by P. F. Ford
‘We’ve only got his word for that,’ interrupted Darling.
‘And I’m sure it’s not beyond even you, DC Darling, to check with his optician, who will confirm what he has told you,’ said the solicitor, clearly completely unfazed by the interruption. ‘I’m sure my client will be happy to add his optician’s name to the list you already have.’
He looked at Crump who nodded his assent.
‘Anyway, we’re not denying the CCTV footage shows my client walking off in the same direction as one of the girls. My argument is quite simply that walking in the same direction as the girl is not the same as following her, is it?’
‘Err, well,’ began Slater, but Swanning was on a roll and he obviously wasn’t going to be stopped now.
‘As I understand it, this was not the girl who was abducted, and there’s no evidence to suggest my client so much as spoke to either this girl or the one who was abducted. Am I right?’
‘Err, yes.’
‘In that case, I have one question for you, Detective Sergeant Slater. Do you actually have any evidence to link my client to the crime you are investigating?’
‘We have a team carrying out a search warrant as we speak-’
‘That’ll be a no, then.’ Swanning started packing his things into his briefcase. ‘In that case, I suggest this is nothing more than a fishing expedition.’ He waited a few seconds, but Slater couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘I suggest you haul in your nets, Sergeant,’ he continued, pushing his chair back, and standing tall, ‘because, as you well know, this particular fish is beyond your reach.’
‘Yes, but-’ began Darling, her voice shrill.
‘And, to keep the analogy going,’ said the solicitor, grinning cruelly, ‘I think it’s fair to say DC Darling may be a little out of her depth. Perhaps she needs to consult a dictionary for the meaning of the word “objectivity”.’
Darling’s face was turning scarlet as Swanning turned to his client, who was looking totally bemused – probably by all the fish references, Slater thought, gloomily.
‘Come on, Mr Crump, you’re going home.’
Slater watched helplessly as their suspect stood and followed Swanning from the room. He felt he should probably have defended his partner, but there was so much truth in everything the solicitor had said, he hadn’t been able to come up with a response, and she had been way out of line. All in all, it was fair to say their fishing trip had just become a shipwreck.
Chapter Six
‘How did it go?’
‘Disaster would be a good word,’ said Slater, looking up from the canteen table to see Norman standing over him. ‘His solicitor sussed out we had nothing and, quite rightly, insisted we had to let him go.’
‘That explains the happy face, then, but hiding up here won’t solve anything. Have you been here all afternoon?’
‘I’ve been here about twenty minutes. After having a row with Darling and Goodnews, I needed a little chill out time, you know?’
Norman smiled indulgently.
‘So you’ve managed to fall out with the new boss already? And there I was thinking you two were getting on so well.’
Slater looked at Norman.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing,’ said Norman, innocently.
‘No, come on,’ said Slater. ‘If you’ve got something to tell me, let’s hear it.’
‘I just thought maybe you and her were, you know, kinda close, that’s all.’
‘Is this just your own opinion, or is it shared by everybody?’
Norman looked sheepish, and Slater couldn’t help but laugh.
‘You are all so far off the mark, Norm. If you’d been in her office just now you would have seen just how far from being “kinda close” we really are.’
‘Slight disagreement, huh?’
‘You could say that,’ said Slater. ‘But I think major disagreement would be more accurate. I told her before we started the interview with Crump we were skating on thin ice because we didn’t have any concrete evidence, but would she listen?’
‘So why didn’t you wait until you’d searched his house?’
‘If I hadn’t interviewed him she was going to do it herself,’ said Slater. ‘What would you have done?’
‘Same as you, I guess,’ said Norman. ‘What else could you do? She’s very good at manipulating people into doing what she wants, isn’t she?’
‘I might have been able to get away with it, and maybe keep him for a bit longer, but bloody Darling had to wade in and start accusing the guy of being into kids. Of course, once it got that far his solicitor realised we were clutching at straws and that was the end of it. We were made to look bloody stupid, Norm, like amateurs. That wouldn’t have happened if we were still working together.’
Norman sighed.
‘Well, that’s not gonna happen again,’ he said, ‘so you’d better get used to it.’ He paused, as if giving Slater a chance to absorb his words. ‘Naomi’s not so bad is she?’
‘Oh she’s nice enough, and she seems willing to learn, but then, on the other side of the coin, she’s impulsive, believes she has infallible instincts, and thinks my fifteen years of experience seems to count for nothing. I’m all for people having hunches but they have to be prepared to listen to older heads as well. It doesn’t help that Goodnews seems to think she’s some sort of genius. How can she be, with no experience?’
‘Maybe she needs you to set out some ground rules. You know the sort of thing – what she can do, and what she can’t do. Tell her she’s allowed an opinion but you have the casting vote, that sort of thing.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ said Slater, with a sigh. ‘Maybe I’ll sit her down for chat later, but I just needed a timeout right now, you know?’
‘Where is she anyway?’
‘I sent her off to check out Crump’s story about his van being serviced and waiting for a lift.’
‘You mean to get her out of your way for a while.’ Norman gave a wry smile.
‘Yeah, I suppose I do.’
‘Well, can I suggest you divert her to the camera shop in Cannon Street before she comes back. They have a CCTV camera outside their shop, and they have a public-spirited manager who’s been looking back over some old footage. He thinks he’s got our photofit guy on film the day Chrissy disappeared.’
‘Really? Slater perked up.
‘Really,’ said Norman. ‘But we need it back here so we can have good look at it.’
Slater produced his mobile phone and found Darling’s number. Maybe this could be the break they were looking for.
As Slater sat at his desk, waiting to Darling to return with the footage, the phone on his desk rang, and he picked it up to find Ian Becks on the other end.
‘I hope you’ve got something for me, Becksy.’
‘I wish. If you were hoping for a stash of kiddie porn, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. We’ve still got to go through his PC, but we haven’t found anything incriminating so far. The only thing even remotely like that is a photo of a little girl, and that was in the wife’s bedside drawer, not Crump’s.’
‘What’s she look like? Anything like Chrissy Morrison?’
‘No more than any other small, eight-year-old girl with blonde hair,’ said Becks. ‘You’ll see later. The only good news is we found some fibres on the carpet in the back of his car. Fortunately, whoever valeted it obviously had a knackered vacuum cleaner and didn’t think he had to worry too much about the carpet in the back.’
‘So, what have you found? What fibres?’
‘Don’t know yet. I can’t even tell you what colour they are. They might not amount to anything, but at least it might be something. We’ll compare them with the fibres found on the sleeve of Chrissy’s fleece. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.’
‘So, are you finished up there?’
‘Near enough. I can’t see any point in hanging about up here for the sake of it.’
‘So what does this prove, exactly?’ asked Darling, as she squinted at the CCTV footage from the camera shop.
‘It proves he couldn’t have been following Chrissy Morrison,’ said Slater. ‘And if he had persuaded her to walk with him, where is she? This shows him walking in the opposite direction, on his own.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Darling sat back, her arms folded across her chest. ‘This footage was recorded at four-thirty. That means he’s had the best part of an hour since she was last seen. He could have hidden her away somewhere and then walked past this shop to make sure he was seen on the camera.’
‘When we interviewed the guy you said he had been choosing which one to abduct, but then he followed the other girl. So, if your theory was right, what happened to her? If he had chosen her, why is he on his own in this film? And why is she still alive, and Chrissy Morrison is dead?’
‘Why do you dismiss my ideas without even thinking about them?’ Darling glared at Slater. She was beginning to get pretty fed up with his attitude towards her.
‘Because you keep chopping and changing your theory, and there’s no real evidence to back any of them up,’ said Slater. ‘It’s almost as if you think you can pluck the answer out of thin air, without having to do any investigating.’
‘You just don’t like me, do you? What’s the matter? Are you frightened I’m going to solve the case and prove you wrong?’
Slater looked at her as though she had gone mad.
‘You are so out of order to suggest that, and so completely wrong. How can you say that? You’ve only known me five minutes, and you think you know all about me, when really, you know jack shit about me or how I think. For your information, I’d love it if you solved this case, but you’re not going to convince me you’re right until you can find me some real, hard evidence.’
Darling paused for a moment. She hadn’t been prepared for Slater to be so angry, but she had to stick up for what she believed in, didn’t she?
‘So where’s he been for that missing hour?’ she insisted.
‘I don’t know,’ said Slater, harshly. ‘Perhaps if you hadn’t made such a good job of pissing off his solicitor earlier, he would still be here, and we’d have been able to ask him.’
Darling stared open-mouthed at him. For a moment she felt hurt, and then she felt angry.
‘Yes. I remember that. I forgot to thank you for standing by me on that one.’
‘I’ll always back you up when you stick to the plan and do as I ask,’ he said. ‘But if you’re going to start ignoring the plan and shooting your mouth off without thinking, you make it rather difficult. Why do you think we plan these interviews?’
‘But you had stopped talking. You didn’t seem to know what to do. I thought-’
‘Ah, but that’s the problem, you see,’ he interrupted. ‘You thought, but you didn’t think. If you were thinking, and following the plan, you would have taken my lead and waited. Don’t you know anything about interview techniques? If you leave a long enough silence, the suspect almost always feels compelled to fill it. That’s what I was doing, but you couldn’t stick to the plan and leave it to me, could you?’
Darling felt the heat in her face, and knew her cheeks were bright red. Okay, so maybe Slater did have a plan – but what kind of plan was just telling your partner to be quiet? She bet Slater would never have told Norman just to sit and stay quiet.
‘Sometimes, Darling,’ said Slater, ‘you just have to take responsibility for your actions, bite the bullet, admit you messed up, and learn from the experience.’
‘Or hang your partner out to dry.’
‘I think maybe you need to go and finish what you were doing.’
‘But you called me back here.’
Slater glared at her, and she forced herself to stare back. She wouldn’t be intimidated.
‘Yes, I know I did,’ he said. ‘And now I’m telling you to go back out there and finish checking out Crump’s alibi. You’ve been to the garage and confirmed the story about his van being serviced, now go and find the guy who was supposed to pick him up.’
‘You mean you want me out of the way.’
‘There, you see. It’s not that difficult to follow my train of thought, is it?’
Darling held his gaze for a few seconds, her mind racing. She opened her mouth to speak, but some small part of her still believed in self-preservation. She stood up and stormed through the door, almost colliding with Norman as she left.
Slater glanced at his watch – seven o’clock. He was getting fed up of reading through the statements collected from parents down by the school gates. So far it seemed they were a pretty unobservant lot and no one had seen anything out of the ordinary. Most of them hadn’t even seen Crump, even though he had been standing right by the school gates.
To make matters even worse, the girl who had been standing next to Crump at the school gates had been identified and spoken to. According to her, Crump didn’t follow her. He actually overtook her and turned down the first side road he came to which, Slater discovered on checking a map, took him back towards the garage where he had left his car, just as he had said. So much for him stalking his victim.
To be honest, he was beginning to feel he was wasting his time. He should probably call it a day and go home. Tomorrow would be a better day. He stood up and reached for his coat.
‘Are you busy?’ called Norman, across the room.
‘Something interesting?’
‘I’m not sure.’
Slater walked wearily across to Norman’s desk.
‘What have you got, Norm?’
‘I’ve been searching the regional database for similar child abduction cases but I haven’t found any where the child was killed in the same way.’
‘But you have found something?’
‘Well, I have one that could be similar, or maybe I’m just trying to make it fit,’ said Norman. ‘That’s why I need your opinion.’
‘Go on.’ Slater knew Norman well enough to know this would probably be worth hearing.
‘Okay, this case was ten years ago. Small, blonde girl, eight years old, disappeared after school and was never seen again.’
‘What, not even a body?’
‘Not a thing. They never had any idea what happened, and they still don’t.’
‘Where did this happen?’
‘Romsey, on the edge of the New Forest,’ said Norman.
‘It’s a bit vague,’ said Slater. ‘And Romsey is bloody miles from here.’
‘It’s not beyond the realms of possibility. It’s not much more than an hour from here by car.’
‘I’ll grant you that,’ said Slater. ‘So why do you think they might be connected to Chrissy Morrison?’
‘Maybe I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except for one thing. It happened on the 20th October.’
‘Now that’s not so vague,’ said Slater. ‘Can we get hold of the case file?’
‘I’ve done the paperwork, but it’ll be better if you send it. They’re more likely to move their backsides for a fellow officer rather than a civilian, but look at the time. We’ll be lucky to even get a response before morning.’
‘Send it across to my desk and I’ll send it now,’ said Slater. ‘You never know we might get lucky and find someone on the night shift who’s willing to help.’
Norman moved his mouse and clicked send.
‘It’s on its way to your desk, as we speak. When you’ve done that you might as well get off home. I can tidy up in here.’
‘I could certainly do with a good night’s sleep,’ said Slater. ‘Are you going, too?’
‘You get off. I’ve just got a couple of things I need to sort out before I go.’
‘Mr Fisher?’ Darling showed her warrant card. ‘My name’s DC Darling, from Tinton CID. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions.’
John Fisher stood in the doorway to his flat and looked suspiciously at her. He had the air of someone who had reason to be suspicious of the police – a misspent youth, perhaps.
‘What questions?’
‘It’s about Monday afternoon.’
‘What about it? I was at work.’
‘You’re not in any trouble. I just need you to corroborate something I’ve been told.’
‘What’s that mean?’
Darling sighed quietly and took a deep breath. If she wasn’t careful, she could see this job, which she had thought wouldn’t take more than a few minutes, might turn out to be hard work. Perhaps she needed to start again and ask her questions in a way that didn’t provoke another question in response.
‘Let me start again,’ she said. ‘Do you know Michael Crump?’
‘We’re not exactly best mates, but I know him. We work for the same cleaning company.’
‘Right,’ said Darling. ‘Mr Crump says you were supposed to pick him up from outside St Xavier’s school on Monday afternoon. Is that correct?’
‘There wasn’t a definite arrangement,’ he said. ‘I drive along that stretch of road, at about the same time, every day. He asked me to pick him up, I said I would if I saw him, but I never saw him.’
‘And what time was this?’ she asked, opening her notebook.
‘I finish one job at 3.30, and then I drive to me next job. I have to go past the school to get there, you see.’
‘So you would normally pass the school at what time?’
‘It takes me about five minutes to get to the school,’ he said.
‘So you’d normally pass between 3.35 and 3.40, would that be about right?’ Darling looked up from her notebook when Fisher didn’t reply, and saw he was smirking. ‘Is there something funny?’
‘Have you met him?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you know personal hygiene isn’t exactly his thing,’ he said. ‘To put it bluntly, he stinks. Would you want him in your van?’
‘So, what are you saying?’ she asked. ‘Was he expecting you to pick him up, or not?’
‘He was expecting me, yes, but I finished my first job ten minutes earlier than normal, so I passed the school earlier than I normally would.’