The Mother

by Jaime Raven

  The silence was broken by an officer who asked how Sarah had reacted to the latest text and photograph.

  ‘I haven’t spoken to her yet,’ Brennan said. ‘I tried ringing but she didn’t answer so I’m guessing she’s in bed.’

  He went on to say that the IT department had already begun the process of trying to trace the phone the message was sent from but had warned him they didn’t expect to succeed.

  Brennan then listened to the various updates from detectives whose voices were hoarse with tiredness.

  He learned that officers were still collecting and trawling through CCTV footage from Hayes, but so far there had been no further sightings of Knight.

  Estate agents in and around the town had been spoken to and properties that had been sold or rented in recent months were still being checked.

  ‘We’ve been given access to Knight’s bank account,’ DI Driscoll said. ‘The balance stands at five hundred pounds, but on the day he was released from prison it was four thousand. He’s withdrawn various sums of money, but three weeks ago all deposits and withdrawals stopped. And he doesn’t have any credit cards. It would suggest that if he is renting a place then he’s paying in cash.’

  Brennan called a halt to the briefing after another ten minutes and told those officers who had been working most of the day to go home and get some rest.

  His own eyes were dull and ringed with fatigue, but he himself was in no position to leave just yet. There was paperwork on his desk that he wanted to clear before the day got started. And he wanted to spend some time going over everything they had, in an effort to make sense of it.

  The investigation was now the largest and most intense he had ever been in charge of. There had been times during the day when he’d felt that there was something he was missing. But he hadn’t been able to put his finger on what it was.

  The latest photo of Molly on the grass had reminded him that the fate of that poor child was in his hands. It was an incredible responsibility and one that scared him shitless.

  Sure, they had made some significant progress, but the fact remained that they still had no idea where Molly was. And the latest message from the maniac who had her gave rise to the possibility that they were actually no closer to finding her.

  Brennan was about to start wading through the pile of papers on his desk when DC Foster appeared in his office doorway. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked excited.

  ‘There’s been an anonymous call to the hotline, guv,’ she said. ‘A man who refused to give his name claimed that Bobby Knight was murdered two weeks ago and his body dumped in a wood in Kent. He even gave the location of the wood.’

  Brennan’s eyebrows peaked. ‘Jesus. Where is it exactly?’

  Foster stepped into the office and dropped a sheet of paper on his desk.

  ‘It’s a small wood near Sevenoaks, guv. And get this – it’s situated right behind the converted oast house owned by Tony Kemp.’

  The first thing Brennan did was to go online and check Google maps.

  Sevenoaks was a town surrounded by countryside and huge expanses of woodland. But it was also within easy striking distance of London. It took just over half an hour to get to Waterloo by train and so it was popular with those who worked in the city.

  Property prices were high and it was an expensive place to live. The affluence was apparent from the air when Brennan switched to the aerial view on his computer. The landscape was dotted with large detached houses and back garden swimming pools. Tony Kemp’s house was among them, and did indeed back onto the wood that the anonymous caller had referred to. The wood was a couple of miles east of the town, close to a huge deer park. It was called Oaklands Copse and was squeezed between Kemp’s house and two winding country lanes. There were a few facts and figures about it elsewhere on Google. It was spread over eighteen acres and described as an ancient coppice of beech, ash and oak.

  On the face of it Oaklands Copse seemed like the perfect place to hide a body. But that was jumping the gun. For all Brennan knew the call was a hoax to propagate the rumour that Knight was dead. Or perhaps it had come from someone who just enjoyed wasting police time. And searching woodland, even a relatively small area the size of Oaklands Copse, would be an expensive and time-consuming exercise.

  Before taking any action, Brennan listened to the recording of the anonymous call. The voice was distorted by an electronic changer, and it sounded like some evil villain out of a sci-fi film.

  I know for a fact that Bobby Knight is dead. He was murdered a fortnight ago and his body was left in Oaklands Copse near Sevenoaks. So don’t waste time searching for the bastard elsewhere.

  Brennan was told the call couldn’t be traced and had probably come from yet another unregistered mobile.

  ‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he said to the detectives who had gathered round him to listen to the tape.

  They stood waiting for him to tell them if the call was going to be taken seriously. If so then there was work to be done and tasks to be assigned.

  ‘I’ll have to refer this upstairs,’ he said after a few beats. ‘But I’ll be recommending that we mount a search of the wood from first light. In the meantime, we need to flag this up to Kent police, but it’s not to be made public. And I don’t want Molly’s parents to know just yet.’

  ‘What about Tony Kemp?’ DC Foster said. ‘Do we bring him in for questioning?’

  ‘Not right away. Let’s wait and see if there is a body there before we launch a murder investigation.’

  50

  Adam

  Adam woke up suddenly from a dream in which he was playing with Molly in the park. He was chasing her across the grass and she was laughing so much it was making her dizzy.

  When he realised it was a dream he felt his heart crumble in his chest. He dragged his eyelids open and blinked out the crust that had formed beneath them.

  He was still alone in the small hospital waiting room and the TV in the corner was still on. The time code at the top of the screen told him it was two a.m. He hadn’t intended to drop off and he wished he hadn’t.

  He could tell from the news headlines that there hadn’t been any further developments. The hunt for Bobby Knight was still under way and Molly was still missing.

  He sat back against the cushioned chair and heaved a sigh. His muscles felt weak and heavy, and a dull weariness that went beyond exhaustion pervaded his body.

  For a fleeting moment he wondered if he was where he should be. Pursuing Eddie Lomax – alias The Keyholder – had seemed like a good idea earlier, but now he wasn’t so sure. He felt less confident, but maybe that was only because he was disoriented and his memory was blurred around the edges.

  He stood up and stretched, then checked his phone. There were no missed calls but there was a text from Helen asking how he was holding up. He decided to call her because he didn’t want her to hurry back to the UK in the mistaken belief that he wanted her by his side. It was six hours earlier in Chicago so it came as no surprise when she answered on the first ring and told him she was in her hotel room watching Molly’s story unfold on CNN.

  ‘I’m booked on a flight first thing in the morning,’ she said. ‘It was the earliest I could get.’

  He didn’t beat about the bush. He told her as gently as he could that he was calling time on their relationship. He blamed the stress he was under and the fact that he was still in love with his ex-wife. She took it better than he’d dared hope, perhaps because she’d been half expecting it. She told him she was sorry and that she prayed for his daughter’s safe return. And then she hung up abruptly before he could say any more, and although he knew he’d done the right thing he still felt a total shit.

  He decided he needed a coffee, but the vending machine would have to wait until he’d had a pee.

  As he walked along the corridor he was surprised to see that there was still a lot going on. Nurses were slipping in and out of rooms, machines were humming and wheels were grinding across
polished floors.

  By the time he reached the toilets he’d pushed Helen from his mind. After he’d emptied his bladder, he washed his hands, and looked at himself in the mirror. His face had lost all its colour and his hair looked as though it suddenly had a mind of its own. Sharp radial lines that he was sure he hadn’t seen before creased the sides of his eyes.

  The last few days had changed him inside as well, but in ways he had yet to discover.

  He knew the guilt would weigh heavily on him for ever, no matter how this terrible business ended. If only he could go back in time to when he made that reckless decision to plant the gun and drugs in Knight’s bedroom.

  It wasn’t as though he had done it before and he hadn’t done anything like it since. But back then it didn’t seem such a bad idea. Knight was a ruthless gangster and deserved to be taken off the streets. He’d reasoned that by fitting him up he’d be doing the world a favour and at the same time he’d ensure that Sarah got her collar.

  It had been so simple. He had known where to lay his hands on the pistol and some drugs, and planting them had been a doddle. It had all worked out so perfectly and he’d felt justified when the jury passed the guilty verdict.

  But now he realised it was the biggest mistake he had ever made. And bringing Molly back home was the only way to make amends.

  He rinsed his face in cold water and decided to go and check on Eddie Lomax. He still couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t a waste of time, but there was no point bailing out before he had even talked to the guy.

  He dried his face on paper towels before stepping back into the corridor.

  And that was when he heard the scream.

  The scream came from along the corridor to his left and sent a current searing through his body.

  At first he thought it must be a female patient in terrible pain. But then he saw a nurse stumbling backwards out of a room as though in a frenzied panic.

  ‘Help, help,’ she screamed. ‘Someone call security.’

  Instinct propelled Adam along the corridor towards her. Just then a man in a grey suit emerged from the same room and darted off in the opposite direction.

  It was then that Adam realised it was the room he’d entered earlier, the room that was occupied by Eddie Lomax.

  The nurse turned towards him, her eyes wide with horror. She started shouting as she pointed at the fleeing figure.

  ‘That man – he was trying to suffocate my patient with a pillow.’

  Adam caught his breath and felt a surge of dread. Then, without a second thought, he broke into a sprint.

  The suited man was about fifteen yards ahead of him. A white-coated doctor who stepped in front of him was shoved out of the way with such force that he thudded into the wall and fell to the floor.

  Adam ran for all he was worth, his breath coming in gasps, his legs pumping hard.

  The man went crashing through a set of swing doors and Adam raced after him. He was in police mode now and focused entirely on catching the perp.

  There was another corridor on the other side of the swing doors. As Adam entered it he caught sight of the man shooting off to the left. He kept pace with him even though he was panting frantically.

  Ahead of them was a bank of lifts. There were two people waiting in front of them, a man and a woman, and they were both startled by the commotion.

  It looked for a moment as though the perp was going to run into them, but then he suddenly veered to the right, hurling himself down a flight of stairs.

  Adam stayed with him. He wanted to scream at the bastard to stop, to reveal that he was a copper, but he didn’t have the breath.

  Two flights down, the guy burst through another door into a brightly lit reception area. And there he came unstuck because a security guard was standing between him and the exit.

  The man shoulder-charged the guard and the guard hit the floor like a felled tree. But the impact unbalanced the perp and he stumbled sideways, just managing to stay upright. It gave Adam time to catch up and slam into him.

  They both went sprawling across the floor. But the perp recovered quickly and struggled to his feet. He turned and aimed a fist at Adam, who was still on his knees. But contact was weak and the punch slid off the side of his head.

  Adam responded by throwing his own punch and it was bang on target. The guy screamed in agony and staggered back, clutching at his groin.

  Adam jumped up and got his first look at the man who had apparently attacked Eddie Lomax in his hospital bed. He was aged somewhere between thirty and forty and white, with a hard face and shoulder-length brown hair. He was gritting his teeth through the pain and started mumbling in a language that Adam didn’t recognise.

  Adam lunged forward and grabbed his right arm, with the aim of twisting it up his back and forcing him to the floor. But the guy wasn’t about to let that happen and fought back.

  There was a struggle and blows were exchanged. Adam was punched on the forehead and chest, and kicked in the shin. But he thought he was getting the better of his adversary and he hoped it was game over when the security guard appeared and grabbed the guy from behind.

  But in the same instant, Adam felt a sudden, sharp pain in his side that caused him to cry out. He stepped back and gulped in a huge breath.

  He felt his body convulse as he pressed a hand against the point of impact.

  And that was the moment he realised that he hadn’t been punched. He’d been stabbed.

  He touched the handle of the knife and felt the warm blood on his fingers.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ he croaked before white spots flashed in front of his eyes and he keeled over.

  51

  Sarah

  I was forced to ask myself two questions the moment I opened my eyes: Where the hell was I? And why did I have such a stonking headache?

  The bed I was in was unfamiliar and so was the room. Daylight poured in through a big gap in the heavy, dark curtains.

  I blinked away the sleep and winced because the pain behind my eyes was so intense. It felt like my skull had been struck by a sledgehammer.

  Gradually it all came back to me. The confrontation with Bobby Knight’s mother, the vodkas, the wine, the photo of Molly with the ball, hauling myself up off the floor in the early hours and crawling into bed.

  I had managed to strip down to my underclothes and switch off the TV, but I hadn’t taken off my make-up and it was smeared across the pillows.

  I threw off the duvet and got out of bed. According to the digital display on the bedside clock it was seven in the morning, which sparked a spasm of anxiety in my chest.

  I couldn’t believe I’d slept for so long. Was there any news? I wondered. Why hadn’t I heard from anyone? Had Bobby Knight been found? Had I received any more messages from him?

  I could see my phone on the dressing table, but I was desperate for a pee so I had to get that out of the way first.

  When I did check my phone, I saw that I had one missed call from Brennan. He’d left a message telling me he had seen the latest photo and wanted to know if I was all right.

  I had to scrunch up my eyes to see the digits on the phone’s keyboard, but eventually succeeded in calling him back. He didn’t answer, though, and it went to voicemail.

  I brought up the photo to check it again in the cold light of day and my heart leapt. It seemed so fucking ordinary. Molly sitting on the grass with a ball and a child’s slide behind her. It was the kind of picture I might have taken myself and then framed.

  The panic was growing and the hopelessness I felt was almost paralysing.

  I rummaged in my shoulder bag in the hope of finding some painkillers. And luckily there were two paracetamol left in the pack. I swallowed them with some water and then grabbed my phone and called the incident room.

  I was put through to someone I didn’t know and he told me that Brennan and most of the detectives were out working on the investigation. He also told me that there had been no developments overnight other than the message
and photo from the kidnapper.

  There was a tea and coffee-making facility in the room so I put the kettle on and spooned coffee into a mug. Then while it was boiling I thought about Adam and was surprised that he hadn’t contacted me again to tell me how he’d got on at St Thomas’.

  I called his number but there was no answer, so I left a message.

  The water boiled and I filled the mug. My throat felt thick and sticky so the first mouthful of coffee went down a treat.

  I sat on the edge of the bed to drink it and switched on the television. It was already tuned to BBC news and I was glad to see they were still devoting lots of airtime to our story.

  There was no mention of the kidnapper’s latest text and the coverage was centred on Hayes. Police were still making inquiries in the town to see if Knight was living there. Officers were showing photos of him to as many people as possible.

  There were interviews with the pub landlord who had responded to the appeal and with several local shopkeepers. There was also some aerial footage of the town and the surrounding area which brought home to me the enormous task facing my colleagues.

  Beyond the little town centre was a spider’s web of roads lined with hundreds of homes and beyond those lay fields and woodlands leading into neighbouring conurbations.

  The report then cut to a map of the area, showing Hayes in relation to other towns including Bromley, West Wickham, Chislehurst and Beckenham. Dulwich and Peckham also appeared on the map and it made me realise that I didn’t know the location of the hotel I was in.

  There was a brochure on the dressing table and it told me that The Bell Inn was situated close to Crystal Palace park.

  To have ended up here I would probably have driven through Dulwich, but I hadn’t paid attention last night because I’d been lost in thought.

  Now I had to decide where to spend the rest of the day and how I could possibly make myself useful.

  My options were limited. I could go home and sit around under the watchful eye of Sergeant Palmer, which didn’t appeal. Or I could return to the incident room and help without allowing my emotions to get the better of me, which would probably be impossible.