by Liz Mistry
Seeing Sampson suppress a smile, Alice mouthed, ‘What?’ at him and then winked. She revelled in getting folk on edge and, if Matty was right, Jake Carpenter might be a more difficult nut to crack. She needed to see if the two lads’ stories matched and she didn’t want Jake or his parents to think they could mess them about. If they were cooperative she’d dial down her sombre expression a notch.
In the kitchen, Jake slid onto a chair and rested his elbows on the table with his hands clasped before him. Head bowed as if in prayer, he remained silent. Good, he’d need all the help he could to squirm out of this one.
From upstairs the sound of loud voices, one female, the other male, drifted down. It seemed that Mr Carpenter was no more happy about their morning visit than his wife had been. Good. Alice liked to have them at a disadvantage if she could. She walked over and pulled out the chair next to Jake and motioned for Sampson to take the one opposite. Might as well use the parents’ tardiness to their advantage. They’d effectively hemmed Jake in and, unless the parents wanted to make an issue of the seating arrangements, it could serve them well.
Humming under her breath, Alice made a quick inventory of the kitchen. Large and airy, there was a faint smell of burnt toast and coffee in the air. Probably more of a muesli than a fry-up sort of family. The rhythmic sound of a tumble drier drifted through from a door to the right; presumably the utility room. Magnets showing a family of four enjoying various rides at a theme park covered the fridge, holding up letters from school about parents’ evenings, and a shopping list. The Carpenters were, it seemed, running low on tofu and loo roll. From the photos, Alice recognised Jake and his mum. The younger boy must be at school and if the voices from upstairs were anything to go by, Alice was about to meet dad. On the wall next to the fridge a large family organiser was turned to November, bearing the names Mum, Dad, Jake and Benny. It appeared the Carpenter family had an active social life. From where she sat, Alice could see that on Saturday Jake was supposed to be having a sleepover at Matty’s. Strike one for Jake!
Footsteps on the stairs warned her of the Carpenter parents’ arrival. Mum had slipped off her high heels and now wore a pair of old slippers.
Mr Carpenter was in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair wet as if he’d just got out of the shower. He had one of those rolling walks that made Alice think of cowboy films. ‘What’s all this?’ He stood just inside the kitchen, arms folded over his chest, and glared, first at Jake and then at Sampson, ignoring Alice altogether.
Sexist git! Alice inclined her head, telling Sampson to take over. All boys together, let’s see how that goes!
Sampson stood up and offered his hand to Mr Carpenter. ‘We’re here to talk to Jake about a party he attended on Saturday night at Simon Proctor’s house.’
If she’d blinked, Alice would have missed the flare of anger in Danny Carpenter’s eyes as he looked at his son. ‘Jake wasn’t at a party on Saturday night, were you, Jake? He was staying over at his friend’s house.’
With a self -deprecating smile that made Alice proud of his acting skills, Sampson shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s not the case, sir. We know Jake was at the party.’
Sir? Alice only just managed not to roll her eyes.
Carpenter frowned and glanced at his wife. ‘Pop the kettle on, Lou, bloody gasping, I am.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down next to Sampson. ‘What’s all the fuss about anyway? The Proctors got their knickers in a twist because their precious boy got up to no good when they were away? What happened, one of their bloody pot plants get broken or did the lad raid their drinks cabinet and drink all their champagne? Hoity-toity bastards.’
At his father’s words, Jake flinched. The vibration of his leg bouncing up and down under the table made Alice want to reach out and still it. The kid was nervous as hell. Wonder what he’s going to say for himself.
‘Simon’s missing, Mr Carpenter. That’s one of the reasons we’re here.’
Mr Carpenter snorted. ‘The lad’s probably hiding. He’ll be stopping at one of his mates till it all blows over.’ He leaned over and prodded his son on the arm. ‘You know where Si is, Jakey?’
Still looking at the table, Jake shook his head.
Accepting a mug of tea from his wife, Mr Carpenter slurped and then released a resounding belch, before standing up and gesturing to the door. ‘Well, looks like you’ve had a wasted journey, officer. My Jake can’t help you.’
‘Hmm,’ Sampson made no move to stand up. ‘Then there’s the other matter we’d like to talk to your son about.’
If she hadn’t been expecting it, Alice would have jumped to her feet and shouted bravo! Sampson had lulled the dad into a false sense of security and was now going to pull away his safety net. With any luck, it’d emphasise the seriousness of the situation and get them to assert pressure on their son to tell them everything he knew.
Jake’s leg stopped bobbing and his head jerked up. It looked like he was in suspended animation. The Carpenters frowned and Mrs Carpenter moved to stand by her husband, her arms folded under pert breasts. They exchanged a glance and then looked at their boy. Jake shook his head and licked his lips. It was only the thought of the missing boy and the two dead girls that stopped Alice from extending a hand and squeezing his shoulder.
Carpenter’s eyes narrowed and the bonhomie left his voice. ‘What other matter?’
Sampson laid his folder on the table and began shuffling through it. ‘The matter of the two dead girls found on the Proctor property.’
Before his father had a chance to respond, Jake blurted out, ‘Two?’
His tone mild, Sampson looked at the boy and asked, ‘Why? How many were you expecting, Jake?’
Before Jake could answer, his dad stepped next to his son. ‘Don’t say another word, Jake.’ He turned to Sampson. ‘We want a lawyer.’
24
09:35 The Fort
Relieved to escape the last of the post-mortem on the unidentified girl, Gus munched on a toasted tea cake he’d procured from The Chaat Café. Perhaps it would settle his still gurgling stomach. What he’d really like to do, though, was go for a run, but he didn’t have the time. He’d sent Taffy off to chase up missing persons before heading up to Cottingley Ridge to see if anything had come up overnight. You’d think by now someone would have noticed the girl was missing. Simon Proctor’s friends would be at the station soon and he wanted to interview them himself, so until they arrived he’d get on with some paperwork before the briefing.
A frantic scraping accompanied by three rapid kicks to the incident room door had Taffy rushing over to open it. Gus glanced up from the pile of statements he was reading and saw a huge box held in the middle by a pair of hands. It was held so high it obscured the face of the person holding it. Sampson, a foot taller, followed, puffing heavily as he looked for somewhere to deposit the box he was carrying.
Close behind them was a short stocky man wearing a khaki cap with IT Supplies stencilled on the front and towing a trolley piled high with various monitors, screens and computer stuff. He parked his trolley, and ignoring everyone in the room, pointed to a series of empty computer tables in the top left-hand corner of the room that were surrounded by boxes of technical equipment. ‘Right, it’s all going over there.’ At that, he turned and walked out.
The man carrying the box deposited it on Gus’ desk, much to Gus’ annoyance, and followed the IT man out. Gus frowned and glared at Sampson who shrugged. ‘I only helped him off the lift with it. It’s nowt to do with me.’
Compo jumped up from behind his PC, face glowing, and skipped over. His wide smile created a deep dimple on each of his chubby cheeks making him look like a kid as he bounced from foot to foot. ‘It’s arrived, Gus! It’s bloody here!’ He clapped his hands like an over-excited two-year-old and touched each of the boxes. ‘All my new gear. State of the art, this is. State of the bloodeeey art.’ He clicked his fingers together gangsta style. ‘Can’t wait to set it up. Wanna help?’
A snort followe
d by a coughing fit from Alice had Gus glaring in her direction. ‘Shut it, Al!’
He turned back to Compo, and swallowed the disparaging words he’d been about to make. Least the lad was happy. Why would he want to burst his bubble? ‘Think I’ll give it a miss, Comps. Bit busy you know. Two murders and a missing boy to find.’
‘Yeah, yeah… busy, busy, busy,’ said Compo, hefting one of his precious boxes into his arms and heading over to the empty PC station.
Gus grunted. Bloody nerds! ‘Comps, when will you be up and running? We need your input on this.’
A Mars Bar appeared as if by magic in the younger man’s hand and he chomped down on it, chewing with his mouth open, a trail of soft toffee dangling from his lips.
Give me fucking strength! Like we’ve got time for Mars bloody Bars.
Two gulping swallows later, Compo said, ‘Aw, I’ll be up and running in fifteen. Just need to plug in and boot up… easy as sneezy.’
Avoiding meeting Alice’s eyes, Gus risked a glance at Sampson who had averted his gaze. ‘Eh, I’ll help Compo then, shall I? Many hands, light work and all that.’
Ten minutes later, Gus looked up from his paperwork and saw that already, with Sampson’s help, Compo had off-loaded his equipment and was now studying Simon Proctor’s laptop.
Gus continued to sift through the neighbours’ statements, his mood dipping more with every report he read. What was it about these people? Yes, they’d heard loud music. Yes, they’d suspected a party at the Proctors’. Yes, they knew Jane and James Proctor were away for the weekend. Yes, they heard motorcycles roaring round the cul-de-sac but it had been ‘short-lived’. No, they didn’t want to interfere; not their damn business – and as a result, two young girls had lost their lives, two families were devastated and a young lad, number one suspect or not, was missing. These were the same people, who, his notes told him, had logged thirty-five complaints about wedding fireworks going off during the summer in the Manningham area; yet they couldn’t deal with stuff happening in their own back yard. Bloody pathetic!
He took a slurp of coffee, grimacing when he realised it was cold and stood up to make a refill. Breathing in the welcome aroma of freshly ground coffee, Gus glanced over to see how his nerd was getting on. Compo, catching his eye, waved for him to approach his newly-configured computer station. Gus looked in admiration at the range of machines and the tangle of wires and keyboards that surrounded them. Thank God, he could stick to his reliable old desktop!
Compo had a laptop open on the desk. ‘This is Simon Proctor’s. I got the uniforms to bring it to me. Wanted to see what I can find out about our missing teenager.’
Gus saw that the laptop was hooked up to one of Compo’s machines. Compo would be running a forensic analysis, which would, if they were lucky, bear fruit.
Crowding round the laptop, Gus, Sampson and Alice looked to where Compo was pointing on the screen. ‘Look, I’ve pinpointed the wall posting the kid made about the party. We need to identify the kids that came. One of them must have seen something, even if his best friends are saying nowt. So, what say I print you off a copy of his friends’ details and their friends’ details? That’ll give you some names to target.’
Gus’ heart sank. That list would be a mile long. Alice had told him Simon Proctor had at least a thousand friends and each of his friends probably had the same amount. No way could the team look through that lot. Swallowing his impatience at Compo’s naïveté he just about managed to keep his voice level. ‘Look Compo, we don’t have the manpower to go through thousands of names. We need quick, succinct info.’
Compo, oblivious to Gus’ impatience, pressed a button. ‘Yeah, what I’ll do is get rid of duplicated names, cross reference re school, geography and age and see what we come up with. Then, I can put some filters in place to prioritise the list.’
Alice glanced at Gus, her eyebrows raised and a ‘duh’ smirk on her face that made Gus want to question just how much of Compo’s proposition she’d understood. Instead he focussed on the task in hand. ‘What does that mean?’
Compo glanced up at him, ‘Well, this programme won’t duplicate the names of friends shared by Jake and Matty, for example. It’ll sort them into categories like friends, family, school mates and provide ages so if you want, I can filter out kids over the age of, say… twenty.’
Alice plonked down next to Compo. ‘Thirteen. Some of those girls can look older than they really are.’ She thought for a minute and added, ‘Can you make that age thirty for men and twenty for girls?’
Compo’s fingers flew over the keys. Any groups you want left out for now? Family members, for example? I can save them in a separate file.’
Gus thought for a minute, then looked at his team. ‘Help me out here, folks. I think we need the ages Alice suggested. We need school friends as a group. Maybe non-relative contacts of Si’s within the age brackets who don’t match with anyone else. Can you do criteria like hobbies?’
‘Yeah. What hobbies you interested in?’
‘Biking… of the motorcycling sort?’
‘…and photography?’ said Sampson.
Alice, warming to the task, butted in. ‘Also, those that live within a fifty… no, make that twenty-mile perimeter?’ Tapping her lip with a black varnished fingernail, she frowned. ‘Oh and did any of that group “check-in” to Cottingley on Saturday night? That’ll be our first port of call.’
Compo, punctuating keyboard activity with the dunking of digestives in a glass of Tango, hummed ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks as he worked. Until, with a final flourish of fingers over keys, he slumped back in his chair. ‘Okay. I’ve linked all your PCs to mine. Anything flashing green on your desktop needs looking at as a priority. When it’s been read, it’ll stop flashing. Up to you which folder it goes in, then. When the statements come through I’ll put them all in a folder, okay? And as you go on, if you want me to flag up key words in the statements, I can, okay? Maybe I’ll put motorcycles in for now, anyway.’ He glanced at Gus for approval and then, pressed a button. ‘Right, the names are on your desktop files. Uniforms will be busy. We’ve narrowed it down to fifty possibles.’
Gus grinned. ‘Good work, Compo. Now, can you collate the kids who attend City Academy from that list.’ He turned to Alice. ‘Looks like a school visit might be in order.’
Alice tossed her head, ‘Yeah and I wonder why that’s brought a smile to your otherwise miserable face… nothing to do with a certain Patti Copley, is it?’
‘Aw, piss off, Al.’
Seeing Alice’s smug expression, Gus tutted and moved back to his desk. So, what if the thought of seeing Patti Copley again made his face flush? It was as much nerves as attraction. She was one amazing woman and he’d be damned if he’d discuss his private life with Alice.
25
09:55 The Fort
Striding along the corridor, hair bouncing like Zebedee, Gus realised Alice and Sampson were almost running to keep up. He ground to a halt looking sheepish. ‘Oops, charging ahead of everyone again, sorry.’
Grinning, Alice winked at Sampson. ‘Doesn’t matter. Sampson and I enjoyed watching your ass wiggle.’
He grabbed his stomach and rocked back and forth on his heels ‘Ho, ho, ho, I can hardly contain myself.’ He winked at Sampson. ‘Al, which one of these two idiots will be the easiest to crack?’
Alice looked at her partner in crime. ‘What do you think?’
Sampson grinned. ‘That’s easy.’ He jerked his head towards interview room one, where he’d deposited Matty Bates half an hour earlier. ‘Him. He’s already shitting bricks.’ He blushed and glanced at Gus. ‘If you’ll excuse my French.’
Gus slapped him on the back. ‘No need to stand on ceremony, Sampson. Say it like it is. No room for ambiguity that way.’ His eyes narrowed as he considered which of the two to take into the interview room with him. Sampson needed the experience, so he opted for him. ‘Come on then, you can be my sidekick. Keep quiet, say nothing, and look deferentia
l, okay?’
Sampson grinned, only just managing to refrain from rubbing his hands together in excitement.
Gus pulled his shoulders back, fixed a frown on his face and crashed through the door into the interview room with Sampson scurrying along behind. With huge strides he approached the table, looking like an ancient bronzed god risen victorious from the ashes, his dreads unfettered around his face, his eyes flashing.
As Matty Bates watched him approach, his face paled and he gripped the edge of the table tightly till his fingertips went white from the pressure. Gus glowered down at the boy with narrowed eyes for long seconds, and then he grabbed a chair and scraped it across the floor causing Matty to jolt backwards as if he’d been struck. Swinging the chair round, Gus straddled it, resting his arms along the back of the chair. This was his favourite interview position. He thought it made him look tough, like Clint Eastwood playing Dirty Harry. With another frown, he slapped a file on the table. ‘Get the tape set up, Sampson. We need this on record.’ Ignoring the father, he turned to Matty.
‘Right. Spill!’
Matty glanced at his father, whose face cheeks had slackened at Gus’ loud entry. Mr Bates cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped by Gus’ icy glare. Gus raised one hand and shook his head, before turning back to the boy.
Matty gulped and his eyes skirted the room looking for an escape that didn’t exist. Gus raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes to a slit before slowly repeating himself.