by Anita Waller
‘I’ll have a quick wash, wake myself up, and we can go. Is that okay?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll grab you some water from the fridge, and I can make you a drink of tea when we get there. It’s important we go quickly, Liz, in case you can recognise something.’
Liz nodded, headed for the bathroom.
Within three minutes they were on their way to the imposing police station.
Tanya shepherded her straight through, and DI Brent came forward to meet her.
‘Thank you, Liz. Come through here.’ He led her into a large room, sectioned by screens. ‘This is DC Rankin. He’s our whizz on computers. He’ll take you through the video. It’s not a clear picture, but look at everything. The walk, the hold of the person’s frame, everything.’
She nodded again and sat down in the chair by the side of the young, somewhat geekish-looking constable. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Ian.’
‘She looked at him. ’Ian Rankin?’
‘Don’t ask. My parents are fans.’
Liz nodded a third time. ‘Ian, I’m Liz. Show me the movie.’
Pulling her chair closer to the screen, she watched intently. A figure pushing a pushchair came into view, and she gasped. Her stomach heaved, and a figure hurtled towards her clutching a bowl. She tried to swallow, but it was futile. She vomited until she could vomit no more. Her child was on a screen, being stolen.
‘Liz?’ Brent stepped forward, holding a towel, and a glass of water. ‘I’m sorry, I should have realised you would react like this…’
She pushed back her hair, and wiped the towel across her face. ‘I’ll be fine now. It was the shock… it’s definitely my pushchair. The toy dangling from the side of the hood is Peppa Pig. The little hand playing with it is Jake’s. And he’s awake. He plays with it all the time if he’s awake in the pushchair.’
At her gasp, Ian had stopped the video. ‘Ready to carry on? We can wait a few minutes if you want to settle yourself.’
‘Go ahead, I’m ready. We need to find him.’
‘Right, this is crucial now you’ve established it’s definitely your pushchair. I can stop the video at any time you say stop. I’m going to move this on one frame because in this next frame there’s a small portion of a face. Look at it carefully. And there’s not much to see so don’t feel you’ve let us down if it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘I understand,’ she said quietly, and pulled her chair even closer. ‘Go.’
He clicked on one frame, and she stared at the picture. The person’s head was encased in a hood, and was looking down towards the ground, clearly aware there may be CCTV cameras that could catch him. All Liz could make out was a brief sliver of skin. It could have been anybody.
There was dejection in her voice. ‘No, I can’t tell anything from that.’
‘Don’t worry. We couldn’t either,’ Brent intervened. ‘Ian’s going to run the rest of the clip until this person goes out of shot. Watch it through to the end. We can then rewind and take it a frame at a time if you need that.’
She waited, and the video re-started. The pushchair and pusher went across the scene and Liz’s eyes never left the screen. This evil monstrosity had killed two people and had her son. Joggers and a hoodie, trainers – unisex wear. Deliberately.
She shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry. It means nothing to me. I can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman. And I wouldn’t recognise any identifiable walking issues because when you’re pushing a pram, your gait changes. You’re more hunched over. As this person is. The only thing I will say is that whoever it is, is taller than me. The partners in my practice bought us this travel system, and it was really expensive. So much so, that it allowed me to adjust the handle for the comfiest position. This person is bending over. I’m 5’3”, so this person is taller than that, but not by a massive amount.’
‘I knew I was right to bring you in,’ Brent smiled. ‘That gives us something to go on. Now, Ian is going to run it one frame at a time. Study each one individually; it will be tedious, but it’s so important, Liz, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Then at the end, he’ll do one more complete run through. We’ll take you home after that.’
Liz settled herself more comfortably on the chair, and leaned forward. ‘Go.’
She carefully studied each frame as DC Rankin scrolled through them, indicating when he could advance to the next one. She looked for a longer time at the frame where there was a partial image of the face, then as the screening drew to a close, she heaved a huge sigh. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
Ian leaned forward and re-started the whole thing. ‘Right, one last time. Watch it as if it was Emmerdale, and you’re not emotionally tied to it. Watch it as if you’re doing a proof on it for ITV, and looking for continuity issues, mispronunciations – look for anything other than that baby being your baby.’ He clicked on his mouse and the screening started for the last time.
Liz never took her eyes from the screen, and then shook her head in exasperation at the end. ‘I can’t help. I noticed the time at the bottom said 16:18, so I presume that indicates my husband was already dead by then? I can’t even tell what sex the person is.’ She turned to Brent. ‘Do you have any thoughts on that?’
He shook his head, his brow furrowed. ‘Not really. Everybody wears joggers, trainers and a hoodie, and he or she was careful to conceal with the hood. The timer is accurate – we’ve checked that out on his set-up. There were three other houses on that road that we thought had CCTV – two of them were dummy cameras, and one wasn’t working. This is the only working one between the Fremantle house and the main road at the bottom. Thank you so much for doing this, Liz. Tanya will run you home. I’ll probably be in touch later, because we’re expecting the DNA results from the bedding. It’s the cot bedding I’m most interested in – I don’t expect the kidnapper to have gone in the main bedroom, but the little room is a different story. Do you happen to know if other babies are put into that cot?’
‘Now there I can help,’ she said. ‘She had no other children, Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday, just Jake. Monday and Friday, she had a little boy, but he’s three and sleeps in that single bed in the same room as the cot, if he needs a nap. In theory, there should only be DNA from Sadie and from Jake.’
Liz placed her handbag on her shoulder, shook hands with Brent and DC Rankin, then followed Tanya from the room.
They walked around the corner to the car park, and set off to head back up to Gleadless. Liz felt frustrated by her inability to come up with anything concrete, and didn’t want to talk. Tanya sensed her mood, and kept quiet until her phone rang. She glanced at the display. ‘It’s DI Brent.’
She pressed to receive the call and Brent’s voice filled the car. ‘Tanya, are you still with Mrs Chambers?’
‘Yes sir, I am. Just going over Birley Lane.’
‘I’d like you both to head back here, please.’
‘Of course. Ten minutes or so.’ She disconnected and looked at Liz. ‘Maybe they have another CCTV.’
Liz shrugged. ‘Whatever. Let’s go back and get it done, then I can go home to Dan. It’s starting to feel like a long day.’
* * *
DI Brent had been watching for the car; he met them at the door.
‘I need you both to come into my office, not the main one.’ His expressive face wasn’t smiling.
They followed him down a corridor and into an office that bore his name.
‘Please – sit down, Mrs Chambers.’ Liz felt as if she was back at school. It had been Liz earlier, now it was Mrs Chambers.
‘We’ve had the DNA results back. Rush job, as requested. I’m sorry, Liz, but it does show that your husband and Sadie Fremantle were in that double bed together.’ Brent was calling her Liz again, and she felt better for that. His news was as she had expected.
‘And what about the cot bedding?’
‘There is an issue.’
‘Stranger DNA?’
‘You could say that. Only two
DNA results, one of which is Sadie’s. The other one we are assuming is Jake’s. We checked it against the DNA result from the main bedding, purely to confirm it was Jake’s.’
Liz felt the blood drain from her.
‘The thing is, Mrs Chambers, the DNA from the child in that cot is a different DNA altogether to the man in that bed that afternoon. Do you want to tell me why, Mrs Chambers?’ He took out a DNA swab from his drawer. ‘I need a DNA sample from you, to check we’re looking for the right baby. Open your mouth please, Mrs Chambers, and when you close it again, you need to talk to me.’
25
Brent sat back in his chair, and stared at the woman in front of him. Why hadn’t she been honest from the beginning? He had no doubt it was her child who was missing, she seemed to have omitted certain parentage details. ‘I’m waiting.’
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Do I need a solicitor?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
She crumpled. ‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘Then start talking. We can’t do anything about your husband and Mrs Fremantle, but I believe Jake is still alive. If he or she intended killing him, it would have happened at the house. There’s no reason to risk being caught with the baby, if the intention was that he was going to die anyway. So, talk. I need to know who his father is, and everything about him.’
Liz hesitated briefly, mentally shrugged and told her story. ‘I had an affair. We had been together six months, and if things hadn’t conspired against us, I believe we would be together properly now. It wasn’t a fling. We were the right pairing, at the right time. And then I accidentally became pregnant.’
DI Brent waited. She was clearly in a painful place. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘It forced me to look at what I was doing. I was only five weeks pregnant, so I ended the relationship. I couldn’t do it to Gareth, and most of all I couldn’t do it to Dan. Added to all of that, he was a client, and even if Banton and Hardwick hadn’t sacked me, I would have felt I had to resign. I did the “right” thing and ended it. He didn’t agree, not at all, but he respected my wishes and we haven’t seen each other since.’
‘You haven’t been in touch since?’
The hesitation was brief. ‘No.’
‘We’ll need his name and address, please, Mrs Chambers. And his phone number.’
She felt panicked and hoped it didn’t show on her face. ‘He has a wife and daughter…’
‘And?’ Brent raised his eyebrows, as he queried her statement.
‘And they’re going to be upset enough by this, so don’t go in with your size twelves, and make everything worse for them,’ Liz snapped. ‘If I thought for a minute that Phil had something to do with Jake’s disappearance, I’d have given you the information long before this.’
Her anger surprised him. ‘Liz, I’m not in this job to upset people for the sake of it, I’m in it to solve murders, find missing people – I need that name and address, and I need it now.’
Liz delved into her handbag and took out a small notebook. She quickly wrote down Phil’s name and address, followed by his home telephone number. Tearing off the sheet, she handed it to Brent. ‘This is his wife’s address. Apparently he’s left her, and hasn’t been there for some time. I can’t help with any more details, because I haven’t been in touch for over eighteen months. I needed a signature from him, and she was forced into telling me he had left her, but neither of us has heard from him.’
Brent stared at her. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me this? What if this is a man who simply wants to be part of his son’s life? A man who has been discarded by the woman carrying his baby, and who decided to take matters into his own hands.’
He stood and turned to Tanya. ‘Get her home, DC Baxter. I’ll be speaking further to you,’ he said, looking pointedly at Liz. ‘Is there anything else you didn’t feel it necessary to tell me?’
She shook her head. ‘No. And don’t speak to me like that. End of.’ She stood and picked up her bag. ‘I’ll make my own way, thank you, Tanya. I need time to think. Tell me, DI Brent, do you have anything that could possibly lead you to where my son is? He’s been missing twenty-four hours, and aren’t the first twenty-four hours the most important in any missing persons case? Failed miserably, haven’t you, you…’ she searched desperately for the words she wanted, without using the profanities she needed to use, ‘sanctimonious prick.’
Liz closed the door with a bang as she left, and instantly the tears fell. Her world had imploded. She stormed through the lobby and out of the external doors. Standing for a moment and taking in deep breaths of the frigid air, she tried to calm down.
Heading towards the tram tracks, she decided enough was enough. She had felt intimidated by that man, and that was a bad feeling; it wouldn’t happen again. And she wanted her car back. They had removed it from higher up Sadie’s road, to forensically go through it, but how long was that likely to take?
She wouldn’t be catching trams if she had her own transport. That was her priority; no more depending on lifts via Tanya Baxter. There could be nothing in the car to give the police any help. There would obviously be evidence of Jake having been in it, but only around his child seat. She took out her mobile phone and rang Tanya. ‘Tanya? Sort out getting my car back to me, will you?’
‘It should only be a couple of days, Liz…’
‘No, Tanya, I want it tomorrow. It’s obvious the damn car wasn’t used in any way to commit any sort of crime. It was used to transport my husband to his bit on the side, so expedite it, will you. See you later.’
She disconnected, giving Tanya no time to respond. She reached the tram stop, still feeling as though she was going to cry again. The glow from the tram as it approached cheered her; she would be home with Dan in ten minutes. She had no idea what to tell him. Should she confess? What impact would that have on his relationship with his baby brother? What impact would it have on the rest of his life? The tram picked up speed and she settled back into her seat and switched off her mind.
Ten minutes later she walked down her drive.
‘Mum?’
She heard Daniel’s voice as she opened the front door. ‘Hi, sweetheart, it’s me.’
He came out of the lounge and into her arms. She had no time to take off her coat, put down her bag; he clearly needed the comfort of her hug, so she stood and held him.
‘Has something happened?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I went in to prepare something for tea for us, thinking it would take my mind off the bad bits. It didn’t, it made it worse. I cook for you, Dad and me. Not you and me.’
She held him tighter. ‘And Tanya. Although I doubt she’ll be here for much longer. We had a bit of a spat. It’s why I’ve returned alone. I’ve told her I want the car back. I won’t be in work for some time, but I’m going to need to get about, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be using public transport.’
Dan stepped away from Liz, and they shared a high five. ‘I knew you’d make me feel better. Go you. And get that car. Spag bol?’
‘Spag bol,’ she agreed. ‘She can either like it or lump it, I don’t care either way.’
It turned out that Tanya did like it, and in the end the evening passed better than Liz would have thought, especially as Tanya confirmed the car would be available from lunchtime the following day. Dan went up to work on his game, and Liz put Classic FM on to give some background noise. Both she and Tanya settled down to read, but Liz couldn’t concentrate on her book. Her mind was anywhere but in those pages, and finally she simply pretended to read, giving her brain free range.
Liz ached for her little boy; she hoped wherever he was, he was being cared for, and not being neglected in any way. He was only a baby… surely his kidnapper would look after him. She checked her iPhone in case she had missed any calls, but there was nothing. No communication from anyone. There had similarly been nothing on the landline.
W
hy had the kidnapper taken him? Did he or she want money? Had she managed to upset someone so deeply that they felt this was the way to pay her back? Who?
Her job took her into court on a regular basis – had somebody been sent to prison and it had been unjust? Again, who? Maybe she could brainstorm with Tom and Oliver; they knew as much about her cases as she did. And three heads were obviously better than one.
She felt her eyes closing, and Tanya touched her arm. ‘Liz, go to bed. You need to sleep.’
She nodded. ‘You’ll be okay? Help yourself to anything you fancy, although things must be running a bit short. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Liz’s phone rang as she was climbing the stairs. She looked at the name on the screen and was tempted to reject it. ‘DI Brent,’ she said stiffly.
‘Mrs Chambers. You’re not in bed, are you?’
‘Just on my way. Why?’
‘I need to speak with you.’
She gave a sigh. ‘Will it take you long to get here? I am really tired. I didn’t sleep last night.’
‘I’m outside, in my car.’
Again, the sigh. ‘Okay. But can we make it quick?’
‘Five minutes.’
She headed back downstairs, popped her head around the lounge door. ‘Your boss is here.’
He was standing on the doorstep when she clicked open both locks.
‘Come in.’ She knew she was being churlish. This man was still working at ten at night, trying to find her son.
She led him into the lounge, and he acknowledged Tanya’s presence with a brief nod.
‘Is Dan here?’
‘He’s up in his room. Do you want him?’
‘No, I wanted him out of the way while we talk. Can I sit down?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry…’
‘Liz, stop flaring up at me. I’m on your side, you know.’ He frowned slightly as he spoke. ‘I’ve been to see Rosemary Latimer. It appears she is aware of your affair with her husband, and she also knows he fathered Jake.’ He held up a hand. ‘And before you have a go at me, she volunteered that information. I didn’t tell her I knew that he’d left her, I simply asked to speak to him. She became quite upset, and it all came out that he’d left her, but it was some months ago and she hasn’t heard from him in all that time. She stressed what a good father he’d been to Melissa and it was out of character for him to not have anything to do with her.’