Beckwith gave him a puzzled look. “Still random. All they have in common is the mark.” He got up out of his chair. “These three green and these two red. God knows why, because we don’t.”
“The three green then. Any connection between the victims?”
“Not that we’ve found.”
“The dog thing.” Matt nodded at the gruesome photo of the skinned dog.
“We thought it belonged to this one,” Beckwith tapped the board. “But it didn’t. Apparently she minded it for someone.”
“Which someone?”
“Look, I’m sorry, DI Brindle, but I’ve got a mountain of stuff to do for DI Carlisle. The case file is on my desk. If you want to have a root through it, feel free.”
The owner of the dog might be important. Matt had a look at the file, jotted down the address of that particular victim, and left Beckwith to it.
Matt got settled at his desk. There were several statements relating to Oliver’s disappearance, but none said anything helpful. He scanned down the list of people Oliver and his mother knew. Neighbours, schoolfriends, teachers. But apart from his parents, there were no other relatives. It rang alarm bells. It seemed strange that there wasn’t a single grandparent, auntie, uncle or cousin on that list.
Matt would start with the father. He presumed Gabe Parker had been told, and he was surprised that the man hadn’t yet put in an appearance.
“Tea.” Lily placed it on the desk and smiled.
“Thanks, Lily, that’s good of you. But you don’t have to run after me. I’m not the super. Would you check through Records for me? We’re looking for a man with tattooed arms and long hair. Anything that involves the local kids, you know the stuff. Also, find out how many people around there own a red Ford Ka on a 02 plate.”
* * *
After a frustrating hour of phone calls, it became obvious that Gabe Parker wasn’t working on any Scottish oil rig. So why had Bella said he was?
“Lily! We need to have a word with Bella Richards.”
“She lives out Meltham way, sir. Want me to drive?”
“Okay. Get anything from Records?”
“Nothing involving a man with the description you gave me. In fact, we’ve had nothing at all involving men and kids for a while now.”
Reassuring, but no help.
* * *
Alison let them in and showed them through to the sitting room. Bella did not seem pleased to see them. She recognised Matt Brindle straight away. “I met you at Alan’s funeral. You’re a policeman, or you were. What is it you want? I’m sorry if I sound rude but I haven’t slept. I was just going for a lie down. I’m really struggling, you know. I can’t sleep or eat. All I want is Olly back.”
They hadn’t been invited to sit down. Matt stood in the doorway and smiled at her. “I’m back doing my old job. As I told you, I knew Alan. I heard what happened to your son on the news, and got curious. I’m now the officer in charge of finding Oliver. If there is anything you want to know, Alison will contact me from now on.”
Matt couldn’t tell if she was pleased to hear that or not. “I’ve been going over the statements gathered so far. I’ve re-interviewed the young man from the newsagents. We now have a description of the man seen talking to your son, and we are following it up.” He decided not to tell her about the red car until they knew more. “Have you noticed anyone possibly watching the house recently? Or seen anyone suspicious hanging around when you’ve been going to and from Oliver’s school?”
Bella shook her head. “The only people who have been here lately are Joel, he’s a work colleague, and Robert Nolan, the solicitor. He was Alan’s neighbour. You will have seen him at the funeral.”
“Okay, something else. You told a colleague that Oliver’s father works on the rigs in Scotland.” She nodded. “I checked, Ms Richards, and he doesn’t. None of the companies currently employ anyone with the name Gabe Parker.”
Bella ran a hand through her hair. “There must be some mistake. I don’t understand what is going on. Perhaps he’s left. If that is the case, then I’ve no idea where he is.”
“Has he been in touch?”
She shook her head. “No, we don’t talk much, as a rule, only if there is something important to say. The split wasn’t pleasant. I do my best to avoid contact with Gabe. He keeps to his side of our bargain, and that suits me fine. I presumed you lot would have told him what’s happened. I’ve heard nothing, so I don’t know.”
“When did you hear from him last?”
She shrugged. “It must be a month ago. He rang out of the blue and wondered what Olly wanted for his birthday. Odd, he’s never done that before.”
“Do you have a mobile number?”
“Yes.” Bella found the number on her phone and wrote it down for him.
“Does he provide for Oliver? A job on the rigs pays well.”
“Yes, he pays an amount each month. There has never been a problem.”
“Into your bank?”
Bella nodded.
“If Gabe Parker should hear something on the news and contacts you, we would like to speak to him. Let us know right away.”
Bella looked doubtful. “If he has moved on, then he could be gone for a while. A job like his, it can take him anywhere in the world.”
Matt and Lily retreated from the doorway. Bella hadn’t seemed fazed when he mentioned Parker, and she’d given him the number. Nonetheless, he would check Parker out.
* * *
They were soon back in the car. Lily looked at him. “I have to say, sir, she spoke pretty convincingly about the boy’s father. She didn’t appear concerned that we wanted to know about him.”
But Matt wanted to make sure for himself. He rang the number she’d given him. Nothing. The line was dead, and he doubted the number was valid. Then he rang the nick. He wanted access to Bella’s bank account. She had sounded plausible, but his instinct was at it again. He was beginning to suspect that Bella had been telling them a whole tissue of lies. Gabe Parker should have come forward by now. The child’s disappearance had front page coverage in the papers. The woman was hiding something, but he couldn’t understand why.
He turned to Lily. “Are her phone calls being monitored?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Get that sorted, would you? And a list of her mobile calls.”
“What are you thinking, sir?”
“I’m wondering if Bella is being blackmailed.”
Chapter 12
The obese woman made her way gingerly down the steep stone staircase, a grunt of pain accompanying every step. She was finding it hard to breathe. The boy’s wailing had kept her awake. He had cried for most of the night. Just as well there were no neighbours.
She shouted into the darkness. “Cut the crap, or there’ll be nothing to eat!” She kept to the shadows. If the child did leave here alive, she did not want him pointing the finger at her. The boy was bright. He could be trouble later on.
“I want to go home! I want my mum,” the boy cried.
The woman muttered under her breath, then called out, “Well, you can’t. You’ve got to stay with me for a bit longer. Your mummy says you have to be a good boy.”
The cellar was dark, damp and freezing. It had no windows, no heating. The woman had given him an old duvet for warmth, but the mattress on the bed was thin and damp. She’d fixed the boy’s ankle to a hook on the wall with a chain. He could move a metre or so away from the bed, but no more. She didn’t want him making a run for it. Overweight and fighting for breath, she’d be no match for a five-year-old if he took to his toes.
“I want my mum! I don’t like it here.”
His voice was plaintive, interspersed with sobs.
“Cut it out, kid.” She felt no sympathy for him, no remorse for what she was doing. If Bella got her boy back, he’d have all the attention he desired. He didn’t need any mollycoddling from her. The woman placed a bowl of cereal and water on the floor near the mattress. “Some
food for you. And here’s a bucket to use as a toilet.” She put it down within his reach.
The boy coughed. It sounded harsh, barking.
“What’s up with you?”
“I need my inhaler,” he wailed.
She had no idea what he was on about. “Shut up and eat. If you’re cold, get under that duvet.”
“I want to go home. I need my medicine. My mum gives it to me every day.”
“What medicine?” The woman inched a little closer, and received a sharp kick on the shins.
“You little sod!” She lashed out with the torch and caught the boy on his arm. He howled in pain and started to cry in earnest.
“Less of that noise. Any more of it, and I’ll slit your throat.”
Back in the kitchen, she took hold of the phone and flicked through a list of numbers until she found the one for the man who’d brought the lad to her.
“How long? I’m off on holiday at the end of week, so think on. Our Mary will be back by then. If you leave him with her, you’re taking a risk. Too soft-hearted, that’s ’er trouble. She’ll take to the lad, want to help ’im. He needs sorting before then.”
She listened. He was telling her to be patient. Patient! It was alright for him. He didn’t have all the bother, all the crying. The kid was trouble. She’d heard the news. Half of the Yorkshire force was looking for him. It was too risky, and she wanted out.
“End of the week, or you’ll get a load of trouble,” she threatened.
* * *
Lily raised her eyes from her computer screen. “There is nothing in her bank statements, sir. Her salary from the college gets paid in, and that’s it. There’s nothing from anyone else. What’s more, there’s no maintenance payments. So what she said about Parker paying each month was a lie. There are no big payouts either. So the blackmail idea is out the window.”
“In that case she’s lying to us. But why?” Matt Brindle logged onto his computer and started searching. He wanted to know a lot more about Bella. There had to be a good reason why she’d lie about the child’s father.
“Perhaps Gabe Parker has done one. He might not be able to afford the maintenance payments anymore. And she was right about the job he does. He could be anywhere.”
“No, she’s hiding something, and I want to know what. It could be the reason why her son is missing. Anything on the phone records yet?”
“Her mobile records will be with us this afternoon. She doesn’t have a landline.”
Matt returned to his research. Bella Richards was turning into a mystery in her own right.
* * *
Two hours later, he was knocking on Dyson’s office door.
The super gave him a broad grin. “Settling in? Knew you’d be okay. You couldn’t give it up. Policing is in your blood.”
“You could be right, sir.”
“How are you doing anyway? Any nearer to finding the lad?”
“No, and the case just got a whole lot more complicated. Carlisle is working on the Fisher murder?”
Dyson nodded. “Seemed reasonable, since he was on the other five.”
“Do you know if he’s looked into Bella’s background?”
“You can ask him, but I shouldn’t have thought so. She isn’t a suspect. What have you found?”
“Between us, Lily and I have checked every set of records we can think of, including births, marriages, and deaths, for both her and the boy. There is nothing. Prior to two years ago, when she moved into that house and started working at the college, neither Bella nor her son has any history. They did not exist, sir.”
Talbot frowned. “That can’t be right. There must be some mistake, some records missing. She would have given the college references. When she bought that house, they would have done background checks for the mortgage.”
“Lily is checking that out now. Meanwhile, I’m going to search the police database.”
Dyson shrugged. “I doubt she has a record. It will be some admin cock-up somewhere down the line. Why not ask the woman? Find out where she moved from, see what she has to say.”
“I asked her about the boy’s father, and she lied about him. We can’t find any trace of him anywhere. Her having a record wasn’t what I was thinking, sir.”
The super logged on to his computer. “Right then, let’s have a look, see what we can turn up. I bet that woman hasn’t got so much as a parking ticket.”
Matt watched Dyson spend the next few minutes searching the police records. “Told you — nothing. Clean as a whistle.”
“As I said, a police record wasn’t top of my list, sir. But since we can’t find any trace of Bella or her son, what about the protected persons programme — you know, the old witness protection?”
Dyson shook his head. “If she’s in that, we’ll not get anything. We had a case a few months ago in Leeds. The bloke the team wanted to talk to was in the programme. We knew he had vital information, but we were forced to lay off.”
Matt’s heart sank. If his suspicions were right, that meant information was restricted or not accessible at all, all the way down the line. They could search all they wanted, but they’d find nothing.
“What now, sir? It would help to know a lot more about her. At the very least, who Oliver’s father really is. It looks like Gabe Parker is part of the false past that has been created for her.”
He watched Dyson wrestle with this. “That’s a bit of a leap. Bella Richards is the victim here. Her son’s missing. Why would she hold back?”
“So why can’t we find her on any of the records, sir?”
“Okay, I’ll have a word with the ACC. He might be able to get us something, but I can’t promise.”
“Impress it upon him, sir. A child’s life could be at stake. If we didn’t really need the information, we wouldn’t be asking.”
* * *
When he got back to the office, Lily was still hard at it. “She is a mystery and no mistake. I’ve been going through the records again, just to make sure. It’s as if the woman doesn’t exist.”
Matt nodded. “She doesn’t, Lily. Not as Bella Richards anyway.”
“Her mortgage checks out. Her salary was confirmed by the college, and she put down a sizeable deposit. The references she gave the college don’t exist. I spoke to personnel, but they refused to comment.”
“Told not to comment is more like it.”
“There is something. On the statement she gave, we have the boy’s date of birth. Of course we have no idea where he was born. But I could find us all the boys registered in the UK with the first name ‘Oliver’ for that date.”
Matt shook his head. “There’ll be hundreds of them. Oliver is one of the most popular boys’ names. Apart from which, we don’t even know if the date of birth is right. It’s a thankless task, Lily. We need more to work on.”
Chapter 13
Evelyn Brindle was waiting for her son when he returned home that evening.
“How was it?” she said.
“Tiring, Ma, but it felt good being back in the station and getting stuck into a case again.”
He’d been wrong to think he could never go back. He’d forgotten the way a case can get to you, and the disappearance of Bella’s son had done exactly that. It had drawn him in, and now he was hooked on the job again.
“You surprise me.”
She didn’t like it, Matt could tell. How to turn things around? He smiled at her. “I now know that I was wrong thinking I could give it up. I was deluding myself. You know how much I loved the job, how much it hurt to have to walk away. But I truly believed I had no choice. I thought that after what happened to Paula, the only thing I could do was quit. I partly blamed myself for what happened, and I was terrified I’d make the same mistake again. I still am to some extent. But that’s wrong, Ma. I do need the job and the job needs me.”
His mother glared at him. “I can’t say I’m pleased. In fact, I’m downright annoyed. But if it makes you happy, Matthew,” she shrugged, “I wi
ll do my best to cope with the stress. But make no mistake about it, it will wear me out. You are on my mind every second of the day. I couldn’t bear it if anything else should happen to you.”
Matt knew his mother was a worrier. Now, after the incident, she would be even more anxious.
“I will be very careful, Ma, both with myself and my partner. I know the risks only too well this time around.”
“What about the house and your grand plans? If you’re working again, that will take up all of your time. It’s a huge enterprise, and it needs someone at the helm. If you can’t do it, then who do you have in mind?”
His mother had a point. “Sarah,” he replied simply. “My sister is more than capable. Like I said, Freddie knows what we want. Sarah just needs to keep him in line, that’s all. If anything major comes along, we can sort it together. I don’t work for the police twenty-four/seven.”
“She was round here today, brought the children. I think she might go for the idea. But you need to put it to her yourself, Matthew. And don’t make her feel like second best.”
He looked at his mother. “You could help too, you know.”
The look she gave him was glacial. “To tell you the truth, Matthew, I don’t like the idea of you being back in the force, but I like your plans for the house even less.”
He sighed. “We’ve done that one to death, Ma. The estate needs the money. The project will get the place back on its feet.”
Matt had had enough. It was all very well for his mother to criticise his decisions, but she had no alternative to offer. He took a torch and went for his usual evening stroll around the estate. It would take him a good hour, during which time he hoped his mother would mellow.
He walked around the perimeter and then checked the old stables and the outhouses. Freddie had left several pieces of equipment and expensive looking tools lying around, including an industrial-sized cement mixer. He’d need to get a better lock on the door. Once word got round the area about what he was doing, the place would be fair game.
The larger of the old stone outbuildings had been earmarked for the café. The one next to it would be an ice-cream parlour and gift shop. Once Freddie got his team of builders on the job, it would not take long. There was a lake on the edge of the estate, close to the country road that ran through the village. It was fed by a stream, a ribbon of water that trickled down off the hills. It was a lovely spot at this time of year. The spring bulbs were in flower and the ducks were showing off their broods. Matt knew there were carp in there, for his father used to keep it well stocked. The fishing would be good.
His Third Victim Page 6