‘No,’ Kate agreed. ‘You’re right, it’s not. Where was your own car?’
‘Broke down,’ Dean said quickly. He glared at her with eyes so dark they looked almost black. He unfolded his arms and shoved his hands into his pockets. He tapped his foot edgily and kept an eye on the door.
Kate nodded slowly. ‘A nuisance, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘Always let you down just when you need to pop into town for something.’
Dean was distracted by clattering coming from the kitchen.
‘This is ’arissment, you know,’ he said, sounding exactly like Nathan. He took a hand from his pocket and pointed a fat finger accusingly at her. ‘I’ll have you done.’
Kate smiled. Perhaps Nathan had given him training in how to deal with the police when the time came. They both delivered the same protest, both with the same rehearsed phrases.
She was doing a good job at maintaining a confident, cocky composure and she was going to break this bastard down with it. She wanted to scream in his face and have one of the male officers kick the shit out of him, but she wasn’t going to let Dean see how this case had been affecting her.
‘Why did you spend two hours sitting in a rented car on Taff Street on December 12th?’ she asked calmly.
Dean looked towards the door again. For a moment Kate thought he was going to attempt to make a run for it. She braced herself for a tackle, not really fancying her chances against this man built like a concrete khazi.
‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ he blustered. ‘I never sat in no car for two hours.’
‘It would save a lot of time for everyone if you just told us where she is, Mr Williams,’ Kate said, her voice rising. ‘I know you’ve taken her. I don’t know why, but I will. So it’s game over. Do the sensible thing and stop wasting our time.’
A loud bang came from upstairs; someone trying to kick a door open.
Kate called to the PC who was in the kitchen. ‘Get in here and don’t let him out of your sight.’
She left the man keeping guard over Dean while she went upstairs. On the landing two officers were struggling with a bolt on the entrance to the attic. The female officer seemed to be worried about breaking a nail, but as the bolt gave way and a fold up staircase came clattering down, she should have worried more about her head.
‘Pass me the torch,’ Kate said to her impatiently.
She climbed the ladder and shone the light into the cramped attic space.
‘Christ,’ she said to the uniform who followed closely behind her, ‘it stinks up here.’
There was a tiny lamp in the corner of the room. It looked like a baby’s nightlight. The bulb was weak and gave out little illumination, but with that and the help of the torch Kate was able to make out boxes of junk in one corner and a pile of sleeping bags, old blankets and camping equipment in the other. She shone the torch into the space where a sleeping bag lay. A blonde haired doll lay abandoned on the floor, its dress filthy and torn. Next to it on a tin tray were a half full glass of water and a plate of untouched sandwiches that were growing a fur coat.
‘Stacey?’ she said.
There was a rustling in the corner; Kate flashed the light across the room to try to catch its source.
She thought she saw the pile of sleeping bags move. Kate pulled herself further into the attic, her hands leaving prints in the dust and dirt.
‘Stacey,’ she repeated, softly. ‘My name’s Kate. Will you come and talk to me? You can come out now. You don’t have to hide anymore.’
It was a moment before the top sleeping bag was pushed aside slightly and another moment before a little face looked out at Kate from behind it. Stacey bore little resemblance to the photograph pinned on Kate’s office wall. She was malnourished and skinny; her cheek bones prominent and her skin sallow. Her fringe had grown out, her hair straggling in her face. Gone was the little girl who looked like a happy, wonky-haired child on a sepia photograph. Instead, the child was now grey in the flesh, as though all the colour and fun that had once defined her had been leeched away.
‘You can trust me,’ Kate reassured her, edging further into the dark attic space. ‘No one’s going to hurt you anymore. Will you come with me?’
She waited. The officers behind her stayed quiet, not wanting to scare Stacey any further. The little girl looked terrified.
Kate felt her heart surge and the composure she had fought to maintain downstairs came crumbling around her. She took a deep breath and shook herself, willing herself to stay strong for the little girl who needed her.
‘We can get you cleaned up and get you something nice to eat, what do you think, Stacey? Anything you want, my treat.’
Stacey slowly pushed the sleeping bag off her. She was wearing a filthy pair of jeans and a stained t-shirt and her hair was matted and stuck against her scalp like a cap. She looked as though she hadn’t been allowed to wash in all the time she had been missing.
‘Ice cream?’ a little voice asked quietly.
Kate laughed and put the torch down. ‘As much as you can eat,’ she promised.
The tiny child smiled weakly then ran tiredly into Kate’s arms, shaking and sobbing. Kate held her close, breathed a sigh of relief and thanked a god she didn’t believe in for bringing Stacey back safely.
Eight weeks, thought Kate. Eight weeks spent in this frightening attic. She hoped Dean Williams had already been taken to the station. God only knew what she’d do to him if she got to him first.
Thirty
Matthew had already started heading back to the car when Chris turned a left around the main building of the school and began making his way to one of the pupil entrances at the side. Matthew hurried to catch up with him.
‘Where are you going?’
‘English Department.’
They entered the building at the foot of a stairwell and headed through the double doors in front of them. The corridor smelled of disinfectant, though the place was a mess: empty crisp packets and plastic bottles thrown around the floor and a pool of lemonade still fizzing like acid in a corner under the stairs. On the far wall was a sign that told them they were in the Science block. Chris turned and made his way back outside.
‘Opposite side of the school,’ Chris explained to Matthew, who followed behind.
‘How do you know?’
Chris shrugged. ‘It’s the unwritten rule. English and Science are always opposite corners of the school.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘It comes under the heading of useless information. I’m very handy to have in pub quizzes.’
They made their way around the back of the main building. Between the sports hall and what smelt like the cookery classes - ‘Home Economics,’ Matthew corrected Chris, reminding him of his age - a group of boys hung around smoking; caught off guard by the sudden arrival of the unknown men.
‘Shouldn’t you be in class, boys?’ Chris said. He leaned a hand on the wall and did his best to look imposing. It wasn’t great, but he did a much better job of it than Matthew.
The tallest, skinniest of the three looked him up and down. ‘Says who?’ he replied cockily.
Matthew whipped out his ID and thrust it under the boy’s acne pitted nose. The boy grimaced slightly before looking him up and down cockily. ‘Yeah,’ he said, throwing his shoulders back. ‘And?’
‘How about we take them back to the station with us?’ Matthew asked Chris, keeping an eye on the ring leader and the acne that flared red with the boy’s frustration.
Chris smiled knowingly. ‘Air freshener in the car’s run out,’ he said. ‘Don’t fancy having to spend the rest of the day in a car that smells of teenagers, do you?’
Matthew shook his head slowly, keeping a straight face. ‘Good point.’
‘Phone call home will probably do the trick,’ Chris finished.
The ring leader shrugged nonchalantly, but one of the other boys quickly dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out beneath his trainer. The three of them made their way past Matthew and Chris, the t
allest muttering ‘wankers’ as he passed.
Matthew smiled with satisfaction, watching the boys as they made their way back to class. ‘Cruel, but fun.’
Chris shook his head. ‘How long do you give it before that lanky one ends up in some young offenders somewhere? Would you have spoken to a policeman like that when you were their age?’
‘Nah,’ Matthew said. ‘I’d have avoided ever speaking to the police.’
*
As Chris had predicted, the English department was at the opposite end of the school, parallel with the Art block. Four classrooms lined the corridor and at the far end there was a library. Chris walked past each classroom in turn, looking through the glass door of each. There were classes in three of the four rooms; the fourth was empty and locked. He stopped at the double doors of the library. Inside, a handful of sixth formers sat at a row of computers at the far end of the wall. Not one person was looking at an actual book and, from what Chris could make out, there didn’t appear to be many. Research had obviously changed beyond recognition since he’d left school.
‘What are you looking for?’ Matthew asked, as Chris came back down the corridor. He peered over Chris’ shoulder to take a look into one of the classrooms. A ginger-haired boy who was sitting at the back of the room and looking bored stared back at him questioningly.
‘The oldest teacher,’ Chris told him. ‘Chances are he or she will have been working here when Sarah was.’
He stopped outside the third classroom and knocked at the door. A moment later it was opened by a short woman in her early to mid fifties who had pale skin and heavy frown lines across her forehead.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked quickly, looking Chris up and down.
In the classroom behind her the noise level doubled instantaneously and she turned back to the group and told them to settle down. It had little effect.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice flustered, ‘this isn’t a good moment. 9B,’ she explained, nodding back at the class. ‘I can’t turn my back for a minute.’
Chris reached into his jacket for his ID. As he showed it to her, the attention of some of the front row was attracted and a few of the children got out of their seats, trying to eavesdrop.
‘DCI Chris Jones, Mrs…’
‘Barker.’
‘We’re sorry to interrupt you during the middle of a lesson, Mrs Barker, but we need some information on a woman you may once have worked with. Sarah Davies?’
At the mention of the name Mrs Barker’s face paled further. She cleared her throat uneasily.
‘Are you pigs?’ The ginger boy from the back of the class looked over Mrs Barker’s shoulder – already a good six inches taller than his teacher – and eyed Matthew suspiciously. ‘My dad reckons you can smell a pig a mile off.’
‘Josh!’ Mrs Barker snapped, turning to the boy, who laughed and threw a pencil at one of the girls sitting in the front row. In retaliation, the girl picked up her exercise book and leaned over the desk to slap him across the arm with it.
‘Sarah died,’ Mrs Barker said quietly, turning back to them. Half the class were now out of their seats or sitting on the desks, either trying to eavesdrop on the conversation taking place in the doorway or wreak as much havoc as possible in the classroom.
‘The lady at reception told us,’ Chris said, narrowing his eyes at Josh, who continued to make a nuisance of himself behind the teacher’s back. The boy caught the look and threw one back. Cocky little shit, Chris thought.
‘We need to contact her husband. You don’t remember his name, do you?’
Mrs Barker turned suddenly and shouted at the class. This time a couple of the children returned to their seats.
‘Neil,’ she said quickly. ‘Now I’m very sorry, but I must get back to my class.’
Thirty One
The station was buzzing with the news that Stacey Reed had been found alive. She had been taken to the Royal Glamorgan hospital and Dean Williams had been arrested at the scene, where he had quickly implicated his cousin when he’d realised the game was up. Nathan planned it, he said, and had threatened him with violence if he refused to help.
The idea that Dean Williams, a broad, bull of a man who clearly spent a lot of time at the gym and over the steroids bottle working on his physique, would be intimidated by his cousin, a lanky, greasy haired weasel of a man, was, to say the least, implausible. Kate suspected that the two of them had hatched the plan together and they’d made a mockery of the community that had pulled together so generously to find the little girl. But even that needed a stretch of the imagination. The fact that the two of them had been able to formulate any sort of plan between them was more than Kate thought them capable of.
‘So,’ Kate said, sitting in the chair opposite Dean in the interview room. ‘Time to talk.’
Dean looked at the duty solicitor who sat beside him. The man nodded, prompting Dean to start talking.
‘I don’t have to say nothing,’ he said defiantly, crossing his broad arms across his chest.
‘Correct,’ Kate agreed. ‘But you’ve already said too much. You’re up to your neck in it, Mr Williams. Speak…don’t speak…makes no difference to me. You’re not leaving this station either way.’
Dean sighed exasperatedly, resting his stocky forearms on the desk. ‘Look,’ he said, uneasily eyeing up the tape machine that was recording every word. ‘I’ve told you already. It was him, weren’t it. He made me do it.’
‘Him being Nathan Williams,’ Kate clarified for the tape. ‘Your cousin.’
She looked at the papers in front of her. ‘You’ve not been up to much recently, Mr Williams,’ she noted, studying his records, ‘unless you’ve just been clever enough not to get caught.’
She looked at the overly muscled, ape man opposite her, who breathed nosily through his mouth; his fat bottom lip hanging loose from his face like a handle on a Toby jug. It was definitely not the latter, she thought.
‘Convicted of theft in 2002. Other bits and pieces not worth mentioning. Convicted of benefit fraud in 2004. How long did you do for that?’
Dean sat back in his seat and rolled his eyes impatiently. ‘Three months,’ he said.
‘Is any of this relevant?’ the duty solicitor asked, peering forward to study Kate’s notes.
She looked up and met his eye. ‘It will be when this goes to court,’ she said. As if he needed reminding. She looked back to Dean. ‘The best thing you can do for yourself is start telling the truth.’
Dean glanced at the papers and sighed. He realised he was backed into a corner. ‘Orright,’ he said, caving in. ‘It were my idea. But only at first,’ he added quickly. ‘It was just one of them stupid things – I never thought it would ’appen, know what I mean?’
Kate shook her head. ‘No. Not really. Why did you wait in the car for two hours?’
‘I weren’t gonna do it,’ Dean admitted. ‘I had cold feet and that – she’s just a kid, she hadn’t done nothing. I just sat there, thinking like. I text Nathan and told him I was out, but he weren’t having it. Then he was on the phone giving me grief and that - telling me he’d do it himself anyway and take all the money. Said he’d do it and fit me up for it. Wouldn’t have been too hard for him, what with my record and that.’
He scratched his head. ‘We was all a bit skint, y’know. I’d just been laid off down the factory and the landlord was threatening to kick me out the house. Nathan’s never got any money anyway like, so he was straight on it – thought it was a wicked idea.’
‘Wicked,’ Kate repeated. ‘Indeed.’ She pursed her lips and resisted the urge to throw the tape recorder at him.
‘We seen that kid in the paper,’ Dean continued. ‘You know that one that was locked in that bed?’
‘I know the one,’ Kate said. She bit her bottom lip and shook her head incredulously. Unbelievable. Was there no end to some people’s stupidity?
‘Is that what you were hoping for?’ she asked, keeping her voice level. ‘Th
e reward money?’
Dean Williams frowned at Kate, as if it she was the stupid one. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not exactly. I met this bloke. Said he had a mate what works for The Sun and that. Said if Dawn sold her story to the papers she’d get about twenty thousand minimum for it.’
Kate sat forward in her seat. ‘So Dawn was involved?’
Dean looked down at his lap. The metal bar through his pierced eyebrow glinted silver under the beam of the strip light. He blew air noisily. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Dawn weren’t in on it.’
Kate sat back. ‘Why are you covering for her, Dean?’
Dean looked up sharply. ‘I’m not,’ he said testily. ‘Why would I do that? She ain’t my girlfriend. She ain’t nuffin to me.’
Nathan Williams had already been interviewed and was back in one of the cells. He had sat through the interview with a smug smirk stuck on his face, blaming both his cousin and his girlfriend for Stacey’s abduction. He was an arrogant shit and Kate was going to make sure he went down for this, and the longer the better.
When Kate had spoken to Dawn Reed the woman was barely able to answer her questions. She’d gone into shock and collapsed at reception and was now with the duty doctor. She managed to talk for long enough to ask to see her daughter, and certainly didn’t sound as if she had known all along where Stacey was. If this was all an act, Kate thought, she was bloody good.
In the interview room with Dean, Kate told him, ‘Nathan says it was as much Dawn’s idea as yours’.
He breathed heavily through his nose and clenched a fist on the desk. ‘He would. He’s a prick.’
‘Why would he do that? Why would he implicate his own girlfriend?’
‘Nathan don’t give a shit,’ Dean said. ‘He wouldn’t care who went down for it, as long as it weren’t him. He don’t give a shit about Dawn, he’s just using her. Somewhere to live – someone to do his washing. He’s a fucking mammy’s boy. She’s too soft on him, mun.’
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