Endangering Innocents

by Priscilla Masters

  The doctor gave an exclamation of resignation combined with a hand gesture of disgust, turned around and headed off up the corridor. Walking fast. Joanna watched him go, knowing their jobs were similar. Both sometimes futile … frequently terribly overworked.

  Yet without them …

  Two pm

  Time to face the cameras.

  She used the standard format, giving a factual description of the little girl, photographs, details of what she was wearing. Everything. Then she exposed them to the grieving parents. Carly looking even more in shock than on Friday. Bloodlessly pale, a lock of thin hair winding around her finger as though she would pull it out. By her side, recently released from custody, Huke had grown an air of smugness which he wore around him like a comfortable grey wool blanket. He knew what he’d done. Whether the police got him or not, whether Baldwin was innocent or not, he’d got to him. Joanna watched as he put his meaty arm around Carly and wished she could charge him with more than assault. Instinctively she hated him. And in her position she was aware that this was a potentially dangerous situation.

  It would take a couple of days for anything real to trickle through from the media exposure. Joanna had learned this through previous TV appeals. First you got the excited public - the over-excited public. They’d seen all sorts of things and were prepared to shop their neighbour if it meant they might a) get the reward money and b) be on the telly. Sometimes Joanna despaired of a population which cared only about these two things.

  Second you got the more considering population urged on by spouses, girlfriends, partners, lovers. That was when you started uncovering seemingly minor irrelevancies which sometimes turned out to be major facts.

  Third only trickled in but these were most often the folk with real information, the people who used diaries, who infrequently watched the TV or read the papers. Theses were the people who were too busy living their lives, working, going on holidays to pay much attention to another news story about a missing child. But sometimes it was this third group which held the vital key.

  Joanna watched Carly and Huke sob out their pleas and wondered whether this time anything would result from the appearance. At the same time she acknowledged that at least Huke was supporting Madeline’s mother. Madeline’s father, Paul Wiltshaw, had limited his contact to a couple of brief telephone calls and an insulted denial that he knew anything about his daughter’s whereabouts. The local force had interviewed him and described his involvement as “minimal”.

  Which probably meant he just about stayed on the right side of the CSA.

  She came out of the conference prepared to wait for her results and rang Matthew while the others stood around and discussed their performances. “What are you doing,” she asked. “Now?”

  “I’m off to inspect the cricket ground,” he said. “Thought I might have lunch with Alan and Becky. They’ve asked me and somehow I’m not in the mood to be alone. Or to cook. And I don’t suppose you’re offering.” There wasn’t even hope in his voice.

  “I’ll be back this evening.”

  “Jo,” Matthew said. “Don’t promise things you can’t deliver. You’re in the middle of a major investigation. Your time is not your own. I understand that. If you’re home, great. If you’re not. Well…”

  She flicked the end call button and rejoined the group.

  “Well done, Jo.” Korpanski grinned at her. “Nice little performance.”

  “And Huke’s performance?”

  “Not so convincing.”

  “Let’s watch a rerun then.”

  The cameraman obliged and they ran through the video tape freeze-framing Huke’s actions and words. She watched carefully his faint hint of a smile as he pinched Madeline’s mother’s arm.

  “Stop the tape,” she said, “just for a minute.”

  The cameraman obliged and Joanna stared at the numerous marks on the bony arm where Huke’s fingers had pinched before. And frozen on the TV screen was Carly Wiltshaw’s wince of pain and swift glance at her partner. Yet all she had been doing was appealing for information from the public to help find her daughter.

  Joanna watched in silence until the end of the cassette.

  “We need to go back to the school again.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “We need to interview the teacher and the classroom assistant again.”

  Gloria Parsons lived in a nice house in a nice road. All detached, 1940s, neat gardens, rows of daffodils, crocuses, tidy lawns, clean windows. Clean cars parked in the drives. There was a pleasing orderliness about the entire street. This was civilised England.

  “I think I’ll get more out of Gloria if I talk to her alone, Mike.”

  Korpanski’s mouth tightened. “OK. Whatever you think. You’re the boss.”

  She touched his shoulder briefly in a gesture of friendship. “Thanks for being so understanding.”

  If he caught the hint of sarcasm in her tone he wisely ignored it. Korpanski had moved on.

  Rick Parsons answered the door, in old painting trousers and a shirt. He recognised Joanna at once and shook her hand with warmth and vigour. “Hello again,” he said.

  “This isn’t a social call, Rick.”

  Immediately his face shuttered. “I guessed as much,” he said, some of the warmth emptying out of his voice. “It’s my wife you want to see, I expect. We saw your appeal on the telly - just now. It’s about the little girl, isn’t it? Gloria’s been really upset by it.”

  Joanna nodded.

  Gloria was peeling potatoes at the sink, wearing jeans that made her look lumpy and a sloppy sweater that should have covered her bottom. But the apron tied around her waist had caused it to ride up. She looked ungainly. Joanna leaned back against the units. “I want to make it clear that this interview is off the record, Mrs Parsons,” she began.

  Gloria turned, the potato peeler still in her hand. “Is anything ever off the record with you?” Her eyelids were wrinkled and tired looking, the eyes themselves dulled with worry.

  “I understand. But I’m sure you want Madeline found as much as we do. She’s been missing for almost two days now. Her mother’s frantic.”

  Gloria nodded, a hesitant, dubious nod. Still not without suspicion.

  “Tell me a bit about her. What kind of a child was she?”

  There was an alert expression in Gloria’s eyes, as though she had woken to a thought. “What do you mean?”

  “Just tell me about her.”

  Gloria put the potato peeler down on the draining board. It seemed a very deliberate, significant action. It meant she was going to co-operate.

  “She was a strange child,” she said. “A loner. A little girl who was very …” She chose the word carefully. “Contained. Sometimes I’d see her lips move as though she was talking to herself. And sometimes she’d give a little secret smile. She shut people out of her life. If I put my arms around her I could feel her stiffen, move away, close up. She seemed to dislike human contact.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a professional. Not a trained psychologist or teacher. I’m just a classroom assistant. I help. I’m the mumsy one who buttons the coats or sticks an elastoplast on when they fall over in the playground.”

  “But why did she shy away from you?”

  “I’m only guessing. There were bruises, you know. I did tell the teacher,” she said defensively. “I mentioned it to you. At the christening.”

  “Where were the bruises?”

  “On her arms, her legs. I thought. I wondered. I thought maybe her dad was slapping her - or something. You’ve met him, Inspector. He’s a …”

  Joanna nodded. She didn’t want to think about Huke. Not in connection with Madeline, the child who withdrew to her own world.

  “I’d ask her if someone was hurting her. And she’d just stare at me as though I was a fool. As though I should know. But I didn’t. Not really. I was simply guessing. She could have just fallen over. I didn’t want to make a fuss.
That’s why I asked you for your advice. Much good it did me.”

  She picked up a tea towel and made a vague, emblematic attempt to wipe her hands with it before returning to the sink, her shoulders once again drooped. “Don’t make me feel guilty about this, Joanna. I picked up on a problem. I passed it on to the appropriate person. I even broached the subject to you. What more could I have done? What more should I have done? I know how long Madeline’s been missing for. I’ve been aware of it every minute since Mrs Wiltshaw came tearing into the classroom.”

  Joanna had no easy, mind-salving solution to offer. “Please, Gloria,” she said. “I need to know a bit more.”

  Gloria half turned. “What more? What do you mean?”

  “Tell me about that last afternoon. Good Friday. The children were excited.”

  “Oh yes.” Gloria Parsons’ face changed. Some of her enthusiasm for the job became evident. “Oh yes. They had little baskets of chocolate Easter eggs and cut out chickens. Easter lambs. Although that didn’t seem quite right. But we didn’t want them to forget how sweet animals in the fields looked. And they will be back.”

  It was the act of faith that echoed all around the Moorlands. She continued. “They’d coloured in some daffodils. All colours of yellow. And bright orange. They were so excited. We’d read them a story about Jesus on the Cross and explained about Easter.”

  Joanna smiled. It brought back far-off memories of her own childhood.

  Gloria’s eyes warmed too. “Easter is Christianity. Most of the children in the class love the story of Easter. Even the two little Muslims. And the twins from the Chinese takeaway.”

  Joanna tried to steer the classroom assistant back to the missing child. “What about Madeline?”

  “She was much quieter than the other children. She always was. But she loved colouring. She had a great big set of felt tipped pens in a clear plastic case. Every colour in the rainbow. Some of the other children borrowed them. Particularly the orange. But they did give them back. She’d coloured in an Easter egg too. Very carefully. With some purple stars on. It was so pretty.”

  “Stars?” It seemed an incongruous design for an Easter Egg.

  It hadn’t occurred to the teacher. “Oh yes. She asked me to draw them in - using a plastic stencil. She said it was a magic Easter egg. That she could make it disappear. No,” Gloria remembered. “No. She said he could make it disappear.”

  “He?”

  “Yes. He.”

  “Her father?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  There was a moment’s silence between them as they both toyed with the implications if she had asked. Joanna broke the silence. “And then?”

  “The children were filing out towards the cloakroom. Lots of them wanted their coats buttoning up. Help. It was the usual happy pandemonium.”

  “And Madeline?” Joanna felt that she needed to keep steering Gloria Parsons back towards the child. Like a child herself she was too easily distracted.

  “I didn’t see Madeline again. I didn’t see her in the cloakroom.”

  Yet her grey puffer jacket had not been hanging up when the police had arrived.

  “Was she the sort of child who tended to run out when the cars gathered - maybe before her mother or stepfather had arrived?”

  “No. Not really. If anything she seemed a bit reluctant to go out at all. She seemed to hang back. I think it made Mr Huke cross sometimes. I’d see him stamping across the playground - and sometimes …

  “. . sometimes I’d push her through the door.”

  “But not that day?”

  “Not that day.”

  “She’d gone.”

  “But not met up with her parents.”

  Gloria Parsons shook her head. “She liked playing hide and seek. “

  “Hide and seek?” For the first fact the assistant had offered, it seemed a strange one.

  “A few times - when she didn’t want to go out in the playground. If it was raining or very cold she’d hide.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere. In cupboards, under the tables, behind the bookshelves.”

  “You should have told me earlier.”

  But Gloria Parsons stood her ground. “It didn’t seem that that was what had happened,” she said with dignity.

  Ha ha hee. You can’t find me.

  Vicky Salisbury, in contrast to her assistant’s middle-class abode, lived in a flat in Leek, by herself. And this time Joanna took Mike along with her. Instinctively she knew that Vicky Salisbury would respond to the burly police officer. The teacher opened the door immediately and gave Joanna and Mike one of her hesitant, shy smiles. “Have you found her?”

  Joanna shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  She asked the questions in the same way and quickly realised that Vicky had a similar perspective to Gloria Parsons. She looked thoughtful when Joanna asked her to describe the little girl.

  “I found her - strange,” she said eventually. “A challenge. She didn’t mix with the others but stayed on her own. We learn a lot about children in teaching practice but nothing prepared me for Madeline. I couldn’t seem to reach her. She deliberately shut me out. If I praised her she froze. If I touched her she flinched. Five-year olds are quite a handful. She wasn’t. And yet I wished she was.” She tried a smile out on Joanna. “I daresay you know what five-year-olds are like.”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Victoria Salisbury flushed at the abruptness of Joanna’s reply.

  “Well they are,” she finished lamely. “By the time I get home I’m shattered.”

  “Mrs Parson mentioned that Madeline had some bruising. On her arms and legs.”

  “I never saw any.”

  “Did you pass her observation on?”

  “Oh yes. It’s part of the agreed procedure.”

  Joanna bit back the tight retort that that was all right then. “And was any action taken?”

  “Not that I know of. I mean - I promised to keep an eye on Madeline and let the correct channels know if there was any cause for concern.”

  Her face was young, unlined. She had little experience of life. “But her disappearance was nothing to do with her stepfather, was it?”

  “It doesn’t look like it.”

  “So it was nothing to do with anything I did or didn’t do?”

  “And when did you last see Madeline?”

  “Oh - I don’t know. The class was milling about. The kids were playing up. Last day before the Easter holidays. And that bloody Sam doing his aeroplane impersonations. Enough to … I didn’t see her in the classroom during all the disturbance.”

  Mike asked the next question with all the gentility and tact of a parent. “Did you actually see her with her coat on leaving the school?”

  Vicky Salisbury gave Mike a warm, wide, welcoming smile. “No, Sergeant. I did not.”

  Joanna was watching the teacher carefully. She was holding something back. There was an air of embarrassment around her. “Is there anything else, Vicky?”

  The girl nodded and the two detectives waited.

  In her own time.

  “I only remembered it later,” she said. “Good Friday, the children were colouring in some pictures. I asked her who she was going to give it to and she said, the magic man.”

  Her eyes were filling with tears. “I - she looked so confident, so sure. I didn’t know who she meant.”

  Mike and Joanna exchanged glances.

  They knew.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunday afternoon.

  They took four officers with them to search the school again, this time Joanna and Mike briefing them very precisely as a result of talking to Gloria Parsons.

  “No one saw the little girl actually leave the school,” Joanna said. “It’s possible that she never did.”

  Mike objected. “She can’t have been there when we were…”

  She turned on him then. “I know it’s an awful thought. I do
n’t particularly want to face it myself, Mike. But if she was still there - hiding, then I want us to know. I only want her found. Her mother told us she hid under the bed. What we should have asked was why? What was she hiding from? We see her now not as an average five-year-old girl but as a little girl who was very anxious not to be noticed. Who hid. Who didn’t want to be seen. That changes things, Mike. One would assume a little girl who was lost would want to be found. But what if she didn’t? That’s why I want Horton School to be searched from top to bottom for any sign of Madeline Wiltshaw.”

  Mike’s face turned dull red. “We already did that, Joanna.”

  “We took a cursory look. OK. I agree. But we have new facts now. We called. Within half an hour of her last being seen we were shouting through the school. We assumed that if she was able she would have called back. But there’s something strange about this little girl. She is not like other children of the same age.”

  Mike opened his mouth to speak then shut it again with a great sigh. “I know she isn’t there,” he said, obstinacy making his eyes gleam.

  “I don’t know whether I hope she is or not,” Joanna said. “But we have to find her. And I guess I’d better find out how Baldwin is.”

  Korpanski grunted.

  She rang the hospital using her mobile phone and got the news that Baldwin was a lot better. It was good news and bad news. He was safe in hospital on two counts. One, she knew just where he was and two, she didn’t think even Huke and his band of trusty mates would go for Baldwin while he was in hospital.

  Once he was out anything might happen.

  The school was quiet now, the main centre of activity the makeshift Incident Room which was gleaming with computer screens.

  Their footsteps echoed along the wooden floor of the corridor. Ghosts of the children reached out to them through their pictures. Daniel Pascoe, Sheelagh Bradshaw, Lorna Fankers, Cathy Platt, Sam Owen, Madeline Wiltshaw. The names already beginning to grow familiar