Closer To Home

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘I think we should be the ones asking questions.’

  His wife continued to study the contents of her mug, refusing to acknowledge their presence.

  ‘I can understand your frustration,’ Kate said. ‘But if–’

  ‘Can you? Can you really understand what we’re going through? Because, unless you’ve had a child kidnapped by god knows who, I somehow doubt that you have the first fucking idea!’ Suddenly he was on his feet and in her face.

  Hollis took a step towards the two of them but, before he could intervene, rescue came from an unexpected source.

  ‘Trev, sit down. They’re only doing their job.’

  Anna Godwin had put down the mug and was watching the confrontation unfold with an expression of boredom as though she’d been expecting this and just had to wait for it to be over before the real conversation could start.

  Kate got her first real look at the woman and was surprised to see her smile apologetically.

  ‘Trevor’s always been a bit highly strung,’ she said as though talking about a wayward pet. ‘But he means well. Sit down Trev.’

  ‘Liz, will you get the detectives some tea or a glass of water?’ She spoke to the FLO as though she was a treasured housekeeper or ancient retainer who had been on the staff for decades.

  ‘I’m fine thanks,’ Kate and Hollis said in unison and Anna nodded, satisfied that social niceties had been upheld. She was very different from her husband. Where he was round, she was angular. Where he was slightly asymmetrical, she was perfectly balanced and delicate. Her dark blue eyes studied Kate with shrewd intelligence from beneath her copper fringe.

  ‘Please sit,’ she said. ‘And ask your questions.’

  Kate pulled out a chair and sat next to Trevor Goodwin while Hollis sat slightly away from the table on a stool against the wall. He took his notebook out of his inside breast pocket and waited.

  They’d agreed that they would try to stick to finding a connection between the Goodwins and the Reeses. The facts of the child’s disappearance had been established earlier and both she and Hollis had read the parents’ statements. There was little to be gained from going over too much old ground. But Anna Goodwin had other ideas.

  ‘I feel so responsible,’ she said, looking from Kate to Hollis. ‘I only popped back in to get a drink. He was on his scooter, just going up and down the driveway and turning around on the street. I’d been in the garden watching him. It was hot so I went to get us both some juice and when I came back he was gone.’

  She was struggling to retain control. Her husband reached across the table and covered one of his wife’s tiny hands with a huge paw. She might be blaming herself but he obviously didn’t share her feelings.

  ‘I just don’t understand,’ she continued. ‘There have been police cars patrolling the estate ever since Aleah Reese went missing. I saw two that morning and one even stopped at the entrance to the square. How could somebody just grab him like that without anybody seeing? It doesn’t make sense.’

  She wiped her eyes with a screwed-up tissue that had been sitting on the table in front of her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Goodwin. We don’t have any answers just yet but we need to get some more information. You just mentioned Aleah Reese. Do you know the family?’

  Anna shrugged. ‘Everybody knows everybody round here. I’ve spoken to Jackie a few times. I don’t really know Craig though. I know who he is but I’ve not had much to do with him.’

  Hollis made a note.

  ‘How well do you know Jackie Reese?’

  ‘In passing really. I’m not from round here. I moved here after I married Trevor. He’s Thorpe born and bred.’

  Mr Goodwin grunted as though reluctantly accepting a compliment.

  ‘Do you know the Reeses?’ Hollis asked.

  ‘I’ve seen Jackie around,’ Trevor said. ‘I’ve had a pint or two with Craig in The Lion. It’s not like we’re friends or anything.’

  ‘So, you’ve never worked at the same place? Been to the same school? Had the same friends?’

  Goodwin shrugged.

  ‘I probably went to the same school as Jackie. Don’t remember her though. Most folk round here went to Thorpe Comp. I’m not sure about Craig. I thought he was from over Rotherham way somewhere. I think he had an older sister who went to our school but I’m not sure.’

  It wasn’t enough. There was no specific link. A few pints and a few years apart at school didn’t make much of a connection.

  ‘Do you know Jud Reese, Craig’s dad?’ Kate tried.

  ‘Same really. Might have said hello in passing. I know who he is because he used to work with my dad at the pit. I think he was something big in the union during the strike.’

  Kate saw Hollis out of the corner of her eye. He was writing frantically. Obviously, this was something that he thought they should pursue.

  ‘Your dad was a miner?’

  Goodwin just shrugged as if to say wasn’t everybody’s?

  ‘Did they work the same shift?’ Hollis asked. ‘Would they have known each other quite well?’

  ‘I think so. I remember him coming round to my dad’s during the strike. My dad was responsible for the money the union got – donations and that, I think – he decided who got what.’

  ‘What about Jackie Reese’s dad – Carl Loach. Do you know him?’

  ‘I know of him,’ Goodwin said. ‘Can’t say I know him. He’s got a bit of a reputation for having a temper – or he did have when I was a kid. I always steered clear.’

  ‘Did he work with your dad?’

  ‘Probably. Can’t say I remember though.’

  It wasn’t much but there was something there, Kate thought. Three men linked by the pit and the strike. Was somebody harbouring a grudge that had been festering for thirty years? Somebody who was punishing families for something that had happened a long time ago?

  ‘We need to talk to your father,’ she said.

  Goodwin smiled sadly. ‘Wish you could, love, but he’s been dead for three years. Lung cancer.’

  Kate nearly swore aloud. The threads of these two cases seemed to be knitting together, there was the faint outline of a connection, a link between Aleah Reese and Callum Goodwin, but if Trevor’s dad was dead, the idea of Callum’s kidnap being some sort of punishment for something that he’d done in the past didn’t quite work. She was missing something.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Goodwin, who nodded his acceptance of her condolences.

  Then another thought struck her, another possible link based on some of the information that Cooper had dug up from Loach’s record.

  ‘Does the name Paul Hirst mean anything to you?’

  Goodwin thought for a minute and then shook his head.

  ‘Never heard of him. Should I have?’

  ‘It was just a thought,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve been really helpful, Mr Goodwin. If there’s anything that you or your wife think of that you haven’t already mentioned, please let us know. And if there’s anything you need…’

  ‘We just need our Callum back safe,’ Anna murmured. ‘Nothing else matters.’

  Kate nodded and stood up to leave.

  ‘What was that about Paul Hirst?’ Hollis asked.

  ‘Cooper dug the name up earlier, remember? He was roughed up by Jackie Reese’s dad during the strike. Some sort of fight.’

  Hollis nodded. ‘That’s right. Something about him being a scab. Two assaults. Poor bloke killed himself in the end. I don’t see what that’s got to do with Callum Goodwin though.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ Kate said. ‘But there’s a link between Callum’s grandad and Aleah’s. They both worked at the pit, they were both on strike. Goodwin said that his dad was involved with the union. He’d have known Hirst.’

  ‘And so would half the men in Thorpe. Including your own father, I suppose. Everybody worked down the pit. But that was years ago.’

  It was, but Kate could clearly hear Jean Loach telling her that people round here had lo
ng memories. She was just about to tell Hollis the same thing when her phone pinged – an email had just landed in her inbox.

  She unlocked the screen and tapped the app. Cooper. The subject line simply said ‘Interesting?’ and the email contained an attachment. Kate tapped again and a newspaper article appeared on her screen, obviously a photograph that Cooper had taken with her phone judging by the quality. Kate drew her finger and thumb outwards and expanded the image until the headline jumped out at her.

  GIRL DROWNS ON QUARRY SITE.

  ‘Bastards!’ she spat. The press had put their spin on the story before cause of death had been officially released. Hollis gave her a quizzical glance while trying to keep his attention on the road in front of them.

  ‘Cooper’s sent a newspaper article about Aleah. Raymond’s still preparing his next press briefing about Aleah’s death. He was due to give it today but he’s holding off because of this new case.’

  ‘They were bound to come up with something,’ Hollis said. ‘People talk. The local news covered her disappearance on Tuesday evening and there was all sorts of speculation on there. She’s been on the evening bulletins ever since – it was only a matter of time before they began speculating.’

  Kate nodded, trying to focus on the words. What she was reading didn’t make sense. The names, the circumstances were completely different. The article wasn’t about their case.

  ‘It’s not Aleah,’ she said. ‘It’s another girl.’

  She scrolled back to the top of the image. The dateline was just visible in the top right-hand corner of the image. June 10th, 1975.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  She scrolled down again trying to make sense of what he was reading but the motion of the car was making it difficult to focus.

  ‘Pull over,’ she told Hollis.

  ‘But we–’

  ‘Now. Hollis. Just pull over.’

  He flicked on the indicator and pulled into a bus stop.

  Kate continued to read.

  GIRL DROWNS ON QUARRY SITE

  The body of seven-year-old Tracy Moore was recovered from the former Jepson’s Quarry in Thorpe on Thursday. Her parents had reported her missing on Sunday but it wasn’t until an anonymous tip was received that the police started to scour the site. The girl’s body was discovered in one of the ventilation shafts which had provided air to the brickworks flue which had occupied the north side of the site until its demolition in 1970. Cause of death was declared as drowning due to the violent storms and accompanying heavy rains last week.

  Although the death is not being treated as suspicious, it remains unclear how the girl came to be in the ventilation shaft. The area is well known among local children, many of whom play there despite the dangers. It seems likely that she was exploring and got stuck. If anybody has any further information please contact South Yorkshire Constabulary.

  Below the headline was a grainy image of a school photograph, presumably of Tracy Moore. Kate switched from the article to her contacts list and tapped.

  ‘Cooper, where did you find this?’

  ‘Online. It was in the South Yorkshire Times archives. I printed it out and sent you a photo of the print-out. Sorry it’s poor quality, but the image of the original article was pretty awful. I tried to sharpen it up a bit but–’

  ‘Cooper. Not the time.’ Kate snapped, unwilling to get bogged down in one of Cooper’s lengthy explanations of the limitations of the technology available to her. ‘What else did you find out about the site? Was it filled in because of this girl’s death?’

  ‘No. It was already being filled in by then. It was finished in 1989.’

  ‘And then it was landscaped?’

  Cooper laughed.

  ‘And then it was abandoned. The owners had the gates locked and left it to grass over. Nothing’s been done to it since. I’ve checked company and land registries. It’s still owned by the Jepson Company but it’s never been on the market. Useless I suppose, because of the industrial contamination.’

  Kate was suddenly lost in the memory of walking home from school accompanied by the constant rumble as lorry after lorry wound its way up the quarry track, with new loads of soot and rubble and other debris, to fill in the massive hole in the village. It was still being filled in when they’d left.

  ‘So, who’s this kid?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Local I think. Just playing. Wrong place, wrong time.’

  ‘Poor bugger,’ she murmured. ‘Keep digging Cooper. See what else you can find.’

  She hung up and filled Hollis in.

  ‘So, this was forty years ago?’ he said.

  Kate nodded. ‘I remember my dad warning us about playing in the quarry. He said that there was all sorts of stuff from the factories in Sheffield being dumped there.’

  ‘Did you know about the ventilation shafts?’

  Kate thought. She had known. As soon as she’d read the article something had stirred in her memory. She was quite young, still in the infants’ school probably. Her mum was alive because she could remember that both her parents had been present when her father had given her his sternest warning to date. He’d reminded her about the piles of soot from the factory but he’d seemed more concerned about the other part of the quarry, where the brickworks had been. Had he said something about tunnels? Or shafts? She wasn’t sure but she remembered that his face had been deadly serious and her mother had held her hand while she listened. The timing could easily have coincided with the discovery of Tracy Moore’s body.

  ‘I’m not sure. There were all kinds of stories about the quarry from piles of acidic soot that would melt your skin off to strange men who would take you off to live in their caves with them. It was just somewhere that we weren’t allowed to go and I never challenged that – just took it all at face value.’

  ‘Do you think there’s a link though? This kid drowned forty years ago.’

  Kate shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know, but I want to go back out there and have a look around. And I want a map of the site before it was filled in,’ she said, calling Cooper back.

  15

  2015

  The PDF map that Cooper had emailed wasn’t brilliant on a five-inch phone screen but it gave Kate some idea of the layout of the former quarry and brickworks. She could zoom in on some of the details but for others she had to rely on memory. Standing at the rusted gates she checked her position against the map and set off across the waste ground with Hollis in tow.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ he asked, slightly breathless from the heat and the pace.

  ‘I want to work out the position of the pond in relation to the ventilation shaft where the girl’s body was found in 1975.’

  ‘You think there’s a connection?’

  Kate stopped suddenly, turning her head left and right to try to get her bearings and Hollis ran into her back.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  Kate took a few steps away, eyes fixed on the screen as she pinched in and out of the map that Cooper had sent. She knew where the brickworks had been. The buildings had still been standing when she’d been in junior school and she could place them in relation to the road that ran up one side of the site. The rest of the area had been a quarry, varying in depth from about fifty feet to a shallow depression of no more than twelve feet on the side furthest from the road. Or at least that’s what she remembered. But the memories of a teenager weren’t the most reliable guide and Cooper’s map had her doubting her own recollection of the layout.

  ‘The buildings were here,’ she said, gesturing to an area to their right. ‘Some of them had been knocked down but there was a long, low row of offices still standing. The chimney had been over there near the top which means that the flues ran roughly east-west from over there.’

  She set off again following a faint dusty path through the sun-dried grass. As she trudged across vague depressions and gentle rises she looked again at the map, trying to work out how long the flues would have been. The
chimney had been quite tall; she remembered it from pictures that she’d seen of old Thorpe when she’d been at school, so it would have needed huge ventilation shafts.

  ‘Here.’ Hollis managed to side step her this time. He looked around, baffled.

  ‘The chimney would have been about here and the ventilation shafts would have gone out in a rough fan shape in that direction.’ She pointed to the far end of the site marked by a tall fence.

  ‘Come on.’

  She worked out that if they headed west following the rough line of the main shaft they could then cut left and right to get an idea of where the other ones had been as they’d fanned out from the chimney. She continued towards the fence trying to imagine where they were in relation to the pond. Too far south. Another glance at the map showed her that another flue would have run about ten yards to her right and a third about the same distance away to the left. If she turned left and walked about twenty yards she would be, almost, at the pond. And almost directly on the line of another ventilation shaft. It wasn’t very precise but she knew that she could get Cooper to overlay the original map onto an aerial photograph when they got back to Doncaster. It was close enough. There could be a connection.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked Hollis, who was looking perplexed.

  He shrugged.

  ‘You’d know better than me. Can you actually remember these tunnel things?’

  ‘I remember being warned about the whole area. The air shafts don’t specifically ring a bell though. There were lots of kids who used to play over here but none of my friends.’

  Hollis chuckled. ‘I thought you’d be a goody-goody.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kate said. ‘Or maybe it was easier to get into different kinds of trouble.’

  Hollis raised his eyebrows in a question.