Missing Persons (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 5)

by Sean Campbell

  The receptionist at the front desk was no use. She couldn’t find a guest in the system by the name of Laura Keaton, either.

  It was possible Laura had checked in under an alias, or she was there with someone else, or maybe the new IT guy had got it wrong. Ayala picked up his mobile. ‘Hey, Siri, call Brodie.’

  For once, it worked flawlessly.

  ‘Laddie, did you find your lady?’ Brodie said.

  ‘No,’ Ayala said. ‘There’s no sign of her.’

  He heard Brodie typing again in the background. ‘Her mobile’s still there. North side of the building, probably in a room facing the park.’

  ‘Any idea which floor?’

  ‘Nay, laddie. GPS doesn’t give me altitude. You’re on your own for that one.’

  Brodie hung up.

  Rude! Ayala thought. He turned back to the front desk. ‘What’s on the north side of this building?’

  ‘Those are our premium hotel rooms there, sir. Each has a full-width balcony with a view over Hyde Park and a whirlpool bath.’

  ‘I don’t need a sales pitch,’ Ayala spat. ‘Are there any communal areas on that side of the building?’

  ‘We’ve also got a rooftop bar and a ground floor spa.’

  A sauna? ‘Do you have to be a guest to use the spa?’

  ‘No, sir. We allow day guests to partake of our spa as well as residents.’

  ‘Thank you. Which way is it?’

  No sooner had the receptionist pointed out the right corridor than Ayala was off.

  ***

  Laura was in the spa. The receptionist at the spa recognised her photo immediately.

  ‘She’s getting a mud wrap right now, sir. Can I interest you in one?’

  Ayala hesitated. It did sound good, but he knew he’d never hear the end of it from Morton if he tried to expense a mud wrap to the Met. ‘How long will she be?’

  ‘Another half an hour, sir. Would you like me to let her know you’re here?’

  ‘No! I mean, don’t do that. I’d like to, err, surprise her.’ Ayala grinned. He wasn’t usually that quick on his feet.

  ‘We have a juice cleansing bar just over there, sir. Perhaps you’d like to take a seat in there? I’m always willing to comp the Met’s finest.’

  ‘How’d you know I was a policeman?’

  ‘What else would you be?’

  The juice cleanse was awful. It was an ungodly concoction of spinach, lettuce, cucumber, kale, parsley, and ginger. Ayala downed it and pulled a face. If that was being healthy, he’d rather enjoy a cigarette and go out while he was still handsome.

  There was a woman sitting across the bar. She laughed at Ayala’s expression. ‘That bad, huh? You should have gone for the tropical cleanse. It’s just pineapple, orange, and vanilla yoghurt.’

  ‘You could have told me that two minutes ago.’

  ‘Where would the fun be in that?’ She proffered a handshake. ‘I’m Rachel.’

  ‘Bertram.’

  ‘Wow. Did your parents not love you or something?’

  Ayala rested his forehead on the bar. Could he ever catch a break? The same jokes. Every. Last. Time.

  ‘Hey, I’m just kidding. So, what’re you doing here, Bertram? You’re clearly not a juice cleanse regular. Waiting for someone?’

  ‘You’re very astute,’ Ayala conceded.

  ‘I should be. It’s my job to watch people.’

  ‘You’re on the job?’

  Rachel laughed. ‘Close. I’m a PI.’

  ‘And you got to follow someone here?’ Ayala looked away from the bar. There was a large glass window with a view of the swimming pool and Hyde Park beyond it. The place was deserted.

  ‘Yep. Some poor sap thinks his girl is cheating on him.’

  ‘And, is she?’

  ‘Damned if I know,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve been watching her on and off for a month, and all I’ve got on her is a crafty cigarette and the occasional spa day on his credit card.’

  Ayala’s mind flashed back to the first time he’d met Laura. She had a brilliant smile, but one that was tinged with the yellow of nicotine. ‘Hang on. Your mark – she’s not Laura Keaton, is she?’

  Rachel’s jaw dropped.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

  ‘This just got interesting. How about a quid pro quo? You help me, I’ll help you?’ Rachel said.

  ‘What do you want?’ Ayala asked warily.

  ‘Tell me what dirt you’ve got on her – and you must have some, if you’re following her around Knightsbridge at nine a.m. on Wednesday morning – and I’ll give you a copy of everything I’ve got on her.’

  The press had already put most of the details out there. An early edition of The Impartial had run a second article less than a week ago, when the boat was destroyed, so Ayala wasn’t at risk of disclosing anything confidential. ‘Alright. She’s a suspect in a murder investigation.’

  ‘No! Her? But she seems so... boring!’

  ‘Really? In what way?’

  ‘She never does anything. She shops, she gets her hair and nails done, she goes home.’

  ‘To the Medici building.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have been following her on Sunday, June 12th, would you?’ Ayala asked optimistically.

  ‘Hang on.’ Rachel opened her oversized handbag and drew from its depths a digital SLR. She powered the camera on and scrolled backwards from her most recent images. ‘June 12th... June 12th...’

  ‘Anything?’ Ayala prompted.

  ‘Aha!’ Rachel said. ‘Here we are. I was watching her part of that afternoon. Has your phone got Bluetooth? I can airdrop you everything I’ve got from here.’

  ‘Yep.’ Ayala swiped his thumbprint to unlock it and passed his phone over. ‘I’m not very tech savvy.’

  ‘And not very security conscious, either, if you’re willing to give a private investigator your phone.’ Rachel flashed him a toothy smile.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘That’s what they all say. There you go, everything’s copied over. Anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘Could you email me any other pictures you have of Laura?’ Ayala asked.

  ‘Sure, but there’s nothing interesting in there.’

  ‘Then, I’ll let a junior officer sift through those.’ Ayala handed her a card. ‘And thank you.’

  Chapter 48: Nowhere to Run

  Wednesday 29th June, 10:00

  Faye continued to maintain her stony silence. She moved only to sleep, eat, or use the bathroom. Jensen watched her movements and her expression, and there was only one way to describe her: weird. That wasn’t the technical term, of course, but it was how Jensen felt. She was unlike any other patient he’d ever examined.

  It hadn’t taken long to find out about Faye’s past. She’d grown up in a broken home with a loving mother and an abusive stepfather. Rafferty’s old notes described her meeting the girl in their run-down Victorian terrace in Ilford, where the walls were damp, the furniture worn, and the family terrified but unwilling to talk about it.

  Her stepfather had got away with it. The team from Sapphire had been certain there was domestic abuse. They hadn’t been able to prove it, and so the case had been turned over to Child Protective Services, where Faye had slipped through the net, another unknown victim.

  If Rafferty’s suspicions were correct, they explained a lot. Early childhood trauma could easily cause complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and Faye’s silence was textbook avoidance behaviour. So, too, was Faye’s reliance on Rafferty. For Faye to take one brief encounter with “the nice policewoman”, as she had called Rafferty, and turn that into a dependency lasting into her early adulthood suggested that she had nowhere else to turn.

  None of which explained her amnesia.

  Rafferty arrived at midday. She looked tired but relieved.

  ‘Any news?’ Jensen asked.

  ‘He’s going to be fine. It looks like he was lucky with wh
ere she struck him. He’s confused, angry, and upset. Nothing he can’t handle.’

  ‘Don’t be so quick to dismiss how he feels,’ Jensen said. ‘Men rarely get the chance to express themselves. Bottling up that sort of emotion can be more damaging than any stab wound. If you’d like, I can talk to him.’

  ‘I think another white coat would send his blood pressure through the roof. Thanks for the offer, though. What’ve you learned about Faye?’ Rafferty looked at him expectantly, as if he should have all the answers already.

  ‘Very little. She’s done virtually nothing, said even less, and I just don’t have much to go on. That’s why I asked you to come here.’

  ‘You want me to try to talk to her?’ Rafferty asked.

  ‘Not quite. I want you in the room. For whatever reason, Faye sees you as a safe space. She opens up around you. She trusts you. If you’re there, her personality might shine through, and then we can work towards a diagnosis.’

  ‘You want me to pretend to be her friend, her big sister? After what she did to Paddy? You’re the one who’s out of your mind, Doc.’

  Jensen met her steely gaze with one of his own. ‘Yes, I expect you to pretend. This girl is not right, and, without help, we may never find out why. She’s been losing time, forgetting chunks of her own past, and that is most definitely not normal. She could well hold the key to solving your murder enquiry. I’m not asking you to like her, to be sympathetic, or to do her any favours. I’m asking you to help me work out what’s going on. If she is lying – and that’s not impossible; I’ve been wrong before – then we need to prove she’s sane so she can face charges for hurting Paddy.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rafferty said reluctantly. ‘Let’s give it a go.’

  ***

  Faye perked up the moment that Rafferty walked into the room. She went from being sullen and withdrawn to smiling and eager-to-please in a heartbeat.

  Jensen trailed in in Rafferty’s wake and then gestured for her to sit between him and Faye.

  ‘Morning, Faye. Do you remember me?’ Jensen asked.

  ‘Doctor Jensen?’ Faye said. Her voice was calmer, more certain.

  ‘That’s right. And you remember Detective Inspective Rafferty, too, don’t you?’

  ‘How could I forget Miss Ashley?’ Faye asked.

  ‘How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Sad.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  Faye pulled a face. ‘I’m stuck in here, and I don’t know why. You keep saying I hurt someone, but I didn’t!’

  ‘You mean you don’t remember doing it. Do you often forget things?’

  ‘Sometimes I wake up places, and I don’t know how I got there,’ Faye said.

  Jensen made a mental note of that. It sounded almost like borderline personality disorder, but Faye wasn’t showing any of the other symptoms. There was no somatization, she wasn’t engaging in revictimisation, nor was she risk-taking. It was a challenging area. There were no hard and fast checklists for dissociative disorders. Symptoms could come and go almost at a moment’s notice.

  ‘How long has this been happening?’

  ‘Ever since I was little.’

  That chimed with Jensen’s suspicions of post-traumatic stress disorder. Everything went back to Faye’s childhood. ‘And this has happened a lot since?’

  ‘Mostly when I was in prison. I couldn’t keep track of time. Days blurred together. I ate, and I slept. I slept, and I ate.’

  Jensen had heard that before. The monotony of life inside meant there was seldom a difference between Monday morning and Friday afternoon. The prison was the prison, the harsh fluorescent lights were on all day with no hint of sunshine, and the food was on a two-week rota that rarely changed.

  ‘Is it just things you’ve done that you forget? Have you ever forgotten a person or place?’

  ‘No...’ Faye said. Her face contorted for a split second, the kind of micro-expression that Jensen usually associated with falsehood.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well... there was this one woman who thought she knew me. She kept calling me Leah.’

  Jensen glanced at Rafferty to ask if the name meant anything to her. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘The day after I got out of Holloway.’

  ‘Interesting. What about things? Have you ever bought something and forgotten about having bought it later?’

  ‘Hasn’t everybody?’ Faye asked.

  ‘Okay. Maybe they have,’ Jensen conceded. ‘Faye, have you ever heard voices inside your head?’

  ‘You mean, like, when I’m thinking?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jensen said. ‘Have you ever heard a voice that isn’t yours?’

  Faye shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  She wasn’t lying this time. That ruled out schizophrenia. It was time to shift the conversation to Faye’s childhood and see how she reacted. Jensen gave Rafferty a nod to let her know that he was going to do so. They’d discussed it in the corridor, as there was the possibility that Faye could turn violent again.

  ‘Faye, would you say you had a happy childhood?’ Jensen asked, starting with the broadest possible discussion point.

  The effect was immediate. Faye’s smile vanished. She leant back in her chair, clearly trying to physically distance herself and the question. She didn’t answer.

  Rafferty patted Faye’s knee. ‘It’s okay, Faye. You’re safe here, okay? Nobody is going to hurt you.’

  And with that, Faye switched back again. It was like watching someone hopping TV channels. One moment, she was the childlike Faye who was eager to please, and the next, she was sullen, sulky, and withdrawn.

  Jensen had never seen anything quite like it. ‘Faye, could you tell me a bit about your stepdad?’

  She switched again, her eyes flashing darkly. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

  ‘Is that when you started missing time? When your stepfather first moved in?’ Jensen kept his voice pleasant and airy. If it weren’t for the seriousness of the discussion, he could have been chatting about the weather.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Faye said. ‘That man deserves to burn in hell for all eternity.’

  The linguistic switch was immediately apparent. Faye had become more confident, more articulate, and much angrier. There was a darkness to this Faye.

  ‘Like Patrick Rafferty?’ Jensen asked.

  Again, Faye seemed to change. ‘I’m sorry, did you say something?’

  ‘Do you think Patrick Rafferty deserves to burn in hell?’ Jensen repeated, echoing her narrative.

  ‘N-no... Why would I? Have I met him?’

  Jensen shook his head. She still seemed to be telling the truth. She was either the best actress he had ever met, or she was an utterly unique case of dissociation.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Faye.’ Jensen rose and motioned for Rafferty to follow him.

  When they were in the corridor, Rafferty slammed the door behind her. ‘Why’d you pull out of the interview?’

  ‘She’s not going to give us anything. Every time we touch upon something traumatic, she withdraws somewhere inside her own head. Whatever she says can’t be relied upon. She could have implanted false memories to cope with her trauma. Most of the time, she’s simplistic, shallow, childlike. Then she has moments of micro-amnesia. She’s there, and then she’s not.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, she’s not fit to stand trial for attacking Paddy. But I can’t give you a diagnosis. I’m going to need some time to research what’s wrong with her. In thirty years of practice, she’s totally unique. I have never seen a case quite like hers.’

  ‘What’s going to happen now?’

  ‘Right now, we’re holding her on a section 136 psychiatric hold. That gives us seventy-two hours from when she was brought in on Tuesday. I need to make the case for detaining her pursuant to section thirty-five, which would buy us twenty-eight days. There’s one snag.’

  ‘What’s the snag?’

  ‘We have to show she
couldn’t be treated while on bail. I don’t think I can prove that yet. She’s only a danger when she feels threatened. This isn’t a violent psychopath. This is a traumatised young woman who is fighting to protect herself in the only way she knows how.’

  ‘She attacked Paddy!’

  ‘When she thought he was an intruder. She’d forgotten everything you said to her about him coming over, so, when he entered your flat, Faye felt threatened. Look at the circumstances. She didn’t lie in wait to attack him. It wasn’t premeditated. She used a weapon of opportunity, and she didn’t flee the crime scene. Does that sound like any criminal you know?’

  ‘No, but...’

  ‘But, nothing. She’s a victim, not a criminal, and she needs our help. I’m sorry Paddy got hurt, I really am. But we can’t fall into the trap of pigeonholing the mentally ill as being violent and deranged. If Faye can be found a safe space, perhaps in a women’s shelter or living with someone she trusts, then there would be no reason she couldn’t be treated while on bail.’

  ‘And if you can’t find something...’

  ‘She’ll be out late Friday night.’

  Chapter 49: Lady of Leisure

  Wednesday 29th June, 10:00

  Laura’s spa session seemed to last all morning, despite the fact that Ayala had been assured she’d only be another half an hour. By the time Ayala spotted her emerging from the massage suite, he and Rachel had become fast friends. The private investigator had emailed over a copy of everything on her camera, and Ayala had ensured that Mayberry was cc’d in.

  Rachel sighed when Laura emerged. If it was just a girl’s spa day, there’d be no money shot for Rachel. Tim was paying her the big bucks to check if Laura was playing around, and she couldn’t prove it.

  ‘You going to keep following her?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Even though she’ll just be with me?’ Ayala said.

  ‘Ah, what if it’s all a ruse? What if you’re not really a police officer, but you’re her bit on the side?’ Rachel joked.

  ‘Then, I hope you’ll photograph my good side.’