‘The women at my level certainly don’t like him. Look, can I think about it over the weekend? Not that I shall be gallivanting round the country, unlike others I could mention. I shall be working, of course,’ he added as he left. ‘You need someone to keep their eye on you.’ A waving hand was all that was left of him.
SEVEN
The door had scarcely closed and her grin still hadn’t faded when someone else knocked: Ray Barlow appeared first, followed by one of the most glamorous young women in the force, Donna Stewart. Unlike Ray, who always looked in need of a good night’s sleep, Donna clearly spent a great deal of time in the gym and was generally known as Madge – as in Madonna. She was one of Don Simpson’s best DCIs, though one whom he often seemed to sideline.
‘It seems to me, Madge, that you’re more than capable of keeping the search going for Malcolm Perkins and Christopher Manton. Right? Any problems, raise them at each day’s briefing meeting, or with me if they’re urgent. Until the DNA evidence comes through with ID for each skeleton, there’s not much you can do on that front – but I want you to keep me informed each time you get a new name. I met some of the parents at the time, and though my training in breaking crap news is out of date, it might give them some sense that Kent Police care if they dredge up the officer they knew then to meet them once again. And I know it takes time, and I haven’t got time to scratch my head, but that’s what I want to do if I can.’
Stewart nodded. She sucked on her coffee as if it was a high-tar cigarette. ‘Any chance we could get the press office involved now? We’ve all been working very discreetly, but there’s no way we can sit on a secret like this.’
‘Not if it means losing Livvie from the front page,’ Ray said. ‘And Wren seemed happy with the idea.’
Fran glanced at Madge, who said mutinously, ‘No one consulted us. Or even mentioned it as an option.’
‘I’m sorry: I should have done. I’ll just check with the press office what’s going on. Excuse me …’
The answer came quickly.
‘Yes, the chief is fixing a meeting with media contacts. Or rather he’s getting the press office to. But the press office think we’re asking too much to maintain the situation for more than another twelve hours. Twenty-four maximum. So is it realistic to think we can achieve anything on the Livvie front, Ray?’
‘I’ve – we’ve – done everything. Searched everywhere. Spoken to everyone.’
‘By which you mean? Look, put it all on that expensive new screen over there for me so we can download it on to our computers. Madge, I know you’ve got a million and one things to do too, but I’d welcome your input. New ears, new eyes. Once you’ve got all the data, if you don’t feel able to see anything, buzz off and deal with your own jobs. In the meantime, help yourself to some of this cake.’ Tom Arkwright’s auntie’s legendary Dundee. So legendary neither of them needed to ask where she’d got it. ‘You too, Ray – eat as you talk if you want. And then I want you to go and get a couple of hours’ kip. You too, actually, Madge, if there’s nothing pressing. OK? Good. Fire away, Ray.’
He listed the areas they’d searched: the club area; the caravan site – under and inside each caravan; the cricket club – the rudimentary pavilion and under the covers and so on; Hogben House …
‘That’s now owned by someone called Livingstone,’ Ray said.
She grimaced. ‘I gather poor Mark made a bit of a gaffe there.’
‘Easy enough to do: I nearly did myself, to be honest, when I met him later. We’ve been in every room, from the attic to the cellar. He’s been very helpful and obliging.’
‘And you don’t trust him,’ Fran said obligingly.
‘I wouldn’t go that far. But the man’s got a chopper – he could have spirited the kid away in that and no one any the wiser.’
‘Has he flown it since the alarm was raised?’
‘No.’
‘And before the alarm was raised?’
‘He says not. He says he just landed and was – er – greeted by Mark and Seb Kennaway.’
‘Airport and other records?’ Madge put in.
‘Confirm what he said. But if you only flew a little way, would you bother telling anyone?’
‘I suspect you’d lose your licence if you started bending the rules,’ she said.
Fran nodded. ‘Did any of the Golden Oldies or the kids hear a chopper at the relevant time? No? Well, there is something else to think about: if he took off from his own pad, he’d have to get Livvie that far. So he wouldn’t have much time. Are there any signs that she might have gone that way?’
Clearly there weren’t.
‘Or that someone could have taken her that far?’
Madge put down her slice of cake. ‘That implies a conspiracy, doesn’t it, ma’am?’
‘Does it? It wasn’t uppermost in my mind but you might be right. I think we need to look at the possibility of someone seizing the child and getting away more quickly than on foot, though not necessarily by chopper – which I’m sure you’ve been doing, Ray.’
He nodded, but rubbed his face as if trying to recall what he ought to say next. ‘Thanks to Mark’s quick thinking, only a handful of mothers and members left before we arrived. All have been traced. All their vehicles have been subjected to forensic examination. All their properties ditto. All their alibis – and criminal records. All good upright citizens. Except one woman guilty of shoplifting from Harrods.’
Fran snorted. ‘Just good aspirational crime, then. OK, let’s put cars to one side for a moment. Bikes and motorbikes. The child got her clothes dirty playing with a member’s bike, as I recall. And he left early – right?’
‘Right. Roland Anderson. He came back through the park, as it happens, to join the search – seems someone phoned him. Before you explode, ma’am, it seems they were just trying to get as many helpers as possible. And he’s been more than cooperative. As soon as he realized there might be a problem he spoke to one of the team and then to me. Seems he was one of those people responsible for running Criminal Record Board checks in some Midlands diocese before he came south.’
Madge raised a finger. ‘So if anyone knew how to rig the system, he would.’
‘That’s exactly what he said himself. He’s quite distraught.’
‘Keep his name right away from the media, if you can,’ Fran said. ‘Think of what happened to that poor guy in Bristol when his lodger disappeared – he was absolutely hounded by the press. I know he got a good fat wodge of damages, but his life was destroyed and worse still it hampered the search for the actual killer. We don’t want either happening here.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Meanwhile, let’s think positive. We’ve no body yet. That’s good. Possibly.’
‘Are you thinking kidnapping? We’ve had no ransom demands.’
‘You don’t necessarily get them if the kidnapper wants to keep the victim,’ Madge said. ‘Natascha Kampusch, for instance. Or those American girls, who had to bear the kidnappers’ children, for God’s sake.’
‘Those girls were older, of course. But it might be worth talking to a senior officer in the Austrian police, Ray. And anyone else with experience of abducting and keeping victims.’ She stopped short.
‘Like whoever bricked up those kids in the youth club,’ Madge finished for her.
Ray shook his head. ‘Wrong age group. With the building work there was lots of opportunity. Lots of potential victims. Which, before you ask, is why on my advice the club cancelled the rest of the tennis camp. Apart from having no coach, of course.’
‘Quite. How many circles of hell must Zac be trapped in?’ There was a tiny silence. Surely, however, it was best to look for a solution than to dwell on someone’s private agony, so she squared her shoulders and asked briskly, ‘Is there anything in Zac’s past to make him a target? Any rivals when he was younger?’
‘Zac’s a quintessential nice guy. Everyone speaks highly of him.’
‘I bet,’ Madge said
dourly, ‘that everyone who knew our killer said he was a nice guy.’
‘But there’s no suspicion Zac harmed Livvie!’ Ray objected. ‘Couldn’t have – all those witnesses!’
Fran raised a hand for silence. The bickering stopped. ‘If Zac was a top tennis player he must have had rivals, people he beat, people with grudges. And though he’s a nice guy now, he might have been mean and nasty when he was younger: champions have to be pretty ruthless, you know.’ She tried to recall what Mark had said about him – there’d been nothing but praise, had there, for his teaching skills? ‘Have you talked to him about that?’
Ray managed a weary smile. ‘Fran, we’ve followed the guidelines to the last full-stop. Zac, Bethany – that’s his wife: the family liaison officer’s worming everything she can out of them. Not easy when they’re frozen in terror. It’s a good job their little boy’s too young to understand what’s going on.’ He added, ‘As for the youngsters who’d been helping him out with the tennis camp, they’re traumatized too, of course.’
‘There’s no suspicion any of them could be involved?’ Madge asked. ‘All CRB checked?’
‘They’d be too young, according to Mark, to need checks,’ Fran said.
Nodding his agreement, Ray continued, ‘At best one could have been an accomplice, but at the time of the incident, they were all on the courts in full sight of each other and of Zac. Not to mention any mothers who’d come early to collect their brats. Fran, I need a miracle here.’
‘We all do. Urgently.’ If she told them she’d spoken to the priest who was going to marry Mark and her and asked her to start praying, they’d think she was fit for the funny farm. ‘Apart from those we know about, those you’ve interviewed, none of the players went missing at all? Even if they said they were just using that Portaloo that Mark loathes so much?’
‘No. And none of them has any sort of record. There is one guy who turned up out of the blue and promptly disappeared: we’ve still to trace him. Not much to go on. Just the name Stephen and an appointment at the dentist. Someone’s still checking all the dentists in Kent for a patient called Stephen. Trouble is, no one can recall the make of his car, let alone the reg.’
Fran gave a sour laugh. ‘Why am I not surprised? Mark says some of the members can’t remember which side of the court they’re supposed to be on. OK, finding him is clearly a priority.’ Unlike Mark to forget a thing like that, all the same. She’d call him the moment she could. ‘Get on to the media, but make it clear we only want him as a witness, not a suspect.’ She drew breath. ‘I’d say our main lines of enquiry must be means of transport and means of concealment. And, tell you what, Ray, I’d suggest you ask Mark to come straight here as soon as he’s returned Marco and Phoebe to their parents.’
‘Have done already, guv’nor. But I don’t think you mean as part of the phone team, do you? More as a witness.’
‘Actually, as neither. You know how you natter at the end of the day about this and that. I’m sure he’s casually dropped out stuff that might just have a bearing, and maybe if you and he just sat down over a coffee … You never know: the brain often throws things up when it’s not trying. Like the make of Stephen’s car.’
Madge asked, ‘Guv’nor, what did you mean by means of concealment? A very large tennis bag? That sort of thing? Or more like the false wall we’ve got at the youth centre?’
‘A tennis bag – hell, even one of those monsters the pros use for tournaments would be hard put to hold a child. Wouldn’t it? I’ll check, all the same. As for walls, we’ve tapped on every single bloody wall at Hogben House,’ Ray said, sounding defensive or exhausted. Or both. ‘Twice. And checked every single rubbish and recycling bin. And all the outhouses.’
‘I’d expect nothing less,’ Fran said, with a warm smile. ‘Look, we could start going round in circles, we’re all so knackered. Heads down for a couple of hours, both of you – I don’t need to write it as a formal order, do I? And then Ray and I can talk to Mark, and you, Madge, just keep pegging away. Talk to Tom Arkwright about his search for Malcolm Perkins. The sooner we find him the better – but just for the time being, we won’t go for media coverage. Twenty-four more hours really hammering at the kidnap case. Then we’ll have to let rip on the wall.’
Madge amazed her by throwing back her head and laughing. ‘You’ve reminded me of a play I saw at Stratford. Where they talk to the Wall? Two bumpkins.’
‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Ray said. ‘A level. Two lovers. Pyramus and Thisbe. Shit. What if any of the kids behind that wall were lovers?’ His face went stiff. He asked, as if he needed reassurance, ‘Fran, do you ever find yourself thinking of victims just as part of a case, not part of a family, as statistics, not individuals?’
‘It’s all too easy. But I’d bet my pension you don’t think of Livvie as a statistic or part of a case. Now shoo, both of you. Snooze time.’
‘For you too, guv?’ Ray asked, over his shoulder.
‘Long enough to make me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we talk to Mark tonight,’ she promised, ostentatiously pushing aside a pile of files on her desk and putting her head down on her folded arms. But only for a second. Madge was back as quickly as she’d gone.
‘Message from the pathologist, guv. He’s about to start work. Obviously Don can’t go along, but I thought you might want to. Unless you want to delegate it?’
‘If you don’t mind driving me back here, I’d be happy to come with you,’ Fran said, hoping her yawn hadn’t shown.
‘So the good news is that at least the kids you’ve looked at so far, Joe, were dead before they were walled up,’ Fran summed up.
Dr Hemp nodded. ‘Strangled, almost certainly. Skeletons don’t lie. And it makes sense: the killer wouldn’t want bloodstains around, not if there were still other young people around on a regular basis. You can explain away one missing worker, especially if he or she has a reputation for skiving, but you can’t explain signs of violence. You let everything die down, wait for the kids to stop talking about whoever’s gone AWOL. And then, when you feel like it, you can knock off the next.’
‘Hmm. Though we must be talking a very tight time-frame here, if the kids were supposed to be building a wall. It’s not something you do piecemeal, is it?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Not that I know anything about building walls.’
‘So we’re talking someone strong?’
‘Not especially. None of the victims so far was heavily built. Girls size four to six. Boys just as slight.’
‘Off the record answer, please, Joe. I know you’ve not done formal post-mortems on all eight yet, but you’ll be able to tell me this. Was there anyone strapping enough to have played football for his school?’
‘You don’t have to be strapping to be a good footballer, Fran. I know some of the men playing these days are mighty giants, but in those days, for all sports, slight was the norm. Think back to George Best or McEnroe or whoever your sporting hero might have been.’
Fran grinned. ‘Long hair, short shorts, slender as pop-stars. OK. But there’d be evidence on your bones of muscle-building activity, wouldn’t there?’
‘Well done. In those I’ve examined so far, no.’
‘Still two possible killers in the frame, then, guv: Christopher Manton, the young footballer, and Malcolm Perkins.’ Madge loaded Fran into the car as carefully as if she were her grandmother, which had the immediate effect of making her feel about ninety. ‘And no news of either so far,’ she continued, setting off with the same deference to Fran’s extreme age. ‘Bugger it – all the electronic footprints people can’t help leaving, all the surveillance we’ve got everywhere, you’d think it would be easy enough to find them, wouldn’t you?’ She gestured at the cameras that seemed to have spread to every available vantage point.
‘You would. Unless people don’t want to be found. And we are talking twenty years ago, at least for Manton. Perkins – remind me when he left?’ Fran yawned, by way of an excuse for her
memory, though she couldn’t recall ever having heard a date. The case hadn’t been hers, after all.
‘June 1993. So he didn’t make an immediate bolt. Which makes him look less like the killer.’
‘Logic? I’m sorry: I’m brain-dead without my siesta,’ she lied. Actually, maybe she was telling the truth.
‘Because if he’d killed all the kids the false wall would hold, you’d have thought he’d go looking for others and other places.’
Fran felt sick. Nothing to do with Madge’s driving, which still, like Dizzy’s, would have done an undertaker credit.
‘After all,’ Madge continued, ‘all the evidence suggests that once a man – and of course, it usually is a man – gets a taste for killing, he’s not going to stop just because he hits a tiny snag. He’ll find another source of victims, another place to stow them.’
Fran said quietly, ‘We’ll just have to hope the reason we can’t run Perkins or Manton to earth – whichever one did it, or both in cahoots, of course – is that they’re dead.’
Mark sank into her better visitor’s chair as if it was as comfortable as a bed.
‘The reason people have children when they’re young,’ he said, ‘is that they’ve got enough energy to keep an eye on them. And keep up with them. And answer inane and/or very sensible questions.’
‘But you were on the train most of the time – six hours doing nothing but relax,’ she pointed out, tongue in cheek. She dunked a tea bag for him, and passed him a chunk of dark chocolate.
‘So I was!’ He slapped his forehead. ‘And there I was forgetting the time at Steam! Not to mention the trip round some of the old works, now masquerading as a shopping centre. OK, an outlet, like Ashford’s,’ he conceded, ‘so at least the clothes and shoes Grandpa had to buy were discounted. I got some more tennis shoes for myself,’ he added brightly, before recalling why he was in Fran’s office. ‘Not that I can ever imagine playing again if we don’t …’
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