by Deborah Lucy
She would have to be fast. She could open the door and quickly push it wide and leap out. Then she just needed to run, run anywhere, just run. As fast and as far as she could.
With her plan in place, she readied herself. All the time looking forward, she slowly extended her arm, her hand finding the door lever. Watching for any sign that her movements could be seen, she put her fingers round it and pulled at it gently. It had no leverage and moved freely in her hand. She hadn’t heard the central locking engage when they drove off. Her heart sank.
Again, she looked at the people crossing the road, their animated faces, the bags they carried, the sun on their faces, the optimism they generated. She could hear their muffled voices. And then she thought she saw him. No, it couldn’t be. She was mistaken. She looked again. It was. It was him. It was her dad.
Chapter 15
Following his grid system, Paul Wallace needed to reach the outlet village for around 1 p.m. This meant he could linger in that area and watch the afternoon shoppers and still do another loop of the Brunel Centre before closing time. He made his way to the pedestrian crossing where he stood with the many other shoppers waiting for the lights to turn red. The traffic was slow, but it was moving.
He’d continued to repeat his mantra and had fitted it into the rhythm of his stride. Now he had come to an enforced stop, he waited impatiently, needing to meet his goal. He looked at the people on the other side of the road, waiting to come towards him, making sure he didn’t miss any one of them. Then he scanned the people who had merged with him at that point from their various directions. Old people, mothers with prams and young children, some teenagers. All now waiting at the crossing.
He looked to his left, up the line of traffic waiting to go north. An HGV carrying hardcore with one male driver, an SUV with a female driver with kids in the back, a Mini Cooper. Idling the time, he looked to his near side, to the line of traffic heading south.
As he stood behind a woman with a pram trying to herd her children towards her as she waited, he saw a boy racer at the front of the queue of traffic, foot on the accelerator, revving his engine noisily, ready to put some space between him and the car behind. His eyes flicked further down the queue of traffic. A dark-coloured saloon with two male drivers and two people he could just make out as back seat passengers. Behind that, a park-and-ride bus. He scanned the nearside passengers. A pair of PCSOs walked up behind him just as the lights turned red and the bleeping sounded. Everyone surged and the PCSOs crossed the road by the side of him.
Megon watched as her dad walked from the pavement across the road a few cars in front of her. He was looking straight ahead. Her initial reaction on seeing him was to duck down in case he turned and saw her. She didn’t want him to see her like this. But then she wanted to call out, bash her hands on the windows, draw his attention to her. After trying the door, she now felt for the button to lower the window. It didn’t move; it was locked. Her heart beat faster. It was now or never. She had to do something.
Suddenly, she lunged forward, pushing herself in between the two front seats, her outstretched hand landing on the centre of the steering wheel. As a little girl her dad had sat her on his lap and let her steer their Renault Clio. Part of the fun had been pushing the horn and delighting at the sound.
Now she found the spot exactly and the horn sounded. She managed to pump it again and again before the driver or the fat man could stop her. As the fat man struck out with his arm, his eyes were on the two PCSOs and he thought it was their attention she was trying to attract.
People’s heads turned at the sound of the horn. The PCSOs looked hard right as they crossed the road, as did Paul Wallace. Everyone looked and presumed it was the boy racer in front of them, still revving his engine. Paul didn’t see the man in the passenger seat in the car behind, pushing the girl and turning round to her in the back seat.
The lights turned back to green and as the pedestrians cleared, the cars moved on. Megon punched her hands on the window near her, calling out, but this was drowned as the boy racer screeched off the line into fifty yards of traffic space. She watched through the window, looking at the back of her dad as he walked away towards the outlet village. She urged him to glance back, turn around and look at her. He didn’t. He was striding out away from her. The car was moving.
But he was in Swindon. He was looking for her, trying to find her. She knew she had to escape, but she had no idea where they were taking her and what they were taking her to. Right then, she had to deal with the fury of the fat man.
Chapter 16
Temple looked at a pile of buff-coloured files on his desk. There were an equal number of electronic files in his inbox. Looking at historic missing persons for the force had been a long-neglected task. While they were in the system and still ‘live’, the investigations into them were non-existent due to no new information being forthcoming. On that basis, he reasoned they were likely to sit there forever.
One of the cases was older than he was; others were five, ten years old, a few more recent. Men and women who had been reported missing and had seemingly just disappeared. A daughter reported missing by her mother, a man not seen for many years reported missing by his sister, and so it went on. He had taken a cursory glance into all fifty-six files in order to prioritise them.
He’d also wanted to get the size of the issue nationally and to put those he was now looking at in some sort of context. He’d spoken with the Missing Persons Bureau within the National Crime Agency. They recorded all reported incidents of missing people, which amounted to more than 250,000 reports a year, equating to an average of ninety reports per day into each police force across the country by worried friends and relatives. The numbers were staggering.
The Bureau kept a detailed record of people reported missing. They also went further and showed pictures on their website of the unidentified bodies of people who had been found dead or had been washed up on beaches. Any identifying information such as tattoos, scars or birthmarks were uploaded so that anyone searching might be able to recognise the bodies. It had been a bold, if somewhat gruesome step to take at the time, but had allowed officers or people with loved ones who were missing to regularly check to see if they had been found, albeit dead. The grim remains of people who had taken themselves off to commit suicide were regularly found at rivers and beauty spots by walkers in the country. The website was a way of helping to reconcile those with missing person reports.
Looking at the Missing People charity and UK Missing Persons Bureau websites, Temple saw the gap in figures of those still missing against unidentified bodies found.
He did further research into the figures and saw that the majority of those reported missing every day returned within twenty-four hours and most of those were children, many in care. But there were approximately 1,000 or so reports of missing people that remained outstanding year on year. That meant that of all those reported missing, approximately three people a day vanished from home and never returned.
He wondered how many of those people did indeed walk out of their lives to start a new one elsewhere, as suggested by some press reports and the Missing Persons Helpline. Some did; dissatisfied with their lives, troubled or burdened by finances, they just walked out, away from their families, never to return, only to exist in another location, to make another life without a backward glance. Those they left behind just had to deal with their shock, the aftermath of forever wondering what had become of them and not knowing if their loved one was alive or dead. Living in the limbo of not knowing.
He wondered how many of those reported missing ended up on the streets, sleeping rough, barely existing. Where were they among the numbers? And how many people were missing as a result of a criminal act? Murdered, with their bodies hidden, buried or destroyed, but forever regarded as missing.
He felt as if he’d wandered into some kind of no man’s land where people seemed to disappear from view. It looked as if there was no logical answer, yet sadly there was
acceptance of the situation. For whatever reason, as his files told him, people vanished.
He figured that if one person a day – a third of the 1,000 people who remained missing each year – created new lives for themselves away from their homes, family and friends and another third committed suicide but their remains were yet to be discovered, that still left over 300 people a year. What happened to them – were they dead as a result of criminal activity? Some had to be, or else where were they? There seemed to be no ‘official’ answer to how or why so many people remained outstanding year on year.
Just as he was going to sit down and start wading into the files, a pain shot through his bandaged finger. As it began to throb against its tight covering, Temple picked at the knot that Ana had tied to try and release it. The throbbing worsened and he had to cut the knot to loosen it. He unwound the bandage until he could see his finger. The deep gash had started to turn an odd shade with yellowing pus around the edges and the finger had swollen. Ana had been right. This wasn’t going to heal of its own accord.
‘Fucking thing,’ Temple muttered, thinking that the knife was probably the source of any number of bacteria.
* * *
He sat in A&E amongst all the other sick, wounded and broken. Having decided to wear his own navy-blue mac instead of anything with a police badge on it, he’d flashed his warrant card and told them he’d been injured on duty, hoping that he might jump the queue, but they were having none of it.
The place was heaving and as he sat there he wondered if he should just go before being seen, but the throbbing had given way to pain and more pus. Even so, he kept telling himself he should just get up and go back to the nick. As a queue formed at the desk, he stood up to go. He could be here all day. Just then his name was called.
He was shown to a cubicle where a male nurse cleaned and stitched the wound. It was showing sure signs of infection, he said, and gave Temple some antibiotics with a prescription for more. It was a good job he came when he did, he was told. As Temple was leaving the cubicle he noticed a female pass by, her flash of red hair familiar to him from earlier that same day.
‘Hi, it’s Callie, isn’t it?’ Temple called out.
As she turned, he saw that she had a cut and swelling on the bridge of her nose and two bruises were starting to form around her eyes.
‘Woah, what happened to you?’ As he spoke, he extended his undamaged hand.
‘Hello again.’ Shaking his hand, she looked slightly self-conscious. Despite her obvious injuries, she flashed him a smile.
‘This? Oh, it was one of the kids. I was in the way when she threw a chair across the room. Nothing broken, thankfully. Bloody hurts though.’ She had a very proper accent that he hadn’t noticed before and there was a soft huskiness to it. ‘Sorry, I’m not exactly looking my best at the moment.’ Callie’s hand went into her hair.
‘You look fine to me. Your eyes are going to be a great shade of purple. Someone must have been quite worked up to want to land a chair on you.’
‘It was little Molly actually. I was going to ring you. Kay gave me your card. Molly told me she had seen the girl you were looking for.’
‘Did she say where?’ Temple wasn’t surprised as he’d suspected as much.
‘She said she’d seen her around the train station. Then she threw the chair.’
‘That’s what provoked her? I am sorry – now I feel responsible.’
‘It wasn’t just that. She’s having a few problems at the moment and obviously didn’t take kindly to me asking questions. So what brings you here?’
‘I got in the way of a blade.’ He held up his bandaged finger.
‘Work or home?’
‘Work. Like you, I should have moved faster.’ They started to walk together towards the exit. As they walked she explained that she’d started to question Molly about her whereabouts and if she’d seen the girl Temple had shown on his phone. She said she had and then got herself into a rage. Once outside they stood looking across the expanse of car park. She suddenly put her hand up to the side of her head as if she was in pain.
‘Are you OK to drive? Is there anywhere I can take you?’ he asked. He felt protective towards her.
‘No, it’s OK, I’m sure I can manage.’ She turned to face him. ‘Tell me, how bad does it look?’
Temple looked at her pretty face, now marred by bruising. ‘Your nose is starting to swell a little, but the cut will heal quickly.’
‘Oh God, he’ll be so angry.’
‘Who’s that, your husband?’
‘No,’ she smiled, briefly looking down. ‘No husband. No, I meant my father. He doesn’t like it when this happens. Makes him angry and then he goes on at me to give it up.’
‘Do you have far to go?’
‘Not really, just back along the A346 and then down to Huish. You?’
‘Back to work, Swindon. Look, I could take you home. You could pick your car up from here later tomorrow. You’ve taken a bit of a knock there.’
Callie took a few seconds and then conceded. ‘If it’s not too much trouble. I mean, it’s in the opposite direction to where you’re going.’ She recovered her earlier self-consciousness about how she looked. She’d wanted to help him since seeing him at the home. She was attracted to him and he seemed to care about the girl he was looking for.
‘It’s a pretty straight run and I’d feel happier knowing you actually got home safely. It’s the least I can do since you were trying to help me when this happened.’
He saw her to his car and they set off towards the small village of Huish. During the journey he asked her about working at The Brook.
‘So, tell me about Molly, about the kids there,’ he asked.
‘Molly’s like most of the kids we look after who are generally dealing with a range of issues. A lot of them have suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse and are deeply traumatised by it. Others might have experience of abusive and neglectful parenting. It affects how they behave.’ She stopped and looked across at him.
‘Go on,’ he replied, ‘I’m interested.’
‘Many of them have been mistreated; often in the most awful way, but sometimes in more subtle but nevertheless damaging ways. The back stories of these kids can be absolutely harrowing. Just when you think you’ve read the worst case you’ll ever come across, there’ll be another that’s worse still.
‘When we get them they might have been in many other placements. They’re hurt, confused, frightened and angry. All from the way they’ve been mistreated and what they’ve been exposed to by their own reckless and dangerous parents. They need to relearn to trust adults, but that may never come. Hence me ending up like this.’ She gestured to her face.
‘We can only try and show them what a normal life should be like and provide the nurturing and psychological help they’ll need to deal with the past. We’ve got to try and fix them, undo the damage. Reset them.’
‘Back to factory settings,’ said Temple, not meaning to be flippant. She acknowledged the metaphor. He listened to her as she continued.
‘If only it was as easy as touching a few buttons. It costs time and money, but if you don’t put that in now at their age, you end up with a lot of screwed-up adults later down the line, repeating the same behaviour on another set of kids. They’re also growing up too, with all the usual hormones kicking in. Then, if they have a bad day, if someone new comes to live in their home for instance, that’s another thing they have to deal with.’
He caught himself then thinking back to when he was young, with his mother and the latitude she’d given him to explore the world around him. He knew he’d had more freedom than most kids growing up.
Thing was, he’d had no idea then about the company his mother kept or ultimately the danger she had placed them both in. Looking back, the memory of his mother was brought into sharp relief by the parents that Callie was describing to him. ‘Reckless and dangerous,’ she’d said; his mother had definitely been both of those.<
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‘So tell me about the girl you’re looking for. How long has she been missing?’
‘Well, that depends on who you speak to. People tell me they’ve seen her and that she’s not missing; her friend tells me another story. It may turn out to be something and nothing.’
‘Does she come from a good home?’
‘No, having been there I’d say it was one of the worst.’
‘Kids respond well to love and nurture. That’s what we find. You can mend a lot with that.’
They continued to talk and when they reached the turning for Huish, Callie directed him through the village until they had gone on to the outskirts. She then directed a sharp turn left which took them along the long drive of a large old-style country house. Temple looked across at her.
‘You live here?’
‘Yes,’ she said, almost embarrassed.
Temple drove across a cattle grid onto a wide driveway and pulled up by the front entrance. The house was a large, elegant Regency pile that had been built and owned by the principal landowner of the village in the early 1820s. It was constructed from Bath stone and had a portico across the door, flanked by two grand Doric columns.
Callie invited him inside and as they walked through into a grand, square hall, they were met almost immediately by a tall, slightly overweight, well-dressed man with a thick head of white hair.
‘I was just on my way out,’ the man said as he looked at her, ‘but now I’ll change my plans. What on earth has happened to you?’ Temple assumed that it was her father. He couldn’t quite work out why, but the man seemed familiar to him.