What She Saw

by Diane Saxon

  The seriousness with which Sophie had taken the matter and the sensible manner in which she conducted herself with the support of her mother gave Jenna concern. This wasn't some hysterical teenager.

  Jenna placed her hand over the phone and drew it closer. ‘Sophie, I’m really grateful to you for coming in. I do take this very seriously. I need to ask you if we can take your phone as evidence.’ It was the only evidence of contact and although Jenna was asking out of politeness, the cold, hard truth of it was she was quite within her rights to seize the phone if Sophie refused.

  Eyes rounded with shock, Sophie turned to Trudy Maxwell. ‘Mum?’

  For the first time, Trudy moved, her mouth springing into a wide, false smile and Jenna understood the strength of will it took for the woman not to cry. ‘Of course. It’s not a problem. We’ll call at Tesco and buy you one of those burner phones.’

  Sophie rolled her heavily laden eyes as only a teenager could. ‘Mum, it’s not a burner phone, we’re not druggies.’

  Trudy glanced at her watch and pushed away from the table. ‘We’ll let you follow up your investigations.’ She offered her hand in a firm shake to both Jenna and Mason with Sophie following her cue. ‘We appreciate your time. Thank you.’

  As Sophie and Trudy made their way over the small bridge onto the car park, Jenna turned to Mason. ‘Get hold of our mobile SPOC and see what they can establish. We’ll need the forms filling in for RIPA.’ She didn’t need him circumnavigating the system of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, they needed to conduct an interception of communications through the single point of contact who would follow the lead through from start to finish tracking the results and keeping on top of the case so it didn’t get lost in the system.

  Jenna handed the phone to Mason, they still needed to adhere to the regulations. ‘Make it quick. DI Taylor can sign it off.’

  ‘It’s going to take a few hours to process.’

  As they made their way back upstairs to their offices, Jenna nodded, processes and the time they took were essential, and frustratingly beyond her control. ‘Sooner we can get the request in, the better.’

  Mason held the door into the corridor open to let her through, then kept abreast of her as she lengthened her stride.

  ‘You think Poppy is alive?’

  Jenna stopped at the door to the main office and turned. ‘I think we have one body short of a family set and we have evidence that someone, somewhere has accessed Poppy’s phone. We now need to know who and where.’

  37

  Tuesday 21 April 1025 hours

  ‘Sarge,’ the voice on the other end of the phone was a gruff whisper. ‘I’m not sure you’re going to believe this, but I have someone else asking for you in connection with Poppy Lawrence, concerned parents, Mr and Mrs Abbott. They say their son is missing.’

  She’d barely had time to park her bum on the seat at her desk, but at least she knew Mason was onto mobile SPOC and she could rely on him to keep that ball in the air for as long as it took.

  ‘Pop them in interview room three, if you would.’ The chairs would still be warm. ‘Offer them a drink. I’ll be there in a sec.’

  She left her jacket on the back of her chair, scooped up the pad and pen she’d only just put down and marched through the outer office, conscious that an entire day was about to disappear from under her and the workload was piling high. She needed to prioritise and delegate, but until she knew what this was about, prioritising and delegating would have to wait.

  ‘Ryan.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the exit door and smiled as he trotted to catch up with her. As they skimmed their way down the stairs, she turned to look at him. ‘We have some concerned parents. Apparently, their son is missing. I know nothing except there may be a connection with Poppy.’ They paused outside the interview room and she handed him her notepad, her pen. ‘You take the lead.’

  His eyes shot wide. ‘Me?’ He’d never taken the lead in her presence. He was more than capable and had done so on many occasions, just not with her observing.

  Tempted to laugh, she swung the door wide instead and introduced herself and Ryan to the anxious parents.

  As Ryan fiddled with the pen top for a moment to get his equilibrium, Jenna skimmed her gaze over Mr and Mrs Abbott. Middle-class, middle-aged.

  Mr Abbott wore the world-weary look of an accountant waiting for retirement. His shiny, excessively dry-cleaned suit hung limp from his shoulders as though he’d recently lost weight but not bothered to buy a new one. His tie lay flat but skewed to one side like an afterthought as he’d rushed out of the door.

  Mrs Abbott’s deep-set, dark brown eyes contained the sheer horror of someone who knew without a doubt the news was bad. Instinct. Premonition. Some people had it and the knowledge was already there. It was just a case of how long she could contain the truth from being confirmed. Her fingers trembled as she picked up the white plastic cup filled with water. She took a sip and placed it back down.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Abbott, I believe you have a concern regarding your son.’ Ryan scratched a note on the pad. The shortened version of the date. He raised his head and tilted it to one side with a clear invitation for them to talk.

  With a quick pull of pride at her young detective’s sympathetic, inviting approach, Jenna leaned back in her seat comfortable to let him continue.

  ‘He’s missing. Our son, Aiden.’ Mrs Abbott’s voice hitched and she sucked in a deep breath before she continued. ‘He hasn’t been home all weekend. And then we saw Trudy Maxwell and her daughter, umm, Sophie, outside just now and they said there’d been a fire. A fire at Poppy Lawrence’s house. And Aiden is missing.’

  Trying to keep up with the logic of the woman’s ramblings, Jenna blinked.

  As Mrs Abbott gushed, Mr Abbott reached out a hand and squeezed hers. ‘Now, Sharon, don’t panic. It’s fine.’ He turned helpless eyes on them. ‘She were okay until we saw the Maxwells. We’d not heard of the fire. We’ve been away for a long weekend visiting ’er mother.’ He gave a sideways jerk of his head to indicate his wife.

  ‘We should never have left him.’ Mrs Abbott turned her hand over in his.

  ‘Give over, we’ve left him before, he’s almost eighteen. There was nowt wrong with leaving him.’

  ‘Except now he’s missing.’ Her voice cracked and she raised trembling fingers to her mouth.

  ‘Not necessarily.’ In a desperate bid to keep his wife’s building hysteria under control, Mr Abbott appealed to Ryan. ‘He’s a good lad. He really is, but lately he’s been a typical teenager. Bloody terrible at communicating with us. Last we heard from him was umm, Saturday night, I think?’

  He looked to his wife for confirmation, and she gave a brisk nod, her jowls slack. She placed her hand over her mouth as a dull whine escaped her lips. An animal in pain.

  Jenna’s chest tightened and she stared down at her own hands, firmly gripping each other. She slipped them from the table and rested them in her lap.

  Ryan scratched a few notes, his ears turned a burnished red and Jenna felt his compassion for the couple. ‘When did you get back?’

  ‘Late last night. We didn’t want to disturb him, so we went straight to bed. Sneaked in like a pair of bloody thieves because he was supposed to be on a field trip today.’

  Mrs Abbott reached for the handbag she’d placed on the table and took out a phone. She dipped her fingers back inside and came out with a small packet of pocket tissues. With controlled slowness, she unfolded one and gave her nose a loud blow. ‘I got up early this morning to prepare his lunch. I always do if he’s on a school trip. He had a geography field trip to Aberystwyth. And besides, I wanted to see him before he went, just to see how his weekend had been. He’s a responsible boy. We trust him.’

  She wiped her nose again, and then dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘I went to check if he was up, but his bedroom was empty. His bed still made.’

  ‘He never makes his own bloody bed, it only needs the quilt
pulling straight, but he never does it. That’s how she knew.’ Clearly rattled, Mr Abbott squeezed his wife’s hand.

  Ryan let them run with their story, jotting down notes and lifting his head every so often to give them an encouraging nod. He had a good interview manner; if they wanted to pour it all out, as long as it was relevant, let them, otherwise pull them in, reel them back with relevant questions. He had no reason to yet.

  ‘Aye.’ Mr Abbott patted her hand again. ‘That’s when we realised, he’d not been there much, if at all.’

  ‘All the food was still in the fridge.’ A pained sob broke through as Mrs Abbott blinked away tears.

  Jenna narrowed her eyes, an uncomfortable warmth building in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘’E never leaves a scrap of food in fridge by the time we come home from work, never mind a few days away.’

  ‘We phoned the school, they said he hadn’t turned up yesterday. They never told us, but they don’t any more. He’s considered a young adult.’ She gave a little shrug of disdain. ‘Hardly an adult at that age.’

  ‘Aye, not when he’s still being financed and supported by us.’

  Mrs Abbott gave her husband a sharp elbow to the ribs. ‘Anyway, we thought we’d come here and ask.’ She drew in a long breath. ‘And then we met Trudy and Sophie. We asked if Sophie had seen him. And then she told us…’

  With a quick whip of interest, Jenna leaned in closer. ‘Told you what?’

  Mrs Abbott’s mouth trembled. ‘Told us that Aiden had been seeing young Poppy Lawrence. That he’d been over to their place for dinner on Saturday night because Poppy had told her mum we’d gone away, and he’d be alone.’

  38

  Tuesday 21 April 1130 hours

  Jenna pressed her fingers deep into her eye sockets while Ryan waited patiently on the other side of her desk, notepad and pen still in his hand.

  ‘Well, for fuck’s sake! It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, things just aren’t adding up.’ Voice muffled through her hands, she dropped them down to the desk and stared at her young DC and the older, more experienced one who’d drifted in behind him.

  Ryan and Mason, her stalwarts. Her team. Silent. Sideswiped just as she was.

  ‘We now have seven missing persons. Five bodies.’

  She pushed away from her desk to pace the small office. Think. Think.

  ‘What the hell happened in Kimble Hall on Saturday night?’ She turned, looked at the pair of them.

  ‘Could Poppy and Aiden be alive? Perhaps they were never at Kimble Hall that night?’

  It was a possibility. Ryan could have hit the nail on the head.

  ‘Two teenagers slipping off for a dirty weekend?’ Mason stepped out of her way as she circled around. ‘Too scared to come home when they hear of the fire.’

  She rubbed the back of her neck, did another short circuit of the room and then stopped to stare out of the window.

  Gut feeling. She never ignored it. Always backed it up with evidence. Proof. Her gut told her it wasn’t right.

  She swung around to face her two DCs. ‘You were both teenage boys once.’ She gave a little sneer in Ryan’s direction. He was barely beyond that now. ‘If your parents went away for a long weekend and you and your girlfriend wanted time alone, you wouldn’t disappear off, you’d stay and have rampant sex twenty-four hours a day in the comfort of your own home.’

  And that was exactly the point that didn’t jibe.

  Jenna strode over to her desk and thumped her forefinger on Ryan’s detailed notes. ‘Mr Abbott said Aiden hadn’t touched the food in the fridge and he normally wouldn’t leave a scrap by the time they got home from work, never mind after a whole long weekend.’ Hands on hips, Jenna turned to face them again. ‘Aiden and Poppy were never at Mr and Mrs Abbott’s house because according to Sophie, Olivia and Chanel, Poppy’s dad insisted they attend his party rather than go out with the girls. Otherwise, Poppy would have been with her girlfriends, probably with Aiden in tow, and then they would have sneaked off to his house. But they didn’t.’

  ‘So, what the bloody hell did happen?’

  Jenna raised her eyebrow at Mason. ‘That’s exactly what we’re going to find out as soon as you fast-track another request to mobile SPOC and get these phones triangulated so we can find them. Either the phones, the kids, or both.’

  39

  Tuesday 21 April 1300 hours

  Jenna finished off the last of her limp ham salad sandwich and brushed her fingers together to get rid of any crumbs from the white bread just as Mason opened the door.

  The barely contained excitement on his face gave her a quick kick of adrenaline. ‘What you got?’

  Mason towered over her desk, slapped down a sheet of paper and stabbed it with his forefinger. ‘SPOC. They’ve pinpointed Poppy’s phone.’

  ‘About time.’

  Jenna hit the command to lock the screen on her computer, pushed back from her desk and leapt to her feet. She swiped the jacket off the back of her chair and swept from the room with Mason in hot pursuit.

  Ever the observant, enthusiastic puppy, Ryan dashed over to join them as they sailed through the main office.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  She hadn’t yet had the opportunity to ask the question herself, she’d been leaving it until they were in the car, on their way.

  Tempted to tell Ryan to carry on with his paperwork, Jenna opened her mouth, but before she could reply Mason stopped her dead in her tracks. ‘The Crawfords’ farm.’

  Jenna swung around to face him as confusion rocked her. It didn’t gel with either the theory that the phone had been stolen or that Poppy was alive. It was too close to home. Which meant they were looking for a phone. A phone Poppy had most likely lost before the fire was even set.

  Disappointment gave her shoulders a weary slump. Dammit, she thought they were onto something. ‘Does it pinpoint where?’

  Mason gave a swift nod and showed her the sheet of paper with a sketchy printed map of the area. ‘Somewhere in the vicinity of here.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Mason.’ She studied the printout of the map. ‘Do you know how many outhouses that farm has?’

  He snapped her a grin. ‘We’re about to find out.’

  ‘What about Aiden’s phone?’

  With a shake of his head, Mason tucked the paperwork under his arm and swung open the door for her, while she fished the keys she’d already swiped out of her bag. ‘It’ll be a while longer. The request didn’t go in until a couple of hours after Poppy’s, but they have put a priority on it.’

  ‘Great.’

  40

  Tuesday 21 April 1335 hours

  Poppy’s stomach cramped with hunger. The Crawfords hadn’t been out for two days and all she had was a bar of chocolate and the last of her painkillers.

  Her side throbbed like a bitch.

  She was all out of tears and a well of anger circled in her stomach. This was shit. Shit!

  She couldn’t sit there any longer. She bloody well needed to move.

  But where? What was she supposed to do? She’d not dared to contact the girls. She’d started to, but she’d deleted what she’d written in a blind panic. What would they think?

  They’d all blame her.

  Darker than anger, a resentment curdled, building to throb inside her chest.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  She’d not raised a gun. Fired it. Daddy had done that, all by himself, and the more she’d thought it through, the more she came to the conclusion that Daddy had been about to kill her anyhow. As the fog cleared to leave her mind bright, she visualised the moment he came into the room, gun in hand.

  By that time, the twins were already dead. He’d not killed them after he killed Aiden and shot her, but before. She knew for a certainty that was the way it had happened.

  She snatched up her phone and jabbed her thumb against the power button. It took for bloody ever to load.

  41

  Tuesday 21 April 1340
hours

  Gordon Lawrence surged to his feet.

  He knew it.

  Knew if he watched long enough, she couldn’t resist using her phone again.

  She was, after all, his daughter. He knew her. He’d studied her. Like a rat in a laboratory.

  He poked his thick finger on the Find-a-Friend app and almost howled with frustration as the little cog whirled around while it narrowed in on Poppy’s location.

  ‘Come on. Come on.’

  A soft cough had him raising his head. Phil Hutchinson stood in the doorway. ‘I thought—’

  ‘I don’t care what you thought,’ he interrupted. ‘Fuck off and do your job.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Fuck. Off!’

  The man disappeared down the rathole he’d come from. Gordon couldn’t be arsed with that. The vague trundle of machinery reassured Gordon that the factory was back and functioning the way it should. Not that he cared. He should be dead. He was only alive because of his daughter. Stupid little bitch. It had been his intention from the start to kill them all so they never suffered once he was gone, no longer there to protect them. But she’d made him change his mind in a blinding turnaround he regretted.

  It no longer mattered. Numb, he wondered when it really ever had.

  The location narrowed down, and Gordon tilted his head, a lopsided grin winged up. ‘You have got to be kidding me. Those old cronies? How do you expect them to protect you?’

  With studied care, Gordon made his way over to the collection of firearms, smaller than he’d had for years, but elite, rare, precious.