by Anne Bone
Jenni had wished that the flat was a bit closer to the school but had been grateful that she had such a cosy three bedroom flat in a quiet area. When she had first moved here before Mary’s birth, it hadn’t mattered that there were no other young families, as most of the neighbours were professionals out at work all day. It had suited her and Marcus, Mary’s father, as at that time they needed to ensure privacy, and this quiet suburban road ensured just that.
As Jenni continued to gaze out of the window, her eyes peeled waiting for the first sight of her daughter, she pondered for a moment on how privacy was still an issue for Marcus, even more now, as the privacy issue was to also protect him from his daughter. Mary was still unaware that Uncle Marcus who called to see her mum was indeed her father. Jenni still kept his secrets. She must be the best mistress in the world, never a threat to him or his family, who were oblivious that he was supporting a second family just a few miles from his very large mansion of a house up in the west end of Aberdeen.
Jenni looked at her watch again; she felt a slight flutter in the pit of her stomach. Mary was at least half an hour late. It wasn’t like her at all. She decided she would take a walk up the road to meet her. Grabbing her jacket from where it hung on a hook in the hallway, she quickly put it on. Slipping off her slippers she crammed her feet into her shoes. Locking the door after her, she made her way down the stairs and out of the building. She would no doubt come across her dawdling along the road in a world of her own. She knew that Mary would have made her way across the park as she allowed this during light nights. In the winter when it started to get dark early, or especially on the days when it never seemed to get light, she insisted on meeting Mary at the school gate. But her daughter had pleaded with her that she didn’t want to be called a sissy for still having her mum collect her from school, and she was old enough to walk home on her own. Jenni had relented; this summer she had given her more space and independence, and Mary had never once let her down and not returned at the time she was told to do so.
Jenni’s pace quickened as she entered the park. It was quiet and empty apart from a couple of lads who were kicking a ball back and forth. Jenni recognised them as boys who attended Mary’s school. She shouted over to them, ‘Hi you two, have you seen Mary Dinnet by any chance?’ The two boys stopped kicking the ball for a moment, and shook their heads.
‘I saw her at school,’ the red-headed lad replied. ‘But she wasn’t here when we got here.’
The other young boy stopped and looked around before answering, ‘There was no one in the park when we got here.’ They then returned to their ball kicking, leaving Jenni to continue her journey retracing the route she knew her daughter would have taken.
She left the park and walked the short journey to the school gates, her breath beginning to labour as her heartbeats increased. Where on earth was, she wondered? She would be furious if Mary had been kept back at school for some reason without her teacher telling her. She marched through the school gate and made her way to the main entrance. As she got to the door it was opened by Rita Banks, the head teacher, who was obviously in a hurry.
‘Mrs Dinnet, how can I help you?’ she asked .Her tone did not disguise her impatience with having to deal with a parent when she was obviously in a rush to get home.
‘Is Mary still here?’ Jenni’s voice shook a little, ‘she hasn’t come home you see and she is never late.’
‘No, Mrs Dinnet, she left as usual, in fact, I watched them all leave today when the school bell rang. Are you sure she hasn’t gone home with Lesley James? They seem to be the best of pals at the moment.’
‘She wouldn’t do that, I am sure of it. But I will go and check. I know where Lesley lives.’ Jenni turned to leave, but before doing so she turned towards the older woman. ‘She was alright today, wasn’t she? She left home this morning very happy, and nothing upset her at school that you know of?’
Rita Banks took a moment to reflect, ‘Nothing that I am aware of. I am sure she has for some reason gone to Lesley’s, and she will no doubt be sorry that she caused you any worry.’
Jenni nodded, ‘Yes, you’re probably right, although it’s not like her to do something like this.’
The anxious mother quickened her pace even more as she made her way across the playground. Instead of turning left out of the gate towards her home, she turned right and crossed the road, towards the council housing estate where she knew Lesley lived. She was confused. Why on earth would Mary go to Lesley’s without her permission? And then a wave of anger flitted across her mind. She would ensure Mary knew how naughty she was to not come straight home. She wouldn’t do this again, and then, why hadn’t Lesley’s mum phoned her? As her feet moved quickly along the pavement, she suddenly remembered that Lesley’s mum didn’t have a phone in her house, so that would be why.
She rounded the corner and as Lesley’s house came into view she slowed her pace. She would give Mary a real row for scaring her like this. She opened the gate and reached the front door where she knocked the letter box. She could hear footsteps and the door opened. Lesley’s mum, Michelle, seemed surprise to see Jenni.
‘Hello Jenni, what can I do for you?’ she asked, immediately sensing her visitor’s anxiety.
Jenni seemed a little stunned. What did she mean? ‘I’m hoping my daughter is here, although she is going to get a telling for not coming straight home.’
Michelle looked bewildered, ‘I’m sorry Jenni, she’s not here, and Lesley’s upstairs playing in her room.’ Michelle turned and as she did so Jenni caught sight of Lesley at the top of the stairs. ‘Do you know whether Mary went straight home, Lesley?’ Michelle asked her daughter.
Lesley ran down the stairs to stand by her mother, ‘She went straight home, we said bye bye at the school gate, Mrs Dinnet, honestly,’ stated the young girl. ‘She was on her own as she normally is.’
Jenni felt the panic rise from her stomach to the centre of her chest. She clutched her chest, her breathing quickening and her throat felt as though it was closing over. She swallowed hard, her mind tried to register that Mary wasn’t with her friend. Where on earth is she?
‘Perhaps she will be home now, Jenni, maybe she decided to walk another way home,’ Michelle proposed, although her voice indicated that she also was not sure about that. ‘Look, you make your way back home, and I will ask my neighbour to watch Lesley and come across to yours. I’m sure by the time you get home she’ll be sitting on the doorstep wondering where you are.’
Jenni turned, ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ Her voice wavered, ‘I’ll get home quickly.’
She started running almost immediately, her legs felt like lead. She would be there, once she got home, she would be there she kept telling herself. As she ran, retracing the route she had walked just a short time earlier, she felt her chest expand as she tried to take more air to her lungs. It felt like she was running in treacle. Running back through the park, the two lads stopped kicking the ball to stand and watch Mary’s mum running at speed.
She almost slipped when she got to the gate, stopping for a second to catch the extra breath and steady herself to make the final run towards her home. The mantra in her head continued… she will be there, she will be there…
She wasn’t sitting on the step in front of the flat. She wasn’t standing outside of the flat door. She wasn’t there. Oh my God! Where is she? Jenni was crying now, her hands shook so badly that she could hardly get the key into the lock and turn it to open the door.
She almost fell into the hallway, gasping for breath. She ran from room to room to check if her daughter had somehow managed to get through the door. The flat was empty; the only sound was the rasping of Jenni’s throat. Where is she? Jenni ran to the window again, just with a hope that she would she would be coming down the road. She wasn’t.
Lesley’s mum, Michelle, was hurrying down the road. Jenni watched her as she crossed the road and made her way towards the entrance of the flat. She heard her climbing up the stair
s. Going to the door, she opened it to let her into the flat.
‘She’s not here, something has happened to her, I know it.’ She looked at Michelle who moved to comfort her.
‘Look, let’s phone the police, you’ve got a phone here haven’t you?’ Jenni nodded. ‘Shall I do it?’ She nodded again.
Jenni stood beside Michelle as she dialled 999. She heard her say the words that Mary Dinnet, aged nine years old, had not come home from school. She heard the words, ‘Her mother is frantic.’ She watched as Michelle hung up the receiver and motioned for Jenni to go through to the sitting room. ‘They are sending some officers around right away,’ she told her.
Jenni was sobbing now. Michelle couldn’t see any tissues but went into the bathroom, yanked off a big piece of toilet roll and handed it to the sobbing woman. She sat down beside her not knowing what to say, hoping that the police would arrive quickly.
They didn’t have long to wait, within a few minutes a panda car drew to a halt outside the building. Two police officers got out of the car, straightened their caps and made their way into the flats. Michelle let them in. When they entered the sitting room, the room felt as though it was filled to capacity with two tall well-built policemen who seemed to take up the whole space.
They asked some questions. Jenni repeated how Mary was a really well-behaved child and would not go off on her own, or with anyone else. She tried to form the words, but found it almost impossible to process what was happening.
They asked her to describe her Mary. She could do that easily. ‘She’s four feet, long blonde hair, has blue eyes, she has rosy cheeks that have dimples on each of them, she is always smiling.’ Jenni could hardly get the final words out. Where was she? Would she still be smiling now? she thought. ‘She was wearing her school uniform: a navy blue blazer and a blue checked dress, she has a red anorak with a hood. I told her to take it this morning in case the weather changed and it started to rain. Oh, and she had a blue ribbon in her hair.’ The memory of how she had carefully tied the bow of the ribbon this morning was more than she could cope with, and she began sobbing deep ragged heart-wrenching sobs. As she spoke the unnamed officer wrote into his notebook.
One of the policemen, who told her his name was Bruce, suggested that Michelle make them all a cup of tea. She wanted to scream at them that they shouldn’t be wasting time making tea, but to get out there and look for Mary.
As Bruce left the room to go with Michelle to make tea, she heard him speak briefly into his radio. He was telling them, at the other end, that they had a missing nine year old, and could they circulate the description. Hearing this, Jenni’s crying became quieter. ‘Will they start looking for her?’ she asked as she blew her nose loudly into the toilet tissue that was now not much more than a soggy mass.
The other officer, who she didn’t think told her his name, reached over and tapped her on her hand: his attempt at offering support. He couldn’t help wishing that he hadn’t been the one to get the call; he hated these types of calls. ‘You know most missing kids turn up really quickly, they just for some reason do something that is out of their routines, and manage to stir up a load of worry.’
Michelle arrived back in the room carrying a tray with four mugs on it. She couldn’t find a jug so the milk remained in its bottle, the one that had earlier in the morning sat outside of the flat’s front door. Michelle sorted out a mug of tea for everyone. She followed Bruce’s advice and poured two large teaspoons of sugar into Jenni’s mug, agreeing that this would help with the shock.
Jenni really didn’t want to drink anything, she was feeling sick, sick to the bottom of her stomach, but she tried hard to comply, and almost did throw up when she tasted the hot sweet tea.
‘What about Mary’s father, have you contacted him?’ asked Bruce. He directed the question at Jenni, even though he had found out from Michelle during the making of the tea, that Jenni was a single parent.
Jenni shook her head, ‘No, I haven’t been in contact with Mary’s father,’ she looked directly at the constable. ‘Mary doesn’t know her father, and he isn’t involved in bringing her up.’ Her tone indicated that there would be no further conversation made about the father of Mary.
The radio attached to Bruce’s shoulder rattled into life again. ‘Can you secure a photo of the little lass?’ asked the disembodied voice. ‘We’re sending a WPC across to keep the mum company, so, once she arrives, you can return to Queen Street. And I take it that you will have followed procedures and have checked the home over?’ Bruce tried hard to keep his voice low as he replied, ‘Will do, Sarge, but we haven’t yet searched the premises. We will get on to it now though.’ He lowered his voice even more, ‘The mother is extremely upset so we have been trying to calm her down a bit.’
‘Well just get on with it now, it would be a sorry story if the wee lassie was hiding under the bed wouldn’t it?’ was the abrupt response. The sergeant couldn’t disguise his impatience that his two officers had been in the house now for some time, and they hadn’t thought to search the house.
Bruce smiled towards the blotchy eyes of the attractive young mum. ‘You heard the sergeant, have you got a recent photo of Mary?’
Jenni nodded, she stood up shakily and made her way from the sitting room across the hall into her bedroom. There on the bedside table was the most recent school photo of Mary. The big smile plastered across her face as she looked towards the camera. She had been so excited about getting her school photo and had been looking forward to taking a copy down to her Nana and Grampie in a couple of weeks.
She returned to the sitting room and handed over the photo which she had taken out of the silver frame to Bruce. He took it and studied it for a moment. ‘She is very pretty,’ he smiled again at Jenni, before bracing himself to tell her that he and Jason needed to search the flat, ‘just in case she for any reason had decided to hide.’ Before Jenni uttered the words on the end of her tongue, ‘It’s just procedures and routine’ he reassured her, ‘something we need to do just to make sure. You would be surprised how many kids think it’s fun to hide away… so if it’s okay with you we’ll make a start.’ Jenni nodded and returned to the sofa to sit beside Michelle, who placed her arm around the young mum’s shoulder to reassure her.
The flat was quite small so it didn’t take long for the two officers to check it out. They noted that it was well maintained and tidy. The kitchen was well kitted out, and seemed to have plenty of food in the cupboards, so no sign of any neglect. When they went into the larger of the back bedrooms, they found a double bed, with bedside tables either side, the quilt covering the bed was colourful and brought the whole room together. The other bedroom was undoubtedly the child’s. There was an abundance of toys, the wardrobe held a range of clothes, and there was a teddy bear and a doll lying on top of the Barbie duvet. They looked under the bed and in the back of the cupboards, just to confirm that the child was not anywhere in the flat.
They returned to the sitting room, and looked around to see whether there were any more cupboards where the child could hide. There wasn’t. They had to be thorough so they looked behind the soft squashy sofa that was positioned on the back wall. The room was comfortable, it wasn’t posh, but it was furnished with thought and style.
They had been pretty sure the child wouldn’t be found in the flat, and believed the mother that she was a well-behaved child who would not act out of character. It was just as well, as if they had found her they would have both had their ears blasted by their sergeant for wasting time.
They heard the door being knocked and opened it to find WPC Diane Crombie outside it. Bruce gave her a big smile, and ushered her into the flat. He was really pleased the sergeant had sent her. She was a good officer, sensible and sensitive. He introduced her to Jenni and Michelle and then both he and Jason left the flat. They would blue light it down Union Street to beat the rush hour traffic, not wanting to lose any more precious moments before they handed over the photo of the young girl.
&n
bsp; Chapter 3
Police Headquarters Aberdeen
Police Headquarters at Queen Street, Aberdeen was a hive of activity. Mary Dinnet had been missing now for six hours. A nine year old child missing for this amount of time raised the highest alarm for Grampian Police. The next shift was about due on, but given the concerns, overtime had been agreed for the current shift. The enquiry was no longer left with the uniform division, CID were now involved. It was unusual for a child to be missing this amount of time, and it was now dark.
The initial search had revealed no clues at all. They had painstakingly searched the route Mary was believed to have taken home, using the dogs to search all corners of the park. The initial door to door enquiries had also not produced any information. No one had caught sight of the child once she had left the school gates; she just seemed to have disappeared.
Chief Inspector Jane Lewis was the senior officer. When she had got the call about the missing child she had felt as though someone had walked over her grave. Jane had had previous experience of searching for missing children, and although she had been fortunate to have found the children she had been searching for, she had never forgotten the impact the trauma had on all concerned. This child needed to be found, and she would make sure that this case was given the highest priority.
She attended the briefing session for the incoming shift. She stood back and listened to Detective Inspector Dave Rogers inform the fresh group of officers how the search was progressing. She heard that they had searched the area while they still had light, but absolutely nothing was found. Even though it was now dark the search would continue. CID was now going to be investigating, but the team were relying on their uniformed colleagues to assist them. Dave Rogers advised the officers in front of him that he was expecting them to use their time on duty tonight to check out other areas in the city centre. He also instructed them to speak to anyone they knew who lived on the streets. He knew from previous experience that the homeless community saw and heard much more than was thought. All options remained open, he told them.