashore this fine fish which had attached itself to his line. He pursed his lips. ‘You’d just have to be yourself, I suppose, Chris. An attractive young professional man, in search of female companionship. If it’s innocent, if you’re offered no more than an introduction to a woman who fits your requirements, as outlined on your form, then you leave it at that. Unless, of course, the lady in question proves genuinely attractive to you, in which case your future relationship would be an entirely private matter.’ The smiles were back, Rushton noticed. ‘On the other hand, if there proved to be sinister overtones to the Cotswold Rendezvous and you were offered services of a dubious nature, we should need all the information we could get about a criminal enterprise. You would have to use your judgement as an officer to decide how that might be obtained.’

  ‘Rumpety at public expense, I shouldn’t wonder!’ said Hook with relish. ‘A consummation devoutly to be wished, eh, Chris?’

  ‘You must excuse this excess of vulgarity in a junior officer,’ said Lambert magisterially. ‘He’s studying literature, you see — it often seems to have that effect.’

  ‘I — I wouldn’t want to get in too deep, you see,’ said Rushton.

  ‘No, I can quite see that. It’s a situation in which one might need to — well, to know when to withdraw. If that’s the right word.’ Lambert savoured it for a moment with a resolutely straight face.

  Rushton felt the blood pounding in his head, felt himself floundering but excited at the possibility of an attractive woman, to his own specifications, supplied at police expense. These two silly old buggers might be laughing at him now, but the laugh would be on them if this was all above board and they found they had paid his expenses to meet a pretty girl. He’d been very lonely since Anne left and the divorce came through, though he couldn’t admit it to the coarse men around the station who thought he was a stallion roaming free. And if this wasn’t straightforward and there were darker forces at work behind Cotswold Rendezvous? Well, if he played a vital part in unmasking a vice ring, that couldn’t do his promotion prospects any harm at all. If the deskbound DI Rushton emerged as dynamic and full of initiative, that would open a few important eyes. Versatile as well as reliable? It was an intoxicating compound: not least to the one who now drank it. ‘I’ll do it!’ he heard himself saying.

  Self-knowledge, an awareness of his own strengths and weaknesses, is perhaps the most important quality of all for a senior officer. Christopher Rushton had forgotten all about that.

  *

  Tom Murray was playing with his two children in the garden of his Cotswold home when the call came. He heard the phone ring in the house, but left it for his wife to answer, as he always did at the weekends. She knew her role in filtering calls to do with the school. The headmaster would make the ten-mile journey to Oldford Comprehensive on Saturday or Sunday only if there was a real emergency, and they were few and far between. It was Ros’s role to protect his privacy.

  Down in the orchard beyond the formal garden, his face clouded as he heard the distant ringing through the open windows. The call from that sinister man in Cheltenham last night had ensured he had not had much sleep. It had been the merest chance that he had taken the call himself. What the man had said had set alarm bells ringing in his head which he had still not been able to silence. He pushed his laughing daughter gently on the swing, trying to still his uneasiness with the slow rhythm of the movement.

  Ros was apologetic but unworried as she came down the garden in the October sunshine. Her husband’s weekend was going to be disturbed, but it was nothing to cause him any personal anxiety. ‘It’s the police,’ she said. ‘A Detective Sergeant Hook. He and his boss would like a few words with you about that poor dead girl. ‘In the light of their continuing enquiries’, he said. Shall I ask them to come out here?’

  ‘No. I’ll go into the school. Or the police station at Oldford, if they like.’ Anywhere but here, in his wife’s innocent presence.

  He did not want this house tainted with what he had done, if it had to come out.

  His daughter had slipped off the swing and gone back up the garden, chatting happily to her mother. The seat swung emptily, pointlessly in front of him as he stared at it.

  *

  DI Rushton sat in front of his computer in the deserted murder room, wondering quite what he had let himself in for. Lambert had disappeared as soon as he agreed to make himself a candidate for Cotswold Rendezvous, to clear the move with the vice squad and the Chief Constable. Chris had an unpleasant feeling that the chief was making sure the die was cast before he could change his mind.

  He was wondering quite what he had let himself in for when he found himself contending with an unexpected visitor. The civilian who was manning the Saturday morning desk at the front of the station brought in a woman in a shabby coat which was a little too long for her. Her eyes were red and swollen, despite the make-up she had applied to try to disguise them. There was a yellow-green bruise on her temple, from an impact which had taken place some time ago; perhaps four days, Rushton’s experienced, automatic eye told him. ‘This is Mrs Watts,’ said the grey-haired man who had ushered her in. He spoke apologetically, feeling perhaps he should have headed her off, should not have let her penetrate to this inner sanctum of detection. He was right: there could have been personal effects or photographs here which would have brought distress to the parent of a murder victim.

  Fortunately, there was nothing, in this case. Even the dead girl’s clothes had been safely bagged away in cupboards, and there had been no point in pinning up enlargements of a ten-week old corpse. Rushton hastily took Kate Watts into the small office just off the main area of the murder room and asked what he could do for her.

  ‘It’s about Alison,’ she said abruptly as soon as she was seated. She was going to get this out quickly, before her pounding heart drove her to reconsider her decision to come here. ‘There are things you don’t know yet. Things I feel you ought to know. They may have nothing to do with her death, mind…’ She dissolved suddenly into fresh tears, abject, apologetic, incoherent, just when she most wanted to get the words out and be done with this.

  Chris Rushton said clumsily, ‘Take your time, m’ dear. There’s no hurry.’ He came round the desk and put his hand on the shoulder of the rough, worn coat. He wished desperately that there was a woman officer around, who could take this pathetic figure into her arms and hold her, if it came to it. But he was eager, too; there is enough of the hunter in all detectives to make them excited at the thought of new revelations in a case which had seemed to be going nowhere. He waited until the sobbing abated, until the shoulders beneath the worn tweed moved less actively, then said gently, in the Gloucestershire accent he thought he had lost, ‘What is it you wanted to tell us, m’dear?’

  ‘It’s Robert,’ she said. He had to think for a moment to remember whom she might mean. Her husband, of course, the man who had struck that blow that was now healing, and others too, no doubt. Even as he made the connection, she was going on, her breath coming in great uneven gasps that she could not control. ‘He — he kissed her. Did other things. He — what’s the word, you have a word for it —’

  ‘Abused her?’

  ‘Yes. That’s it. Abused her. That’s what he did. Robert. Her own father — well stepfathe
r.’ She sounded as if she had to go on repeating the facts, to convince herself these awful things had happened.

  ‘When was this, Mrs Watts?’

  She looked at him, wide eyes wet with alarm. She had not thought that the time would be important. For her, it was as vivid as yesterday. The appalling nature of the actions seemed to make all other considerations trivial. ‘I don’t know. Well, yes, I do, I suppose, if you need it.’ She thought furiously for a moment, casting a hand impatiently through her wild hair, as if it was a curtain in front of the picture. ‘Two years ago. More. Two and a half. Alison would have been sixteen at the time.’

  ‘Did this happen on more than one occasion? Did the abuse go on for any length of time, Mrs Watts?’

  She was curiously consoled by this word ‘abuse’. She had expected grosser, more explicit words, had herself thought in terms of them. It didn’t sound so bad, somehow, when you could blanket all those nightmare images under a word like that. ‘It went on for a while, I think. But I don’t know, really. Alison never told me. I only found out about it last night.’

  He took her as gently as he could through a few of the details, stopping short of the squalor of whether there had been full penetration. He did not even ask her whether there had been any degree of consent on the girl’s part. That was something to be investigated with the offender, in due course.

  He made her have a mug of hot tea before she left, though she would not accept the heaped spoons of sugar which were the standard police palliative. ‘Putting on too much weight, I am!’ she sniffed, with a pathetic attempt at a smile at this strange, awkward young man who had been so kind and understanding.

  DI Rushton commiserated with Kate Watts as everyone else had done about her daughter, as they waited for a brief statement to be typed for her signature. He told her they were going to find out who had killed Alison, and she believed him. He arranged that a car would take her back to the hostel whence she had come, and she was grateful.

  Finally, he made her promise to keep away from Robert Watts, the husband she had just put so firmly in the frame for the murder of her daughter.

  Chapter Twelve

  ROBERT Watts was not at home. There was no sign of the dead girl’s father at One, The Lawns. The shabby little box of a house rang empty as they hammered at the door, and none of the curious neighbours who watched the two large men had any idea as to the whereabouts of the occupant. They left a message that he should contact Oldford CID as soon as he returned and walked back through the unkempt front garden, which was so much of a contrast with the obsessive neatness of the Bullimore garden they had visited earlier in the day.

  Lambert drove the old Vauxhall the three-quarters of a mile to Oldford Comprehensive School, along the suburban streets which must have been Alison Watts’s route to the school over the years in which she had grown from gawky schoolgirl with a brace on her teeth to fatally attractive young woman. These were roads lined with quiet, respectable houses, where children played on the lawns and the gables were clothed with the green of ivy and the fire of Virginia creeper in its autumn glory.

  Tom Murray was waiting for them at the deserted school. They saw his face peering anxiously from the headmaster’s office as they drew up, and he was outside the big double doors by the time Lambert and Hook reached the main entrance to the school. He had on a new pair of blue denim trousers and a green sweater, an outfit proclaiming that this was a Saturday, that he should have been enjoying a well-earned rest, that he had come in to the school only because of his strong sense of duty. He tried to emphasise the point lightly with his first words. ‘I was happy to come in to offer whatever help I can,’ he said. ‘Though I can’t think I have anything useful to contribute myself. But perhaps you want an overview of her school life and her companions here, and I shall be happy of course to provide it.’

  He was talking too much, probing nervously to find out why they had wanted to see him. Lambert let him talk, punctuating his flow with nothing more than the occasional grunt, affirming or non-committal by turns. Murray took them up the stairs and into his room, shutting the door behind them as carefully as if there had been the normal crowded school of weekdays behind it. Habit, perhaps, thought Hook. Or apprehension.

  Still they did not help him. Murray gestured to the two armchairs, then perched on the edge of his desk and said nervously, ‘Of course, I’d like to offer you coffee, but I’m afraid that on a Saturday —’

  ‘Mr Murray, why did you supervise the clearing of Alison Watts’s locker yourself?’ Lambert had struck at last, abruptly, without any sort of polite preamble.

  ‘I — I don’t recall… Her steel locker, in the basement, you mean? But that was months ago, at the end of July, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. When Alison was first declared a missing person. The locker was opened, presumably to see if it offered any clue as to where the girl might have gone, but without any police presence. You took away the contents of her locker yourself.’

  ‘But there were only books. And a few exercise books and a magazine, if I can recall things accurately at this length of time. Nothing that gave us any clue as to why Alison might have disappeared so suddenly, unfortunately. I can’t think why you —’

  ‘But you cleared the locker yourself, without the attendance of any experienced police officer, who might have given a more expert view on what might or might not have been important in the case of a missing person.’

  ‘But this is ridiculous. All I was trying to do was to move quickly, to ascertain as fast as possible whether there was anything in my school which might help to allay fears about a missing sixth form student. To suggest otherwise is outrageous. Indeed —’

  ‘No one has suggested anything, Mr Murray. We are asking questions, that is all. Any unusual behaviour pattern in relation to a murder victim is of interest to us. More than that: it is our duty to investigate it.’

  Tom Murray lifted his hands from the edges of the desk beside him and folded them deliberately across his chest. Two tell-tale mists of moisture remained for a moment on the polished wood of the desk behind him, then disappeared into the air of the quiet room. He tried to be deliberate, as if dealing as he had so many times with an obtuse parent. He even attempted to force a trace of sarcasm into his voice. ‘So you think it’s unusual for a head teacher to show concern for a missing pupil? To be anxious to find out as soon as possible whether there is anything around which might allay the fears of parents frantic with worry? To get a school thrown into chaos moving forward again on the education of the rest of its pupils, which is our prime reason for existence?’

  Where before Lambert had interrupted him, had refused to let him develop a thought, he now let Murray wander on with his increasingly desperate catalogue, until his rhetoric failed for want of a reaction to spur it on. Then the Superintendent said, ‘But it was the beginning of the summer holidays, wasn’t it, when the girl was registered as missing? No disruption of the school timetable then, surely?’ Then, while Murray mentally pawed the air, he came back to his original, unanswered question. ‘Would you say it was normal for a busy headmaster to take away the contents of the locker, Mr Murray? Even if you didn’t think to wait for a police presence, wouldn’t it have been more natural, more sensible even, to leave the investigation of the locker’s contents to someone in daily contact with Alison Watts? To Mrs Peplow, for instance, who has charge of sixth form studies, or to one of the girl’s other teachers? Even to some of her fellow students, who might best appreciate the origin and significance of anything personal within the contents?’

  For a moment, Tom almost said that the teachers and students had all gone off on holiday in July, that he had investigated things himself because he had been the only one around. But it had not been so. The news of the girl’s disappearance had brought both staff and students into the school in that first week of the holiday. These men would check, as they seemed to check everything, and find that he was lying. And then they would want to know why. He said
sullenly, feeling the inadequacy of the words dry in his mouth, ‘It might have been unusual, I suppose. I can’t say why I emptied the locker myself, at this distance of time. All I know is that I was anxious to clear things up, to see if there was any clue I could find as to where the girl had gone.’

  ‘I see. And did you discover anything of interest?’

  ‘No. I told you that. There was nothing except textbooks and exercise books. And a women’s magazine. If there had been anything, I’d have brought it to the notice of the police at the time.’

  ‘Yes. Of course you would. Well, it will be of interest to you to know that you didn’t clear the locker of its contents completely, Mr Murray. It might have been better to have invoked police assistance at the time, after all.’

  They were no more than six feet from him, and they saw fear flash into his too-revealing blue eyes, then the suspicion that this might be some kind of trick. ‘What do you mean? The caretaker and I cleared the damned locker completely at the time. He’ll tell you that there was nothing left in there when —’

  ‘Mr Phillips was present when we investigated the locker this morning. Indeed, he opened it up for us. It was apparently empty, as you say. But we did find this one scrap of paper, trapped in the corner behind the single shelf at the top of the locker.’

  Lambert produced the tiny scrap of grubby paper like a triumphant magician from his jacket pocket. Hook resisted the temptation to applaud. ‘This may of course have been placed in the locker by person or persons unknown since you emptied it. But as there was no sign of any forced entry, that would have necessitated a key. I think the probability is that you simply missed this.’

  Murray’s eyes were fixed still on the hand that held the scrap of paper. But he could not see what was written upon it. He said harshly, ‘Well, what of it? You’re going to tell me you hold the key to the murder of Alison Watts in your hand, are you? The Great Detective reveals his triumph!’ He tried a sardonic laugh, but it emerged as a breathy, uneven chuckle. Watching the headmaster’s discomfort, Hook reflected that the chief could be quite a ham, when it suited him. But he was making this bugger dance to his tune.