by D. S. Butler
‘What sort of parents would use their daughter to get back at each other?’ Leanne asked, her voice trembling.
‘Oh, spare me the hoity-toity act,’ Jenny snapped.
Before it could escalate into a full-blown argument, DI Morgan intervened. ‘If you’ll come in here, please, Mrs Gibson.’
He led Leanne into the classroom and nodded, signalling Karen to take Jenny to another room.
‘Mrs Lyons, is there another classroom we could use so I can talk to Jenny in private?’ Karen asked.
‘Of course, although you’re welcome to use my office if you’d like? The chairs are probably a bit more comfortable.’
Karen nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
As the head teacher led them to her office, Karen shot a sideways glance at Jenny. She was picking nervously at the stretchy material of her top, the words leaving her mouth in a jumble as she spoke. Karen guessed she didn’t want to stop talking because, if she did, then she’d be forced to consider the possibility that her husband hadn’t taken Emily and Sian, and what that might mean.
‘It’s gotta be him. It’s exactly the sorta thing Dennis would do. He’s angry with me, and he uses Emily as a way to get back at me. Last week, he arrived to pick Emily up, and I could smell alcohol on his breath, so of course I didn’t let him take her. I mean, what sort of mum would leave their child in the care of a drunk man?’ She narrowed her eyes and glared at Karen. ‘And I know what you’re thinking, looking down your nose at me like that. But I only live two minutes away. And Emily loves walking home on her own. I’d never have let her do that if I didn’t think she was safe. We live in Heighington. It’s hardly the same as living in the middle of Lincoln.’
Her words were prickly, driven by worry and guilt. Karen said nothing, waiting for her to say everything she needed to get off her chest.
They entered the office, and the head teacher left them. Karen sat down on one of the comfortable chairs and scooted around to face Jenny. She didn’t want to sit across from her with the desk a barrier between them. Trust was crucial in a situation like this.
‘We have officers trying to track down Dennis,’ Karen said. ‘If he has taken the girls, then we’ll know soon enough.’
She nodded for Jenny to sit down in the chair opposite hers.
Jenny sat and swallowed hard, rapidly blinking back tears. ‘You don’t believe Dennis took them, do you? You think someone else has taken them. You think they’ve been abducted by a . . .’ She broke off, unable to complete the sentence.
In a matter of seconds, Jenny’s mood had changed. The defensive, angry woman had dissolved into a trembling mother gripped by fear.
‘We’re keeping an open mind, Jenny,’ Karen said, keeping her voice soft. ‘We can’t afford to discount any possibilities at this stage. We just want to get the girls back as quickly as possible. Now, can you tell me why you think Dennis may have taken Emily and why he would have taken Sian as well?’
Jenny bit on a fingernail. ‘Like I said, he was angry with me for not letting him see Emily last weekend when he’d been drinking. But I don’t know why he would’ve taken Sian too.’
‘If he did take the girls, where would he have taken them? Would he take them out for something to eat or to the cinema?’
‘I suppose he could have done, though last week he said he was broke and couldn’t give me any money. I was furious cos they were about to cut off our TV and internet. I told him just because he’s walked out on us doesn’t mean he can ignore his responsibilities, and I’d take him to court if I had to. That caused another argument.’
The cheerful ring of a mobile phone sounded from the depths of Jenny’s oversized red bag, and she delved inside before pulling out an iPhone. Karen noticed it was a newer model than her own.
Jenny’s eyes widened as she looked at the screen. ‘It’s him. It’s Dennis.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Back in the classroom, Scott Morgan was attempting to calm down Leanne Gibson.
‘He’s on his way,’ Leanne said, responding to DI Morgan’s question about her husband’s whereabouts. ‘He was working in Nottingham today, but he’s driving back now.’ She turned her head and looked out of the window. ‘Shouldn’t we be out there searching? I mean, we’re not doing much good just sitting in here, waiting.’
‘Our officers are carrying out a thorough search, Mrs Gibson. I know it’s difficult but I need to ask you some questions. Have you noticed anything strange about Sian’s behaviour recently? Anything out of the ordinary?’
Leanne Gibson frowned. ‘Like what?’
‘Has Sian mentioned any new friends? Is she allowed access to the internet?’
Leanne’s face paled. ‘Oh God, you think she’s been groomed by someone, don’t you?’
‘We just need to get a fuller picture of Sian’s life, Mrs Gibson.’
Leanne clutched her hands together and took a deep breath. ‘She’s got a Facebook account, but she’s not supposed to use it without telling me what she’s looking at. I approve all her friend requests. It’s on the iPad at home. Apart from the iPad . . . she doesn’t have any access to the internet. She isn’t allowed a phone. I try to limit the time she spends on the iPad too. Otherwise, she’d always be on YouTube watching videos. You know what kids are like these days.’ Leanne shook her head and studied her hands. ‘Sian’s a good girl. She knows she’s not supposed to talk to strangers. She wouldn’t just go off with someone she doesn’t know. I’ve told her a million times that she’s not to go anywhere without telling me first.’ Leanne looked up. ‘Do you think it’s possible Dennis Dean has taken them? It’s awful, but I almost wish he has. It’s better than thinking some stranger has abducted them.’
‘We’re just trying to gather all the facts. We don’t even know if the girls have been taken. They could have wandered off on their own.’
Leanne nodded but she didn’t look convinced.
She clenched and unclenched her fists as DI Morgan ran through his questions. Each one made the anguish on her face worse, and he wished he didn’t have to put her through it, but he had no choice. They needed answers.
After a few more questions, tears were trickling down Leanne’s cheeks. At that point, Karen knocked and stuck her head around the door. ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. But I’d like a word, please.’
Karen gave him a meaningful look, and Leanne turned around in her seat to stare at Karen, watching her with a mixture of hope and dread in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry. I won’t be a moment,’ DI Morgan said, excusing himself and going out into the corridor to talk to Karen.
‘Development?’ He knew Karen wouldn’t have interrupted his interview with Leanne if it wasn’t important.
‘Jenny’s just received a call from Emily’s father, Dennis. He says he doesn’t have the girls and he only just got her message. He sounds distraught, sir. I really don’t think he’s taken them.’
DI Morgan sighed. ‘There goes our working theory. If Emily’s father doesn’t have them, it’s looking like the girls either wandered off on their own, or were taken by a stranger.’
Karen nodded. ‘I agree.’
‘Has anything come up from the searches so far?’
Karen shook her head. ‘I haven’t heard anything, but I haven’t checked in since I started talking to Jenny.’
‘We’re going to need to talk to Dennis Dean as soon as possible.’
‘He’s on his way here. Jenny told him she was at the school.’
‘Fine. We can speak to him here.’ He began to turn away and then changed his mind and turned back. ‘Tell me, Karen, did you notice anything odd about Mr Saunders?’
Karen frowned. ‘Danny’s father? No, he seemed upset. But I guessed that was because he was imagining how he’d feel if it were his son who was missing. Why? Did you get an odd vibe from him?’
DI Morgan paused and then said, ‘It doesn’t matter. Let me know when Dennis arrives.’
At well over six feet tall,
Dennis Dean was a big man. His broad shoulders and muscular arms, thanks to his job as a labourer, made him a very intimidating presence. He’d had plenty of run-ins with the police in the past so Karen hadn’t expected him to be cooperative.
She’d been right. It took DI Morgan a good ten minutes to calm him down after he arrived at the school. Dennis interspersed answers to their questions with insults. He was angry, rude and altogether unpleasant to deal with, but Karen couldn’t shake the feeling he was telling the truth when he told them he had nothing to do with his daughter’s disappearance.
‘Can you think of anyone who might want to target your family in this way?’ DI Morgan asked.
The question was like a red rag to a bull. ‘Are you trying to blame this on me? Typical bloody police. Why aren’t you out there looking for them, instead of in here asking me stupid questions?’
‘We have lots of officers looking for Emily and Sian, Mr Dean,’ Karen said, keeping her voice calm. ‘We need to ask these questions. Do you have any idea who could have taken them? Someone who holds a grudge against you, maybe? Or has anything happened recently that may have made Emily want to run away?’
The arrogant, furious expression on Dennis Dean’s face melted away and was replaced by a look of pure fear. ‘I don’t think so. Emily can be a hot-headed little thing, but she wouldn’t worry her mum and me like this.’
‘Has she ever run away before?’
Dennis shook his head. ‘Not recently. I remember once, when she was five, she packed up her dollies and made herself a jam sandwich. Said she was going to live with the Little Mermaid. She was crazy about that film.’ He broke off and ran a hand through his tousled black hair. Then he fixed his bright blue eyes on Karen. ‘It’s not like her at all. You have to find her. Someone’s taken her. I know they have.’
As DI Morgan pressed on with the questions, pushing sensitive subjects, which earned him sharp, unhelpful replies, Karen tried to weigh up the evidence they had so far.
It was starting to look like this could be a genuine abduction.
Sian’s father, Thomas Gibson, had arrived at the school in a panic, and they hadn’t managed to get much useful information out of him. Jenny Dean’s mother, Louise Jennings, had also arrived at the school to comfort her daughter and take her home. A liaison officer had been assigned to each family, and Karen hoped the officers would get more information from the parents when they were back in familiar surroundings. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help. The shock of the situation made it hard to think straight and process information normally.
Both sets of parents seemed reluctant to leave the school, probably because it was the last place the girls were seen. But it was important to get them home. Once word got out, which it was bound to soon as every parent with a child at the school knew about it, the press would be swarming all over the village.
‘I don’t know what sort of man you think I am, Inspector,’ Dennis said through gritted teeth, ‘but nobody I know would take a grudge out on an innocent child.’
‘So you’ve had no bust-ups recently? You can’t think of anyone you’ve annoyed or had a disagreement with?’
Dennis screwed up his face and looked like he was going to launch into another tirade, but then he suddenly stopped and said, ‘Maybe there is something.’
Karen tensed.
‘We let Odd George live on a plot of land at the back of Dad’s place. It’s just a bit of scrubland, full of weeds, but recently Dad’s got it in his head to get planning permission and build a bungalow there, so he told Odd George to leave.’
‘Odd George?’ DI Morgan asked and raised an eyebrow.
Karen spoke up. ‘George Barrows. He’s lived in Heighington all his life and does odd jobs here and there. He used to live with his mother until she passed away ten years ago, and he couldn’t afford the private rent. I always thought George was a good friend of your father, Dean.’
Dean shrugged. ‘That’s as may be, but they seem to have fallen out. Just yesterday George turned up, hammering on the door, three sheets to the wind. He said he’s getting legal advice for unlawful eviction and promised we’d regret double-crossing him.’
Karen nodded. She didn’t know George Barrows well, but she couldn’t imagine him abducting two young children. Still, they couldn’t discount it out of hand without speaking to the man first.
‘We’ll check it out,’ DI Morgan promised.
Dennis had refused to let a family liaison officer come to his father’s house, which was where he’d been living since Jenny had chucked him out, so they made sure they had all his contact details before he left.
‘You don’t think he’s going to do anything stupid, do you, sir?’ Karen asked, watching the hulking figure of Dennis Dean lumber down the corridor and out of sight.
‘Probably,’ DI Morgan said drily and then turned to Karen. ‘I think we should locate George Barrows as soon as possible. I’d like a word with him.’
CHAPTER FIVE
The children’s teacher, Roz Morrison, was still too distraught to string more than a couple of sentences together. She was taking the girls’ disappearance hard and blamed herself.
When Karen told her Dennis Dean had denied taking Emily and Sian, she grew even more agitated.
‘If only I’d noticed they’d gone missing earlier.’ Her hands fluttered up to press against her forehead and she sighed. ‘But in the rush after the rehearsal, I didn’t notice they weren’t with the others.’ She dropped her arms so they hung limply at her sides. ‘The children were in high spirits and a little boisterous, which was why I asked them to sit in the reading area so we could continue The Magician’s Nephew. I wanted to calm them down, but if they’d been in their normal places, I’d have noticed earlier.’
‘Come on, Roz. It’s not your fault. They’d only been missing a few minutes when you raised the alarm,’ Jackie Lyons said.
The head teacher seemed a sensible woman and Karen was glad she’d kept her calm.
Karen was pretty sure they weren’t going to get much more out of Roz. She hadn’t seen the girls leave and had alerted the head teacher as soon as she’d noticed Emily and Sian were missing. When she’d calmed down a little, it would be worth talking to her again to get some background on both of the girls. It would be interesting to find out if the teacher was aware of any family trouble. They’d already had a few hints that Emily Dean’s home life wasn’t a particularly happy one.
Roz Morrison clasped her hands together and mumbled, ‘I’d like to help in the search, if that’s okay?’
‘I think that would be fine,’ Karen said. ‘We’ve set up a coordination point at the back of Longwater Lane and search parties are being organised from there. It’s important you search in one of the organised groups and listen to what the officer in charge tells you.’
Roz nodded obediently and reached for her coat.
Karen could understand the woman’s need to take part in the search. She needed to feel like she was doing something to track down the children.
‘There are already some photographers and journalists at the front gate. You may want to leave via the playground, Roz,’ Jackie Lyons said, her voice fading at the end of the sentence as she remembered that was the way the girls had left the school.
Roz bowed her head as she buttoned up her coat and then walked slowly out of the room.
‘Thanks for your help, Mrs Lyons,’ Karen said, turning to the head teacher. ‘We’ll probably need to talk to you again soon.’
‘Of course.’ Jackie hesitated. She put her hand over her mouth and then lowered it before saying, ‘There’s something I want to tell you. It might not be important, but it just struck me as a little odd.’
Karen nodded encouragingly, and then waited for the woman to continue.
‘Well, when Leanne Gibson arrived, she was distraught as you’d expect. I told her where to find you and followed her. That’s when I saw her run into Matthew Saunders.’
‘Danny’s
father?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Jackie said. ‘At that point, she couldn’t have known Danny had seen the girls leave school. But her reaction to Matthew Saunders seemed very strange to me.’
‘In what way?’ DI Morgan asked.
‘Danny’s mother is a GP at the Heighington practice. She works long hours so Matthew is the parent who picks Danny up and drops him off at school. He’s quite friendly . . .’ The head teacher leaned a little closer to Karen. ‘I don’t like to gossip, but he’s quite popular among the mothers at the school gates.’ She raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
‘And is he friendly with Leanne?’
Jackie nodded. ‘Very much so. They’re always teasing each other and laughing and joking at the school gates. That’s why her reaction today seemed so strange. When she saw him in the corridor, she just stopped abruptly and snapped, “What are you doing here?”’
Karen frowned. ‘And what did he say to that?’
Jackie shrugged. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. He looked very surprised at her outburst, and then he watched her hurry past. Leanne didn’t give him much of a chance to answer. She took off again, running towards you.’ The head teacher shot them an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry. There’s probably nothing in it. Leanne was just overwrought.’
‘You did the right thing by telling us,’ DI Morgan said. ‘In cases like this, you never know what could be important. Any odd behaviour could be relevant. If you come across any other information, don’t be afraid to let us know.’
Jackie looked somewhat reassured. ‘Right, I will.’ She took a deep breath and glanced beyond Karen to the window. ‘Let’s hope the girls are home before dark.’
Karen shivered. There wasn’t much chance of that now. The sky was already tinged with red and the sun was dipping close to the horizon. The sun set early at this time of year.
They thanked Jackie for her assistance and made their way to the main entrance. The forensics team would soon be here, and although there was little point in scouring the classrooms for trace evidence, the officers would need access to the playground area. Jackie had told them she didn’t mind staying at the school for however long they needed. She wouldn’t feel right going home to her warm, comfortable house when she knew the two girls were still out there somewhere, cold and alone.