Paper Girls

by Alex Smith

  “Smarties,” Kett said. “Crack for kids, right?”

  A disapproving frown appeared on her face, but only for a second. She looked at Moira, who was once again trying to scale Kett’s head like a climber on Everest.

  “No Mrs Kett?” she asked, thankfully not loud enough for Evie to hear.

  “I’ll be back very soon,” Kett said, ignoring the question. “Love you, beautiful girl.”

  “Love you, dad,” Evie shouted back, practically dragging the nursery worker after her. Kett waited until the door closed behind them before peeling Moira off his face and holding her out in front of him.

  “Two out of three ain’t bad,” he told her. “Let’s hope the Norwich team like babies.”

  The Norwich team hated babies.

  It hated them with a passion that made itself clear the moment Kett strolled through the station doors.

  “You’re kidding me,” the man roared. Fortunately, he wasn’t yelling at Moira, he was directing his fury at a young woman sitting in the reception area whose toddler was spread-eagled on the floor trying to punch a hole in the ceiling with the sheer power of its voice. “You do know this isn’t a creche, don’t you? You do know that this is a police station?”

  The woman—girl, really, she couldn’t have been much older than sixteen—flinched like the man had attacked her with a bat, almost in tears as she picked up the bawling kid. Kett felt himself bristle. Moira had settled a little, but she was still wriggling like a sackful of eels. He cursed himself for not bringing the buggy out of the car. Even now, after all these weeks, he still expected Billie to do it. He grabbed the baby, Billie grabbed the buggy. It was the way they’d always done it.

  The angry man made an exaggerated show of stepping around the mother and child, clutching a sheaf of papers to his chest like they had the next decade’s worth of lottery results on them. He was an unpleasant guy, that was clear from the start. Some people just gave off an instantly negative vibe, like there were magnets beneath their skin that repulsed everyone they met. It was something about the tight greying curls of hair, the untrimmed eyebrows and nose foliage, the crust that had formed in the corners of his eyes—not to mention his yellow nails. He was wearing a cheap, grey suit that was two sizes too big for him, a brown belt holding everything together around his skinny middle.

  There was something imposing about him too, though. He was in his late fifties and he was big, a few inches taller than Kett’s five eleven. He moved in a fast, lumbering gait that reminded Kett of a rhino. An angry rhino. Kett had dealt with men like him before, on both sides of the law, and he knew they should never be underestimated.

  There was a lanyard hanging from his neck, the ID card facing into his unironed shirt. That meant he was staff.

  “Another one,” the man growled as he approached Kett, practically snarling at Moira. “This is no place for a child, so do me a favour: if your baby doesn’t have to be here, get rid of her.”

  Kett stood firm, blocking the man’s path between the two rows of chairs. The reception of the Norwich station wasn’t busy—a handful of sad-looking folk spaced evenly across the seats and a young male sergeant at the window—but the tall man had caught everyone’s attention.

  “How about you lighten up a little,” Kett said, locking the dozen or so swear words he wanted to say behind his teeth. “They’re just kids. Believe me, they want to be here as much as the rest of us.”

  The man snorted, then started to push past. Kett didn’t budge, standing tall and wide, and the man jabbed a finger at him.

  “Believe me, son, I am in no mood to be tossed over.”

  “Tossed over?” Kett said, almost choking on the words. “I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean what you think—”

  “Sit down and wait your turn, unless you want me to take you back there and let you cool off.”

  Kett took a deep breath, wondering if he should just turn around and leave. He didn’t have to be here, he didn’t have to offer his help. If this was the kind of reception the Norwich team gave him then why the hell would he even bother?

  His mouth was open to say just that when he caught a glimpse of what was on the documents the man was holding: a grainy photocopy of a photograph of a young girl in her school uniform, gap-toothed and grinning. Kett recognised her instantly from the brief bit of research he’d done last night after he’d put his daughters to bed.

  Maisie Malone, one of the missing newspaper girls.

  “As a matter of fact,” Kett said. “I wouldn’t mind going in. I’ve got to speak with your Super.”

  The man frowned, the expression making his face even more unpleasant.

  “About her,” Kett elaborated, nodding at the paper. “My name is DCI Robert Kett, I’m with the Met. My Super, Bingo… uh, Barry Benson, asked me to stop by.”

  “He did, did he?” the man said, his mouth working like he was chewing tobacco. He wiped the white specks from his lips, looking Kett up and down then turning his attention to Moira.

  “Childcare,” Kett explained. “Lack of. We’ve only just moved up here.”

  “From London,” the man said, sneering his way around the word. Kett sighed, fairly sure of what he was about to hear next: fifty quid on the words big and shot coming out of his mouth.

  “Some kind of bigshot?” the man said. “Riding out to the sticks to solve the case us yokels can’t get our turnip heads around.”

  “Something like that,” Kett said, growing tired of the man’s attitude. “Are you going to take me to your Superintendent, or do you have to ask one of the desk sergeants for permission?”

  The man leaned in, those nose hairs almost close enough to tickle Kett’s lip.

  “I am the Super,” he said. “Superintendent Colin Clare. And I’m pretty sure we don’t need you, DCI Kett. Or your baby.”

  If Kett thought he could fit his foot inside his mouth, he might have given it a go. Instead, he took another deep breath, switching Moira to his left arm and holding out his right.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s start again.”

  For a second it looked like the man was about to push past him. Then Clare nodded, gripping Kett’s hand in his own huge, dry palm. He pumped twice like he was pouring himself an ale at the pub.

  “I should apologise,” he said, seeming to sag. “You’ve caught me at a bad time. Press conference about the missing girls.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Not now, but follow me there, it’s being held at the Malone place. I know who you are, DCI Kett, I know the cases you’re famous for. Maybe you can help.”

  Kett stood to one side to let the man pass.

  “And my daughter?” Kett called after him. Clare didn’t turn back, just shouted over his shoulder.

  “You can bring her, if you promise she won’t make any noise.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In the entire eighteen months and four days of her life, Moira Kett had never made as much noise as she was making right now.

  So much noise, in fact, that practically everyone on the street was staring at her.

  “Come on,” Kett coaxed. “Please, moo-moo, you’re knackered.”

  He glanced up at his audience, almost all of whom were reporters. Maybe thirty of them spanned the width of the residential street, some leaning against their news trucks, others fiddling with their microphones, more still snapping photographs of Kett on their phones and cameras. He thought about flashing them the bird but managed to restrain himself. Besides, it was hard to stick your middle finger up when your hands were full of a stone and a half of wriggling flesh.

  “No!” yelled Moira, her favourite word. “No! Shoes!”

  It was what she said when she wanted to walk, and she demonstrated this by booting Kett in the face with her mini-Kickers as he tried to clip her in to the buggy.

  “Goddam—” he started.

  “Here, try this.”

  The voice came from behind him, and suddenly there was a uniformed con
stable by his side. She was holding an old-fashioned Peeler’s police whistle and she blew a couple of quiet chirps before handing it to the baby. Moira settled instantly, her big eyes full of wonder as she investigated this strange, shiny new toy. Kett clipped her in before she could notice it was happening.

  “God, thank you,” he said, turning to the officer. She was in her early twenties maybe, although the coal-black pixie cut beneath her bowler hat and the sparkle in her eyes made her look even younger. She couldn’t have been on the force long, nobody looked that fresh after a year of policing—not even on the quiet streets of Norwich. “I honestly thought she was about to suplex me.”

  The woman frowned.

  “You’re probably too young for WWF,” he said. “Wrestling. Never mind.”

  “It’s WWE now,” she said with a smile. She held out her hand and he shook it. “I’m PC Kate Savage, happy to help.”

  “Savage?” Kett asked. “Nice.”

  “It does the job,” she replied. “Especially in interviews. ‘Get Savage in here!’ Tends to make the bad guys open up.”

  “I’ll bet. I’m DCI Kett. Robert.”

  “Local boy, then?” she asked, and it was Kett’s turn to frown. “Your name. Kett. It’s a Norfolk name through and through. There’s a road here, Kett’s Hill. It means Kite, I think, as in the bird of prey. And there’s Robert Kett, obviously. The other one. Rebel, fought some battles against the government.”

  “Sounds like an awesome guy,” said Kett.

  “Hanged from the castle,” Savage added.

  “Oh,” he said. “I vaguely remember it from school. Yeah, my folks were from here. My mum still lives in the county, although we haven’t spoken in a long, long time. Not since my dad passed, really. I grew up across town. Mile Cross.”

  “The Badlands,” Savage said, sucking air through her teeth.

  “It’s still rough?”

  “Not as bad as it was, but I wouldn’t want to go there alone in the middle of the night.”

  Moira was doing her best to blow the whistle, making little warbling farty noises with it and laughing her head off.

  “They still give you whistles around here?” Kett asked, one eyebrow raised. Savage nodded.

  “It’s how we communicate. I mean, they tried radios but they’re just too new-fangled for us country folk.”

  It took Kett a moment to appreciate the joke, and Savage’s smile grew even broader.

  “My granddad gave it to me,” she said. “He was on the force back in the day, it was his whistle. It brought him good luck, or so he claimed.”

  “It won’t bring you good luck when you try to get it back from her,” Kett said.

  “She can hang onto it. You’ve been seconded, right? To help find those girls?”

  “Well, not officially,” he started, but there was no time to explain as Superintendent Clare walked out of the front door of the Malone’s narrow terraced house, his brogues clomping down the path. He stood to one side and ushered out a tiny, hunched woman who, at first glance, looked about a thousand years old. It was only when she lifted her head to nod at the Super that Kett saw she was only in her thirties, her eyes red with old tears and her cheeks damp with new ones. Even if he hadn’t seen Maisie’s face in the woman’s own he would have known her as the missing girl’s mother. Nothing but grief can age you like that.

  They hadn’t even reached the gate before the crowd of reporters surged forwards, crashing against the kerb with a thunder of voices.

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “Are there any suspects in custody?”

  “Do you suspect that Maisie and Connie have been murdered?”

  As sensitive as always, Kett thought. Bastards.

  “Here we go,” said PC Savage, wading into the melee. “I’ll be back.”

  She joined the rank of uniformed constables, pushing the journalists back far enough that Colin Clare and Maisie’s mum could escape onto the pavement. Kett looked past them, seeing more people inside the house—Norfolk CID, he guessed.

  “Thank you,” said Clare, his voice loud enough to echo off the houses opposite and drown out the reporters. “Please, I understand that you are here to aid this investigation.” That was a pretty generous assessment, Kett thought. “But remember that this is a difficult time for Miss Malone and her family, and I would expect you to show her nothing but respect.”

  To Kett’s surprise, none of the reporters threw a question back. There was something authoritarian about Clare, he had the air of a headmaster who could quite easily cane you into submission.

  “I am Superintendent Colin Clare of the Norfolk Constabulary, and I need not remind you that this is an ongoing case, so I will not be able to answer many questions. Our job here today is to allow Miss Malone the opportunity to reach out to her daughter and call her home. Are we clear?”

  Again, just nods and murmurs. Compared to the London press, these guys were practically saints. The Super stood to one side and put his huge hand on the woman’s shoulder, guiding her forwards a couple of steps.

  “Miss Malone.”

  Maisie’s mother looked as brittle as glass, like she might shatter into fragments as soon as she opened her mouth. She stood there, hunched and bowed as if she carried the world on her shoulders, her hands clasped in front of her and her head angled up to the man beside her. He gave her a kind smile, nodding, and she turned to the reporters.

  “Maisie?” she started, her voice wobbling. Once again she looked at the Super and he gently squeezed her shoulder. It seemed to give her strength.

  “Maisie, I don’t know if you can hear me, if you’ll hear this. You never liked the news, did you?” She managed a sad little laugh that turned into a hacking cough and then a sob. “But I want you to know I love you, more than anything. I’m sorry I made you go out in the rain.” The noise she made was like a woman drowning. “I shouldn’t’ve done it. But I love you, and if… if you’re angry with me, if that’s why you’ve gone away, then please come home. I won’t be mad. I’m never mad. I love you.”

  Kett took a deep breath that caught in his throat. He looked at Moira, thinking about her, and Alice, and Evie, and wondering how he’d cope if one of them disappeared. If one of them was taken. Losing a wife was one thing—an awful thing—but losing a child was a million times worse.

  Miss Malone had unspun like a clockwork toy, and she fell quiet and still. Clare kept his hand on her shoulder as he addressed the reporters again.

  “I’ll take some questions,” he said. “Until I hear something I don’t like. Then we’re gone. So make them good. Alan.”

  He nodded at a middle-aged man in a tan suit, who lifted his iPhone.

  “Do you think the missing girls have been taken by the same man?” he asked.

  “We don’t know they were taken, and if they were, we don’t know whether it was a man, let alone the same man,” said Clare. “Sarah.”

  “There have been complaints for years now about the reduced number of uniformed police on the city’s streets,” said a young woman in jeans and a yellow blouse. “Are cuts to the police force making us all less safe?”

  “I’m not going to respond to that,” growled Clare. “Mainly because a child could answer that question. One more. Doug.”

  “Me?” asked a man at the front, pointing at himself. “I’m Jim.”

  “Doug, Jim, I don’t care, just ask your question.”

  “Um, okay, both girls worked for the same newsagent. Uh…” He checked a notepad. “Walker’s. Is David Walker a suspect?”

  “What part of on-go-ing in-vest-i-ga-tion is confusing for you? Last chance.”

  A woman at the back of the group raised her hand, almost jumping on the spot like she needed permission to go to the toilet. Clare grunted at her.

  “You say this isn’t necessarily an abduction,” the woman said. “But you’ve drafted in help from the Met. That’s Robert Kett.”

  She pointed across the street, right at Kett
, and every pair of eyes swung his way.

  “He found the Miller twins when they were kidnapped, two years ago. And he caught Albert Shipton after he murdered that Khan boy in 2015. If he’s here, surely this is more than a missing persons case, it must be abduction or murder.”

  A look of disgust creased Clare’s face into a mask.

  “Stupid,” he said, seeming to direct his anger at both the reporter and at Kett. “That’s your lot. Let’s try this again tomorrow.”

  With that, he steered Miss Malone in a tight circle and guided her back to the house. The reporters broke out in another ugly chorus of questions but they knew they’d had their lot, the ones at the back already drifting away.

  Kett looked down at Moira, almost breaking into a cheer when he noticed that she’d gone to sleep during the press conference—her clammy hands holding the whistle to her lips. He jiggled the buggy a little, just to be sure.

  “Told you it was good luck,” said PC Savage as she walked up to him. She gently prized the whistle loose and tucked it into her pocket.

  “That last question didn’t feel lucky,” he said. “Maybe I should have kept my distance.”

  “They were going to find out sooner or later,” she said. “The major incident team wants to speak with you inside.”

  Kett sighed, wondering how he’d be able to keep the baby quiet in such a small space. Savage seemed to read his mind.

  “Let me, sir,” she said.

  “Oh, really?” Kett grinned. “That would be great, if you don’t mind?”

  “It’s no problem,” she said. “As much as I’d love to see Clare chew you out for bringing a baby to a crime scene, I think you’ve had enough of a bollocking for one day. I’ll keep her out of the sun.”

  Kett kissed Moira on the head before pulling the hood over the buggy. Then he made his way into the Malone house hoping that Savage was right, and that his bollocking was good and done with.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Do you think you could have made that a little easier for them?”