by Alison James
Lisa shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘He goes to school with your children, how can you not know?’
‘Loads of the Albert Park kids walk to Overdale together, always have done. It’ll be a neighbour’s kid who calls next door.’
Rachel straightened up and stared straight at Lisa. ‘You really expect me to believe that you don’t know who your own children go to school with every day?’
‘It’ll be one of the Ellis boys. They live round the corner on Fairfield Road. Dean and Bradley, I think they’re called.’
The duty solicitor looked up from his notepad. ‘Unless you’re going to charge my client, I suggest we leave it there. She’s answered all your questions.’
Rajavi gave a heavy sigh. ‘Make sure you stay in the area: we may need to speak to you again.’ She nodded at one of the PCs to unleash Lisa, who whirled out of the room, swearing at the top of her voice.
Thirty-One
‘You know when you said I should just move to Eastwell?’
Rachel phoned Brickall that night from the budget chain hotel she had just checked into.
‘Don’t tell me…’
‘Yup. Here I am. One of the locals now.’
She had decided to stay in town overnight. By the time Lisa Urquhart had been released pending further enquiries, it was nearly 8 p.m. Talking to Stacey Fisher was like firing questions at a brick wall, and when a breathalyser test revealed she had drunk enough Jack Daniel’s for her testimony to be unreliable, Rajavi had called a halt to proceedings at 10 p.m., leaving her to sober up in her cell.
Rachel found a large twenty-four-hour supermarket and bought a sandwich, toothbrush and toothpaste, plus a plain white T-shirt to add to her existing work wardrobe of black trousers and plain white tops. Only when she sat down on the edge of the bed did she realise how bone-weary she was. The room was basic, and not altogether clean, and the bathroom had a tatty shower curtain and toiletries nailed to the wall, but she was too tired to care.
‘If you’re staying down there overnight, then something must be happening,’ Brickall observed. ‘Did the kid without a weeny turn out to be Lola?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ sighed Rachel. ‘Every time we get what feels like a break, we end up down another blind alley. We have no idea where Harry is. And now Michelle Harper’s disappeared too.’
The officers who had been to check on Willow Way had found neither Michelle nor her car.
‘Anyway, what about you?’
‘Had a bunch of stupid paperwork through from the PCC.’ Rachel could tell that Brickall was trying to sound blasé. ‘Going to talk to my union rep about it tomorrow.’
‘The timing couldn’t be worse,’ Rachel sighed, lying back on the pillows. ‘I could really use you here with me now. Not in this room, obviously,’ she added hastily.
‘Fuck, no,’ agreed Brickall. ‘Never mind, it’ll all look better in the morning.’
* * *
Stacey Fisher definitely looked worse in the morning, not better.
The whisky had worn off, and the lack of sleep had amplified her drabness. Her colourless hair hung in limp strands and her skin had the damp sheen of glazier’s putty. Armed with a cup of tea, she started out by repeating last night’s mantra that she knew nothing about Harry Brown. But exhaustion caught up with her, and just before the twenty-four-hour time limit rolled round, when Rajavi threatened her with an identity parade, she admitted that she had gone to Overdale Infants and Juniors, given false details and enrolled a seven-year-old child called Harry Brown; a child she had never even met.
‘Why?’ demanded Rachel.
‘She paid me, didn’t she?’
‘Who did?’
‘Michelle. Michelle Harper.’
‘Seven hundred pounds?’
Stacey’s putty skin took on a slightly warmer tinge. ‘Three grand, actually.’
‘And why did she want you to do this, Stacey? What was this child to her?’
Stacey shrugged. ‘Don’t know. She never said.’
‘Come on, Stacey, we both know you’ve been on the Find Lola Jade site.’ Rachel adopted the tone of a teacher dealing with a wayward sixth-former. ‘So you know all about Michelle Harper’s life. She suddenly shows up needing a school place for a random seven-year-old and you don’t think to ask questions?’
Stacey took a sip of her lukewarm tea, shivering and pulling the thin prison-issue blanket round herself. ‘She said she would give me the money to help her out, but I wasn’t to ask her any questions. So I didn’t.’ She shot a defiant look at her interrogators. ‘Okay, yeah, it did seem a little weird. But I’ve got a payday loan and store cards to pay off: I needed the cash. So I agreed to do it, and to mind my own business.’
Stacey was released on police bail and Rachel and Rajavi took a pool car and drove to the home of the Ellis family on Fairfield Road. The children were at school, but their mother, one Samantha Ellis, showed them photographs of her two sons. Both boys had the same high top haircut as Harry Brown ‘They all want it like that now,’ Samantha confirmed. The younger one’s was chestnut brown, like Harry’s. When asked if her boys ever walked to school with the Wade children, Samantha was vague.
‘Well yeah, they could do. A lot of the kids gang up and go together. I just kiss ’em goodbye and boot ’em out the front door. Not sure what happens between there and school.’
‘Damn,’ said Rachel as they walked away, stopping at the café for cappuccinos and doughnuts. ‘Unfortunately that kind of corroborates what Lisa Urquhart said.’
‘Shall I get her in for questioning again? The uniform who brought her in said Michelle’s dog was still there, at Lisa’s house. They couldn’t find a passport for Michelle in Jubilee Terrace, but she wouldn’t necessarily have taken it there from Willow Way.’
‘No.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘But see if you can organise some surveillance on her place. If you can’t, let me know and I’ll get our operations unit onto it. Maybe there should be another search at Willow Way, to locate the passport if nothing else. Okay?’
Rajavi’s expression was unreadable, but Rachel could take a fair guess at how she was feeling. ‘Look, Stacey’s admission is a huge step. It’s evidence tying Michelle Harper to Harry Brown, something that’s a bit more than circumstantial.’
‘That may be true. Only now we’ve got a missing child and a missing mother.’
* * *
Rachel returned to Tinworth Street and called an emergency briefing with Patten, Gilly Durante, Nick Furnish and Giles Denton. She outlined the new evidence from Ben Wethers’ statement and Stacey Fisher’s admission.
‘Even without the Romanians’ alibis standing up, it’s looking less and less likely that the two girls are linked. Our priority now is to find Michelle Harper. Surrey Police has set up an ANPR alert for her car and we’ve requested a blue notice from Interpol, in case she’s tried to leave the UK.’
‘Well done, DI Prince.’ Patten gave a rare smile. ‘You’ve really helped the local force with pushing the investigation forward.’
Giles Denton suggested they all adjourn to the Pin and Needle for a Christmas drink and she accepted with alacrity, not because of his swarthy Irish looks but because she was ready to forget about Lola Jade Harper for a few hours. She texted Brickall and demanded that he joined them, adding cryptically:
Santa’s paying a visit.
* * *
Brickall stared at his cashmere scarf with an opaque expression.
‘I haven’t got you anything.’ He was gruff, to cover surprise or pleasure or both.
‘That’s okay. You can go and buy me a drink.’
He grinned, wrapped the scarf twice round his neck, and came back with two large glasses of mulled wine. The pub was decked with bushy swags of tinsel and wreaths of fake holly. There was also, Rachel noted, a bunch of mistletoe very prominently placed on the customer side of the bar.
‘See that…’ Brickall pointed at the mistletoe.
‘I see
it.’
‘And see that…’ He pointed to Giles Denton. ‘Your Pierce Brosnan lookalike. Just saying.’
‘So immature, Brickall.’
But as the evening wore on and the number of empty mulled wine glasses on their table grew, Rachel found herself hovering near the mistletoe in the hope that Denton would notice it. Eventually he did.
‘It’s a pagan tradition,’ he told her.
‘What is?’ Rachel asked innocently.
‘Kissing under the mistletoe. Wouldn’t be at all suitable for a good Catholic boy like myself.’ He winked at her.
‘Just as well I’m a pagan then.’ Rachel stared him down, her body language daring him to do it. And he did. He leaned in and kissed her full on the mouth, lingering longer than was strictly necessary, parting his lips slightly.
‘Merry Christmas, Rachel Prince.’ He gave her an intense look with eyes as dark as the North Sea, then walked away.
‘Fucking hell, Prince, what is it with you and the men round here?’ Brickall, who had been watching the entire encounter, frowned in mock-disapproval. ‘You’re law-enforcement kryptonite.’
Thirty-Two
‘I knew we should have remanded the silly cow.’
It was Monday morning, and Rachel had not even made it out of her flat before her phone rang with a call from Leila Rajavi. Before she had even pressed accept, she already knew what Rajavi was about to say. Yet again the story had had been emblazoned in black-and-white two-inch-high capital letters across the front of a Sunday tabloid. This time it was a competitor for the paper that Rachel had locked horns with over the Carly Wethers leak.
LOLA JADE MUM IN SEX-CHANGE BOY MYSTERY
Michelle Harper, mum of missing seven-year-old Lola Jade Harper, has been sighted in the Eastwell area with a mystery boy the same age, a source told us.
‘Stacey must have blabbed,’ Rachel concurred with a sigh. ‘Well, the papers don’t name their source but I think we can assume it was her. It isn’t even accurate: Michelle hasn’t been “sighted” with Harry at all. She’s far too canny for that.’
‘And Stacey doesn’t know anything about what Ben Wethers told us in his statement either,’ said Rajavi. ‘In fact, if you read the article, it’s a bit of a non-event, mainly because Stacey’s too dim to really join the dots. She just saw a chance to make a few quid on the sly.’
‘And yet again a paper’s opened itself up nicely to a charge of contempt of court for prejudicing legal proceedings,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘Although since Michelle’s not been charged with anything yet, that’s a moot point. She’d already done a runner before Stacey sold the story.’
The line went quiet, while Rajavi weighed up what Rachel had said. ‘So are you saying we should hold off on making any public response?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Rachel. ‘It will only make us look like we don’t know what we’re doing and open the floodgates to the crackpots. Right now, we have other fish to fry.’
She wanted to swim, but today she would need to forgo her exercise fix and go straight to the office. Before she had even reached her desk, she picked up a text from Rajavi.
Those other fish: one of them has just turned up.
* * *
Michelle Harper’s white BMW was in a private car park in Feltham, Middlesex, parked in a far corner against the wire perimeter fence. At first glance, it was empty, and clean of any possessions or the usual detritus that accumulates in a car.
When Rachel and Rajavi arrived, a forensics team was standing by while a canine handler set his springer spaniel bitch to work. The spaniel first extensively inhaled from a piece of Lola Jade’s clothing, then jumped into the open rear hatchback and started sniffing, so absorbed in her task that her body was vibrating with energy. Then she sat, frozen and staring, with her nose pointing to the carpet on the floor of the boot. One of the suited forensics officers stepped forward and started gathering microscopic samples.
‘She’s indicating,’ whispered Rajavi.
‘A cadaver dog?’ Rachel wanted to know.
Rajavi walked over to speak to the handler. ‘Not human remains specifically, just “human material”,’ she told Rachel when she came back. ‘We’ll know more when we get the forensics back.’
Rachel pivoted on the spot, staring around the car park. A jumbo jet screamed over their heads, on the south-eastern flight path. She pointed up at it. ‘If we’re looking for reasons to dump the car here, then there’s the obvious one. We must be – what? – three, four miles from Heathrow. There’s a bus that goes straight there, on the road we turned in from. Or it’s a very short taxi ride.’
‘Her passport wasn’t in 57 Willow Way,’ Rajavi added. ‘We turned the place upside down. And her mobile’s completely dead, so we haven’t been able to track her that way either.’
‘Can you get some manpower to check local hotels and B&Bs? And I’ll get onto my contact at Border Force and ask them to scan through their exit checks data. They’ve got access to airlines’ advance passenger data too, though I’ve no idea how long it would take to find what we need.’ She smiled at Rajavi, who was crammed into a stab vest over her pale grey maternity top. ‘And speaking of what we need: I could murder an espresso.’
‘How would you feel about coming to the pub with me?’ asked Rajavi.
Rachel checked her watch. ‘Bit early, even for the festive season.’
‘Don’t worry, we can stick to coffee – or decaf in my case,’ Rajavi said regretfully. ‘While we do a little bit of intelligence gathering.’
* * *
The Hand and Flowers was in full Christmas drinks mode, with Slade and Wizzard blasting from the jukebox and a chalkboard menu that included several variations on a turkey theme. A Find Lola Jade collection tin perched on the bar, its label faded almost to illegibility. The pub was also very busy, given that it wasn’t yet midday.
‘This is Terry Harper’s local,’ Rachel said, as they corralled a free table in the corner. ‘You know: Gavin Harper’s dad. Lola’s grandfather.’
‘It’s also the preferred boozer of my pet nark…’ Rajavi went to the bar and came back with two mugs of passably decent coffee. ‘And actually, that trashy story Stacey Fisher leaked to the paper has done us a favour on this occasion. After he read that, he reckoned he might have some information that’s of interest to us. For a price, naturally.’
‘Naturally,’ Rachel sighed. ‘Welcome to policing in the age of information technology.’
‘And because it’s Christmas, and he has extra cider and fags to pay for, of course his rate has doubled.’
Rajavi’s nark arrived twenty minutes later. ‘Spud’ was a wizened, hunched man with the physique of a jockey, crossed front teeth and a nose that ran constantly, causing him to sniff, or wipe his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. Rachel could stand this for less than two minutes before offering him a tissue from her bag. He stared as though unsure what to do with it.
Rajavi ordered him a double brandy and Spud launched into a long, self-serving preamble, punctuated with much sniffing.
‘Wait, hold on!’ Rachel had just glimpsed a familiar figure on the other side of the bar. Terry Harper. Of course. He recognised her and looked startled and ill at ease, glancing over in her direction frequently. ‘I think we’re going to have to take our chat elsewhere. We can’t risk him hearing any of this.’
Next door to the pub there was a restaurant called the Taj of India. Although it had not yet formally opened for lunch service, the manager let them in when Rachel showed her warrant card, and brought them complimentary beer and poppadoms.
‘I’m not very good with spicy food,’ Spud whined. ‘I think I’ll just stick with the English menu.’
‘Probably best,’ said Rachel briskly, picturing the impact of chilli on Spud’s sinuses. She ordered a bowl of dhal and some steamed rice to placate the restaurant staff – even though she wasn’t hungry – and Spud chose chicken and chips and a bowl of fruit salad and ice cream, shovelling the f
ood into his mouth as though it was the first meal he’d seen in days. Perhaps it was.
Only after he had consumed most of it did he start to talk, still punctuating his speech with sniffs.
‘You know that missing kid from Eastwell in all the news… Lucy, Lulu…’
‘Lola Jade Harper,’ Rajavi prompted.
‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ Spud scraped the remainder of the vanilla ice cream from the bowl then waved it at the waiter to indicate that he wanted another one. ‘So, a mate of mine, Bestie, that drinks at the Flowers sometimes, he’s in this card school. Plays a bit of poker late at night in a room over that dry cleaner’s on the Whiteley Road. Anyway, one of the geezers he plays with is this Asian guy, right?’
‘Right. Go on,’ said Rachel, wishing that she hadn’t had to abandon her coffee next door at the pub.
‘So they were playing one night, and he told Bestie – after they’d had a fair few whiskies – that he’d rented out a property to the mum of the girl. The missing girl.’
‘Michelle Harper?’ said Rajavi, giving up on her poppadum with a wince. She pressed her hands into her diaphragm and blew out hard. ‘Heartburn.’
‘Yeah. Michelle. Hard-faced bint, apparently.’ Spud gave a long, liquid sniff before embarking on his second bowl of ice cream. ‘Nothing wrong with that, you’re thinking, Detective Leila. Only she wants to pay cash and keep it all very hush-hush. Doesn’t want anyone knowing she was in the property. No written agreements and the like. She was willing to pay over the odds for that. Bestie says the place was only worth about six hundred a month and she paid nine hundred, a whole year’s worth up front, and a deposit, just for him to keep it on the QT.’
‘That’s around twelve grand in cash,’ said Rachel. ‘And we know where she got that from.’
‘Where is this house?’ asked Rajavi. ‘We need an address.’