by Alison James
This summed up Christmas for Rachel: a glittery mirage with very little at its heart. She was not religious or even remotely spiritual, and although she enjoyed living in a comfortable flat, its functional interior was testament to her disdain for material possessions. That was all Christmas was about, she thought, as she watched shoppers hurrying past with handfuls of bulging carrier bags: stuff. Just more and more stuff. Stuff no one really needed.
She tried to remember the last time she had been Christmas shopping. Not in years. Usually she ordered a handful of presents from the comfort of her laptop and stayed away from the shops completely. This afternoon she found herself in an upmarket department store and, seduced by the feeling of entering Aladdin’s cave, buying gifts. A pashmina for her mother, a book about military history for her brother-in-law, and a bottle of expensive gin for her sister, who, when pressed, would admit to enjoying a G&T as though it were smoking a crack pipe. Her niece and nephew would receive cash. She had no idea of their tastes, but they were old enough to appreciate having spending power of their own.
Finally, in a fit of uncharacteristic sentimentality, she bought a burgundy cashmere scarf for Brickall, to wear with the Crombie overcoat that she teased made him look like a second-hand car salesman.
She was paying for her purchases when her mobile rang. It was Leila Rajavi.
‘Hold on,’ said Rachel through the deafening hubbub of canned Christmas music and chattering shoppers. ‘Let me call you back in a second when I can actually hear you.’
She went to the top-floor restaurant, ordered a pot of tea and sat down at a window table to return the call.
‘The bloody mobile’s clean!’ Rajavi didn’t even try to hide her frustration. ‘The only interesting thing we found was frequent calls to a contact saved as ‘Sunny’, a number that turned out to be a burner when we traced it.’
‘Can you triangulate its location?’
‘We’re working on that. Forensics wasn’t quite a total blank. There were minute traces of Lola’s DNA on the carpet in the blocked-off room: saliva and spots of blood.’
‘Blood? Not what you would expect, surely?’
‘Maybe. But given that the child lived in the house and could have gone into the room frequently to play, it’s not definitive. There wasn’t enough of it to suggest foul play. And Lola’s iPad was in her room, just like Michelle said: nothing on there but cartoons and kids’ stuff. So now DCI Manners wants me to organise someone to go out to Belgium.’
‘I have a feeling that could end up being me,’ observed Rachel drily. ‘Whoopee.’
‘Well it can’t be me, obviously, given that I’m about to pop… Other than that, I’m not sure what our next move is.’
‘Ben Wethers?’
‘Still too traumatised, according to family liaison and the social worker. But the relevant people are on standby, and we’re hopeful we might be able to try tomorrow. I’m about to go over all the CCTV from the night Carly died.’
‘Baby steps,’ Rachel told her firmly. ‘The pieces of the puzzle will come together. We just need that first solid connection, then everything else will fall into place. I’m just heading to a meeting with Child Protection, but I’ll get back to you with an update afterwards.’
* * *
‘Mince pies.’
Giles Denton put a plate of them at the centre of the meeting room table, as though offering up a sacrifice. ‘To thank you all for coming at such short notice,’
His dark eyes twinkled in Rachel’s direction, and hers alone. Brickall would have a field day with this if he were here, she thought. Evidence for his Denton romance conspiracy theory.
‘Okay, let’s get to it: I’m going to keep this brief. Belgian police have arrested two men in relation to the murder of Chloe Atwell. They’re Romanian nationals…’ He pulled up two scowling mug shots on the wall-mounted screen: one huge, hulking and blank-eyed, the other smaller, with a sneering expression. ‘Gavril Vasile and Danut Petrescu. Intelligence have confirmed that they’re both known members of a human trafficking organisation. It’s not yet clear what they had planned for Chloe after they snatched her, but it appears that something went wrong in transit and she ended up dead before reaching her final destination…’
He paused and looked at the other five people round the table. Rachel recognised all of them but one, whom Denton had introduced as the CID liaison from Sussex Police.
‘Obviously one of the first things we needed to establish was a possible link to the case of Lola Jade Harper. Both men deny having any involvement in her disappearance, and the alibis they’ve provided appear to support their claim that they were both in Romania on the ninth of May. Until we’ve had the chance to double-check this, I suggest we don’t mention Lola Jade in any press statement we put out. Depending on what we find, we may have to get someone from that enquiry out to Belgium to question them.’
‘The press will speculate anyway,’ said Nick Furnish, biting into his second mince pie.
‘Of course: that’s the nature of the beast,’ agreed Patten.‘And up to a point, that’s their job.’
‘So if the alibis are confirmed and we can officially rule these men out of Lola Jade’s abduction, we will need to reassure the public that efforts to find her are still ongoing,’ said Gilly Durante. ‘Can we confirm that’s the case?’
Nigel Patten gave a little nod in Rachel’s direction.
‘Yes,’ said Rachel, ‘absolutely. I’m still working closely with Surrey Police on a couple of leads.’
At that moment her phone buzzed with a text from Leila Rajavi.
I think we’ve got something.
Twenty-Eight
It was Rachel’s first ever experience of the school run.
She set her alarm for 5.30 on Monday morning, left her flat an hour later and drove straight to Eastwell. Leaving before the rush hour was under way gave her a comfortable margin for error, but also meant that she reached Albert Park by 8.00. From her recollection of the night she and Brickall had spent on informal surveillance, the local children didn’t set off until at least 8.30. The nearest café was opening to capitalise on the pre-commute rush, so Rachel bought a double espresso and sat in the car to wait.
At 8.39, the door of Kirsty Wade’s house opened, and she emerged wearing a fluffy dressing gown and checked pyjama bottoms. Her youngest child – still in a sleepsuit – was hoisted under one arm, and she herded the older two towards the Urquharts’ front door, then retreated, shivering visibly, into her own house. Beneath a sky of pale watercolour blue, a visible frost coated every surface, and the two Wade children were dressed in thick coats, scarves and woollen hats.
Lisa Urquhart emerged thirty seconds later, lighting up her first cigarette of the day and tugging on a padded gilet. Her daughter followed her out of the house, followed by two boys. They were around the same age and had the same indeterminate brown hair, long on the top and shaved at the sides. Both wore the navy and maroon uniform for Overdale School.
Rachel stared, trying to work this out. Did Lisa have twin boys? No, that wasn’t possible: when the house was searched, Michelle had been sleeping in Chelsea Urquhart’s room, and there were two single beds crammed into the bedroom the children were temporarily sharing, one with a pink cover and the other featuring the West Ham football strip. Chelsea and Connor. And the child wasn’t Kirsty Wade’s: her three were accounted for.
As the group reached the end of Jubilee Terrace, Rachel put the car into gear and followed at a discreet distance, keeping them in sight but not drifting close enough to be noticed. Lisa and the five children were eventually swallowed up by a larger gaggle of children and parents as they neared the school gates. Lisa waved them goodbye and turned back towards Jubilee Terrace, lighting another cigarette. Connor Urquhart and the Wade boy darted off together, leaving the other boy trailing behind the girls. Rachel recognised the hesitant walk. This was the child in the penguin costume.
* * *
The CCTV images ha
d been recorded on a foggy night, in poor visibility, and as a result were a montage of indeterminate grey.
‘Look – there.’ Leila Rajavi pointed to the screen, and Rachel squinted to see. ‘We don’t have a camera covering the front door of Carly Wethers’ property, but this was picked up just at the end of her street.’
There, just about discernible, was a slight figure in black jeans and shoes and a dark top, with its hood pulled up over a black beanie hat. The sweater’s roll neck covered the person’s mouth and nose, so all that was visible was the eyes.
‘See…’ Leila pointed again and zoomed in. ‘Look what he’s holding.’ In the gloved hand, there was a shiny metal object that looked like some sort of wrench. The time stamp on the image said 3.17 a.m. on the morning of 2 December.
‘This has got to be our killer,’ said Rajavi. ‘The time, the gloves, the lock-breaking equipment. It can’t be a coincidence. Not possible.’
‘I agree,’ said Rachel. She turned to Rajavi, who was calm as ever but with a gleam in her eye. ‘What happens next? Does the camera pick him up again?’
‘Here.’ Rajavi opened another video file. ‘On Fairfield Road, at 3.47 a.m.’ There was the same dark-clad figure, walking briskly in the other direction, still holding the wrench. ‘I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got.’
Rachel sighed. ‘This backs up our theory, which is a good thing. The problem is, you know as well as I do that it isn’t going to stand up in court. The images of the face simply aren’t distinct enough for a positive ID. Even if we think we’ve found this person, they’re simply going to say, “Not me, your honour.”’
Rajavi sighed. ‘I know. We traced the burner phone belonging to “Sunny” to an address in Whiteley, but the owner of the property – a guy called Sunil Khara – denied all knowledge of the phone, and of Michelle Harper. We’re trying to find out a bit more about him, and we’ve applied for a warrant to search his house. And most importantly…’ she exhaled heavily, ‘we’re talking to Ben Wethers later today.’
Rachel told her about the five children on the school run, but Rajavi was dismissive. ‘Probably some school friend who’s been on a sleepover. I’ve got nephews and nieces that age and they’re forever staying at each other’s houses. Or it could be a kid who lives further up the street, who gets dropped off by a working parent.’
‘DS Brickall and I would have picked that up on our overnight surveillance.’
‘Possibly. But then we don’t know for certain that this is the child you spotted wearing the penguin costume.’ Rajavi gave a conciliatory smile. ‘I’ll get a uniform to go and speak to Kirsty Wade again if you like.’
* * *
Before she left Eastwell, Rachel drove back to Albert Park, left the car and walked around the neat geometric grid of streets. The two-up-two-down cottages had been built for workers in the area’s nineteenth-century paper mills, and the rows were arranged back to back, with rear yards connected by ‘ginnels’ to those of the houses in the next street along. Rachel walked to the end of Jubilee Terrace and turned left into the perpendicular street that linked it to the next row of terraces. Immediately on her left was the cobbled alleyway that ran along the back of Jubilee Terrace’s back yards, their gates facing the gates to the yards of the next street in the grid: Osborne Terrace. With Eastwell’s train and road links to the capital, the Albert Park area was being gentrified by commuters, and many of the humble cottages featured plantation shutters, hanging baskets and pretty dove-grey and almond-green front doors.
She continued past the turning into Osborne Terrace to the gates of Albert Park itself: a modest green recreational space created for the mill workers, with a bandstand and a duck pond. It was then that she saw the sign for the street she was on. Fairfield Road. The location of Carly’s killer as they left the scene of the crime. And also, she remembered, mentioned in a possible sighting of Lola Jade Harper. The pieces of the puzzle shifted position yet again, tantalisingly close to falling into place.
* * *
The text was innocuous enough.
How about a training session?
That was it: no kisses, no innuendo.
And in life, timing was everything. The message found her strung out and stressed, missing Brickall, her human sounding-board, and in need of diversion.
Great. Come round at 6.30?
Howard appeared at her flat on the dot, dressed in sweatpants, gilet, baseball cap and fingerless gloves.
‘Chilly out there; make sure you bundle up.’
‘I’m wearing lightweight thermals,’ Rachel grinned, zipping up her jacket.
‘So that’s your secret. And there I was thinking you were made of Teflon.’
‘It has been said.’
They bantered back and forth like this as they ran – over London Bridge and along the Embankment – and for a while Rachel forgot about the Harpers, and Penguin Boy, and dead Carly Wethers.
‘How are things with Julie since the… ?’
‘Since she stalked you? Still not great. Still not sure where we’re headed.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
They slowed down to a walk as they neared Rachel’s flat. Howard pressed his huge paw on her forearm. ‘I don’t have to be back for a while… I could, you know, pop up for a chat.’
Rachel shook her head firmly. ‘Not with things the way they are for you at home. I know it looks likely you’re not going to work it out with Julie, but while you’re still married, you need to be trying to resolve things. And it’s almost Christmas: not the best time to rock the boat.’
‘Statistically it’s the time of most marital break-ups.’
‘Well in that case…’ Rachel pressed her hand against his broad chest. ‘If you’re single come the New Year, you know where to find me.’
‘Are you serious about that?’ he asked, trying to read her expression in the winter gloom.
‘As serious as I ever get.’
She allowed him to reach in for a brief hug, before pulling away and hurrying into the building alone. Wine, she told herself, wine is what I need. Wine never lets you down. She ran a hot bath, put some Massive Attack on her iPod and lay back in the water with a glass of rosé. A couple of hours later, with the bottle empty and the water cold, she crawled straight under her duvet.
Just after midnight, she woke suddenly, her senses tingling as though she had just been told something very important. She’d been dreaming, a flashback to childhood when her father was alive, and Rachel, Lindsay and their parents used to drive to Devon for their summer holiday. In the dream, their father was trying to stack the cases on the roof rack – something he had prided himself at being good at in real life – but no matter how much he persevered, they kept sliding off.
That was it.
She groped for her mobile and pressed Brickall’s number.
‘What the fuck…’
He had been asleep; she could tell from his voice.
‘The suitcases.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The two big purple suitcases Michelle took from her house just after Lola Jade disappeared. It was on the neighbours’ CCTV… She loaded them into her car and took them to her sister’s.’
‘Prince, seriously, what are you on about… Call me in the morning when you’re making more sense.’
‘They weren’t there! When we searched Lisa’s house, there was no sign of two huge suitcases.’
‘And there was no teddy bear and framed photograph either. We’ve been through this: she must have just stored some stuff elsewhere. That house of the Urquharts’ is tiny.’
‘No, don’t you see? She’s got a room for storage in Willow Way; she’s got all the space she needs. And she was chucking stuff out. So she wouldn’t remove something just to store it at a different location. Whatever was in the suitcases, wherever she’s put them: that’s how we’re going to find the answer to this whole thing.’
‘I’m hanging up now,’ her detective sergeant said
tersely. ‘And I seriously think you need to take some time off. If I weren’t suspended, I’d be going to Patten and telling him to make you take leave.’
‘Will you come with me to Eastwell tomorrow?’
‘Fuck off, Prince,’ said Brickall, with a little more warmth this time. ‘Like I said: I’m suspended. I’ll be in even deeper shit if I try and work the case…’
‘I could—’
‘… and even if I weren’t, I’d still tell you to fuck off.’
He hung up.
Twenty-Nine
Goose or turkey? Mum wants turkey. L x
Also, not doing sprouts this year. Kale? L x
And so it begins, Rachel thought. The Christmas period was officially under way when her sister started firing off daily texts about menus and other details, despite the fact that there were still two whole weeks to go. She deleted the texts without replying and went back to reading through the original Lola Jade Harper file, specifically the reported sighting of Lola on Fairfield Road, written up on a standard MG11 witness statement form and dated 30 September.
It was 18.55, and I’d just popped into the Sava-Mart to buy milk. I was on my way back from work. I saw a woman pulling a child by the wrist. The child seemed unhappy and was crying. I don’t know why, but it just made me think of the missing child, Lola Jade Harper. I think the woman had dark brown hair, but it was getting dark, and it was hard to be sure. Because of the poor light, I couldn’t be sure if the child was a boy or a girl. I watched them as they continued down Fairfield Road and turned into Osborne Terrace.
Her phone buzzed with another text. Sighing, she picked it up to check the latest on the rights and wrongs of Christmas crackers, or brandy butter vs rum butter. It was from Leila Rajavi.