First One Missing

by Cohen, Tammy

  ‘Yeah, but the truth could turn out to be a whole lot worse.’

  ‘Maybe. But don’t try to downplay how crap it is to find out your husband is cheating on you.’

  Why had she said that? And worse, said it in that stupid squeaky voice that he’d recognize immediately as her upset voice.

  Pete was staring at her. ‘I wouldn’t downplay it. I’d never—’

  Leanne cut him off before he could say anything more. ‘Anyway, I don’t think that’s the only reason Emma’s acting a bit weird. She’s become obsessed with the idea that these hair bobbles are important somehow and she’s furious with us for not doing anything about it.’

  She explained to Pete about Tilly’s personal effects, and how Emma was convinced they held the key to the whole case.

  Pete’s face softened. ‘I’ve had the same thing with Fiona and Mark. Not about hair stuff but they were sure we’d missed something. One of Leila’s friend’s mums was convinced a kid who’d been doing teacher training at the school had done a suspicious flit, so Fiona and Mark became absolutely certain he was the killer. When we finally traced him, he was teaching English as a foreign language in Thailand.’

  Leanne sighed. ‘The hair bands seem to have lodged in her brain and I know I’ve disappointed her by not following it up, but I wouldn’t know where to start. I mean, what do you think?’

  Pete ran a hand through his own hair.

  ‘It does sound like she’s grasping at straws, but then she’s never said anything like this before, has she? Not in two whole years. Why would she start letting her imagination run riot now?’

  ‘Yes, but hair bobbles, Pete? I told Desmond and he just looked at me like I was mad.’

  ‘But she knows her own child, Leanne. That’s the thing.’

  Leanne had to check her phone again then, so that Pete wouldn’t see how much that hurt. Sometimes when she was talking to him, she forgot what had happened before, forgot that he wasn’t hers any more, forgot he’d had a baby with someone else. And then something would happen, like him talking about what parents know with such authority and, wham, it hit her all over again. She remembered how it had felt the first time she’d seen him again after the baby – Daisy – had been born, how she’d forced herself to go up to him and congratulate him and asked to see a photograph of her and smiled even though the sight of the tiny creature gazing up at the camera almost tore her heart in two. Ruby had been incredulous afterwards. ‘Why would you do that? What kind of masochist are you?’ But she knew it was something she had to get out of the way so that she could keep her pride and they could both carry on working alongside each other, though thankfully not at the same station most of the time.

  ‘But what could it mean? Realistically? That this guy, whoever he is, has a fetish about little girls’ hair?’

  ‘Well, think about it. Let’s suppose Emma is right and Tilly would never in a million years have been wearing mismatched elastics when she got snatched. So, one of her hair thingies comes off somehow. So why doesn’t he just leave it off or, I don’t know, put all her hair in the remaining band, or just not have any at all? Why replace it, and where would he get a replacement from anyway? None of it makes sense.’

  She was interrupted by her phone vibrating in her hand. The caller ID said ‘withheld’ and she was just about to dismiss it when something tugged at her memory.

  ‘Howard Walsh here. Can you talk?’

  She looked up at Pete and did a ‘sorry, what can you do’ shrug. He nodded once and got to his feet, giving a small wave before turning away. She saw the new female crime-data analyst track his progress back to his temporary desk with a kind of greedy intensity.

  ‘Yes, Howard, how are you?’ Too late she remembered he didn’t do small talk.

  ‘I’ve more news on Nemo.’

  Leanne, still preoccupied with Pete who was now perched on his desk, talking to someone on the phone, was having problems remembering what she and the strange, nervy undercover cop had talked about that day on the Heath.

  ‘Remember my initial contact? The one who told me the group was actively involved in the whole Kenwood case? Well, he now tells me one of the four members is Bobby Jarvis.’

  ‘You mean the Bobby Jarvis?’

  ‘That’s right, the original Lion of the North.’

  Now there was a phrase Leanne hadn’t heard in a long time. Immediately she was transported back to her teenage bedroom in Kent, listening to the radio on interminable Sunday afternoons, the voice of the DJ booming across the airwaves in his broad Yorkshire accent. She could still remember seeing him for the first time on television, with his shock of dyed-blond hair. He’d fallen out of favour after a few years as people like him tended to do. His blokey style of innuendo and low-level misogyny went out of fashion during her teens. She seemed to remember a few seasons in panto and the odd TV appearance but she hadn’t heard anything about him in years. And now, after all this time, after all those children’s TV shows and all those backstage meet-and-greets with young fans, he’d resurfaced in a paedophile ring.

  ‘How does he know so much – your contact? Is he in the ring himself?’

  ‘No. But he has some sort of hold over one of the other members – some evidence that would link him to a crime. This guy in the ring is a professional of some sort. Teacher maybe, or lawyer. Something like that. Anyway, he wouldn’t be too keen for anything like that to be made public.’

  Leanne didn’t ask Howard what hold he had over this contact to make him share his information so freely.

  ‘They were definitely involved. Nemo, I mean. I’m still not sure how, or to what degree, but at least one of them came into contact with Poppy Glover.’

  Leanne glanced over at the board at the other end of the office where Desmond had pinned photographs of the four murdered girls. Even from metres away she could see Poppy Glover’s shy, gap-toothed smile. She shut her eyes.

  ‘Into contact? In what way?’

  ‘I still don’t know. Obviously I’ve kept my boss updated but he’s very anxious we don’t do anything to jeopardize our own investigation.’

  ‘But surely we should at least pick up Bobby Jarvis? We’ve got the semen sample from near Poppy’s body. We could run tests and—’

  ‘And what if it isn’t him who was there? As soon as you pick him up, Nemo will shut down completely. You’d never trace the others. What if it was one of them?’

  ‘But we can’t just leave them to carry on. They might be targeting their next victim as we speak. You know the gaps between murders have been getting shorter.’

  ‘Obviously your guv’nor will have his own views, but I think it’s a risk you’re going to have to take – for now.’

  Howard’s voice had grown weary and clipped, as if he was already detaching himself from the conversation. Leanne got the impression he’d only called her because his superiors had told him to keep her in the loop but that he now felt he’d more than discharged his duty. She pictured him fidgeting with his wire-framed glasses while his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a gobstopper caught under the thin skin of his throat. She sensed that he was about to hang up and felt a wave of panic.

  ‘One more thing. Have you ever come across someone called Jason Shields?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  But Howard Walsh’s quiet, contained voice was even more hesitant than usual.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Leanne pressed.

  ‘No. Well, there’s something ringing a bell somewhere but I can’t really be sure.’

  ‘Could you maybe ask around?’

  ‘Look, I’m already sticking my neck out asking around about Nemo. I start throwing out other names, I’m going to blow my cover. Three years of work down the drain.’

  She felt stupid now and wished she hadn’t opened her big mouth. Howard clearly had her down as some kind of clueless amateur. She’d got the feeling when they’d met that he didn’t much like women. Mind you, maybe he just didn’t like people. W
ho could blame him after all the things he must have seen.

  The call left Leanne feeling unsettled and needing to clear her head. She headed for the women’s toilets, which meant going past Pete’s temporary desk. She saw him look up and deliberately averted her gaze.

  In the loo, Leanne discovered her period had arrived. That was all she needed. ‘Give me a break,’ she said out loud. She wondered when she might turn magically into one of those proper women so in tune with their bodies they made a note in their diaries of the dates they were due so they were always prepared, instead of being ambushed by it month after month. Emerging from the cubicle, she glanced at the ancient dispensing machine in the corner. Out of order. How did she guess?

  By the time she re-entered the office, she was in a foul temper. Brushing past Pete’s desk again without even a glance, she strode back to her own, snatched up her bag and headed out, pretending not to hear Ruby’s ‘There’s someone waiting—’

  In the corridor outside she rifled through the contents of her bag, but though she found plenty of old receipts and dog-eared flyers she’d accepted from people in the streets – she never could walk past an outstretched hand, that was her problem – there was nothing remotely useful. She’d have to nip out for something. It was a right pain. Still, at least it would give her a chance to call Will. There was something she needed to talk to him about – without Ruby and Pete and all the rest listening in. She pressed the green exit button and pushed through the heavy door that led to the reception area, hearing the click as it locked behind her. So intent was she on her mission that she didn’t notice the blonde woman sitting in a chair to the right of the duty officer’s desk.

  ‘Leanne!’

  Leanne liked to think she was a pretty tolerant sort of person, but there were some voices that really grated, and Sally Freeland’s was one of them.

  ‘I was hoping you’d have time for a coffee. That woman who picked up your phone said you were busy but I thought it was worth hanging around anyway, and here you are!’

  Too late Leanne remembered that Ruby had been trying to tell her about someone waiting.

  ‘Actually, it’s not a good time, Sally. I’ve got something urgent I need to do.’ For a brief moment she considered asking Sally if she had a tampon but thought better of it.

  ‘Well, I’ll just come along with you to your car.’

  Leanne thought about saying no, but she didn’t want to get into a discussion with the journalist in the lobby. After all, she was already under suspicion of passing on information to the press.

  ‘Free country, I suppose,’ she said, striding on.

  As ever it was a shock to step out into the daylight and realize there was a whole world going on outside the police station. Sometimes if you stayed in there too long it was as if that was the only reality there was, and when you thought about the ‘outside’ it was like thinking about the billions of stars and planets in the solar system. You knew they existed in theory but you couldn’t fully believe in them.

  ‘I really am pushed for time,’ she said as she headed across the forecourt.

  ‘Oh absolutely. Me too. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. So I’ll just come straight down to it. I was thinking maybe you and I could do a bit of information sharing. I mean, we all want the same end result, don’t we, to find whoever is doing these terrible killings and stop them? So it makes sense to pool what we know.’

  Leanne stopped and glanced at her unwelcome companion.

  ‘If you are withholding any information that could help solve a crime, you could be up on a charge of obstructing the course of justice or impeding a police investigation. I would advise you to think very seriously.’

  Sally made a dismissive gesture with her hand as if the prospect of a criminal charge was a minor irritation.

  ‘I’m not withholding anything. It’s just information that might prove to be helpful, but I won’t be able to tell without seeing how it fits into place with other pieces. It’s like a jigsaw. Do you see? One piece in isolation is next to useless.’

  Leanne wasn’t in the mood for this. It didn’t help that the other woman’s immaculate all-white outfit – tight-fitting linen trousers, silk shirt, high wedge sandals – was making her feel so crumpled and scruffy in comparison.

  ‘If you have any information, Sally, then you can pass it on to me or to someone else on the investigation, but I can’t enter into any tit-for-tat information sharing, you know that. Now if you’ll excuse me.’

  She turned her back and walked off, smoothing the creases out of her too-tight navy-blue skirt as she moved.

  ‘So you don’t want to know about Nemo then?’

  Leanne stopped in her tracks before slowly turning round, her mind racing. What did Sally know about Nemo? How had she found out?

  ‘I don’t have time to talk to you,’ she said, before adding grudgingly, ‘At least not now.’

  Sally Freeland smiled like she’d won a victory and Leanne pinched the inside of her wrist to stop herself saying something she’d regret.

  ‘How about later this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. OK. But it’ll have to be north – Hampstead or Highgate.’

  Sally’s eyebrows rose as if Leanne had given something away.

  ‘No probs. Whatever suits.’

  The skin on Leanne’s wrist smarted as she turned and walked away.

  30

  Emma clicked on the link that was minimized at the bottom of her laptop so that it sprang once more into life.

  A source close to the investigation has revealed that in the wake of the latest tragic discovery police are now very interested in the movements of a family member of one of the victims. The source wouldn’t reveal any more details but says the police are acting on a tip-off from a member of the public.

  Movements of a family member of one of the victims? What did that even mean? Ever since Fiona Botsford had texted her at eight thirty-five that morning asking if she’d read the Chronicle, the questions had been going round and round in Emma’s head. Which victim? Which family member? Her unquiet brain ran through them all, over and over. Simon Hewitt? But then why not Daniel Purvis? How come he never came to any of the support meetings? She’d always found that strange. Mark Botsford. He was so quiet, almost preternaturally self-controlled. She’d never seen him cry. She kept running through the list of people, afraid to stop thinking for fear of what she’d then have to face. The one man she hadn’t included in her list. Guy.

  She kept remembering how Leanne had asked all those questions about Guy when they’d met at King’s Cross. And what about this woman he’d been sneaking off early from work to see? Could that have anything to do with it?

  She had a flashback to the first time she’d ever seen Guy, when she was helping her friend Ade move into a shared house in Brixton and the door of the neighbouring room had opened and there had been this man in an old T-shirt and a pair of tartan pyjama bottoms. Struggling under the weight of a cardboard box she’d hardly noticed him and then he’d looked at her with those green eyes and something had dropped away inside her. And now the memories were coming faster. Their first holiday where they’d borrowed his cousin’s ancient camper van and they’d broken down somewhere in the Dordogne and had to spend three nights in a pension that smelled like cabbage soup and there’d been nothing to do but lie in bed on the bobbly nylon sheets and laugh and fuck and eat croissants smuggled in from the bakery down the road. The day after Jemima was born, when he’d arrived, red-faced and out of breath, bursting through the door of the ward the very second visiting hours started, having run all the way from the tube, desperate to see them both again.

  Those memories weren’t lies. That Guy existed. He still existed. So why wouldn’t these doubts just leave her alone?

  By 11.30 that morning she couldn’t bear it any more. She picked up the phone and dialled the number that still produced a tight, painful knot in her stomach. By one o’clock she was in the car and by twenty-five past,
she was sitting under an umbrella in the cramped courtyard of a pub. At the next table a group of medics from the sprawling hospital up the hill were drinking Jägermeister shots. Emma hoped they’d just come off shift rather than being about to start.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. It’s been a pig of a morning.’

  Leanne burst into the courtyard, her cheeks the exact shade of pink as the short-sleeved cotton top which had come untucked from her navy skirt.

  ‘I got you an orange juice. I assumed you wouldn’t be drinking on duty.’

  Leanne glanced wistfully over at the Jägermeister table and Emma wondered whether she should have got her a glass of wine after all.

  ‘Look, Leanne. I’m just going to come straight to the point. I—’

  ‘I think I can guess what prompted this, Emma. You read the snippet in the Chronicle, didn’t you?’

  Emma nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.

  ‘I have to know. Is it Guy you’re investigating?’

  Leanne put down the orange juice she’d been sipping through a black bendy straw so that she could reach out and put her hand over Emma’s.

  ‘I knew that’s what you’d be thinking, after our conversation the other day. I’m going to be honest with you, Emma, in a way I couldn’t be the last time we met because I was under orders, but my boss now thinks you have the right to know, and maybe you can even help us get to the bottom of what’s going on. Do you mind if I tape this?’

  Leanne was already reaching down into the outside pocket of her bag from where she eventually produced an old-fashioned mini tape recorder.

  ‘I have got one of the digital ones, but I can’t work it out,’ she explained.

  Then she caught sight of Emma’s face.