‘I’ve spoken to these two.’ Duncan pointed at the screen. ‘They went home on their bikes.’
‘On bikes?’ asked Keith.
‘They claim they weren’t as drunk as they look.’ Duncan spoke without irony. ‘When they left Polly, about a quarter to one, she was about to call a minicab. We’re still talking to the cab companies, but none so far took a call from Polly’s phone on Friday night. We’re running checks on the regular drivers.’
‘Her friends confirmed she had her phone with her?’
‘Yes. We tried pinging it again. It’s still dead. Reverse billing shows no incoming calls or messages after ten o’clock. The last transmitted signal was from the town centre just before one a.m.’
‘The town centre was busy,’ said Keith. ‘If she was taken against her will, it was done quietly, without fuss.’
‘So she bumped into someone she knew?’ suggested Grace.
‘Someone could’ve offered her a lift,’ agreed Lance. ‘Or she may have been a passenger in a taxi booked in someone else’s name.’
‘We’re checking all minicabs that went to Wivenhoe that night,’ said Duncan.
‘And compiling a list of her friends,’ said Grace. ‘Matt Beeston doesn’t drive, but, though he denies seeing her, his flat is walking distance from the Blue Bar.’
‘Alibi him for Friday night,’ instructed Keith.
‘The Blue Bar was packed,’ said Duncan. ‘It’ll take a while, but we’re working our way through everyone who paid by debit or credit card.’ Grace caught the rest of her new colleagues hiding smiles, but had no idea why. ‘So far no one recalls Polly hanging out with anyone in particular,’ he concluded.
‘Polly’s landlord, Pawel Zawodny, may be of interest, too,’ said Lance. ‘He told us he was aware of Polly and Matt Beeston having sex. If that’s because he was spying on them, then he’s a voyeur. Plus he has a key to the house.’ He gave Grace an encouraging nod.
‘Jessica spent Friday night at her boyfriend’s place, so, if Polly made it home, she was there alone,’ she told Keith. ‘We ran checks on Zawodny.’ She consulted her notebook. ‘Thirty-four, a carpenter from Szczecin in Poland. Been in the UK twelve years. No criminal record. He bought the house in Station Road six years ago, did it up himself. Owns two others in Wivenhoe, also renovated by him and rented out to students. Only to women, though that may be coincidence. He drives a red Toyota pick-up, lives in a rented flat on the edge of Colchester and shares a yard off the main Harwich road.’
She was about to add that the challenge in the cool way the Polish builder had looked her up and down had flagged up something about his attitude to women – maybe just that he enjoyed a challenge – but, constrained by Keith’s neutral gaze, decided it was simpler to keep quiet on her first day.
‘Find out where he was Friday night,’ ordered Keith. ‘See if his truck was picked up on any cameras.’
‘Yes, boss.’ Lance smiled at Grace, making a tiny clenched-fist gesture of triumph.
‘Do we release the CCTV footage to the media?’ asked Duncan.
‘Not yet,’ said Keith. ‘Let’s see it again.’
‘We may pick her up elsewhere,’ said Duncan as he turned to the keyboard to replay the clip. ‘We’re still on it.’
‘Hard on the parents if this is their final sight of her,’ Keith observed.
Grace didn’t have to imagine how many times, in the superintendent’s years with the murder squad, he would have had to break bad news. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to offer Polly’s family a happy ending. ‘Her housemate said they’d been celebrating the end of exams,’ she reminded him, as if trying to make excuses for the missing girl. ‘She looks happy enough, doesn’t she?’
Keith sighed. ‘Yeah, I suppose so. OK. Anything we’ve missed?’
Everyone looked around the room. They all knew better than to ask the obvious question: Where the hell is she?
Hilary Burnett put her head around the door. Her lipstick was freshly applied, her lightened hair brushed to frame her face, her navy linen dress had no creases and her two-inch heels appeared to give her no discomfort at all. She awarded Grace a swift smile before addressing Keith. ‘Quick word?’
She advanced into the room before he could refuse. Grace sensed a ripple of exasperation as several members of the team looked away or started to move back to their desks, but couldn’t be sure whether it was at the intrusion or at Hilary herself. Although Grace had yet to meet any communications director whose role was popular with the troops, she hoped it was not a sign of personal dislike. If so, and Hilary’s role in bringing her to Essex was going to complicate her acceptance, then she’d just have to live with it: Hilary had shown her both kindness and generosity, and Grace was all too aware how rare those qualities could be.
‘Polly Sinclair,’ Hilary began briskly. ‘Can we offer something to the local paper? The editor complains we don’t engage them enough. We could ask them to jog memories of any sightings. We’d need to give them photos. Might be helpful.’
Keith stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language, but then nodded. ‘Let me find out first how the parents feel about going public,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s early days.’
He made for his own office, but Hilary dogged his footsteps.
‘They’re coming in, aren’t they?’ she asked. ‘Maybe I could set up an interview with them and Roxanne Carson, and then with the local BBC people?’
‘Roxanne Carson?’ Grace spoke without thinking, and felt abashed when everyone turned to look at her. ‘Sorry, it’s just that at uni I knew a Roxanne Carson who went into journalism.’
Hilary smiled at Grace. ‘She’s the crime reporter on the local paper, the Mercury. About your age, so she probably is the same person. That’s nice!’ Hilary turned back to Keith. ‘She’d do a sensitive piece.’
Keith rolled down his shirtsleeves, retrieved his jacket from the back of his chair and, shrugging it on, herded Hilary before him out of the office. ‘Plenty of work for you all to get on with,’ he called over his shoulder as the door shut behind them.
The closing door was a signal for people to settle back into familiar places, and, as Grace observed a kind of a smoothing out across the room, she was made physically aware of being the new girl. She’d been allocated a desk that morning, and moved over to it now with an unexpected pang of homesickness for the incident room in Maidstone where, until last year, she’d been a comfortable part of the gang. She’d known some of those people – Colin, Jeff, Margie – for years, worked alongside them, been through one or two pretty traumatic cases with them. And for what? It only went to show that you didn’t necessarily know people at all. Still, she couldn’t help missing being an organic part of something, even if a lot of the time it had just been mundane chat about cars, sport and holidays.
Meanwhile she barely knew the names or even roles of half the people in this room. The clean, tidy surface of her own desk contrasted with the files and papers cascading across everyone else’s. Lance, leaning over Duncan’s shoulder, was occupied with something on his computer screen. She wasn’t sure quite what she should be getting on with, but it felt too conspicuous to sit here idle. For something to do, she opened up Twitter and began searching for Polly Sinclair. She wondered how many friends Polly had, what they were like, how far Polly had really been able to trust them.
FOUR
It was Roxanne who suggested they meet at the Blue Bar. The imposing exterior showed that the premises had once belonged to some venerable Victorian institution, a bank or corn exchange, but the revamped interior, with big wooden ceiling fans and giant potted palms, had been designed to resemble either a New Orleans jazz club or the lobby of a Thirties colonial hotel. Grace, standing in the doorway scanning for the friend she hadn’t seen in several years, couldn’t help thinking of Polly Sinclair who, six days ago, had sat over there by the window with a group of fellow language students. A few of them had been drinking shots and become quite rowdy; n
ow, at seven o’clock, it was too early for a big crowd of serious drinkers, and Grace easily spotted Roxanne Carson seated at the bar. She called out to her friend, and Roxanne slid down from the tall bentwood chair and held out her arms. ‘Grace Fisher! It is so good to see you again!’
‘And you! Been far too long.’
‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns …’
They laughed and hugged, then levered themselves up onto the bar stools. ‘So how long has it been?’ asked Roxanne. ‘Not that it matters, you look just the same! Hair a bit shorter, but slim as ever, damn you!’
‘You look good, too.’
Grace knew that, trim and tall, with straight brown hair, regular features and grey eyes, she’d never be the one to draw attention from anyone glancing in their direction. Roxanne, on the other hand, was petite and curvy, with a mane of dark curls that she said came from her Sicilian grandmother. At uni she’d never had any trouble attracting either friends or lovers, yet on Grace’s first evening in the hall of residence she’d heard Roxanne sobbing through the wall of the neighbouring room. She’d made her get up and take the bus with her into Brighton, where they’d sat on the beach, eating fish and chips and throwing stones at the reflection of the harvest moon in the water. Although never best friends, after that they’d remained close enough to stay in touch for a year or two after graduation.
A barman, good-looking in white shirt and narrow black tie, came up and greeted Roxanne by name; if he recognised Grace as one of the detectives who’d come to speak to his manager two days before, he gave no sign. ‘It’s two for the price of one on shorts before eight o’clock,’ he said. ‘Special midweek promotion, just for the ladies.’
‘We’re fine with the house red, thanks,’ replied Roxanne with a flirtatious smile. She turned to Grace. ‘OK with you?’
‘Sure.’
‘So, the last I heard, you’d got married,’ she said.
‘Yes, and now I’m waiting for my divorce!’ Grace achieved the light-hearted tone she aimed for whenever the subject arose.
‘Quick work,’ observed Roxanne. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, the usual. Bad idea to live with a man you work with, I guess.’ Two glasses of wine were placed in front of them, and she raised hers in a toast. ‘Cheers!’
‘So what happened?’ repeated Roxanne with a mischievous grin. ‘You’re not getting off the hook that easily.’
‘Oh, we didn’t agree on stuff at work. Trev was happy to remain a constable, but I reckon he never forgave me for being fast-tracked.’
‘That’s a bit lame.’
‘Well, he was in the police national cycling team, and that was always his main priority.’ Grace knew it sounded like an excuse but, even though she could see that Roxanne was waiting to hear more, she took a swig of wine and looked away around the bar.
‘How long were you married?’ asked Roxanne.
‘Two years,’ she answered curtly. ‘So what about you? How long have you been in Colchester?’
‘I’ve been at the Mercury four years. Too long! I’m desperate to move on, but all the nationals are downsizing, buying stuff in and putting even their regular journalists on shifts. Too much is online these days.’ She reached across to touch Grace’s arm. ‘Didn’t mean to pry. Sorry. Sounds like it still hurts?’
‘It’s OK. It got complicated. I’ll tell you another time.’
‘Oh, here.’ Roxanne dug in her battered trophy handbag and drew out a folded newspaper. ‘I brought you a copy. We ran my interview with Polly Sinclair’s parents today.’
Grace heard the pride in her friend’s voice and responded with appropriate enthusiasm. ‘Great, thanks. I’ve only seen the office copy.’
‘I love having my name in print that big,’ Roxanne said with shameless delight. Grace grinned, then cleared aside their glasses so she could spread the newspaper out on the bar.
A photograph of a smiling Polly – blue-eyed with blonde curls, sweetly plump – took up nearly a third of the tabloid’s front page. Student missing for four days: the headline was in large, bold type. In a box at the side was a smaller image of Phil and Beverley Sinclair – the decent, apologetic couple who now haunted the police station – with the heading Desperate parents appeal for help. Phil, a burly man in a short-sleeved white shirt, had his hand over his wife’s clenched knuckles. Beverley must once have shared her daughter’s fair-haired prettiness, but it was clear that the lines running across her brow and down beside her mouth would now deepen into permanence. Grace had only met them briefly, a sharp reminder that, while their journey to Essex heralded an agony of uncertainty and dread, she could think herself lucky enough to have arrived just as a potentially intriguing case kicked off.
Roxanne caught her eye and gave an awkward laugh. ‘We’re ghouls, aren’t we? Feasting off misery and misfortune. Or I am, anyway. At least you’re doing something.’
‘Not true,’ Grace said. ‘Your article’s already had a good response. A lot more people who were in here last Friday night and remembered seeing her have been in touch. Gives us a far better timeline.’
‘Good,’ said Roxanne. ‘So what’s the theory?’
Grace saw the glitter of a reporter’s eye, and her own heart sank. ‘You know I can’t discuss it. You have to go through Hilary Burnett, or I’m in big trouble.’
‘Like Hilary knows what’s really going on!’
Grace shrugged helplessly.
‘I had a call from the crime reporter on the Daily Courier just before I came out,’ said Roxanne. ‘If this turns into a decent story, it could be my chance to get a foot in the door in London, so if there’s any way you think you can help –’
‘I can’t. I’d love to, but I really can’t. And you realise that if it does turn into a major inquiry, then I may not be allowed to speak to you at all.’
‘Yeah, I guessed as much,’ Roxanne acknowledged with a sigh. ‘Still, maybe Hilary will make sure the local paper gets the edge. I know she’s really hot on networking, helping women give the old-boy clubs a run for their money.’
‘Yes,’ Grace agreed, glad that Roxanne wasn’t going to push too hard. ‘It’s thanks to her that I landed up here. She used to work in corporate PR with my stepmum.’
‘So you’re alongside Lance Cooper?’ Roxanne asked with a sly grin.
‘I am.’
‘Hot, isn’t he?’
Grace laughed and held up her hands. ‘I am not even going to go there!’
‘I forgot, love and work don’t mix.’
‘No.’
‘Shame! But you must’ve found out whether he’s spoken for?’
‘I only got here on Monday!’
‘Huh, call yourself a detective! Will you find out and let me know?’ Roxanne finished her drink and signalled to the bartender. ‘Shall we get a bottle this time?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, why not?’ Grace had been afraid Roxanne would hold the necessity for professional discretion against her, but her friend seemed to understand that it wasn’t personal. She began to relax, and heard a Black-Eyed Peas track start to play. Recognising the music of their years at uni together, she felt whisked back to a time when she’d still been carefree and confident that life would go her way.
‘It really is good to see you again,’ Roxanne voiced Grace’s own thoughts with unexpected sincerity. ‘The local reporter may know everyone in town, but I haven’t actually made many friends here. So if you’d like to meet up and do stuff, whatever, just give me a shout.’
‘I will! I was rather dreading the weekends myself, not knowing a soul.’
‘Good. Look, shall we grab a table and get something to eat? The tapas here isn’t too bad.’
‘Great.’
The Blue Bar was beginning to fill up, raising the noise level to a din. Grace and Roxanne were older than most of the crowd. Even the barman, Grace recalled from his statement, was a student doing part-time work. As they moved to a table, she looked again around the high-ceilinged chambe
r; on the night she disappeared, Polly, bare-legged, had worn a short pale blue dress, blue high-heeled shoes and a small green bag with an across-the-body strap. The last signal transmitted by her mobile had been close by at about one o’clock in the morning. Then the phone, like Polly herself, had simply vanished. There had been no sightings, her parents had her passport, and she’d not used bank, credit or travel cards, nor accessed any of her digital networks.
From everything they now knew about her, it seemed unlikely that she’d chosen to cut herself off from friends and family. Even when she’d gone to Australia and Thailand on her gap year, and had gone hiking, ridden elephants and got a tattoo, she’d kept in constant touch and complained if her mum failed to send regular news bulletins from home, asking specially for photos of the family dog, a golden retriever. Now that she had been missing for nearly five days, the chances that Polly would be found safe and well were diminishing rapidly.
Was whoever was responsible for her fate here tonight, Grace asked herself. Was the perpetrator – if there was one – amongst these loud, red-faced, excited young men? They were little more than teenagers. Would one of them be capable of abduction, rape or perhaps even murder? Was one of them some kind of obsessive stalker who had Polly locked away somewhere? But if so, where?
The day before, she and Lance had gone to take a look at Pawel Zawodny’s yard, pretending it was a casual courtesy to call on him, not to waste his time, and found it kept in good order on a busy industrial park with security monitored by CCTV. If he’d taken Polly by force, he’d hardly imprison her there.
They’d also checked into Matt Beeston’s background: second son of two barristers, he’d gone to a private north London day school, had no criminal record, and the university had no record of any complaint against him.
Unlucky Polly; a split-second’s misjudgement and she may have put herself in the power of someone out to do her harm. Grace felt her adrenaline pump at the memory of being out on the beat as an inexperienced constable, of the demand for constant vigilance, the endless monitoring of one’s environment, the need to assert and maintain control. Fail to notice a tiny mood shift, or trust the wrong person at the wrong time, and it could all go catastrophically wrong. Was that what had happened to Polly?
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