The Case of the Broken Doll (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Alison Golden

  There wasn’t. Graham stood to leave.

  “Mr. Sutton, it would be in your client’s interests to begin cooperating with us. I have a strong suspicion that the list of charges against him is only set to grow.” With that, he left Sutton to advise Lyon further and went in search of tea in the reception area.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “FRESH POT BREWING, sir,“ Roach told him.

  “Top man, Constable.” Graham leaned against the desk with a sigh. He looked tired; interviews during which the suspect said absolutely nothing were wearing.

  “How’s it going in there, sir?” the young officer asked.

  “Sutton’s making sure that the little bugger is staying as silent as a monk. But we’ll get to him, don’t you worry.”

  “Right, sir,” Roach said.

  Sergeant Harding appeared in reception, shaking out her umbrella. “Just started pouring down!” she told them, and then she set a plastic bag full of takeout on the reception desk. “Chicken jalfrezi with extra chilies, lamb curry, poppadums, and naan bread. That’ll be seven pounds each, please.” Roach and Graham fumbled for change in their pockets while Harding peered through the peephole of the interview room door. “That blasted lawyer’s still here? Has Lyon said anything?”

  “Silent as a church mouse,” Roach told her as he opened the takeout box of outrageously spicy Indian food. “And looking to stay that way.”

  Graham ignored his meal for the moment. He paced the lobby, walking past the notice board with its posters about community events, firework safety, and the best ways to deter burglars.

  “Constable Roach, Sergeant Harding… Would you step into my office? Bring your food.”

  “Everything alright, sir?” Roach asked.

  “We need to mull this whole thing over in peace. We’ll leave the door open in case anyone comes in to reception.”

  Janice and Roach followed their boss and took seats in Graham’s office.

  “Okay, so we’ve been looking at three suspects, basically,” Graham began. He went to the small whiteboard on the far wall. “The Updikes, Joe Melton, and Andrew Lyon,” he said, writing the three names alongside each other.

  “Melton’s not our guy,” Roach reported. “Like I said, the hospital records…”

  “Yeah,” Graham said, crossing out the name. “The timing doesn’t fit. Then there’s the old couple.”

  “They had the broken doll in their possession,” Janice said.

  Graham wagged the pen at her. “They had a broken doll in their possession, Sergeant, and sadly, but not unexpectedly, we did not get a match for Beth’s DNA or fingerprints from it. Two and two make four, and no more than that.”

  “But we matched the manufacturer,” Roach argued. “It was the same type as the doll Beth was carrying on the morning she vanished. It could be the exact same one.”

  Graham put a large question mark next to the Updikes’ name. “It could be, but it’s certainly not going to work in court as it stands. We’d need firm evidence…”

  “Of which there is precisely sod all,” Janice noted with frustration.

  “…Or a cast iron witness,” Graham added.

  “Of which there are none,” Roach concluded.

  “So, the Updikes are out, too?” Janice asked. The smell of curry was making her distinctly hungry, and she began to wish she’d ordered something for herself.

  “There’s just no motive,” Graham said, “no reason for a quiet, old couple to grab a teenager off the street and make her vanish. I mean, they’re a bit odd…”

  “A bit?” Roach interjected. “Their most prized possession in all the world was a plate signed by a chef from a royal wedding thirty odd years ago.”

  “Being a bit quirky,” Graham retorted, “doesn’t make one a murderer. I mean, we’ve all got our vices, but that’s all they are. For the most part.”

  “Alright,” Janice said, her stomach growling. “So, speaking of vices and whether or not they’re harmless, we’re back to our old friend, Mr. Lyon. Can we really pin this on him?”

  “Susan Miller says no,” Graham said. “She insisted that Lyon isn’t the type.”

  Roach scoffed at this. “I’m sure she’d have sworn blind that he wasn’t the type to mess around with schoolgirls until he started doing exactly that,” he said. “Neither was he the type to work for a Danish porn site, until…”

  “Point is,” Graham interrupted, “we still don’t have any concrete evidence linking him to an abduction or even Internet wrongdoing, if we’re honest.”

  “Well,” Janice said, still frustrated, “she didn’t abduct herself.”

  “No,” Graham agreed. “Unless, I mean…”

  Roach spotted the line of thought. “She did a runner?”

  “On her own?” Janice said, picking up the thread. “Without money, or a passport, or credit cards?”

  Roach frowned. “You have to admit, sir, it’s the least likely explanation. What about her mother?”

  “Ah,” Graham said, readily moving on, “Yes.”

  The case against Ann Leach had been developing steadily, and Graham was now certain they could justify bringing her in for questioning. “We’re police officers, not politicians,” Graham said, “but we have to be aware of the gigantic fuss we’ll create in this community if we arrest Ann Leach.”

  Janice nodded. “She’s received a lot of sympathy and accepted so many donations over a long period of time. I’ve no idea what the public will make of an arrest.”

  “Or what they’ll do,” Roach added. “They might turn on her.”

  “Or us,” Janice added.

  “It’s a risk, certainly” Graham said. “But do you think she had anything to do with Beth’s disappearance?”

  “Maybe Beth didn’t get along too well with Ann’s second husband,” Janice suggested. “You know how teenagers are… Big changes tend to bring heightened emotions, with lots of yelling and crying. Don’t forget that Beth’s biological father was sent down for murder.”

  Janice visualized the scene.

  “Her father gets sent to jail on the mainland, her mother immediately divorces him, and then there’s some new guy in the picture. Must have been traumatic, especially for a young girl. She’s stuck in the background, seething with resentment and hostility.”

  Graham drew a spidery set of lines on the board, connecting these different points. Seeing it laid out like this was often a help to him, but so far, nothing was falling into place.

  “We can only imagine how Beth responded, how difficult she might have made things for Ann,” Janice added.

  Graham looked at her oddly. “So, Ann decides one morning to abduct her own daughter, just so she can have a nice, quiet life with her new man?”

  Janice shrugged. “We’re throwing theories around, and that’s a theory,” she said. “Perhaps they were in cahoots together. Beth wanted out, Ann enabled her disappearance, and spun the story as a way to commit fraud.”

  Graham looked her doubtfully. “Okay, maybe not, but I’ll say this, sir,” she continued, “I’ve been doing this job long enough to know that, well, people are weird. They do weird things that defy explanation. I’m just saying.”

  Graham opened his takeout and began eating. “They do, Sergeant. For sure.”

  While Graham and Harding were back in the interview room, attempting to wring information from Lyon, Roach made sure that no one entered the station while his back was turned. Given the nature of his research, he was most grateful that his workstation wasn’t visible from the station’s lobby. A desperate member of the public staggering in for help and finding the desk constable surfing through dozens of Danish websites, many of them questionable, would not be a good PR or a wise career move.

  Some of the websites he was surfing were found in the colorful and rather incriminating browser history of Andrew Lyon. Others were owned by companies for which Lyon had done web design work. Most of them featured women in various stages of undress.

&nbs
p; There were redheads and brunettes, even a smattering of Asian and African women, but the majority were blonds, mostly with clearly eastern European backgrounds. He lost count of the number of women named “Anna” or “Katya,” though some went by professional names – “Jewel,” “Sunshine,” and “Glitter” among them. They were bright, upbeat names for those involved, whether entirely willingly or not, in a decidedly dark and seedy business.

  He browsed through portrait shots of dozens upon dozens of women, briefly reading what he guessed were their largely fictional biographies. Every half hour or so, when his eyes began to blur and ache from the constant stream of images, he stood and stretched before reading another section of the Beth Ridley case file. Every interview and lead was chronicled there, and he’d built a comprehensive picture of what his colleagues had already investigated.

  When Roach had directly exhausted the list of sites for which Lyon had done work, he began rather aimlessly clicking links to their affiliates. He brought up a gaudy affair with a host of flashing banners and looping animations on fast repeat.

  The site boasted that it had over two hundred of the “hottest girls in Europe.” He shivered slightly and then moved onto another site. This time the presentation and tone were quite different. Whether legitimate or not, the website design was tasteful and restrained. None of the women advertising here were overtly offering libidinous experiences. Some specialized in massage or other forms of therapy.

  “Yeah, right,” Roach muttered to himself. “I bet, in real life, they don’t look anything like their…”

  He stopped and doubled back.

  “Wait a minute.”

  Roach peered at the screen and then clicked on the photo to enlarge it.

  “Wait a cotton pickin’ minute.”

  He downloaded the picture, zoomed in, and printed it out in three different resolutions. A visitor to the station would now have found him staring at three identical pictures of the same woman, laid out on the reception desk.

  He toyed with the idea of knocking on the interview room door when it abruptly opened and the DI appeared.

  “Sir? You need to see this. I think I’ve got something.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “BETTINA,” GRAHAM ANNOUNCED, reading the woman’s one-paragraph biography.

  “Might not be her real name,” Roach advised.

  Graham nodded. “Hardly ever is, right?” He returned to the description. “This twenty-five year old is an educated blond who specializes in…’” He read on for a moment. “Blah-blah-blah, this and that, services and therapies… All euphemisms, I’d imagine. But this one’s clearly captured your attention, Constable. Want to tell me why?”

  Roach stood up straight. This was his moment, and although his theory was certain to be controversial, perhaps even instantly rubbished by his colleagues, he was going to state it and then stand by it. He’d never felt more certain in his life.

  “That’s Beth Ridley, sir.”

  Graham looked at Roach with something approaching shock, then back at the picture, and then back to Roach. “Son, that’s one hell of a… Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Graham stared at the pictures again. He leaned over the desk, picked up the case file that Roach had been looking through, and took out Beth’s school photo. He put it next to the ones taken from the website, his eyes flicking rapidly between them.

  “I know it’s a shock, sir… But hear me out,” Roach pressed.

  Graham stopped him. “Get Sergeant Harding. Have her pick up Susan Miller. We need more eyes on this.”

  “Should we bring in her mother?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Righto, sir.” Roach went to pull Janice out of the interview room. Within moments, she was on her way.

  “And, Constable?” Graham said, still looking at the photographs.

  “Sir?”

  “If it turns out you’re right about this, I’m going to make sure the whole world of British policing knows that it came from you.”

  Once again, Graham felt it prudent to shift the discussion about the photographs into his own office. He was very keen not to let the cat out of the bag. Part of him was, in fact, still rather uncertain as to whether the metaphorical bag genuinely contained the requisite cat.

  “She’s the right age,” Roach reminded him as they waited for Sergeant Harding to return to the station with Susan Miller. “Twenty-five, give or take, right?”

  Graham decided that it was best to play Devil’s Advocate. He wanted to guard against jumping to conclusions. Susan would confirm Roach’s suspicions if they were well-placed.

  “Half the girls on that website are in the right age range, Constable. Probably more than that.”

  “Okay,” Roach admitted. “But her eyes, sir. They’re quite distinctive.” Roach showed him a copy of the last portrait from Ann Leach’s living room wall, and Graham was reminded just how amazingly blue Beth’s eyes were, like a pair of sapphires, gleaming out from the photo as she smiled for the camera.

  “But not unique,” Graham cautioned.

  Roach sighed and walked back to the reception desk. It seemed that his boss was determined to rain on his parade, and just when he had finally begun to harbor some hope.

  The front doors opened and Janice arrived with a rather worried-looking Susan Miller in tow. They made their way to Graham’s office, passing Roach on the way. He caught Susan’s eye and nodded awkwardly, mindful of their mutual past and her recently revealed secret. From his work on Beth’s journal, he suspected Susan Miller was “Mouse.”

  Graham extended a hand. “Very good of you to come in, Miss Miller. Especially on a Sunday and at short notice.”

  Susan seemed on edge. Janice looked at her carefully. She understood the truth behind those worried looks. She knew Susan wanted to help find Beth but was desperate to avoid any public revelations about her past. Janice showed the younger woman to Graham’s office and had her sit down. She brought her a glass of water.

  “We’re working on an image of Beth as she might appear now,” Graham said to Susan. Janice looked on as her boss worked through the narrative he’d composed earlier. It was aimed at ensuring secrecy. “It’s so difficult to extrapolate facial features over a period of ten years,” he explained, “so we’re asking people who knew her well whether or not they’d find the image convincing.”

  Roach had carefully cropped the photo so that only Beth’s face and hair were visible. Graham showed it to Susan and asked, “How do you think we did?”

  Susan picked up the image, her lips pursed. She scrutinized it closely, clearly searching for particular details. “It’s…” she began, then glanced at Graham and Janice in turn before returning to the picture. “It’s uncanny.”

  “Really?” Graham said, feigning pride to conceal the immense rush of adrenalin he suddenly felt. “You’re not just being kind?”

  “Absolutely uncanny,” Susan repeated. “Her eyes… The shape of her nose… You’ve captured her perfectly.”

  “Well, that’s great news,” Graham told Susan. “You’ve made my day, I’ll be honest. Thank you.”

  Graham raised his eyes to Harding.

  Get her home. We’ve got work to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ROB AND CHARLIE waited until sunset to make their final preparations. Rob quietly brought out a stash of equipment from the lean-to they’d roughly constructed from an old door and a couple of sturdy planks. Charlie set about stowing them onboard. They worked on the boat in silence, following a careful plan agreed upon long before.

  Charlie was particularly proud of the boat itself. The Sea Witch was a sturdy fishing vessel, probably sixty years old. The original idea to restore it had been Rob’s, and together they drew up plans to patch the leaky hull, install new equipment, and work to make the old girl seaworthy again. If only for this one vital expedition.

  The Witch sat on a makeshift boat ramp at the bottom of the garden. Charlie’s fami
ly home backed on to the beach, and the carefully tended lawn close to the house gave way to coarse, reed-like grass and then sand. At high tide, they could launch the boat directly into the water.

  Most of the boat’s hull was obscured from the house, certainly from anyone looking out of the kitchen windows, but much of it was visible from the house’s upstairs bedrooms. This didn’t bother Rob or Charlie too much. Those in the house knew they were reconditioning the boat and had seen the change in its color as the two applied new coats of paint. It was all fine just as long as those in the house never found out the real mission behind their restoration project.

  Rob brought out the third box of equipment. The two would-be sailors began finalizing stowage and proper mountings for the gear. There was a powerful lamp that Charlie screwed to an existing metal mounting outside the pilot house. Rob then attached the GPS to the battered wood of the console.

  “Jesus,” Charlie observed as he came back into the boat’s pilot house. “Couldn’t you have managed to put the bloody thing on straight? It’s as crooked as a mafia lawyer, man.”

  Rob pushed annoying strands of ginger hair from his eyes and offered Charlie the screwdriver. “Have a go yourself, then. This wood has been warping for longer than we’ve been alive. I’m amazed it didn’t splinter into pieces when I drove the screw in.”

  “Alright,” Charlie conceded. “Just provided we’re all stowed and ready to go in four hours.”

  “Ready or not,” Rob reminded him, “that’s when we go. No more waiting around. It’s high tide, and it’s high time.”

  Charlie agreed. “Dunno why we waited this long, honestly. Come and help me with the last lot, alright?”

  These were the heaviest items yet; a pair of storage boxes that weighed enough to have them both heaving and complaining as they were shoved aboard and stowed under some tarpaulin.

  Once they were secure, Charlie flexed his tired shoulders and then turned to his friend thoughtfully. “You nervous?”