by Graham Smith
Forster tapped out a message inviting Beth to join him as his plus-one at the garden party. Some people didn’t believe in mixing business with pleasure. Forster did. After all, why bother with a business if it didn’t give you pleasure?
Sixty-Two
Beth powered up her computer and filled a glass with water as she waited for the machine to crank itself into life. As a rule she’d start her working day with a cup of tea, but the sun was already threatening to make today even hotter than yesterday.
The text she’d got from Forster last night had surprised her. She’d expected him to get in touch at some point, to suggest having another meeting over dinner, or to work at his office on setting up the charity. What she hadn’t anticipated was him taking her to a party as his plus-one.
She wondered if that was how he thought of her; a woman to have hanging off his arm and every word as he bullshitted his friends and scattered his effortless charm on those who could benefit him. He’d have to think again if that’s how he planned to treat her. Beth wasn’t anyone’s little woman and never had been. There was no way she planned to start now. On the other hand, if Forster was going to set up the charity, she wanted to do her bit.
She fired off a reply telling Forster that she’d be there if work allowed, but she couldn’t see how she’d get a chance. Not with four murders to investigate along with Willow’s disappearance.
The first thing Beth did after logging onto her PC was check her emails. Of the six that had appeared through the night, she ignored five and directed her cursor to the sixth. It was the trace on Willow’s phone.
As she ran a search on the coordinates of the mobile’s final location, Beth lifted the phone and put a call into the Brown household. It was early to be calling someone, but she didn’t think that either of Willow’s parents would have got much sleep.
After a brief conversation she hung up. It had been a forlorn hope that Willow had returned during the night, but she’d had to check.
The early-morning traffic was light as Beth sped along the A66 towards Maryport. For the majority of the journey she had the road to herself and could keep her foot close enough to the floor to ensure that she was travelling at an illegal pace.
Her iPod was again playing a playlist of power ballads as she felt it was too early in the morning to listen to anything more upbeat, or angry. For her, Aerosmith’s ‘Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ was especially poignant as the song’s title was how she felt about her job.
When she’d filled in O’Dowd on the contents of her emails, the DI had sent her across to Maryport so she was on the scene. O’Dowd had also called Workington Station and requested that an officer with local knowledge join Beth in Maryport. Beth figured the DI must have struck lucky because she was called by the officer twenty minutes after she’d left Carleton Hall.
As soon as Beth had got the results for the whereabouts of Willow’s phone she’d overlaid them on a map and had seen how, on Friday night, Willow’s phone had moved around Maryport in a manner that would have been expected of someone enjoying a night out. It would be static for an hour then travel a hundred or so yards as its owner went to a different venue.
It was at the end of the evening that things became interesting. Rather than move in the direction of home, Willow had gone to a small park bordering the River Ellen. A check on Google Street View had shown the park as being ornamental rather than activity based.
The only reason that Beth could think of for Willow going to the park was that she’d wanted to go somewhere private and – at that time of night – that probably meant she had hooked up with someone. However, the union must never have happened, as a mere six minutes after entering the park, Willow’s phone indicated that she’d left.
The next time the triangulation signal kicked in, the phone’s location was further along, near the point where Ellenborough Road bridged the river. If Willow and the guy she’d hooked up with had been disturbed and gone somewhere else it would have been understandable. However, the phone had never moved from its new location by the bridge.
This was a huge red flag to Beth. In her mind, circumstances had changed in the park, and the fact that Willow’s phone was now residing in an area Street View had shown as an overgrown riverbank, jangled every one of Beth’s professional nerves.
Beth didn’t know what she might find if she could retrieve Willow’s phone, but she knew it was something she’d have to do. There was no telling what evidence the phone may hold, and there was also the possibility that they might get a fingerprint, provided the mobile hadn’t got soaked by the heavy dew that was in place when Beth had gone for her early-morning run.
Maryport was starting to wake up as Beth pulled off Ellenborough Road onto Selby Terrace and parked behind the liveried Astra. The officer who climbed out of the police car confounded all of Beth’s expectations. From the voice on the phone, she’d expected to find the officer was at least forty-five, but the one who greeted her would be lucky if he was twenty.
Maybe it was the drawled West Cumbrian accent that had fooled her, or maybe she’d been preoccupied with her thoughts on the case. Either way, she had what looked to be an inexperienced officer to help her.
The officer tossed a self-important greeting her way when she introduced herself. She watched as his eyes swarmed over her and locked onto the scar decorating her left cheek. His mouth dropped open and he kept his gaze on her face a full five seconds. When he realised what he was doing, he turned to the river, the reddening of the back of his neck a sign of his embarrassment.
Beth joined the officer at the metal railings which edged the road. A series of allotments thirty-feet long stretched between the wall and the bushes and trees which lined the riverbank.
Beth made a point of keeping her voice level. The young officer had reacted badly to her scar, but she’d faced worse and he’d at least had the decency to be embarrassed by his actions. ‘You never told me your name.’
‘PC Russell, ma’am.’
The way he looked at her made Beth suspect that he thought she wanted his name so she could lodge a complaint.
‘You don’t need to ma’am me. I’m a DC. So, PC Russell, since we’re probably going to be groping around here for a couple of hours looking for a mobile phone, why don’t you tell me your real name?’
‘It’s Kieran.’
‘Mine’s Beth. Right then, Kieran, let’s try and find that phone.’ Beth pulled out the screenshot she’d printed and compared it to the area in front of her.
Once she’d fixed in her mind where the phone was likely to be, she found a small gate with squeaky hinges and made her way along the flagstones laid by the allotment’s owner. To her left and right a variety of different vegetables were sending green shoots skywards in search of sunlight and rain.
A row of old doors lying on their sides marked the end of the allotment and there was a compost heap she had to skirt before she could step over the doors. If her reckoning was right, the mobile phone would be within ten feet of where she stood. The problem was, the area was overgrown with riverside shrubs, long grass, and there was no clear indication of where the ground ended and the river began. So dense was the shrubbery, it was only the tinkle of water tumbling over stones that confirmed the river’s presence.
Beth turned to face Kieran who was still in the allotment, a look of worry on his face. ‘Can you see a stick of some kind, something I can use to test the ground?’
Kieran walked off scanning the area and came back with a bamboo cane. It was the perfect tool for the job and Beth used it to probe the grasses to determine where the riverbank started.
Rather than join her search at close range, Kieran stayed on the allotment side of the doors. Beth would have chastised him to join her, but she didn’t trust him not to do something stupid like knock Willow’s mobile into the river.
A branch was right in front of her face so she pulled it to one side and moved forward another few inches, the cane in her hand alternating betw
een sweeps through the grass and jabs at the ground to test its firmness and incline.
From what she’d glimpsed of the river when crossing the bridge, she didn’t think it would be deep, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get a soaking if she fell in.
She probed and swept her way forward until the bamboo cane no longer connected with anything solid.
Beth straightened her back and looked both left and right along the riverbank.
Something in the tree to her left caught her eye.
It was a violet colour and looked out of place.
As she focussed on it, she realised that she was looking at something which may well be Willow’s phone.
Beth backed out of where she was and crossed the five paces to where the tree curled its way out from the side of the riverbank. She lifted another branch out of her eyeline and used the cane to test the ground as she walked forward. Now she could see the violet object was indeed a mobile phone.
There was no doubt in her mind that it must be Willow’s phone, as the odds of another phone being in the exact place that Willow’s was at, were too long to contemplate.
In an ideal world, she’d be able to walk to the edge of the bank and reach out and lift the phone from where it had stuck in the ‘V’ between two branches. However, the point where the branches met was four feet away from the bank. The only way to get within reach of the phone would be to clamber down the bank until she could stand on the trunk of the tree and climb up the first few branches until she could reach the mobile.
It was a simple plan apart from one serious flaw: to reach sunlight, the tree had arced itself away from the bank. As Beth didn’t know how secure the tree’s grip of the bank was, she worried that attempts to retrieve the phone would see the tree fall into the river. Not only would she get a soaking, the phone would be ruined along with any evidence it potentially held.
Beth looked down at the river six feet below the riverbank. It wasn’t calm, deep water that would cushion a fall, it was a patch of large rounded stones interspersed by lazy rivulets of water. A fall onto those rocks could quite easily break a bone or two.
Once again, she backed away from the riverbank. When she was free of the branches she turned to Kieran and told him what she’d found.
‘Nice one. Who are you going to call to get it down from there?’
‘I’m calling no one. There’s two of us: we’ll easily get it.’ As she spoke, Beth was watching the emotions running across Kieran’s face. Excitement had turned to uncertainty, which in turn became fear.
‘How are we going to do that?’
‘By climbing the tree.’
Beth couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Kieran had retreated back until he was three feet inside the allotment. She’d expected him to offer to climb the tree for her. He had at least four inches in height on her, and the way his arms hung by his sides, suggested that he’d only have to climb one of the slim branches before he’d be able to pluck the phone from between the branches. A devilish part of her wanted to test his mettle. ‘C’mon then, I’ll hold your utility vest while you get the phone back.’
‘Me?’ His face blanched. ‘I’m not climbing any tree. I can’t do it.’ His face brightened. ‘I haven’t been on the course.’
Beth knew the line about the course was him trying to hide his cowardice behind bureaucracy. ‘Neither have I, but I’m not going to let that stop me.’
She peeled off her jacket, retrieved an evidence bag from its pocket and stuffed it into her waistband. Her next move was to pull a pair of nitrile gloves over her hands.
‘Right, Kieran, it’s decision time for you. I’m going to climb that tree. If you were on the bank you’d be able to help me. Are you willing to do that, or are you going to need to attend a course in helping colleagues first?’
Beth had to give Kieran his due: he stepped forward, although he didn’t look happy and there was a shake to his hands as he went to move a branch for her.
She turned her back on him as she ducked under the branch and crept her way to the edge of the river, her feet tilting downwards as the bank curled away to nothingness. Her hands grasped a thin branch as she neared the edge. It wasn’t strong enough to support her weight, but holding it gave her more confidence.
Her feet edged forward, heels dug into the bank as she neared the point where she’d have to take a step down so she was standing on the tree’s trunk. It was only a foot below her, but as she was sending her left foot down towards it, the bank beneath her right foot gave way.
Beth pitched forward, her shoulder thumping against the tree even as her arms encircled it. Her feet scrabbled at the base of the trunk until they gained purchase and she could stop worrying she was going to land on the boulders below.
The tree had survived the sudden addition of her weight, but Beth’s only thought was for the phone. When she looked up and saw it was still jammed between the branches she let out a relieved sigh.
Once she’d got her heart rate under control, Beth gripped the branches above her head and put her foot on a branch that was at knee height. Every time she progressed upwards, she moved further away from the bank.
After three successive movements, she had the phone in front of her face. It should have been easy to get the phone into the evidence bag, but the way the tree had flexed to a 45 degree angle not only unnerved her, but it made her want to grab the phone and toss it to Kieran before everything landed in the river.
She was also suffering from a lack of hands as she was using both of hers to cling to the tree’s branches. Slowly, an inch at a time, she laid her body against the tree’s narrow trunk until she could release the branches and balance herself.
Her left hand retrieved the evidence bag and moved it round so it was below the phone. She teased it open and then reached for the violet rectangle six inches from her nose.
As soon as her fingers touched it, the phone moved. In a panic that it would tumble into the river, she grabbed the mobile and got a firm grip of it.
She eased it out from its resting place and dropped it into the evidence bag.
With the bag safely wedged into her waistband, she moved her hands back to the branches and levered herself to a more vertical position.
The readjustment of her weight caused the tree to lean further towards the river. Its lower branches now trailed in the water and caressed the boulders in the riverbed. As quick as she could, Beth clambered back down until she was standing on the curve where the tree emerged from the bank.
Kieran held out the end of the bamboo cane to her, so Beth planted a foot on the bank and through a combination of her own strength, and his pulling, got herself back onto solid ground.
The first thing she did was retrieve the evidence bag and hold it up to take a look at the phone. It appeared to be switched off, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get fingerprints from it which may well identify Willow’s abductor.
Beth dusted herself down. There were stubborn green stains where some form of lichen or algae refused to be brushed off, but she wasn’t too worried; the dark material of her trouser suit hid the worst of the staining.
‘Well done.’ Kieran’s face and his voice held a measure of respect. ‘There’s no way I could have done that.’
‘We all have our different strengths.’ Beth didn’t need his compliments or his admissions. Her mind was already on the next steps she had to take. ‘Thanks for helping. You can get back to your station now. Do me a favour when you write up your report though, just say I shinned a couple of branches up a tree, there’s nothing to be gained from overdramatising things.’
Now that she’d done what was needed, Beth was looking at it from Mannequin’s point of view. He’d doubtless consider her climbing the tree to have been foolhardy and dangerous; therefore he’d deem it worthy of a reprimand she didn’t have time to waste hearing.
‘I’m not to go back to the station. My sarge says I’ve to help you until you go back to Carleton Hall.’
‘Fair enough.’
As Beth led him back to where their cars were parked, she couldn’t help but wonder if his sergeant wanted Kieran to be educated or babysat.
Sixty-Three
As she drove to the Brown household, Beth recalled her conversation with one of the friends Willow had been out with on Friday night. The woman had been chatty enough and Beth hadn’t heard any hesitation or subterfuge in her voice when she questioned her about the night out.
Willow had been chatted up by one or two guys, but she’d not gone any further than a spot of flirting. She’d also talked with lots of people she knew from the town, but hadn’t got drawn into any lengthy conversations.
The friend had admitted that the way Willow had dressed had drawn attention, but while she’d enjoyed the looks she was getting, she hadn’t led anyone on in any way.
With every new piece of information she received, the greater was Beth’s conviction that Willow had been deliberately taken by the Lakeland Ripper.
Her first knock on the Browns’ door went unanswered, so she rattled her knuckles off the glass a second time with a little more force.
The door swung open to reveal an agitated Mrs Brown. Her hands flapped at nothing as she stepped back to allow Beth and Kieran into the house.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Brown, but I need to show something to either you or your husband.’
‘What is it? Please, dear God no. Please don’t show me a picture and ask if it’s our Willow. I can’t cope with that.’
‘Don’t you worry, lass, it’s nowt like that.’
To some, Kieran calling Mrs Brown ‘lass’ when she was old enough to be his mother might seem odd, but Beth knew the addition of ‘lad’ or ‘lass’ to a sentence was a trait common to Cumbria, and the familiarity of the expression seemed to settle Mrs Brown.