by Ed James
‘So you swapped them?’
‘I thought it was for the best.’ Temple sipped some water from the plastic glass. ‘It solved the problem in Larry and Cheryl’s heads. They no longer had a cop’s child.’
‘But I was still looking. Dad was still looking. If we found out the truth, they’d still be implicated.’
‘Lots of ifs there.’ Temple crumpled his water cup, spilling droplets onto the table. ‘I visited over the years, checking she didn’t remember. Checking she was okay.’
‘How the hell did they get away with it? Surely the pathologist would’ve noticed? What about at school?’
‘It’s easier than you think.’ Temple shrugged. ‘Cheryl home-schooled them. Home-schooled Jennifer.’
Fenchurch could do anything. Strangle the little shit. But his knowledge would die with him. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I’m telling the truth.’ Temple looked up at him, his eyes watering, and looked away. ‘They’re not bad people.’
‘Of course they’re bad people! They knowingly took my daughter!’ The words echoed around the room. ‘You warned them, didn’t you? On Saturday, when Abi and I drove up there, you called them, told them what was going on. When we pitched up, they’d had hours to rehearse their story.’
‘Simon, they gave her a good life. She was happy. I—’ Temple broke off, wiping his eyes. ‘I’m telling you this to help you and Abi.’
Fenchurch couldn’t process it.
How could this be true? How could they just do that to him? To Abi? To his mum and his dad? To Chloe? Taking all those years of life away, just because they’d taken the wrong girl?
He folded his arms. ‘So where is my daughter?’
‘Jennifer’s at university.’ A bitter smile flashed across his face. ‘Southwark, like her mother.’
Docherty roared across Lambeth Bridge, heading away from Millbank and its ancient political hub towards new-build London, his Audi growling with the effort, the siren and lights blaring. ‘Is Nelson there?’
‘Secured the perimeter, guv.’ Fenchurch clutched the Airwave in one hand, the ‘oh shit’ handle in the other as Docherty swung a tight turn, keeping to the river. ‘Not gone in yet.’
Docherty bombed past Lambeth Palace, weaving into the right-hand bus lane to avoid the thick traffic. A bus powered towards them. He thumped the headlights. ‘Get out of the way, you stupid arse!’
The bus pulled in and a thin wedge appeared in the oncoming traffic. Docherty bobbed round it, flooring it when he got to the other side of the bus, following the road as it slalomed around some old brick buildings.
Fenchurch braced himself while Docherty switched into the oncoming road as the bus lane disappeared. He hammered towards a bulbous glass-and-chrome building and pulled right onto a road marked ‘Local Buses Only’, cutting off a Duck Tours amphibious bus. They joined a main road, horns squealing out from behind.
Docherty powered up to the roundabout, clogged with taxis and Sunday drivers, and veered out into the oncoming lane, ignoring the traffic lights. He bounced over the pavement to join the emerging bus lane. ‘Are you sure it’s her?’
Butterflies hammered at Fenchurch’s stomach, beating their wings like tiny hurricanes. ‘Of course I’m not sure.’
Docherty bombed around the BFI IMAX cinema, a squat glass cylinder built onto the roundabout, and screeched to a halt at a police cordon. He stopped the engine and got out. ‘Well, here we are.’
‘Come on.’ Fenchurch flashed his warrant card at the uniform guarding the perimeter and stuck his Airwave to his lips. ‘Jon, we’re here. Where are you?’
‘Out front, guv.’ Nelson was waving by a bus shelter halfway along the street, the grey metal cowering between the opulence of the university buildings. ‘No movement so far.’
‘Okay.’ Fenchurch jogged down the road, pocketing the Airwave, and stopped beside him. ‘Lead on, then.’
Nelson buttoned up his jacket and led through the left-hand revolving door, the modern entrance sculpted into the Victorian facade. The pitter-patter of a heavy-booted squad of uniforms joined them.
A security guard burst out from behind a desk, looking like he was enjoying the first taste of action in a long career. He waved through an open gate to a locked door. ‘Through there, officers.’
Nelson stopped by the door and smiled at him. ‘Can you ensure the perimeter stays secure?’
The guard nodded furiously. ‘Of course, sir.’
Nelson pushed the door open and headed down a long corridor, reeking of Lynx and Pot Noodle. Bass drums thudded from some doors, acoustic guitars from others. ‘Just up here.’ He stopped halfway down and stepped aside. ‘After you, guv.’
Fenchurch sucked in stale air and knocked on the door.
‘Just a minute!’ The door slid open and a tall young woman stood in the doorway. Bright-red hair like that Spice Girl. She looked Fenchurch up and down. ‘Yes?’
Fenchurch smiled. ‘Jennifer Simon?’
She frowned at him, a dimple puckering her cheek. ‘Do I know you?’
Fenchurch’s heart just about stopped. ‘I think you do.’
‘And?’
Fenchurch fumbled out his warrant card and dropped it on the carpet. He bent down to pick it up, sweat pouring down his back. ‘My name is Detective Inspector Simon Fenchurch. I need you to accompany me to the station so you can answer a few questions.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘Does the name Chloe Holland mean anything to you?’
‘Should it?’ She stared at the ground. ‘Wait, my sister . . . I had a sister called Chloe. She died when I was little, I think.’
Is it her? Could it be her?
‘You think?’
‘Sorry, who the hell are you?’
Docherty stepped between them. ‘Madam, if you’d like to accompany me . . . ?’
Chapter Forty-Four
Fenchurch stood in the doorway. He couldn’t speak. Felt like his ears had covered over, just flaps of flesh blocking out the sound.
Jennifer winced as Clooney plunged the needle into her arm.
He pulled the syringe back and squirted the contents into a vial. ‘There. That’s us.’
She rolled down her sleeves. ‘So I can see my parents now?’
‘That’s not my department.’ Clooney bagged up the DNA kit and put it under his arm, the swab rattling in its container. ‘It’ll be a couple of hours, okay? And that’s after I get out to Lewisham.’ He flashed his eyebrows at Fenchurch. ‘All yours.’ He walked off and shut the door.
Fenchurch sat next to Jennifer in the meeting room, trying to get his breathing under control.
She twisted her mouth. ‘You said I should know you, but I don’t.’ Her accent was tinged with the West Country burr, all the vowels rounding out consonants, but still had traces of London. Maybe recently acquired. ‘Who are you?’
The red hair. ‘Is your hair dyed?’
‘What?’ Her scowl twisted further. ‘Are you a pervert or something?’
‘Chloe, what—’
‘My name is Jennifer.’ She shook her head, smiling like a superstar footballer who wasn’t getting the rub of the green, their teammates just not up to it. Her dimple appeared on her cheek. ‘Jesus . . . I told you, Chloe was my sister. She died. I don’t remember her.’
Fenchurch bit his teeth together, feeling like he was pushing his fillings deeper in. ‘You were adopted, right?’
Jennifer’s cool-teenager mask slipped off, showing the scared girl underneath. She nodded.
‘What happened to your parents?’
‘They’re in this police station, I guess.’ She looked over at the door. ‘You guys will be shouting at them or something. Trying to get them to admit to something they didn’t do.’
‘I meant your birth parents.’
She shut her eyes. ‘They died when I was eight, I think.’ Her eyes burned into him. ‘It was only a few months ago that my parents told me I was adopted, okay?’
‘Do you remember your birth parents?’
‘Not much. They died in a car accident. I survived, but I got this injury.’ She sniffed and slid her hair up above her ear, revealing an indentation in her skull, like a dent in a car covered in skin.
Everything clenched in Fenchurch. He couldn’t breathe, his lungs felt like they were full of water. He blinked away tears. ‘Who did that to you?’
‘Are you not listening to me? I was in an accident.’ She nibbled at her lip. ‘Why do you care, anyway? You’re acting all weird about this shit.’
‘I need to—’
The door juddered open and Docherty peered round it. ‘There you— Oh.’ He coughed. ‘I need a word, Si.’
‘Boss, I—’
‘Now.’
Mulholland entered the room. ‘I’ll look after you, Jennifer.’
Fenchurch joined him in the corridor but left the door open. Didn’t want to leave her. Never again. ‘What’s up?’
‘One of your lassies dug this up for me.’ Docherty handed him a file. ‘Check it.’
Fenchurch held it up. Jennifer Hay. He flicked through the pages, so fast they kept slipping. ‘This is the girl in the grave?’
‘It all tallies, Si. Disappeared from a park in Pinner. Timeline works.’
‘So it’s her?’
Docherty snatched the file back. ‘Come walk with me.’
Fenchurch stared into the room, Mulholland smiling at Jennifer. Chloe. If it was really her and not just Temple twisting the knife again. ‘Boss, I—’
‘Si, come on. We need to get to the bottom of this, okay?’ Docherty patted Fenchurch’s arm with the file and paced off.
One last look at Chloe and Fenchurch joined him.
Docherty stopped outside the interview room and stuck his hands on his hips. ‘All I’m saying is wait for Clooney, okay? If that’s not her, then we’re in for a whole heap of shit, okay?’
‘Did you see the . . .’ Fenchurch sucked in stale air. ‘She’s got a scar . . .’
‘So they had to operate after the crash to save her life or whatever.’
‘Or they—’
‘Si, quit it, okay?’ Docherty checked his watch. ‘Howard’s letting us speak to them just now while he’ — he did air quotes — ‘gets a coffee. So let’s not waste this, okay?’
Fenchurch pressed his finger into the door. ‘You’re letting me interview him?’
‘Come on.’ Docherty entered the room and tapped Nelson on the shoulder. ‘Give us a minute, Sergeant.’
‘Sir.’ Nelson got up and smiled at Fenchurch on his way out.
Docherty sat across from Larry Simon. ‘So let me get this straight, you deny any involvement in the abduction of Chloe Geraldine Fenchurch?’
‘Of course we do.’ Larry’s brow pinched together, made it look like devil horns. ‘My wife and I are completely innocent of all these matters.’
Fenchurch sat next to Docherty. ‘We spoke to you in a police interview room last night and you fed us a pack of lies about your lack of involvement in this case.’
Larry looked away. Couldn’t even deny it.
‘Then I sit down with someone who admits involvement in the case, who insists that my daughter, Chloe, is still alive.’
Larry’s nostrils twitched. ‘Listen to me very clearly. We told you the truth.’
‘You said you and your wife had been rejected by the system.’
‘We had.’
‘I know how you met, Mr Simon.’
Larry looked away, clasping his hands like a newsreader. ‘We lost our daughter and sought an adopted child. That was Chloe. We lost her as well.’
‘So why is she sitting in a room downstairs?’
The strip lighting caught in Larry’s glasses. ‘What?’
‘We just collected her from Southwark University.’
The lights flashed across the glasses as he swivelled his head, switching his focus between them. ‘That’s Jennifer. My daughter! You’re going to pay—’
‘Her name is Chloe Geraldine Fenchurch.’
‘It’s . . .’ Larry licked his lips, frowning. ‘We’ve been over this so many times. If young Chloe was your daughter, then you have our deepest sympathies. I know what you’re going through, having lost two daughters, but you’ve got to understand me, Jennifer is our child.’
‘Chloe was taken by a group of powerful men.’ Fenchurch splayed his hands on the table, focusing on the triangle between his thumbs and forefingers. ‘They kidnapped small children, drugged them, had sex with them, then got rid of them. This isn’t like Operation Yewtree, where the kids went back to their orphanages or got let out of Jimmy Savile’s caravan, confused and traumatised.’ He squeezed the triangle tight. ‘They hid these children by adopting them out to desperate people.’ He bunched his hands into fists. ‘Chloe was one of them. You adopted her and you raised her.’
‘That’s . . . Jennifer.’ Larry scratched at his neck. ‘I acted in good faith . . .’
Fenchurch sat back and waited. Give him enough time to scratch all the skin away. ‘Jennifer Hay.’ He got out a photocopied birth certificate and nudged it over the table. ‘Born on the twelfth of August, 1996.’
Larry’s eyes shot up. ‘What is this?’
‘She was abducted from a park in west London in February 2005.’ Fenchurch leaned low, his hands splayed on the table. ‘She was taken by the same animals who took my daughter. You adopted her. Along with my Chloe.’
‘That’s preposterous!’
‘Only they had an accident. Jennifer died, but you didn’t like having a copper’s daughter in your house, so you pretended she was my Chloe, didn’t you?’
Larry gritted his teeth. ‘I’ve nothing more to say on this matter.’
‘You set up Fresh Start for them, didn’t you?’
‘I— What?’
Fenchurch tapped at the sheet of paper. ‘Jennifer Hay is the body in my daughter’s grave. You covered your tracks by pretending my daughter died.’
‘I have nothing more to say on this matter.’
‘I can sympathise with you to a certain extent.’ Fenchurch held his gaze for a few seconds, until Larry looked away. ‘Someone took my daughter. Yours died of a sickening illness. I would’ve done anything to get Chloe back. Every day we didn’t have her, I could feel the distance growing between my wife and me.’ Acid bubbled away in his gut. ‘But that doesn’t give you the right to take someone else’s child. To help these animals ruin someone else’s family. You were complicit in this. I don’t care how hurt you were. You destroyed my family.’
Larry’s lips quivered, his eyes blinking furiously. ‘I have nothing more to say on this matter.’
‘We know what your wife did. She took children off the street for them.’
‘She didn’t have a—’ Larry cut himself short.
‘Didn’t have a choice? Everyone’s got a choice.’ Fenchurch snarled at him. ‘Some people think about others before they try and save their skin.’
DI Keith Holliday snorted, like he’d done a gram of coke on the flight back from the Algarve. Big, chunky, like he should be cracking pig bones on a farm somewhere. ‘Why am I here?’
Fenchurch tossed the death certificate onto the desk in the interview room. ‘You think we wouldn’t notice?’
Holliday didn’t even look at it. Some cop he was, bet Avon police were proud of him. He ran a finger across the page, like that could wipe away history. ‘What am I supposed to have done here?’
‘According to your case file, Chloe Simon died in a bus crash.’ Fenchurch tossed a photo of Jennifer onto the desk. ‘But here she is. Funny that.’
‘You were sniffing around my old patch last night, weren’t you? Trying to fit me up.’
‘What, about the fact two girls were in the accident?’
Holliday shut his mouth and eyes. ‘What?’
‘The girl in the grave is one Jennifer Hay. We’ll exhume that body and see if we can identify any DNA evidence.
But Chloe Fenchurch was hit by that bus as well.’
Holliday tugged at his collar.
‘You switched her identity.’ Fenchurch produced a hospital report. ‘This report states that Jennifer Simon was injured. The dates have been changed.’
Nothing from Holliday.
‘If you know anything about this, it’ll look a lot better for you if you tell us now.’
Holliday shifted to the other side of his collar.
‘I get what was in it for you. Lowly PC in the arse end of middle England suddenly becomes a DI in Bristol. They helped that along, didn’t they? Pushed you up the ladder.’ Fenchurch gave him space, but Holliday just kept tugging at his collar. ‘Looks like it wasn’t just you. This accident happened on a main street. It wasn’t just you. You needed help to cover this up.’
Holliday grunted out a cough.
‘Whoever you’re working for, they stole my daughter from me.’ Fenchurch stabbed a finger in the air at him. ‘Larry and Cheryl Simon raised her, took eleven years of her life from us.’ He narrowed his eyes at him. ‘You know who you’re working for, do you? Do you know what they do to the children they abduct?’
Holliday shut his eyes.
‘The kids think they’re in some sort of queue for an adoption agency. These paedophiles call it Fresh Start.’ Fenchurch cracked his knuckles. ‘Only they slip something into their milk, don’t they? After the kids fall asleep, they rape them. These men pass them around like sex dolls for six months to a year. After they’ve had their fun, they adopt them out, trying to pretend nothing’s happened to them.’ He let the words rattle around the interview room, let them batter Holliday. ‘To get away with something like this, you need help from the judiciary, from police officers like you.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me.’ Holliday tugged at his farmer’s ears, far too big for his head. ‘I’ve done nothing.’
‘Did they pay you?’
‘I did nothing!’
Fenchurch threw the case file up in the air, waiting for it to land with a thunk. ‘This is your work. A fiction. Who was paying you?’
‘I’m saying nothing.’
Fenchurch leaned forward, trying to get him to look up. ‘Was it Ingham?’