The Calling

by Alison Bruce

  Goodhew had guessed it would prove a challenge but wasn’t sure how to interpret the comment about Christmas. His grandmother rarely used exclamation marks, so maybe it was a joke. She’d been away for less than a fortnight, but he missed her company already. And, though he saw his sister far less frequently, the simple arrival of this message had reassured him that both were obviously well.

  He turned the postcard over in his hand and considered how much it would mean to Margaret Whiting to receive something like this. Right now she must be praying for just three little words from her daughter: ‘I’m OK, Mum.’

  But Kaye Whiting was still missing.

  He’d put all the other work to one side since taking the statement from her mother. Kaye had been missing since Friday at the earliest, and Saturday at the latest. She had no boyfriend, was close to her family, and was a reliable employee. No one could suggest a plausible reason for her to decide to disappear.

  Gary thought of her face in the photograph. Was she dead? There had been little response from the appeal in the Cambridge News, and from the nationals. Goodhew knew he needed to visit Margaret Whiting again. If Kaye had been abducted, then statistically that wasn’t good, since most females abducted by strangers were dead within three hours. He liked to appear optimistic but, even so, had found himself deciding that nothing less than a smart suit would be appropriate for a second visit to her mother.

  Goodhew pushed open the doors to Parkside police station. Let her turn up safe, and soon, he prayed silently.

  He sensed Margaret Whiting’s gaze already on him as he parked his car in front of her neighbour’s house. As before, she opened the front door even as he opened the gate. But this time she withdrew into the house before he’d reached the doorstep. She’d only needed a glance at his expression to know that he didn’t bring the news she wanted.

  He stepped straight inside, closing the door and removing his coat before following her to the kitchen. ‘How are you, Mrs Whiting?’

  She wore the same clothes as she had when he’d last visited, but they were unpressed, and her pallid complexion had deteriorated into a poor imitation of puckered parchment.

  ‘White tea, no sugar – that’s right, isn’t it?’ She avoided making eye contact.

  ‘We haven’t any news for you, I’m sorry, he said.

  She turned to face him and he could see the sharp flickers of distress that lit her listless eyes. ‘Girls do go missing and then turn up unharmed, don’t they?’

  ‘Occasionally, yes. Can we sit down?’

  Margaret Whiting led him back to the sitting room. He knew he needed to take great care with his words. He waited until they were both seated before beginning. ‘We all need to stay positive, Mrs Whiting, but we also need to be realistic. Sometimes girls do turn up, but usually they’ve chosen to leave home in the first place because of depression or domestic difficulties. From what you’ve told me, Kaye had no reason to vanish.’

  ‘That’s right. And I certainly don’t want you giving me false hope. But I’ve been going over and over it, and I keep thinking she could have been in an accident, or have been kidnapped. She could be lying somewhere dark and cold.’ One corner of her mouth trembled and her voice rose as she choked out her next words. ‘I can’t bear to think of her afraid.’

  ‘Is there someone who can be here with you? Your husband, or your mother maybe?’

  She shook her head. ‘He won’t take time off work – says he wants to keep busy. And Mum? No, it just wouldn’t work. It’s the waiting that’s so difficult; no one’s going to help with that. Except you,’ she added, as an afterthought, ‘because you’re trying to do something about it.’

  Goodhew tapped his pencil on his notepad. ‘Look, assuming a crime has been committed, we need to know whether anyone Kaye knows has any kind of motive for abducting her. And obviously we’ve been checking for similarities with other crimes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing, so far. But that’s not surprising when we really don’t know anything at all. To be frank, Mrs Whiting, without knowing where or when she vanished, it becomes very difficult to make any progress. But I do need to go through the relationships you know about.’

  ‘OK, well, she doesn’t have a boyfriend at the moment, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Perhaps we can start with some background. Kaye’s twenty-three and Michelle is twenty-one. How long have they lived away from home?’

  ‘They moved out when Michelle was seventeen and Kaye was nineteen. They found a room each in a shared house, first of all, then Kaye moved into her own flat back in the autumn.’

  ‘And they still get on well?’

  ‘Oh yes. They go out together at least once a week, even when they’re tied up with boys.’

  ‘And Michelle’s boyfriend, Carl, does he know Kaye?’

  Margaret curled her nose up in distaste. ‘Not that I was there of course, but apparently they both met him on the same evening. They were at De Niro’s, you know in Newmarket, and Carl and a friend kept buying them drinks. He was talking to Michelle, and his friend was talking to Kaye, but I got the impression that it was really Kaye he was interested in. Not that I was there of course,’ she repeated. ‘But, anyway, Kaye wasn’t bothered about either of them. That Carl must have known he’d struck it lucky with Michelle, and they’ve been together ever since. I still think he’s keen on Kaye, though.’

  ‘But it wasn’t that which caused Kaye to move out of the house they shared?’

  Margaret Whiting paused, uncertain for a second. ‘No, Michelle is totally besotted. She’s a bit like me, can’t always see what’s under her nose.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Mrs Whiting shook her head. ‘Nothing specific, but it’s just in my nature to be a bit naïve sometimes.’

  ‘And Carl’s friend, do you know who that was?’

  ‘No idea, sorry.’

  ‘Steve, your son, he’s nineteen and still at home. Was there any reason the girls left home at such a young age?’

  ‘Such as?’ Margaret asked with sudden wariness.

  Goodhew remained expressionless. ‘I don’t know; that’s why I asked.’

  Margaret scowled. ‘Teenage girls in a poky house,’ she shrugged and threw up her hands, ‘hormones and I don’t know what. Something obviously had to give.’

  ‘And your husband …?’ began Gary.

  ‘He would never harm them,’ she cut in. She was on her feet immediately, taking a step in the direction of the kitchen, but she didn’t move any further.

  Gary stared down at his notepad as though he hadn’t noticed her reaction. ‘I was going to ask you what time your husband will be home,’ he finished quietly.

  Margaret lowered herself into her chair again. Goodhew could imagine that the foundations of everything she took for granted in her life were crumbling. As her panic dissipated, her eyes started to fill. ‘Six o’clock.’

  ‘OK.’ He decided to move on. ‘When we spoke to your brother, he was vague about his reasons for missing the party. We will be speaking to everyone again, but has he since told you why he didn’t attend?’

  Margaret was still fighting against a tide of tears that threatened to swamp her, and she replied in a small hoarse croak. ‘No. I left a message but he never rang back. He can be very quiet, though. Gets on best with Mum, so I expect he’s told her.’

  ‘Isn’t it odd that he hasn’t contacted you since all the publicity about Kaye’s disappearance?’

  ‘I s’pose it’s funny.’ She pulled a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. ‘Bad choice of words, eh? It definitely isn’t funny, is it?’

  Goodhew shook his head. ‘Can you tell me who Kaye’s closest friends were?’

  Margaret twisted the tissue into a tight spiral, and she stared at it, not at Goodhew. He wondered if she had heard him. He waited patiently.

  She let go of the end of it and the tissue slowly uncurled. She now crumpled it into a ball.

  ‘Were,’ she ga
sped. ‘You said “were”.’

  CHAPTER 9

  TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2011

  Goodhew spotted WPC Gully ahead of him in the second-floor corridor. ‘Sue,’ he called out and quickened his step to catch up with her. ‘Hang on.’

  ‘No problem.’ She waved her notepad. ‘Marks will just assume it was you that made me late. I’ve been taking telephone statements since yesterday.’ They continued to head towards the end meeting room.

  ‘Have I missed anything?’

  ‘Still nothing.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘There are a lot of maybe I saw her calls, but not one of them stands out. Young and Charles are trawling through most of them, but it’ll take them an absolute age.’

  ‘I’ll stay on for a couple of hours and give you a hand, if it’s stacking up.’

  ‘OK,’ she gave a grateful nod, ‘as long as you mean it. I know what you’re like for getting distracted.’

  ‘Unless there’s an emergency,’ he protested.

  ‘Well, in that case I’ll believe it when you show up.’

  They entered the briefing room and he assumed they were the last to arrive but, as he turned to close the door, he saw DI Marks striding along the corridor towards them.

  ‘Thanks,’ he grunted to Goodhew, who held the door as he marched in. Goodhew clicked the door shut and would have remained standing, but Marks nodded him towards the chairs. ‘Gary, sit. It’s time you got out of the habit of being last in and first out.’

  His colleagues Kincaide, Gully, Clark, Young and Charles were all seated, but Kincaide sat closest to the front, with his chair angled slightly away from the other five. Goodhew dropped into the chair next to Aaron Clark, who tutted a quiet reprimand.

  DI Marks folded back the cover sheet of the flip chart to reveal the first page, where ‘25/3/11 p.m. – 26/3/11 p. m.’ was inscribed in red ink. ‘As far as we’ve ascertained, then, Kaye Whiting disappeared sometime between 8 p.m. on Friday 25 March and the evening of Saturday 26th, when she failed to turn up at a family birthday gathering.’

  Kincaide already fidgeted in his chair, and started speaking as soon as Marks paused. ‘That’s if her sister’s boyfriend Carl Watkins is telling us the truth. He’s the one who supposedly saw her at 8 p.m. on Friday, sir.’

  ‘Quite so, Kincaide. The previous sighting to that one, was by a work colleague, Doreen Kennedy, who dropped her off at her home at six-twenty. Any comments so far?’ He scribbled a blue question mark above the ‘8 p. m.’, circled it, and drew an arrow from the circle to one side – where he now wrote ‘6.20 p. m.’.

  He looked around the group and rubbed the end of his nose a couple of times with his knuckle, before continuing.

  ‘She was reported missing by her mother, and we have no other sightings to go on. Her entire domestic situation appears to have been in order and—’

  Kincaide raised his hand this time. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Kincaide?’

  ‘I’ve just interviewed her uncle, Andrew Burrows, who also missed the family get-together. Didn’t feel well he says, but seems rather an antisocial type, sir.’ Despite facing away from the others, his voice was louder and more demanding than Marks’.

  Marks fidgeted with his nose once more. ‘Michael …’ he paused and made a conscious effort to keep the sarcasm from his voice. ‘I suspect every family has a relation who’s no party animal, so—’

  Kincaide butted in again. ‘But this was for his own mother, sir.’

  Marks rattled the flip chart as he tore off the top sheet. ‘I too didn’t go to one of my mother’s birthday bashes, but it wasn’t because I was busy abducting my niece!’

  Marks scowled, aware he’d made a few people smirk. ‘But don’t drop that thought, Kincaide. Stranger things happen.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Kincaide nodded.

  On the second sheet, Marks now wrote three headings: ‘Own Choice’, ‘Accident’ and ‘Crime’.

  ‘While we cannot discount the possibility that she’s met with an accident, we do know that she is not in any of the nearby hospitals or morgues, and we should therefore discount this avenue at the current time.’ He drew a line through the word ‘Accident’.

  ‘Clark is keeping tabs on everything from her bank account and credit cards through to her store cards and even her Boots Advantage Card, and there has been absolutely no activity recorded on any of them. This, coupled with the now national publicity we’ve generated for this case, leads me to conclude that we are reasonable in discounting the idea that she’s decided to flit off for a long weekend without telling anyone.’ He drew a line through the heading ‘Own Choice’.

  ‘Which leaves us with “Crime”. It may seem like an overly simplistic route to that conclusion, but I want you to be absolutely clear that it’s the only option we’re looking into right now. This is also a good moment to remind you all that you do not speak to the press, and when I eventually do, I will be stressing the hope that we will find her alive.’ He stopped for long enough to direct a studied look at each of them in turn. ‘We all know the reality of the situation, but we will keep the public interest for far longer if they believe they are helping in a race to save someone’s life, rather than just a body search.’

  Goodhew glanced round. There was no one in the room who hadn’t been exposed to this logic in the past. Marks drew two more of his arrows, this time from the word ‘Crime’, and in green pen.

  Marks added a title beside each arrowhead: ‘By stranger’ and ‘By person(s) known to K.W.’. He then circled the latter. ‘Until we have further information to the contrary, I want us to look more closely at her family and friends.’

  Goodhew’s gaze strayed outside. We’re not helping her at all by sitting in here, he thought.

  Marks glared at him. ‘Goodhew!’ he said with a sharp hiss.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Are you with us? Good. Please sum up for me, then.’

  Goodhew nodded, taking the opportunity to close the briefing swiftly. So in summary: We have a missing girl and no clues. We need to pinpoint her movements after the last sighting, and pick up on any friends that may have information.

  “‘Was she meeting someone?”

  “‘Did she have a date?”

  “‘Where was she when she was abducted?”’

  When Goodhew had almost finished, he could see that Marks was also ready to wrap it up, so he added, ‘And one more thing. Can I suggest that we push to have at least one other photograph of her circulated nationally? And a televised press conference, perhaps?’

  ‘Thank you, Goodhew. The media details are already in hand, but the alternative photograph is a good suggestion. This room will become the incident room for the course of this investigation, so I want you to move anything you may need in here straight away.’

  When finally they dispersed, Goodhew was the first through the door. Marks caught up with him in the corridor. ‘Do you suffer from some kind of claustrophobia, Goodhew?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Goodhew kept walking.

  ‘Briefings may well bore you, Goodhew, but if you have one of the vital pieces of information and a colleague holds another, it’s a briefing like this that can make it all come together. I see you’re going to visit Kaye’s colleague, Doreen Kennedy?’

  ‘I don’t want to be late.’

  Marks paused at the top of the stairs. ‘Clark’s already seen her.’

  Goodhew stopped and jiggled the loose handrail. ‘She’s had time to think, so she might remember something else.’ He started to back down the stairs. ‘You know I wouldn’t go to see her if I didn’t think it could be important.’

  ‘That’s why I’m not stopping you,’ Marks replied grimly, and turned back towards his office. ‘Just use your time wisely, Gary, and …’

  ‘Keep you informed?’

  Marks nodded and entered his office, where he took a Rennie from his drawer and washed it down with the dregs of coffee from a plastic cup. ‘Don’t add to my stress, Gary-bloody-Goodhew.�
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  CHAPTER 10

  TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2011

  PC Sue Gully sat alone in the incident room. As she held her pen over the page, ready to write, she could hear the caller’s deep breathing, and traffic surging past faintly in the background.

  Gully knew the caller might hang up if she spoke, but then she figured they might hang up if she didn’t. ‘My name is PC Sue Gully and you can speak to me in confidence.’

  The breathing stopped and she expected to hear a voice, but the only new sound was a short sniff.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, keeping her voice relaxed and even.

  The caller replied, ‘Yes,’ in a stifled whisper.

  Gully scribbled ‘Female. Twenties?’ on the page, and waited as the woman fell silent again.

  Through her earpiece she heard a heavy bell clanging at a slow beat, and pivoted in her seat to look out from her window and across the rooftops towards the protruding tower of the Great St Mary’s Church. She wrote ‘Phone boxes – Market Hill?’

  She imagined the woman huddled in the call box, with her back to the door, hiding her face so no one could see her crying. Gully heard the woman’s breathing become steady and knew she was about to speak.

  ‘I have some information about the disappearance of Kaye Whiting. I don’t want to give my name.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Gully encouraged.

  The line clicked and to Gully’s surprise the woman hung up.

  Gully dropped the receiver back on to its rest and circled the notes on the paper with three big rings. ‘How odd,’ she murmured. She tore the sheet from its pad and folded it in half. She stood it, like a greetings card, at the back of her desk.

  Several calls and fifteen minutes later, Gully took another call. There were no traffic noises, clock chimes or sounds of breathing, but in an instant she knew that she was connected to the same person.

  ‘I have information about Kaye Whiting.’ The voice was now monotone and bereft of the distress that she’d heard so clearly the first time. ‘You’re WPC Gully, aren’t you?’