by Ford, P. F.
‘Yeah, I suppose.’
Slater beamed, delighted that his friend was back. Sure, they weren’t partners any more, but at least he’d have Norman to bounce ideas off of, and laugh and joke with. He wasn’t sure he shared the same sense of humour as his new partner. Goodnews was shifting awkwardly, and Slater realised she probably felt a bit like a gooseberry. He grinned at her.
‘Does this mean you’re not going to keep on moaning about having to nursemaid a civilian?’ she asked, looking pointedly at him.
‘You could have told me.’
‘I didn’t know for sure until last night. That’s where I was yesterday evening. I had to use all of my persuasive powers to get him to agree to take on the job.’
‘This is just a trial, don’t forget,’ said Norman. ‘I haven’t said I’m staying.’
‘I asked Norman to help us out because of the nature of this case.’
‘You didn’t give me much option, did you? How could I refuse to help when there’s an eight-year-old girl missing? It was emotional blackmail.’
‘Aye, it was,’ admitted Goodnews, ‘but you weren’t exactly hard to win over.’
‘Like I said. How could I refuse when there’s a little girl missing?’
They all looked little uncomfortable as they mulled this over. It was Norman who broke the mood.
‘I didn’t know how many people would be in here, so I got a trayful of coffees.’ He looked around the room, empty but for the three of them and two telephonists at the far end. ‘I see I overdid it. I didn’t get any cakes for you guys, though. I’m sorry about that.’
Slater surveyed the plateful of cakes on the tray.
‘What’s all that lot, then?’
‘That’s my supply to get me through the morning.’
‘All that sugar is hardly going to help you lose weight,’ said Goodnews.
‘But it keeps me alert,’ said Norman. ‘Anyhow, you didn’t say I had to get fit to be a civilian sitting behind a computer, did you?’
Goodnews shook her head before taking a coffee from the tray and looking at Slater.
‘Can you get Norman up to speed and get him started? I need to start preparing for a press conference.’
‘Sure, no problem.’
Goodnews nodded her approval and made her way from the room.
‘I thought you’d done a runner, or something,’ said Slater to Norman. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.’
‘I’m sorry about that. I had to get away for a few days to try and sort my head out, you know? I thought it might help me to make my mind up about things.’
‘What things?’
‘Like whether I wanted to take this job, or just walk away from the police force altogether.’
‘I thought you didn’t know about the job until last night,’ said Slater.
‘Oh, no, she suggested it weeks ago, around about the time she suggested I was going to have to lose about five stone if I wanted to come back to work. She tracked me down yesterday, and then last night she put me on the spot. I couldn’t say no to a case like this, could I?’
‘Tracked you down?’ said Slater. ‘Why where have you been?’
‘I actually spent a few days with Vinnie the Geek. You remember him?’
Slater remembered Vinnie. He had helped them, unofficially, on the very first case they had worked together. Slater had found Vinnie difficult, but there was no doubt he was also something of a genius when it came to computers.
‘Yeah, I remember,’ he said. ‘Why d’you go and see him?’
‘Training,’ said Norman. ‘I think I’m okay with this computer stuff, but I felt if I was going to take this job my skills needed to be raised a level or two.’
‘And, have they been?’
Norman held out his hands and flexed his fingers.
‘Just show me the keyboard and let me get to work,’ he said. ‘I’m a bona fide computer wizard now.’
‘Okay,’ said Slater. ‘Let’s bring you up to speed and get you settled at your computer.’ He led Norman across the room to a computer set up at a desk, especially for him. He pulled out the chair and handed Norman a file. ‘This is everything we have so far. It’s not much but it is what it is. The only thing you don’t have is a copy of the artist’s impression of a possible suspect. I’ll get Naomi to bring you one up.’
‘Naomi?’ said Norman. ‘Who’s Naomi?’
‘DC Naomi Darling,’ said Slater. ‘She’s my new partner. She’s alright. You’ll meet her at some stage today.’
‘Another woman? Are they making a takeover bid? That’s going to be a big change for you to handle, isn’t it?’
‘They’ve already taken over, mate. And I think I’ve handled it pretty well so far.’
‘So all that advice I’ve been giving you about change, and being positive, has done some good, then?’
Slater smiled.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘The great thing about having you here is I don’t have to tell you what to do.’
‘Exactly,’ said Norman. ‘So why don’t you let me get into this and get started. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than teach me to suck eggs, right?’
Slater knew Norman was right. He was fussing around here where he didn’t need to. He looked at the clock. It was gone eleven and still the search had found nothing.
‘Right, I’ll leave you to it.’ He turned to go, and then turned back. ‘It’s good to have you back, Norm,’ he said.
‘Yeah, thanks,’ said Norman. ‘But don’t go thinking I’m a permanent fixture. This is just a trial run. I’m not sure I can hack being tied to a desk all the time.’
And so the morning wore on and became afternoon. Minute by minute, hour by hour, waiting, waiting, and still no news. But, eventually, just before 2pm, Slater’s phone rang. After he ended the call, he hung his head, ran his hands across his face, and then cursed loudly. When he turned to the room, his face was ashen.
‘A dog walker has found a body over at Wild Boar Woods,’ he announced. ‘First officers on the scene say it’s a little girl, probably about eight years old.’
It was the news everyone had been dreading.
‘Damnit.’ Goodnews looked angry. ‘Poor little thing.’
Darling had gone a strange colour, and she looked as if she might burst into tears any minute.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Slater.
‘I never thought I’d feel so bad.’ Her voice was quiet and almost childlike. ‘When you do the training they tell you to stay detached, but how can you? It’s not possible, is it?’
‘No, you can’t stay detached. None of us can. You just have to find a way of dealing with it as best you can.’
‘What on earth are we going to tell her mother?’
‘We have to tell her the truth,’ said Goodnews. ‘It’s all we can do. We just have to make sure we get there before the press.’
‘Right,’ said Slater, his professionalism kicking in. ‘So our missing child case has just become a murder case. How do you want to do this, Boss?’
Everyone dreaded having to notify a relative of a loved one’s death. If that loved one was a child it was a hundred times worse.
‘This is your case, and I want you to run it. I’m just here to help where I can. Why don’t I go and see the mother while you get down there and check out the body? Just let me know if there’s any doubt about it being Chrissy. We’ll get her mother to do a formal ID later.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Slater, understanding his new boss was doing him an enormous favour by relieving him of the part of his job he really hated. She nodded her head. Slater indicated Darling with his eyes, and she took the hint.
‘How do you feel about coming with me, Naomi?’ she asked.
The younger officer still looked shell-shocked.
‘If you don’t feel up to it-’
‘No, I’m with you, Boss. I won’t deny I’d rather avoid it, but it’s part of the job, isn’t it? And it�
��s a part that I’ve not had to face before. I suppose we’ve all got to start somewhere.’
Slater was impressed. It looked as if Goodnews was right. Darling might look like a mere slip of a girl, but there was obviously a lot more to her than first met the eye.
‘Good,’ said Goodnews. ‘Come on then, let’s go. I find it gets harder the more time you have to think about it.’
She looked at the big clock on the wall, and turned to Slater.
‘I’ll get Biddeford and Ashton to meet you down there. You know what to do. Get them organised and find out what you can. How about we meet back here around half five? We’ll get our heads together and see what we’ve got and where we go from there.’
‘Yeah, that should work for me,’ he said. ‘Unless there’s some sort of unforeseen complication.’
‘Does that include me?’ asked Norman from his desk, behind them. ‘I might have something by then, and it’ll help if I know where you need me to focus my attention.’
Slater looked at Goodnews. She nodded her head.
‘Yes, please, Norm,’ said Slater. ‘Another experienced head can only help, can’t it?’
‘Right. We’re gone,’ said Goodnews, and Darling followed her from the room.
‘She’s a good kid, that Naomi,’ said Norman, when they’d gone.
‘Yeah,’ said Slater. ‘I think you’re right.’
‘I was talking to her earlier. She said you gave her a hard time yesterday.’
Slater opened his mouth to object. He hadn’t given her a hard time, had he? From what he could remember, he had been the one on the receiving end.
‘Give her a chance,’ said Norman. ‘She might look like a little kid, but she’s one tough cookie, you know? She’s been through a lot in her short life, and she’s come out the other side with her head well and truly screwed on the right way.’
Slater felt irritated that Darling had confided in Norman, and that his friend had already got to know his new partner better than he knew her himself, but then that was Norman’s gift. He could spend just a few minutes with someone and he’d know everything about them.
It was approaching 6pm by the time the small team of Slater, Goodnews, Darling, Biddeford, Ashton, and Norman had gathered back in the incident room. The site where the body had been found was still being scrutinised by Ian Becks and his forensics team, but with the body removed from the site there was little anyone else could do until morning, so Goodnews had decided to send everyone else home. A good number of the search team had headed for the nearest pub, hoping a beer or two might lessen their disappointment.
The mood in the briefing room was sombre as Slater began.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I won’t pretend we have a lot to go on, because frankly we haven’t got much so far. Chrissy’s body was found in Wild Boar Woods, about two miles to the north of town. The preliminary findings seem to suggest Chrissy had just wandered off, curled up, and died.’
‘But how the hell did she get all the way out there?’ asked Darling.
‘And why would a seemingly intelligent kid just curl up and die like that?’ asked Biddeford. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought, at first,’ said Slater, ‘but then, when the pathologist arrived on the scene, that all changed. He’s suggesting she died somewhere else and was then taken to the site where we found her.’
‘It’s definitely not the case that she just wandered off, then?’ Goodnews’ cheeks were tinged with colour, and her voice was hard. She had obviously been affected by her meeting with Chrissy’s mother earlier.
‘The pathologist wouldn’t commit himself this early, of course,’ said Slater. ‘But, from what he was saying, I’d put my money on murder.’
‘Right, but that’s your gut talking. At this point, we can’t say for sure one way or the other.’
‘No, but the pathologist is going to do the PM in the early hours. He’s promised to come in and let us know his findings first thing tomorrow.’
‘What about suspects?’ asked Norman. ‘Have you eliminated the parents yet?’
‘Both parents are confirmed as being at work at the time Chrissy disappeared. Her mother’s story about being late leaving work is confirmed by her employer, who’s now suffering severe guilt that he didn’t let her leave on time. The father was at work, and so was his girlfriend.’
‘Could one of them have planned this?’
‘We don’t think so.’ Slater nodded to Darling.
‘I think it’s very unlikely,’ she said. ‘The girlfriend has the intelligence of a woodlouse, and the husband is such a self-centred nob he’s probably unaware he even has a daughter most of the time.’
‘What about this bloke who was seen at the school gates?’ asked Biddeford.
‘He’s a possibility,’ said Slater. ‘If only we can find someone who recognises him. The bloody CCTV that should have been monitoring the school gates wasn’t working, and so far none of the parents has recognised the artist’s impression we’ve got.’
‘What do we know about why the CCTV’s not working?’ asked Goodnews, ‘Maybe it was tampered with.’
‘We’ve got to check that out.’
‘There were a lot of kids absent today,’ said Biddeford. ‘So not every parent who might have seen that bloke has been shown the photo yet. We’re going to do the whole “have you seen this man” thing again tomorrow morning at the school gates.’
‘And I’m supposed to be doing another press conference in the morning, so I’ll have it on TV and in the press if we still don’t have a result,’ added Goodnews.
‘So that’s where we are,’ said Slater, grimly. ‘Or perhaps, that’s where we aren’t, would be more appropriate.’
A gloomy silence filled the room.
‘So, what? That’s it?’ asked Biddeford. ‘There must be something we can do tonight.’
‘Not really,’ said Slater. ‘Right now we’ve got sod all to go on. We’ll know a lot more in the morning, once the pathologist has done his thing, and forensics have done their thing. Then we can get cracking’
Biddeford didn’t look convinced.
‘Okay,’ said Goodnews. ‘I know it’s a frustrating situation, and none of us is happy about it, but that’s how it is, and we’ve just got to live with it. Yes, it would be great if we could rush out and find someone to arrest right this minute, but you all know my views on the effectiveness of headless chickens. DS Slater is right. There’s nothing we can do until we have something concrete to go on.’
She looked around the small group of faces.
‘We’ve all had a shitty day,’ she said. ‘My suggestion is we all go home, and come back tomorrow morning fresh and ready to go. We’ll know what we’re about by then.’
Chapter 5
As promised, Dr Eamon Murphy, the pathologist, had performed the post-mortem in the early hours, and when Slater arrived just before 7am that morning, he was waiting to deliver his preliminary findings.
‘You’re keen aren’t you?’ asked Slater. ‘When did you start doing PMs overnight?’
‘She was eight years old,’ said Murphy, looking distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I have a daughter that age. If there’s someone out there going after our kids, I want to know I’ve done everything I can to help you catch him. If that means working overnight then so be it.’
‘And is there someone out there? Is that what you’ve come to tell me?’
‘She definitely didn’t die where she was found. ‘And she didn’t just curl up and die either, or at least, not without some help.’
‘What are you telling me?’
‘She suffered a single blow to the back of her head, and then she was suffocated while she was unconscious, probably with a pillow, or something similar, over her face.’
‘What do you reckon? Some sort of pervert?’
‘There’s no sign of sexual assault, or any other physical violence,’ said Murphy. ‘She wouldn’t have known anything about what
was happening.’
Slater sighed.
‘That’s not much consolation, is it?’
‘No,’ said Murphy. ‘Of course not.’
‘Do you know what weapon was used?’
‘Not yet. It was definitely some sort of blunt instrument. We’re working on that as we speak.’
‘Anything else you can tell us?’
‘She was wearing a school uniform fleece, but there are some fibres on the sleeves that have been picked up from somewhere. I’m having them analysed this morning. That might tell us something about where she was before she died.’
Murphy’s shoulders slumped wearily.
‘Thanks, Eamon,’ said Slater. ‘I really appreciate you working overnight on this.’
‘Just make sure you catch whoever did this,’ said Murphy. ‘There are going to be a lot of terrified parents in Tinton until you do.’
‘I’ve just spoken to the pathologist,’ announced Slater, as he walked into the briefing room.
The same small gathering of Goodnews, Darling, Biddeford, Ashton, and Norman was waiting for him and, as one, their faces turned to him as he came in.
‘His initial findings indicate Chrissy suffered a blow to the back of the head, and was then suffocated while she was unconscious, before being dumped out in the woods. They’ve got some fibres that might tell us where she was before she was killed, or what sort of car was used to carry her out there.’
‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Biddeford.
‘Until we get some more from the pathologist or forensics, we need to focus on the mystery man who was hanging around outside the school,’ said Slater. ‘I think he’s our number one priority. We also need to be out and about showing Chrissy’s photo and asking if anyone saw her after school that day. Maybe someone led her away, or maybe she got into a car.’
‘According to the police database, there should be a CCTV camera on the front of the shop across the road from the school gates,’ said Norman. ‘It might be worth checking it out. You never know, we might get lucky and get a good look at Mr X.’
‘Good work, Norm,’ said Slater. He looked at Biddeford. ‘If you and Tony could check that out for us when you get down there this morning...’