It was made of red silk. Tom tipped the camisole top onto the floor. It was a slinky sexy item and out of place in a little girl’s room. There was no mistaking it as women’s lingerie of the seductive kind.
‘What size would you say this was?’ he asked.
Ruby tipped her head on one side. ‘I’d guess a ten.’
‘You think it would fit Alice?’
‘I think she’s a couple of sizes bigger than that.’
‘That’s what I thought, and Natalie must be larger too.’
Ruby could see Tom blushing. Given how women were always so attracted to him it was odd Tom was embarrassed. He found it hard to meet her eyes. Using a gloved hand, Tom tipped the camisole into an evidence bag.
‘You think it’s important?’ she asked.
‘Everything is important. It might be nothing and it might be something. Who does it belong to? And what is it doing here? Why did Emily hide it?’
They moved into Lisa’s bedroom. Lisa’s room was full of cuddly toys. A bunch of them were on the bed and others were arranged on a long shelf. Some of the animals had secret compartments and zippered pouches only they didn’t find anything of interest tucked inside.
‘It was Lisa’s teddy bear which the intruder slashed,’ Ruby said. ‘She would have found it very disturbing. Children this age believe their toys are alive.’
‘Really? So the abductor killed the teddy?’
‘Mutilated it more like and I’m not joking. Lisa is four, so part of her knows it’s not true it’s alive except there’s another part of her which believes it is. A child’s imagination is one of their driving forces. And he didn’t only kill the bear, he slashed its stomach open. Since Alice told us Lisa brought it to her grandparents, it’s likely one of her favourites.’
‘Right. That sounds serious.’
‘And it was in the middle of the night when dreams can get mixed up with reality, which would have made it worse. It would have been terrifying for her.’
‘Got it. You think there might have been something hidden inside?’
‘Either that or, like Grant thought, he did it deliberately to frighten them.’
They didn’t find anything more of interest and Ruby noticed how Tom was careful to put things back as they had found them.
‘The parents will want to come here,’ he explained, ‘especially the mother, and I don’t want her to feel it’s been disturbed, that wouldn’t be right. It’s going to be a place of comfort for the parents.’
Underneath his professional veneer Tom really was a surprisingly sensitive soul. It made Ruby like him even more. Come on, Silver, say something. She bit her lip but her words dried up. If you like him let him know. Aren’t you ever going to give the poor guy a hint?
‘What’s up?’ Tom asked.
‘Oh nothing, I was thinking about the camisole,’ she lied. ‘Should we show it to the parents?’
‘Not yet. We need to check with Grant and it will be up to the boss.’
An ear-splitting scream cut through the air. Ruby’s knees threatened to buckle and every hair on her arms stood on end. It was Alice. Deep in her gut Ruby knew it was the sound a mother makes when they find their child is–
Tom sprinted for the stairs and Ruby clutched the furniture and then followed behind. Oh God, please no, don’t let the children be–
Alice was on the lounge floor curled up in a ball.
‘What’s happened?’ Tom demanded.
Jack was trying to prise something from Alice’s hands and the more he tried, the more she screamed.
‘Get off her,’ Joan said, ‘leave her alone.’
Jack didn’t.
‘Please stop, sir,’ Tom said and he took Jack’s arm.
Jack seemed to come to his senses and Ruby was horrified to see he was in tears. Alice stopped screaming.
The constable who was usually on duty at the front door explained. ‘I’m sorry, detective. I was opening the post in front of the parents like DCI Grant asked me to and then Mrs Glover started screaming.’
The constable was wearing protective gloves and she pointed to a brown envelope lying on the floor. ‘It was sent by special delivery.’
Ruby stared at the envelope. What had been inside? Was it a body part Alice was clutching? Please no. Ruby swallowed and gently put her hand on Alice’s back. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Glover.’ Except it wasn’t, was it.
‘Please step back, sir,’ Tom said. ‘Leave your wife alone.’
Tom had to drag Jack away and Ruby got down on the carpet and spoke close to Alice’s ear.
‘Please Alice. We need to know what you got in the mail. Can you show me? I’m not going to take it away from you I promise.’
Alice’s reaction had been instinctive and was beyond reasoning with. Ruby waited and slowly, Alice uncurled. Ruby was frightened in case it was blood or flesh. She held her breath as Alice opened her hand. She seemed to be clutching a piece of material. It was pale pink with pink fairies on it.
‘Oh God it’s Lisa’s pyjamas,’ Joan said.
Alice was breathing heavily and staring at the people around her as if they were her enemies.
‘I’m not going to take it from you. We’re here to help,’ Ruby said. ‘Please can you show me?’
Reluctantly Alice opened her hands to reveal more of the material. It didn’t look like a whole pyjama. Rather, someone had hacked off a leg. It was terribly difficult for the mother to let go of it and Ruby understood why. It was as if Alice was clutching her own child. Ruby held out an open evidence bag and when Alice finally blinked and the crisis ebbed, she seemed to sag. With a shaking hand she dropped the pyjama in the bag. Ruby passed it to Tom.
‘Thank you, Alice,’ Ruby said. The pyjama leg did not seem to have blood on it.
‘You’re certain this is from Lisa?’ Tom asked.
Alice nodded and she started moaning. Joan hugged her daughter as Alice rocked backwards and forwards and they all understood the question no one could answer for her – are my children dead?
12
On his way back from Brighton, Grant got the news about the pyjama leg. Forensics would be examining every millimetre of it and of the envelope and the team would be tracking the delivery back to where and who it was sent from. For sure, the abductor would have been clever and covered their tracks but they might get lucky. Meanwhile, he wanted to speak to Alice Glover. The poor woman, he felt for her.
Grant helped Alice walk to the hothouse. She was in bad shape. Grant cleared his throat. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve got results on the pyjama.’
Alice let her head loll back on the chair and she stared at him with lifeless eyes. ‘Have you found my babies? Are they dead?’
Her hair was a mess. He suspected she had not bothered to remove her make-up nor shower since the abduction, neither of which were surprising. And now, after the pyjama, the poor woman was a wreck.
‘Don’t give up hope, Alice. Stay with me on this one – I need your help.’
She gave the briefest of nods.
‘A few queries have come up which I need to run by you and some of them might sound a bit odd except please bear with me. First of all, I understand your father didn’t spend much time with you when you were a child. When Ronnie got attached to Emily and Lisa it must have felt strange.’
‘So what if it did? I wasn’t jealous if that’s what you mean.’
‘As far as I understand it, when Ronnie’s will is enacted you’ll own a third of Hardman Construction.’
‘It’s meaningless. I can’t sell or do anything without the agreement of the other directors. And Dad is in charge of everything.’ Alice’s voice trailed off. ‘Or he was.’
‘I’ve a couple of more delicate questions,’ Grant said. ‘Please don’t read more into this than there is only I understand there were a couple of incidents when Lisa was injured?’
Grant had checked the records and as Sylvie told him, an ambulance had been called on two occasions. Once, when Lisa had alm
ost drowned in the bath, and the second time, when she had been injured falling onto a cactus in the hothouse.
Alice sat up. ‘Did Jack tell you,’ she hissed. ‘The bastard.’
‘What happened?’ Grant asked.
‘They were accidents. I don’t remember because I wasn’t feeling well. The doctor had given me some tablets.’ Alice wafted her hand in the air.
Grant already knew the details. After Lisa’s birth, Alice had suffered from post-natal depression and her doctor had prescribed medication.
‘You were on anti-depressants,’ Grant said. ‘They affect memory and recall and you told the doctor you had a memory blank.’
‘Exactly. I just remember finding her… it was all a blur.’
Grant consulted his notebook. ‘On your statement you said Lisa slipped under the water during bath time and you found her unresponsive. She was revived by paramedics.’
‘I only left her for a few seconds! When I came back, she’d gone under and I panicked.’
‘And she was twelve months old at the time.’
‘I know it was too young to leave a child on her own but I’m sure I only left the room for a second, I swear it.’
‘And the second incident was when Lisa had inch-long cactus spines embedded in her thigh after falling in the hothouse. The doctors removed seven spikes. She was eighteen months old and it was a serious injury.’
‘I didn’t even know she’d gone in there! Jack blamed me, which wasn’t fair. He’s always blaming me for everything but where was he! Why was it only my fault!’
‘It says in the paramedic’s records you were the one supervising the children that afternoon.’
‘Jack lied. He was home too.’
‘I believe it was Jack who heard Lisa scream and he called the ambulance,’ Grant said. ‘Jack told the social worker at the hospital he thought you weren’t fit to look after Lisa. He later changed his mind although he insisted on employing an au pair.’
‘What a fucking joke! Can’t you see how Jack is trying to blame me for everything? And the au pair thing was his idea, sure, except it wasn’t for me it was so he could ogle young girls and have them come half naked into our kitchen and give him an eyeful. Have you any idea what it’s like having them live here? They wear practically nothing and parade around like they own the place and Jack encourages it behind my back. The au pairs aren’t for me they’re for him!’
Alice was shouting. Grant nodded and kept his voice calm. She really was close to the edge.
‘I understand.’ He took a drink of water. ‘Can you tell me about your uncle, Philip Hardman, and his son, Harry. I heard they’ve been asking you for money.’
‘More lies. Jack’s always hated Uncle Phil and you shouldn’t listen to a word Jack says.’
‘Have Philip Hardman or his son ever asked you for funds?’
‘I knew it. Jack’s such a shit stirrer. Uncle Phil and Harry have never asked me for money not one penny. When I was younger, and I went on trips out with Uncle Phil and cousin Harry, it was Phil who paid for everything. He spent time with me, which as you’ve so rightly said my dad never did. It was thanks to Phil I did normal things like other kids – learn to ride a bike, go to the park, go to the cinema. That’s worth more than money. You know, when I was little, sometimes I used to pretend Uncle Phil was my dad – how sad is that? And I did it because my own father was never there.’ She was shouting again. ‘Once at a school concert, Phil came and I told my friends he was my father, because my own father was too busy to turn up even when I was singing my first solo. Do you know how that felt?’
Grant could only imagine how Ronnie had hurt Alice.
She angrily yanked her hair back from her face. ‘Yes, and I don’t care how cheesy it sounds. Of course I put in a good word for Phil and for Harry when they tried to get financial backing from my tight-arsed father, why shouldn’t I? And you know what? If they ever asked me for money I’d give it to them if I could.’
Her voice had gone up so much Alice was practically shrieking. ‘Jack hates them. Why? Because they like me. Because they look after me. So don’t believe a fucking word my lying husband tells you!’
13
Ruby had her own office at the police station. It was on the second floor, with no window and space for a desk and a chair and nothing much else. Visitors had to squeeze around the door to get in. Detective Chief Superintendent Fox had told Ruby she’d move her to a more appropriate space once one became available, if it ever did. Oddly enough, DCS Fox had taken a liking to Ruby. Why was this strange? Because Fox, pretty much across the board, took a dislike to most people. Perhaps Fox made an exception because Ruby had found the breakthrough on the serial killer case, or improved the station’s conviction rates? Well, Ruby thought, it didn’t get me any favours with the room.
Still, Ruby wasn’t complaining. She loved having her own space. It was fitted with wall-to-wall whiteboards where she scribbled coded thoughts. Ruby gathered her files, squeezed around the door and headed for the team briefing.
As usual, Grant had managed to wrangle one of the best incident rooms. It was larger and positioned at the end of the corridor so less noisy. McGowan was already waiting.
‘Not again,’ McGowan said rudely. ‘I was hoping we got rid of you.’
Unfortunately, McGowan wasn’t joking. Ruby had done nothing to start the fight between them, except of course to exist, she thought wryly. Though she’d be damned if she bowed to bullying from him. It wasn’t her fault McGowan was a traditional, insecure, son-of-a-.
She plonked her files on a desk. ‘DCI Grant has asked for my input which means you’ll have to put up with it. Get used to it because I’m here to stay.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘I’ve earned my place. Anyone would think you felt threatened.’
The exchange stopped as Grant and Tom walked in. Grant swiftly took in her face and McGowan’s.
‘I won’t tolerate tension. You both got that?’ Grant said. ‘We’re focused on one thing and one thing only and that’s Emily and Lisa. Everything else gets left at the door. Understood?’
‘Yes, guv,’ McGowan said.
‘Everything all right, Ruby?’ Grant asked.
‘Fine, sir,’ she said, as she connected her laptop to the system.
Besides, she could fight her own battles. When she first arrived it hadn’t been like that but these days she didn’t need McGowan’s approval to exist.
Grant had caught the tone of the exchange. Goddam it, if McGowan made this into an issue, he would have to tackle it but really, now was not the time. He hoped McGowan was professional enough to be able to focus on the task and if he wasn’t, well, no one was indispensable.
‘We’re twelve hours into it so throw out your ideas and questions. We need to take this to the next stage.’
Ruby sent her slides to the big screen. They detailed the movements of the children. Who, what and when were mapped out – preschool every weekday morning, a dance lesson for Lisa on Tuesdays, a riding lesson for Emily on Thursdays, a birthday party Emily had been to the previous Saturday, an unexpected trip to the supermarket and so on.
‘A team of detective constables has been assigned to speak with everyone the children have been in contact with,’ Grant said. ‘Did you see any suspicious patterns? Or did the parents mention anything we need to flag as a priority?’
‘No, it was all routine stuff – no new faces or changes in schedule.’
‘There’s the red camisole we found in Emily’s room and there’s three new persons of interest – Phil Hardman, who is Ronnie’s brother, Harry Hardman who is Phil’s son and so Ronnie’s nephew, and the man accused of embezzlement at Hardman Construction, Daniel Pearson,’ Delaney said.
Grant wrote the names at the top of the board. ‘Good work. Diane will join us soon. We weren’t lucky with the tyre marks outside the Hardmans’ property. As for the forensics, the lab results have come back and the handprint is Emily’s blood group. It�
�s possible the abductor has the same blood group so it’s not definitive she’s the one injured. We won’t get the DNA result for another twelve hours.’
‘That’s bad news,’ Delaney said.
Grant slung his jacket over a chair and went to the front.
‘What about the pyjama, sir?’ Ruby asked.
They all looked at him and Grant understood the unspoken question.
‘We’re assuming the children are alive. There’s no evidence to contradict it.’
‘You were going in hard on the questioning of Alice and Jack Glover,’ Ruby said. ‘What was the reason, sir?’
‘Not sure yet. It’s why I wanted you and Delaney at the house. In case.’ Grant chose not to elaborate, because he had nothing concrete to add and until he did he’d be keeping his suspicions about the parents to himself. ‘McGowan, can you give everyone an update on the Badawi family?’
‘I’ve checked out the cleaner and her husband. They allowed me to search their apartment and there were no signs of Lisa and Emily having been there. Mr Badawi is short and broad. Joan Hardman described the abductor as normal height and weight.’
‘What about their alibis?’ Grant asked.
‘I couldn’t get confirmation. Like most people, the Badawis were asleep. One of the downstairs neighbours came back from a night shift at two and there were no lights on at the Badawi’s place and he told me he didn’t see or hear any movements before he went to bed around three. All the other neighbours were in bed.’
Grant wrote Halina Badawi’s name on the board.
‘Also,’ McGowan said, ‘the Badawis don’t drive and there was only one abductor and he was a driver. As for the back door key – the Badawis have two daughters and the oldest might have a connection with the house keys. I’ve interviews planned with both daughters and I’ll be checking out their movements.’
‘Keep on it until you can rule them out or you can rule them in,’ Grant said. ‘Next, I met with the ex-au pair. Sylvie Delacourt also has no alibi. She’s angry because Alice Glover accused her of having an affair with Jack. Is that sufficient motive to kidnap two children?’ Grant put a red question mark at the end of Sylvie’s name. ‘I don’t think so.’
Deadly Lies Page 7