Endangering Innocents

by Priscilla Masters

  Wendy Owen dropped her eyes. She could read what Joanna was saying. “The poor little thing,” she said. “She’s had an awful life.”

  Joanna leaned forward. Any insight into Madeline Wiltshaw’s inner life could lead to her abductor.

  But it was soon clear that Wendy was referring to the mother - not the daughter.

  “Her first old man buggered off with her ex-sister-in-law.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Yeah. Paul. She won’t tell you all this. He took off with her brother’s ex-wife. I mean - things were rough.” She pushed the mobile phone aside, reached for a packet of Silk Cut and lit one with a disposable plastic cigarette lighter. “Drove Carly clean out of her mind that did. She went very strange. Wouldn’t go out of the house for weeks. I used to see little Maddy at the window, just staring out. Not smiling or waving. Just staring.” She took a deep drag on her cigarette. “I’d feel so sorry for her. I’d offer to take her out - with Sam. But that would have meant leaving Carly on her own. And she wasn’t keen. And then she has to take up with Mr Muscle. The bedroom cleaner. I just couldn’t understand it, Inspector. She isn’t even his sort. And he definitely isn’t hers. Believe me. And now Madeline.” She took another long drag on her cigarette and puffed the smoke out quickly. “Some people are just born victims.”

  Joanna found it strange that all the sympathy was directed towards Carly Wiltshaw. None towards the missing child.

  “Tell me about that last afternoon, Mrs Owen,” she said. “Good Friday. The thirteenth. The day you went on holiday. When the children came out of school.”

  “Oh - it was chaotic.” Wendy ran her fingers through her short, blonde hair. “Sam was so excited about the holiday. And I’d clean forgotten the children were coming out of school early. So I was late. They were already streaming out of the playground by the time I arrived. Sam was shouting his head off, arms out, pretending to be an aeroplane, bashing into everyone. It was chaos. And so noisy.”

  She met Joanna’s eyes. “I know what you’re going to ask me - whether I saw Madeline that afternoon or not. And I realise it’s important. But the trouble is that one day merges with another. I pick Sam up every day. Every day there’s chaos and noise and I see the same children. I don’t know whether I can separate them. I’m trying to think - to be sure that the picture I have of little Maddy coming out of school is on that day. Let me think… The children were holding little baskets with tiny chocolate eggs in. I think … and some pictures.”

  “Take your time,” Joanna urged. “Please.”

  Wendy pressed her fingertips to her temples. An aide-memoire. “I remember screeching to a halt at the end of the line of cars. And running up the road, towards the school. I was panicked. I knew that guy’d been hanging around and I didn’t want to miss Sam. I ran into the playground. It was already full of children and mums and dads. I met up with Sam somewhere near the doors. He collided with one of the little girls and she fell over and started crying.” She stubbed her cigarette out in a pottery ashtray. “I can’t even remember which girl it was. Sheelagh, I think. I don’t remember seeing Madeline at all. Wait a minute. Maybe she was … No,” she said certainly. “I didn’t see her.” Her clear green eyes met Joanna’s with a trace of anguish, of guilt. “Although that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. I might not have noticed her. She might have slipped passed when I was sorting Sam and Sheelagh out.” She licked her lips, as though feeling the need to defend her failure to notice the child. “She wasn’t the sort of child you would notice. She was always slinking around, hugging the inside of the pavement, eyes looking down. And you have to understand. She was so quiet. So very very quiet.” She frowned, reaching to a realisation she had not made before. “Abnormally quiet really. I can’t even think what her voice sounded like.” She smiled. “Not like my Sam. You could find him any old time - just by listening out. Hear him shouting. But Maddy - she was invisible. Carly hardly knew she was around, I should think. Unless she was different at home. Kids are, sometimes.” She fingered the cigarette stub. “But I don’t think so.”

  Joanna didn’t want to put words into Wendy Owen’s mouth. She needed the truth without any distortion from her. But she did need specific questions answered.

  “That afternoon. Where did you park? Did you notice …?”

  Wendy Owen’s face changed. She looked shrewd and sharp. Dangerous. Protective. Mothers do protect their young - sometimes. She knew exactly what Joanna was asking. “You mean the toad who hung around in the blue van watching the children. No,” she said reluctantly. “No - I didn’t notice him. At least - I don’t think I did. Not on that day. I think I would have panicked if I’d seen him - being late. But one day blurs into another. They’re all alike. And that’s no use to you, is it?”

  She was obviously unaware that Baldwin was Joshua the clown.

  “Facts are only helpful to us if you can be one hundred per cent certain, Mrs Owen,” Joanna said. She was aware of the prejudice that already existed against Baldwin. The last thing she wanted were incriminating statements manufactured against him if they were untrue. They could lead to - what they had already led to - attacks against him. They could lead to unsafe convictions and if Baldwin was innocent and wrongly convicted it would leave a guilty man free to reoffend. If he was guilty but they failed to secure a conviction he would go free. She wanted to emphasise this point to Wendy Owen.

  Instead she broached the subject of the birthday party.

  “Do you remember Sam’s birthday party?”

  Wendy Owen looked surprised. “Yes,” she said. “We had a clown. Quite a good one too. He did lots of vanishing tricks. He was so deft. Why do you ask?”

  “Joshua the clown is the guy who’s been hanging round outside the school.”

  Wendy Owen’s mouth dropped open. “No,” she said. “No. Surely. I’d have recognised him.”

  Joanna shook her head. “He arrived in costume?”

  Wendy Owen nodded.

  She rubbed the back of her neck. “Oh, no,” she said. “I feel so responsible.”

  It was interesting that she had made the same assumption as Huke and his gang.

  Baldwin had been tried, convicted, sentenced.

  “I don’t know whether I wished I had seen him that afternoon or not.”

  Maybe she was picking up on some of Joanna’s thought processes. Her eyes were troubled.

  “Inspector Piercy,” she said, “I couldn’t swear in a court of law that I did see him on Good Friday afternoon. But if he was there he might have been parked round the corner - not in the line. I think I would have noticed. I think he wasn’t there because I parked right down the bottom. I was probably the last mum to arrive. Some of the cars had already pulled away. There were gaps but it seemed quicker to walk up rather than manoeuvre the car into a space. I’m not much good at reverse parking.” She met Joanna’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not being much help - am I? The truth is I was really preoccupied with the holiday and being late and worrying about locking up the house properly - and packing everything we needed. Cancelling the papers.” She smiled. “You know what it’s like. There’s a lot to think about.”

  “OK.” Joanna returned the smile. “Thanks. If you do remember anything. Anything at all - for certain - we’ll be interested.” She gave Wendy her telephone number and left.

  It was no more than she had expected yet she felt a sharp snag of disappointment as she left Leek to drive back to Horton. Wendy Owen had been the only parent they had had no contact with since Madeline had vanished. She had pinned, maybe stupidly, some hope that she would learn something from her. Yet she had learnt nothing. A five-year-old had still vanished into thin air and they still had no clue in which direction she had gone - or been taken.

  The roads around Horton School were once again jammed with cars. This time with the media. Local Press, radio, TV operators and the inevitable nosy public. Joanna pulled up at the back of the line of cars and walked the rest of the way. As had Wendy Ow
en a little over two weeks ago. There was a small lane leading to her left which was empty now. She reached the school gates. The children were still in school, a few peering curiously out of the windows at all the excitement. She walked across the playground. There were a few loose ends to be tidied up before rolling on with the reconstruction. She checked with Korpanski.

  As she finished speaking to Mike, the red Nissan Micra slid into view.

  Now came the difficult task of telling Madeline’s Mum that her daughter’s clothes had almost certainly been found - all of them. Underwear too. It did not make it any easier that this time Carly was alone. No Huke. And quiet. She did not even cry as Joanna related the facts to her but sat with her arms wrapped around the steering wheel, staring through the windscreen, bleak and impervious to the activity outside, a frozen statue. Joanna asked whether she had heard and repeated her sentences. That clothes had been found in a rubbish bin and that in all probability they were Madeline’s. She let Carly draw her own conclusions. And she did, in a long, shuddering, hopeless sigh. She didn’t respond at all while Joanna explained that they could not be certain until forensic tests had been carried out but she did let Carly touch the bags with desperately clutching fingers as though the child was to be found inside them.

  It reminded Joanna of Wendy Owen’s comments, that Carly had needed Madeline with her during her “difficulties”.

  Madeline’s mother stared at the mark on the gymslip. “It is hers,” she said. Something flickered in her eyes.

  Guilt?

  “I was angry with her about getting felt-tip pen all down the front.” She moistened her lips, flushed and dropped her head back over the steering wheel. “It. It didn’t come out in the wash, you see. I - we - thought we’d have to buy her a new one.” She clapped her hand across her mouth, stifling comment, and said nothing more except to whisper, “Is there … is there anything on them?”

  Joanna knew exactly what she meant. Blood. Semen. She put her hand on Carly’s thin arm. “Nothing that I could see. But it’s better we don’t touch them. Contamination, you see. The lab …”

  Carly Wiltshaw nodded, suddenly wise.

  “Do you want to stay?”

  Again Carly nodded.

  Though she was three years older, superficially the other little girl was very like Madeline, particularly with her face set in serious, concentrative mood. She knew what she was being asked to do - and to some extent why. Some explanation had been necessary (couched in suitable terms) - “a little girl has walked from the school and got lost. Can you pretend you’re her and help us find her?”

  The problem was that the little girl of eight years old would remember and repeatedly ask whether she had helped find the “other little girl”. Disappointment could be acute when the answer was in the negative or even in the affirmative. “The other little girl had an accident”.

  It was a question Joanna would probably prefer not to answer - and for it not to have been asked in the first place.

  Eight years old, looking much younger, with hair straight and shiny cut in a black bob, wearing a grey gymslip and scarlet sweater covered over by a grey puffer jacket. Clarks Tiptoes shoes on her feet. It could be Madeline. Behind her Joanna heard Carly Wiltshaw gasp.

  But the resemblance was superficial only. As Joanna drew closer it registered that this was a confident little girl with bright, inquisitive eyes who studied at the local stage school. This was not her first job as an actress. And she and Madeline were poles apart.

  Carly Wiltshaw stood at Joanna’s side, Huke standing behind her. He must have just arrived. Joanna could sense his presence, hear his noisy breaths, smell the animal, sweaty scent of him. She shifted forward. So did Huke.

  The child was surrounded by the reporters with tape recorders and note pads. Joanna eyed her through the glass panel of the school door. Huge grey furry microphones dangled in front of her. A couple of TV cameras held aloft on cameramen’s shoulders hid her from sight. There was plenty of interest, augmented by the inquisitive public as she opened the school door, peered timidly around and stepped briskly across the playground, reached the gates, unlatched them and walked out onto the road. Then she looked uncertain. The media fell back. This was not supposed to happen - an actress who had forgotten her lines? But the child was not unsure because she had forgotten her instruction. She did not know which way to turn because nobody had told her. No one could tell her because nobody knew.

  Joanna held her breath. It had been deliberate. She and Mike had discussed this. And decided to let the child follow her instinct - as possibly had Madeline.

  The child hesitated for only a moment. Then quite firmly and fast she looked both ways, crossed the road and walked along the other side towards the grass verge. Joanna was puzzled. It was not the way she had guessed. But no one had instructed the little girl to do this. She had chosen this path. It was as though she was directed by someone. Not them. The media followed, now silent.

  The child led.

  She reached the five-barred gate of a long field which rolled in the opposite direction from Rudyard Lake, Southerly, back towards the Potteries. The gate was padlocked, the sign quite clearly forbidding entry on the grounds of foot and mouth disease. The child waited, scanned the empty field then turned back - and stopped.

  And all Joanna was aware of was the complete absence of sound. Everyone was silent. Even the noise of distant traffic was absent. Missing too was the normal, background hum of the country. The sputter of tractors, the snorting sounds of animals, the mooing, baaing and barking. For even the dogs were chained up, their owners afraid they would roam and spread the invisible virus in their coats, in their breath, on their paws.

  Where were the animals. In barns? On pyres?

  The little girl had lost her confidence now. She stood quite still and chewed her lips. The fleeting resemblance to Madeline Wiltshaw had returned. She was close to tears.

  A woman hurried towards her. Put her arms around her. Mother? Stage school teacher?

  Joanna caught drifts of the conversation. “That was great. You were really good. Terrific.”

  The watchers were all silent.

  And Carly and Huke had disappeared.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Joanna asked the little actress why she had wandered towards the sloping field when her instructions had been to stop at the road. The answer had interested her.

  “Poppet” (Stage name, her “minder” explained) had stared Joanna right out. Hazel eyes, long, curling lashes. “Because it looked so - very - pretty,” she answered in a slow thoughtful voice. “I just wanted to be there.”

  Joanna had the feeling that “Poppet” was set to become a household name. She thanked the child and her minder and grabbed hold of Korpanski who was chatting to a couple of newpaper hacks.

  “Get your wellies on, Mike,” she said. “You and I are going walkabout.”

  “What about the …?” he objected.

  “Sod it,” Joanna spoke stroppily. “I’m about fed up with all this foot and mouth business. We’ll be careful. We’ll wash our wellies in disinfectant if you like. But we are going to walk across that field.”

  The grass was moist and long, brushing halfway up their boots. Had circumstances been different it would have been alive with animals and the grass already shorn. As it was, Joanna and Mike stepped through, alone.

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything.”

  “But the fields have all been searched.”

  “I know. I know. I know.”

  She couldn’t keep reiterating, what else do we have? It had become too repetitive a refrain.

  Even if it was true. But she had the awful feeling they were missing something which was right beneath their eyes.

  As they reached the middle of the field, Joanna looked ahead. Across a narrow lane bordered by a low hedge lay a small cottage of grey stone with smoke drifting lazily from its chimney. Like the field, it looked pretty. A Beatrix Potter picture
come to life. Joanna would hardly have been surprised if Mrs Tiggy Winkle or Peter Rabbit had sauntered across the narrow lane between the field and its gate. No car was visible.

  They reached the edge of the field and climbed the small, wooden stile into the narrow lane.

  Ahead stood a kissing gate, neatly painted in pillar-box red.

  It creaked as they pushed it open. And were immediately greeted by a thin farmer, scowling, his hand knotted around the collar of a straining black and white border collie. “What the f …?”

  “Police,” Joanna said quickly. “We’re searching for a missing child.”

  The farmer scowled harder. “So? Your lot have already swarmed over this place,” he said. “Spreading all sorts no doubt. What do you want this time? I’ve already been asked every stupid question under the sun.”

  “Can we come in?”

  “What for?” The hairs on the back of the dog’s neck were bristling. “There’s no missing child been anywhere near here. Don’t you believe me? Do you think I’m hiding her?”

  “Of course not.” Joanna felt uncomfortable. And it wasn’t just the dog. Snarling now. Something was whispering at her. Insistently. She glanced around.

  Behind the farmer stood a huge Dutch hay barn. With open sides and a bowed corrugated tin roof. Half-full of the winter’s hay. It had been a mild, dry winter, the animals left to graze - until the virus had struck. This farmer was well provided for. Fortunate compared with some of his fellows.

  So what was she seeing? Apart from a prosperous landowner who lived in a small farmhouse?

  Use a child’s eyes, she told herself. Unravel the scene. The inviting field. The pretty cottage. The little red gate. The hay barn. Warm, comfortable, secure, the air perfumed with the familiar scent of animals.

  Something which was missing from normal life.