‘Whatever for?’
Korpanski shrugged again. ‘Who knows,’ he said. ‘Links with al-Qaeda.’
Joanna made a face. Sergio Patterson was one of those local petty criminals who seemed to have been around for ever. He’d been convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting. There were suspicions of money laundering and a fairly tacky internet site which promised the love of your life for three easy clicks of the mouse – oh, and a thousand pound membership fee.
But al-Qaeda? An emphatic no.
Then again, undercover cops were not going to reveal their sources.
Monday, 9 September, 10.30 a.m.
Stoke-on-Trent railway station.
Stoke-on-Trent appeared an old-fashioned sort of city to Cécile Bellange as she stepped on to the platform and looked around her. Overhead was a glass roof, through it blew a cool wind so it felt chilly in spite of the warm weather elsewhere. Her entire journey had been blessed with sunshine and she had looked out of the window at some very pretty countryside. Small fields, cows grazing, interesting-looking towns and villages. The people who were also on the train appeared to have been summoned from all four corners of the earth: Africans, Asians, Germans … She’d screwed up her eyes. Were there actually any English on the train – apart from the ticket collector?
But her fellow passengers seemed friendly and she kept herself to herself while watching them carefully. Annabelle had probably travelled on this train.
She smiled. Maybe England wasn’t such a bad place after all. But as she stepped from the train she wasn’t sure. It might have looked pretty and rural through the windows, but here, on this station, it appeared dull. Dingy, dirty and cold. However, all was not lost. As soon as she left the station she realized that Stoke had one major advantage – a hotel right opposite the railway station. She only had to cross the road to the North Stafford Hotel and she was there. And they were very obliging indeed, providing her with a perfectly satisfactory lunch and the use of a washroom.
Had the girls stayed here?
Added to all these advantages they also had a French waiter named Alfred who had had been very helpful, organizing a car for her complete with satnav which, with a bit of fiddling on Alfred’s part, gave her directions in French. Madame Bellange felt even more optimistic. She would find the girls and bring them home – both of them. She would soon see her daughter, and scold her for not doing as she had promised and keeping in touch. Her expression changed to one of worry. Surely the girls were safe, they were simply being naughty? Annabelle was a pretty girl with an eye for the opposite sex, and it was well known that British men liked French girls. Oh, yes. That was probably it. They had met some boys who had distracted them. The worry faded into anger again as she contemplated this scenario. Perhaps they did not want to go to college. Was that it? Or was something, someone, keeping them away?
As she ate her lunch of lamb steaks in red wine sauce with sautéed potatoes she amused herself by picturing the girls’ faces when she confronted them. They would be so surprised to see her. Shocked. Annabelle knew full well that her mother had never been to England, reluctant to leave her beloved France. Yes, this would really surprise them. All she needed to do was to find out where they were and what was keeping them away from home, preventing them from keeping in touch as they had promised. It was true that Annabelle resented the strict conditions she imposed on her but surely … Cécile stared out of the window. Even on a lovely day like today the railway station looked a little sordid and industrial, the figures bent and scurrying, reminding her of paintings she had seen by Mr Lowry. Maybe it was those very pictures, loaned for an exhibition to the Louvre, that had put her off visiting England before. She frowned. Of all the places in England that French tourists usually visited: London, Stratford, Chester – why had the girls come here? The answer swam into her mind as she recalled Annabelle’s bedroom wall and the mantras pinned up there: ‘Fill the unforgiving minute … If you can bear to hear the words you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools … If you can keep your head.’
Of course. His most famous poem. The answer was in the postcard which was now in her handbag. Rudyard Lake, Rudyard Kipling. So was the clue to their silence wrapped up in Kipling?
She was sure Annabelle had not been angry with her, she was sure of that. Something must have happened. She stared bleakly at the wall. If the police couldn’t find her daughter … What then?
She sat up straight and squared her shoulders. She would jump that fence when she reached it.
Monday, 9 September, 2.30 p.m.
Madame Bellange was driving north-east out of the city along a crowded A53 which bristled with the yellow speed cameras Alfred had warned her about. She found them both confusing and distracting, trying to translate miles to kilometres. It was bad enough driving on the wrong side of the road without all this. She had to concentrate very hard. The road was lined with a hotchpotch of houses, some old, some new, a very smart-looking Indian restaurant, garages and two schools, a high school and a primary. She smiled, taken back to the first time she had dropped Annabelle off at school when she had been four years old. She’d tilted her face up for a goodbye kiss and as Cécile had touched her cheek she had felt it wet with tears. My brave little girl. She sighed. She wanted her brave little girl back again.
She focused back on the road. And then something magical happened. The houses retreated; the city melted away behind her and she had a perfect view of a wide scoop of a valley, a stone farmhouse ahead. She sat forward in the car, looking around her, drinking in the beautiful vista.
So this was where Annabelle had been? Had her eyes opened wide too when she had finally seen this lovely English countryside?
And then she saw it, a simple signpost to the left which read Rudyard.
Dorothée and Annabelle would have whooped with delight. She could almost hear them.
‘Here. Ici. Ici.’ And because they were such great friends they would have hugged each other. She was sure of that. But how had they got here? Had they hitchhiked as they had threatened? Or had they caught a bus like the one she had trundled behind for the last few miles? Who had brought them here? What kind of motorist had picked them up, sweaty and burdened with their enormous rucksacks, their jeans low slung? She forced herself not to shudder at the thought. They would have giggled as they climbed into his car. (She imagined it would have been a man rather than a woman who would have picked up two attractive young French girls provocatively dressed as usual and giggling.) Being also polite girls they would have thanked the driver whoever he or possibly she was. ‘Merci. Merci.’ They would have sung out their gratitude in their excitement at almost arriving at their shrine. Her hands gripped the steering wheel. How she ached to see them again.
But she would not go to Rudyard first – she’d go straight on to Leek. Alfred had kindly given her the postcode of the police station so she drove straight there and parked next to a bicycle. She’d brought her French/English phrase book with her as she wasn’t too confident that her English vocabulary was going to be up to this. And the English people, particularly out here in the country, had a reputation for speaking one language only. Their own.
From the hatch, once she had explained both who she was and why she was here, she was ushered into a small interview room and waited. A few minutes later a tall, slim woman with thick dark hair and fierce blue eyes who introduced herself as Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy was sitting opposite her. Her colleague, who had been introduced as Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski, a tall, muscular man with dark eyes and black hair, sat by her side.
Joanna, for her part, saw a tiny woman, chicly dressed in navy trousers and a white sweater pushed up to reveal thin brown arms. On the table between them stood a large, white, expensive-looking leather handbag.
Inspector Piercy began. ‘How may we help you?’
In answer, Cécile slid the postcard across the table. The words by now were so familiar that she could translate them perfectly i
nto English. Then she leaned forward and challenged the angry blue eyes. ‘But I don’t understand. What is this letterboxing?’
It was Korpanski who answered. ‘People hide things in a tin or a box and then other people find them, take a stamp and put the box back again. They collect them,’ he finished lamely.
He wasn’t surprised that Madame Bellange looked bemused.
Joanna slid a latex glove on and picked up the postcard, turning it over. Rudyard Lake. A place as familiar as her own back garden. She and Matthew had spent hours here, walking, even sailing, art exhibitions, lunches at the hotel and coffees and ice cream in the café. Of all the places she could think of it was the most innocent. The photo on the postcard was a nice view taken from the Dam End showing the entire length of the lake, the water calm, sails billowing. She studied it, used a magnifying glass to read the postmark and the writing on the back. She only knew schoolgirl French but could translate the gist of it.
‘They were together,’ Cécile managed. ‘They were friends. Good friends. Dorothée and Annabelle. They decided to hike using the, how you say it? The thumb.’
‘Hitchhike,’ Korpanski put in. ‘They didn’t realize it was so dangerous?’
‘Dangerous?’ Madame Bellange queried, alarmed.
‘Well, risky,’ Korpanski corrected. ‘We don’t recommend it,’ he said, frowning, ‘particularly not for two girls.’ He didn’t say two foreign girls, or two girls in a foreign country. Both sounded dated and xenophobic as well as the even less forgivable misogynous. None of these were tolerated in ‘Today’s Modern Police Force’. How many lectures had he been to that had bleated this basic mantra? Too many.
Cécile turned anxious eyes on him. ‘But two of them, surely, are safe?’
‘It still isn’t a good idea.’ He stuck to his guns stolidly.
Joanna was watching the woman’s face. She appeared calm, composed, more curious rather than frightened that anything sinister had happened to her daughter and her friend. ‘And the girl who was with your daughter – Dorothée? Have her parents heard from her?’
It struck her that Cécile Bellange’s eyes were guileless. It was as though she had never looked at anything bad in her life, that she could not suspect trouble or evil.
‘Dorothée was not as …’ she searched for the word, ‘habituée …’
‘Regular,’ Mike put in. Cécile Bellange nodded vigorously. ‘Oui,’ she said. ‘Oui. Regular in her contact home. Her maman is a busy business lady.’
Joanna aimed raised eyebrows at her sergeant, who gave her a perfectly innocent and bland look back.
‘Dorothée was not writing home often and I don’t think her parents are as concernés.’ She looked to Mike for help.
‘Concerned,’ he put in, and she could have kicked herself for not realizing.
‘At her not writing home,’ Madame Bellange continued. ‘Her father has a new lady and is … umm … how shall I put it? He is often not quite well.’
Joanna sucked in a shallow breath of irritation. It was time to get down to business.
Madame Bellange placed several sheets of paper on the desk next to the expensive-looking white handbag.
‘I have written here,’ she said, ‘Annabelle’s personal details, bank account and mobile phone number, and here are some photographs of the girls.’
She looked hopefully at Joanna, who spoke awkwardly. ‘I understand the French police have already been in touch with my chief superintendent asking him to look into the two girls’ disappearance. And I think they’ve drawn a blank as to their phones and bank accounts. But we will, of course, recheck all the details.’ She tried to give Madame Bellange a reassuring smile. ‘You can be sure of that.’
Cécile Bellange didn’t look reassured at all.
‘We’ll need your contact details too,’ Joanna said, ‘so we can keep in touch with you. But you do understand, the girls may well have left this area and gone elsewhere. We may not be able to help you.’
Cécile Bellange simply nodded and bowed her head.
SIX
Martin and James had camped out the previous night in a field attached to a farm in Longsdon, three miles out of Leek. Local farmers welcomed the tourists with open arms – provided they kept their dogs under control, closed the gates behind them and didn’t leave litter. So after a hearty breakfast at the Hungry Horse in Leek – which filled you to the brim with a fry-up and as much tea as you could down without bursting your bladder, and all for less than a fiver – they drove back out to Rudyard and located Mandalay.
It proved to be a surprisingly smart house, detached, large and white painted with a nice symmetrical frontage and plenty of parking along the drive. First impressions were good. They looked at each other and resisted the temptation to high-five. Their plan was to find out anything they could about the girls and then take a peek at the visitors’ book to see if they could find an address, maybe a mobile number so they could track them down. What had seemed like a fun adventure to start with had become more determined now James was fully on board, though Martin hoped that, if they weren’t at Mandalay or somewhere in the surrounding area, the search would stop and he could get back to Camilla and their wedding plans.
But James could be quite tenacious – once he’d got his teeth into something he was very unlikely to let go at least until he’d tasted blood. James couldn’t have said what it was that drew him towards the girls, except that fun was something sadly lacking in his life at the moment. He naturally veered towards pessimism. He wasn’t so much grieving the break-up of his romance but he was aware that his life had become dull and lacked that vital ingredient. He craved excitement. Besides, they wanted to be found, didn’t they? And they were gorgeous if, he admitted to himself grudgingly, perhaps a little out of their league. Still, Martin had been all for it, and it was a challenge he couldn’t turn down. It helped that he had something new to focus his energies on, rather than pining for his ex. It felt good.
James glanced across at Martin and grinned. They parked the car and approached the front door.
Barker opened it slowly, peering round it as though he hadn’t just put up the Vacancies sign. He looked suspiciously at the two fit, young, healthy men. ‘Yes?’
‘Have you got a room?’
Barker’s eyes flickered. ‘Uumm,’ he said. He did, but only the twin-bed room. And he didn’t want these two young men there. What was the point in watching men? He preferred women. He felt his mouth twist. Preferably young women, but even older women were preferable to these two strong-looking males. Then again, Barker always felt he needed more money. One couldn’t afford to turn away guests. The B&B trade was fickle and Mandalay was an expensive house to keep up. One wet, miserable summer’s holiday in Staffordshire could have a knock-on effect for years. People didn’t forget terrible holidays, and sitting in the Rudyard café, watching rain splash down on the water’s surface, too cold to eat ice cream, counted as one of those.
But so far this year he was having a good season. Since May there had always been someone in the room for him and Supi-yaw-lat to keep an eye on. Most of the time they were young couples, though he tried to give them the double rooms. Families almost always plumped for the two family rooms – it worked out cheaper. But the nice thing about having two twin-bed rooms was that he could choose who to put in his special room. Oh, well.
Inwardly he sighed and spoke up in his reedy voice. ‘I have a very nice twin-bed room as it happens,’ he said, almost hoping the pair of climbers with their muscly legs and expensive-looking boots would decide to give him a miss. ‘But it’s eighty pounds a night.’
James made a face at his brother. Imperceptibly, Martin nodded. ‘OK,’ he said, resigned. ‘We probably just need it for one night, but it might be two.’
Barker couldn’t prevent his palms from rubbing together. ‘Would you like to see the room?’
‘Yeah. Suppose we’d better,’ they answered in unison, their words tumbling out untidily as they stepped i
nside Mandalay.
They followed him up the stairs and, mirroring the cared-for exterior of the house, they were pleasantly surprised at the room, which was clean and nicely decorated with cream walls, a beige carpet, two beds with wine-coloured bedspreads and a nice view over the lake. The only discordant note was the … the brothers looked at each other, suppressing laughs. The truly dreadful picture. A tacky, odd-looking foreign woman trying to look seductive.
Barker followed their gaze. ‘Lovely, isn’t she?’
James cleared his throat noisily while his brother merely nodded and gulped.
‘And the room,’ Barker continued, ‘is it all right?’
‘Oh, perfectly.’ Martin was also smothering a giggle.
‘It’s really nice, actually,’ his brother put in kindly. ‘Really nice.’ He shot a warning glance at Martin, who was pushing open the door of the en suite. That, too, was a nice surprise – plain white, clean and smelling faintly of bleach, it had a power shower. It was a joy to behold, he was tempted to say, particularly after a day’s hard climbing followed by a night under canvas. Inwardly, he was thinking that Mandalay represented value for money – providing the breakfast was good.
Barker looked pleased with the response. ‘It’s been refurbished recently,’ he said. ‘In fact, I decorated this room myself back in May.’ He paused before adding, ‘It took me almost three weeks.’
The brothers were both struggling to smother giggles now. ‘You’ve done a nice job,’ James praised, looking curiously at the picture again. He’d seen it somewhere before but couldn’t remember where.
Seeing him focus on the print, Barker couldn’t resist showing off his knowledge. ‘It was a very popular picture in the sixties,’ he said, giving her a fond glance. ‘In fact, she’s the most reproduced picture in the world. They call her the kitsch Mona Lisa. She’s painted by a Russian guy called Tretchikoff.’
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