by Deborah Lucy
Back at the station, Temple rang Molly’s social worker to see when the last return home interview had been conducted. Molly hadn’t been interviewed for three weeks, which covered five of her missing episodes. This, explained the social worker, was due to her heavy workload; she just hadn’t had the time. But from previous notes, Molly had disclosed that she hung around Swindon railway station and the shopping centre area until late at night, just as Kay Riley had said.
Temple’s phone rang. It was the control room.
‘There’s a lady on the line for you, a Mrs Linda Davidson.’
‘Put her through.’ He heard the call connect.
‘I need to speak to you about China Lewis. My daughter Amy gave me your name, says you spoke to her at the school yesterday.’
‘Yes, that’s right, she reported China missing.’
‘That’s just it. China’s not missing. She was here last night, at our house with Amy.’
Chapter 13
Temple straightened. ‘Where is she now?’ He was looking forward to meeting China at last.
‘She’s gone again,’ Linda Davidson explained. ‘She left early this morning.’
‘Gone where? Is she coming back?’
‘I don’t know. She left before I got up.’
‘Did you see her last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did she look, what did she seem like?’
‘She seemed OK. In fact, more than OK. She looked well.’
‘Did she say where she’d been?’
‘Only that she’d been keeping out of her brother’s way.’
‘And you definitely saw her?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
‘So why didn’t you ring last night?’ Temple felt frustrated with her.
There was a slight hesitation in Linda answering. ‘I was going to ring last night. But I thought I’d leave it until the morning. I didn’t know she would go again. So I’m ringing now.’
‘I’ll come and take a statement if you don’t mind.’ Temple didn’t give her a chance to answer before telling her he would be straight there.
He started to wonder again if he’d been so desperate to get out of the office that he had stupidly got caught up in some silly teenage game. But there was something about this that he didn’t like. Why did Gary Lewis lash out at him and tell him to lay off trying to find China? Even if she was no longer missing, Gary Lewis would still need investigating over the things that Amy Davidson had said about China and her brother, never mind Lewis drawing a knife and assaulting a police officer. Still, if China had been at the Davidsons’ house last night and, as per Linda Davidson’s account, was very much alive and well, there’d be no need for the searches that morning or a press appeal. If she was there last night, there was every chance she might turn up there again that evening.
A short while later, Temple sat at a small pine table in Linda Davidson’s spotless kitchen. She had to be at work she said, so couldn’t take too long. As if to emphasise the point, she was wearing her coat and her handbag sat on the table in front of him. She didn’t sit with him. He watched her busying her hands with small tasks: bleaching the sink, wiping the kitchen counter tops, things she needed to do while facing away from him.
‘So when did China turn up?’ Temple asked, his pen ready for her response.
‘Last night, about eleven-thirty,’ Linda told him over her shoulder.
‘What, and you were up at that time?’
‘Yes, I don’t go to bed until about midnight. Amy was in her room playing music when we got a tap on the door, and there’s China, asking if she can see Amy and if she can stay the night.’
‘And you let her in and she stayed over?’
‘Yeah, of course. She slept in with Amy.’
‘Amy pleased to see her?’
‘Yeah, really pleased.’
‘So what time did she go this morning then?’
‘When Amy woke up, China was already gone.’
‘Just gone?’ Temple was forced to aim his questions with Linda turned away from him. He could sense he wasn’t exactly welcome and she wanted this conversation over as quickly as possible.
‘Yeah, no goodbye or nothing.’ Linda was pushing away at a seemingly stubborn mark on the kitchen work surface with a paper wipe.
‘Do you think she’s gone to school today?’
‘I’ve no idea. Really. Why don’t you call the school and check?’
‘And you said she seemed OK to you, looked well?’
‘Oh yes, just the same normal China, happy enough.’ She half turned to him at that point.
‘Did she say where she’d been, who she’d been with the last few days?’
‘No.’
Temple was finding this hard work. ‘Do you know if she said anything to Amy?’
‘I don’t, no – they went to bed. I don’t know what they said to each other in there.’
‘So what was China wearing?’
‘Um, jeans and a top, a red top.’
‘What sort of top?’
‘A jumper.’
‘You sure?’
‘Of course.’
‘And what about a coat?’
‘A short black leather-looking jacket, scruffy-looking thing.’ She had now run out of things to keep her hands busy with.
‘I’ll have to speak to Amy to see what was said when they were together.’
‘But Amy’s at school,’ she said.
He continued to press. ‘I’ll call round tonight.’ Temple sensed Linda Davidson’s eagerness to leave the house.
‘Now, back to China, tell me again, what did she look like when you saw her?’
‘Look, I’ve said all this. I really have to go now,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve got to be at work, they’ll be short without me.’ She picked up her handbag, a signal that she clearly wanted Temple to go.
‘I’ll call again this evening and speak to Amy. Perhaps we can finish off then?’
‘If you really must, but we’re going out tonight. To the pictures, to see a film.’
‘Oh yeah, what are you going to see?’
‘Don’t know yet, but it’s our picture night. We always go on a Tuesday.’
‘About five then, I’ll call back then.’
She nodded and left the house with him, after reluctantly giving him her mobile number. Temple watched as she got into her car and drove away. Perhaps she was eager to get to work, but she certainly hadn’t wanted to go into too much detail about China.
He remembered watching her on Amy’s video interview and his impression that Amy hadn’t disclosed all she knew in front of her mother. And why hadn’t Linda Davidson called the police last night? Officers would have attended to do a safe-and-well check and the missing person report would have been closed.
Linda Davidson obviously thought that, on the basis of a telephone call to Temple this morning, it would be case closed. She clearly hadn’t anticipated or welcomed his visit, but there she was telling him that China had turned up. So why did he have the distinct impression that throughout the exchange they’d just had, Linda Davidson was lying?
* * *
Temple went to the Park Academy where he made his way to the head teacher’s office. A quick enquiry established that neither Amy Davidson nor China Lewis were at school that day. Linda Davidson had rung in saying that Amy was sick. He rang the mobile number that Linda had given him – there was no such number. He went back to the Davidsons’ house and knocked on the door. No one answered.
Shortly after, Temple was looking at the dirty front door at Barbara Lewis’s house, wondering if Gary was inside. His finger continued to throb as a result of their last meeting; he knew he had handcuffs with him but no other means of protection. He banged his fist on the door.
‘Come on, Barbara, open up.’
There was no response so Temple hammered again. Eventually he heard the sound of the heavy lock being undone from inside. She opened the door an inch or two.
She didn’t say anything but opened the door a fraction wider as she turned and walked unsteadily down the hall. She’d started early this morning, he thought. Temple followed her back into the kitchen.
‘I need to speak to Gary. Do you have his phone number?’
She looked around the room for her phone. Temple found it before she did and interrogated it, finding the number and ringing it. There was no answer.
‘Did Gary come here last night?’
‘No.’ She was already slurring and reeked of alcohol from her cider and vodka breakfast.
‘Do you know where he goes when he’s not here or at his flat?’
‘You think I’d tell you if I knew?’ She spat her words at him. Temple knew he was wasting his time so he left. When he arrived back at his desk there was a message for him to contact a Swindon PCSO. China had been seen in Swindon town centre.
‘We saw her this morning, me and my colleague. It was from a distance but it was definitely her,’ they told him down the phone.
‘Where was she?’ he asked.
‘She went into Primark. By the time we got in there, we lost sight of her again. The place was heaving.’
‘Was she alone?’
‘She seemed to be.’
‘And you’re sure it was her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Keep looking for her – if you see her, at least take her photo with your phone or get her on your body cam if you can. Speak to her, tell her we’ve been looking for her. Invite her back to the station and contact me. I need to talk to her.’
Temple knew that sometimes people could be mistaken when reporting sightings but with Linda Davidson saying she’d seen China last night and now two PCSOs saying they’d seen her that morning, perhaps she was flitting around the town, just trying to keep out of the way of her brother Gary, as Temple had been told. In light of what the PCSOs had told him, he cancelled his plans for the house search of Gary Lewis’s flat and the media appeal. Despite the sightings, he still wouldn’t feel happy until he’d seen China for himself.
Chapter 14
Paul Wallace arrived back in Swindon. He felt optimistic today. The early morning mist had subsided and the sun was climbing in a cloudless blue sky. As he stepped off the train he felt the weak warmth of the sun’s rays, despite it being late October and it getting colder. He had to find Megon before long, before the winter. He couldn’t bear the thought of her still being missing in the winter. The sun made him feel optimistic. It felt right being here. He felt as though he was close to Megon. He felt as if he could feel her there, like he would see her.
He’d covered much of the town centre and its parameters yesterday and felt he’d got the size of the place. He’d even located a church close by to the station, St Mark’s, a proper Victorian church. Somewhere he could go to for a quiet moment if needed, to ask for Megon to come back, just as he’d done at their local church when Leonie was ill. He wasn’t a religious man but he’d gone into the church when he was at his lowest ebb and it had worked. It might work again.
He could walk the town centre systematically now, follow a plan. He’d pick up a local newspaper and see if he could get a feel for what sort of place it was, see where the trouble spots were, see if it would provide him with any clues to where Megon might be drawn to. He planned to catch a late train back tonight. He set off towards the town centre, down the now familiar streets, all the time looking about, looking at the young faces that approached him. He’d read about positivity in an article in the Metro on the train that morning: thinking about what you wanted might make it actually happen. He repeated a plea in his mind: Where are you, Megon? Draw me to you, let me find you. As he walked along, repeating his mantra, he fell into his stride.
He looked around as he walked. It was such a bright, almost warm day that he felt in good spirits. Today was the day; today he felt he was going to find her. He had rarely felt this close to finding Megon since she’d disappeared. His step was light as he continued walking. He would think positive.
Walking down the street, he approached a group of men standing around on the pavement outside a bookies. One of them, a young, light-haired man in his early twenties, was stripped to the waist. As Wallace got nearer, he could see the man had a livid red welt from a scratch down his back. He stood proud, as if he wanted all to see his newly made scar. He was standing next to a fat man, by an open narrow doorway with stairs leading straight up. As Paul Wallace passed through them, he heard their foreign talk and coarse laughter, and wondered where they were from. Along the road he went into a small newsagent’s where he bought the local Swindon newspaper. When he reached the town centre, he sat on a bench in the sun and flicked through. The front-page headline was ‘COUNCIL TO RECONSIDER BIN COLLECTION’ with a smaller one in the corner – ‘WHERE’S MUTTLEY?’ – a plea to find a missing dog not seen for a few days.
Apart from that it was the usual fodder he normally read about in the Evening Standard: a community wail about burglaries, drugs, thefts and stabbings spread amongst the advertising for garden centres and pine furniture. There were pictures of community and charity events, which he scanned in case Megon appeared in the background. He noted the places and streets mentioned where the thefts had occurred and wondered if Megon was amongst the culprits, fending for herself as Mitch had told him he’d had to do.
Another news story featured which mentioned the growing problem of pop-up brothels and the influx of foreign prostitutes. It said that young girls were trafficked into prostitution across Swindon. He knew how this worked; there was enough of it in the Metro and in the Evening Standard back home. Brothels were advertised online and communicated through texts and WhatsApp messaging until there were queues of men lining up.
His mind flitted back to the group of men he had seen earlier. He couldn’t bear the thought of Megon caught in that world. What sort of place was this that attracted so many men to use these women? He had to find her. He started to walk again, keeping to a grid system he’d mapped out. In his head he began to repeat his mantra: Come on, Megon, come out, let me see you, let me find you and take you home. Come on, love.
* * *
‘Get up.’ The fat man spoke in his broken English. He’d stood there for a while watching her on the mattress. She didn’t move. He knew he could have her if he wanted, but she wasn’t arousing him. She was young enough, but she wasn’t his type, curled up naked in the foetal position; she was too small. Megon knew he was there. She stayed stock-still and closed her eyes. The last thing she wanted was any attention from him.
He kicked again at the mattress Megon was lying on. Megon had already had to deal with five men that morning. The last one had been young, foreign, and he’d been vile to her. The insides of her thighs had red marks from where his fingers had roughly grabbed her, which she knew would turn to bruises. As he’d continued to treat her roughly, she had scratched him down his back. That hadn’t helped; he hurt her then. Curled up, she nursed herself.
Now the fat man was standing over her. She was shivering and wanting to hide herself from his gaze. He threw a cheap tracksuit top and trousers at her and watched as she uncurled herself and put them on, seeing the red marks on her body as she did so.
Megon was grateful for it; it almost felt luxurious to have something to cover her skin at last. She zipped up the front of the top to her neck and pulled the hood up over her head. She wanted to hide as much of her as she could from the pig’s gaze. They were all pigs. They weren’t human.
‘You are going, dirty bitch. You need to wash – mirosi – you smell. We are moving you.’
He grabbed her. His thick fingers encased her upper arm, squeezing hard as if trying to hold the bone itself. He pushed her forward and manoeuvred her out through the door and down the stairs; all the time his hand was bolted around her arm. At the bottom of the stairs, the door was open and they went outside onto the sunlit street.
/> Standing barefoot on the pavement just for a brief moment, she experienced normality. Fresh air, the sun in her eyes, people coming and going about their business. She could hear the sound of the slot machines clearly now. The clarity of seeing and hearing things almost took her by surprise. She’d lost track of the outside world, shut up in the room. She couldn’t even tell how long she’d been in there. The dark did that. The sunlight, the noise, as disorientating as it was, it did something to her; it invigorated her.
Before she could acclimatise to the outside or even get used to the fresh air, she was pushed forwards into the back seat of a waiting car. There was another girl in there. The fat man got into the front passenger seat and the car drove off.
Megon took a sideways look at the girl next to her. She didn’t recognise her but she was wearing a similar tracksuit. Her head was bowed and she was looking into her lap. Megon gently pressed her elbow into hers but she gave no reaction.
Megon looked out of the window. No longer in the dark room, the change of scene caught her interest. She was alert now, aware of her surroundings. She heard the noise of the traffic, watched the cars going by and people walking. Normality had never looked so wonderful and she wanted to join it.
It energised her and made her realise that she was supposed to be out there, walking on the pavements, talking to her friends, smiling, laughing. That was the real world, not this underworld, hidden from sight, away from decent people who would not use her in the way she had been used.
Suddenly the car slowed, forced to stop in a line of traffic at a pedestrian crossing. She heard the bleeping of the crossing and watched as people filed across the road, oblivious to the cars waiting, oblivious to the drivers and their passengers, and oblivious to her.
If she could just get out she could run across the road with them. Now she was out of the room for the first time in days, she could think about getting away. She was barefoot but that didn’t matter, she could still run. She stole a glance at the fat man in the passenger seat – he wouldn’t be able to run after her. He didn’t look as if he was capable of running even if his life depended on it. But hers did. If she could just get out she could run; before they even realised what was happening, she’d be out of sight. Megon felt suddenly emboldened.