by Cara Hunter
‘So where the bloody hell is he? He’s got her, hasn’t he – he’s abducted her –’
‘There is absolutely nothing to suggest that. Mr Blake was at a business meeting in Reading this morning. We’ve confirmed with the company concerned that he did, in fact, attend that meeting, and we have two officers on their way there right now to speak to him.’
She can hear the woman’s ragged breathing, can imagine the pain in her chest, the rawness in her throat.
‘Mrs Blake – Fiona – I know this is easy for me to say, but please do try to stay calm. When Sasha gets back she’s going to need you. She’ll need you to be strong.’
Fiona takes a deep breath. ‘OK. But you’ll call me? As soon as you’ve spoken to Jonathan?’
‘Of course. Of course I will.’
* * *
Even though the Dexter Masterson reception is crowded, Gislingham and Everett don’t need to ask the woman on the desk to point out Jonathan Blake. The man is on his feet and in their faces before the revolving door has even closed behind them.
‘I’ve been sat here over three hours. What the hell’s all this about?’
Gis glances round, and steers Blake to an empty sofa in the far corner. He’s wearing a slim-cut grey suit, a white shirt and a pale silk tie, along with just a hint of stubble. Trying a bit too hard, aren’t you, mate, thinks Gislingham, who, like Karen Bonnett, has seen this type before.
‘Let’s just sit down, shall we, Mr Blake? Shall I get you a glass of water?’
‘I don’t need a bloody glass of water. I want to know what’s going on. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be told by a client that you need to stay in their building because the police want to talk to you?’
‘Sorry about that, Mr Blake,’ says Gislingham, who doesn’t look sorry at all. ‘I can have a word with them if you like.’
‘No thanks. You’ve done quite enough damage already.’
Gis takes a deep breath. ‘It’s about your daughter, Mr Blake. I’m afraid she’s gone missing.’
Blake gapes at him. ‘What? Sasha’s gone missing? When was this?’
‘Last night, around ten. She was last seen getting off a bus at the bottom of Windermere Avenue.’
‘Why the fuck wasn’t I told about this before?’
‘She wasn’t reported missing till this morning,’ says Everett. ‘And it’s taken since then to track you down.’
Blake has gone white. He’s staring at the floor now. The two officers exchange a glance and Everett raises an eyebrow.
‘Apparently Sasha was due to stay over at her friend’s last night,’ continues Gislingham. ‘But then she changed her mind. Her friends don’t know why. Do you know why, Mr Blake?’
He glances up at them briefly and then drops his gaze back to the floor.
‘Yes.’ He swallows. ‘She was meeting me.’
* * *
At the Marston Ferry Road, the search team is taking a breather in the allotment car park. Someone’s passing round a thermos of tea, and a couple of people are chewing chocolate bars, though without any particular sign of enjoyment. It’s been an arduous day, up to their ankles in mud half the time. Even the terrain seems against them, the wet clay sucking down their feet and sapping their energy. The Cherwell has burst its banks at several points and half of them are now wearing waders. There’s talk of getting divers in. Sergeant Barnetson looks up at the sky; the drizzle is getting heavier now. But they may just manage another hour or so as long as they get a move on.
‘OK,’ he announces, raising his voice above the wind, ‘let’s have one more push before we lose the light completely. It’s going to be even colder tonight, so if Sasha is out there injured somewhere, we need to find her.’
* * *
‘So you’re saying you texted Sasha at around 8.30 to say you’d finished your business dinner early.’
‘Right,’ says Blake. ‘She knew I was in Reading and I promised I’d try to get over and see her, so I sent her the text on the off-chance she was around.’
‘I see,’ says Gislingham. ‘When we spoke to her friends they told us that it was after getting that text that she changed her mind about staying over with Patsie.’
He looks flustered now. ‘Yeah, well –’
‘Yeah, well what, Mr Blake?’
‘I told her that if her mother thought she was with Patsie, she could come over and spend the night at my hotel. I said I’d pick her up along by the bus stop at 10.00.’
He looks from Gislingham to Everett and back again. ‘Look, it was nothing – you know – dodgy. She’s my daughter.’
‘Who you’ve barely seen since she was a toddler.’
‘What’s that got to do with it? I’m still her father – and I resent your bloody tone. I am not a paedophile.’
‘Where was she going to stay, at the hotel?’ asks Gislingham evenly. ‘Were you going to get her a separate room?’
Blake flushes. ‘No. It would have cost a fortune.’
‘So there was a spare bed in your room?’
‘No,’ he says sarcastically. ‘But amazingly enough there was an armchair. I was going to sleep in that.’
Everett sits back and folds her arms. ‘So what happened, then? She never did go to that hotel, did she?’
Blake takes a deep breath. ‘No. As I’m sure the staff will confirm.’
They sit there, staring at him, waiting. Come on, thinks Gislingham, spit it out.
‘Look,’ he says eventually. ‘Something came up, OK? One of the people I was at dinner with called me and suggested we have a nightcap. It was an important client – I couldn’t really say no.’
And I bet you didn’t try very hard, either, thinks Gislingham, who’s just had a large bet with himself about which sex this super-important client turns out to be.
‘So you texted Sasha again and blew her off?’ says Everett. ‘Because you had a better offer?’
Blake doesn’t dignify that with a response.
‘We can check with your phone company,’ continues Ev. ‘They’ll be able to confirm it, if you did.’
‘Then I suggest you do just that,’ Blake snaps, glaring at her. ‘And get off my back.’
‘What’s this client of yours called?’ asks Gis, pulling out his notebook. ‘Just for the record.’
Blake hesitates. ‘Amanda Forman. But I’d rather you didn’t bother her with any of this if that can be avoided.’
Yeah, right, thinks Gis, several thousand imaginary pounds richer.
‘And what time was your text to Sasha?’
Blake shrugs. ‘Amanda called around 9.45, so I must have texted Sasha just after that.’
But as Gis well knows, Sasha’s phone was already off by then – she’d never have received it. Did she get off that bus at Cherwell Drive, in the dark, on her own, to wait for a father who was never going to show?
There’s a silence. Blake looks agitated and uneasy but Gislingham doesn’t doubt he’s telling the truth. He’s just terrified about his other half finding out what he was really up to. That’s what’s got him so jumpy. Not his nineteen-hours-missing daughter.
‘I’m afraid we will have to speak to Amanda,’ Gis continues, injecting as much disdain into the name as he can get away with. ‘We’ll need her to corroborate what you’ve said. Perhaps you could give DC Everett her details.’
You’re really bricking it now, aren’t you, he thinks, looking at Blake’s face as he writes down the number. His hand is shaking. Then Gislingham gets to his feet and Everett does the same.
‘But don’t worry, sir, we won’t tell the missus. Unless, of course, we have no choice.’
* * *
Adam Fawley
4 April 2018
17.32
‘So where are we, Sergeant?’
It’s 5.30, in the incident room. Twitter is alive with rumours of a missing girl and I’m going to be in front of a TV camera in half an hour so I’d quite like to have something I could actually say.<
br />
Gis looks up. He has a list, which is a good sign. But he’s frowning, which isn’t. ‘We haven’t had any luck tracking down Sasha’s boyfriend.’
He glances at Baxter. ‘We don’t have her phone, of course, which is making things a lot harder, and we haven’t managed to crack the password on the laptop, but we’ve only had it a couple of hours –’
‘Still nothing on social media?’
‘Nope,’ says Baxter. ‘Sod all.’
I turn to Everett. ‘What about Ashley Brotherton?’
Ev shakes her head. ‘We did check but nothing doing. Seems he cut his hand quite badly at work yesterday and was sat in the A&E department at the John Rad until 10.00 last night waiting to get it stitched.’
I frown; he still seems like a pretty good bet to me. ‘Has the hospital confirmed that?’
‘Not yet, sir, but we’ve asked for the CCTV from their car park. Apparently the site foreman had to take him in, but they went in Brotherton’s van so we should be able to find it on the footage if he’s telling the truth. But I think we’ll find he is.’
She has one of those I told you so looks on her face now which prickles my irritation. But perhaps I’m just imagining it.
‘And Jonathan Blake?’
‘Nothing doing,’ says Gis. ‘We spoke to the “client” he was having drinks with and she confirmed where he was. Though she was pretty pissed off to be dragged into all this so I can’t see Blake doing business with her any time soon –’
‘As opposed to doing the business,’ says Quinn with a smirk. ‘Which I reckon he’s already managed.’
‘And there’s nothing whatsoever to connect him to the assault on Faith,’ continues Gislingham, ignoring Quinn. ‘He’s got a solid alibi for that morning, for a start – he was on a client call in Swindon.’
I go up to the board and stand there, staring at it. At the pictures of the two girls. At the white space between the two that we still haven’t found anything to fill.
‘And we’re absolutely sure they don’t know each other?’ I ask, without turning round.
‘Yes, sir,’ replies Somer. ‘I asked Faith.’
I pick up the marker pen and draw a circle slowly around Faith’s picture. And then another, around Sasha’s. And in the centre, where they overlap, I put a question mark. Then I step back and snap the top back on the pen.
‘You don’t think Sasha’s with her boyfriend, do you?’ says Somer heavily.
‘I hope she is. I hope they’re having wild irresponsible teenage sex and haven’t yet managed to come up for air. But we have to assume the worst. We always have to assume the worst. Unless and until.’
* * *
THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT
The Old Bailey
London EC4M 7EH
BEFORE:
THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEALEY
R E G I N A
v.
GAVIN FRANCIS PARRIE
* * *
MR. R. BARNES Q.C. and MISS S. GREY
appeared on behalf of the prosecution.
MRS. B. JENKINS Q.C. and MR. T. CUTHBERT
appeared on behalf of the defendant.
* * *
Tuesday, 9th November, 1999
[Day 18]
ADAM FAWLEY, sworn
Examined by MR. BARNES
Q. Name and rank please?
A. Detective Sergeant 0877 Fawley, Thames Valley Police.
Q. I believe you were the officer who questioned Ms. Sheldon after the attempted assault on 4th September 1998?
A. Yes I was.
Q. You were already working on the Roadside Rapist case?
MRS. JENKINS: My Lord –
MR. BARNES: I will anticipate an objection from the defence, my Lord. DS Fawley, were you already working to apprehend the sexual predator whom the media had by then nicknamed the ‘Roadside Rapist’?
A. Yes. The attack on Ms. Sheldon was the third such crime.
Q. But you were in no doubt that this attack was the work of the same man?
A. No doubt at all. The MO was the same – the plastic bag, the cable ties. It was all of a piece.
Q. But no DNA was discovered, I believe?
A. No. We believe the perpetrator was very careful not to leave biological trace.
Q. And how would he do that?
A. By wearing gloves, for example, and using a condom. We also believe he put down plastic sheeting when he abducted two of the victims in his brother’s van, to avoid the transfer of DNA from his victims on to the vehicle.
Q. Because no DNA from either of the women was ever identified in the said van?
A. No. Only that of Mr. Parrie himself, his brother, and two colleagues who had worked with the latter on previous work projects. All three were categorically ruled out as potential suspects.
Q. To return to Ms. Sheldon – was she able to identify Mr. Parrie?
A. Not visually, no. She never saw her assailant’s face.
Q. What about the van?
A. Again, she didn’t see it. He placed the plastic bag over her face from behind.
Q. But she was able to identify him in another way, was she not? The identification which eventually led to his arrest?
A. Yes. She was.
* * *
Adam Fawley
4 April 2018
18.27
Fiona Blake handles the TV appeal remarkably well. I’ve done more of these things than any police officer should ever have to, but I can’t remember anyone dealing with it so steadily. Somer had warned me, as we drove over to Windermere Avenue, that there was a danger even asking her to do it might push Fiona over the edge, and I knew what she was getting at: for some people, in this situation, that’s the moment the truth hits home. That their wife or child or friend or parent isn’t just lost or confused or out of touch; they’re gone, and they may never be coming back. But it wasn’t like that with Fiona Blake. To say she took it calmly doesn’t do her justice; she took it for what it is: a chance to ask the world for her daughter back. And for an hour this afternoon we sat there, she and I, going through what she should say, what I was going to say, and how to cope with the press, and she listened and asked questions, dry-eyed, but grey.
And she’s still the same now, at the Kidlington media centre, in front of the lights and the cameras and the crush of bodies. She’s spoken clearly, and looked people in the eye. No evasive gestures, no glancing away, none of the involuntary signs our bodies betray us with. I remember the last time I sat here appealing for a missing child, and the instinctive unease I felt with every move the Mason family made. But not now. And when I spot Bryan Gow halfway down the room, all he does is nod: This woman is telling the truth. As if I didn’t know that already.
And now it’s my turn.
‘If anyone has any information at all about Sasha or where she might be, please contact us as a matter of urgency. Either at St Aldate’s police station, on the phone number we gave earlier, or through the Thames Valley Police social media feeds. You can also contact us anonymously through Crimestoppers.’ I pause and turn to the photo of Sasha on the screen behind me. The one her mother chose. The two of them, laughing in the sun.
‘And to repeat, Sasha is only fifteen. She’s very much loved and her mother is desperate to have her home.’
I look one more time round the room and sit back in my chair.
A man halfway down raises his hand. ‘Paddy Neville, Reading Chronicle. Is there anything to suggest this was an abduction?’
‘We aren’t in a position to rule out anything at this stage, but at present we have no actual evidence to suggest that.’
‘Have there been other recent incidents of this type, Inspector?’ Another journalist. Bearded, glasses, one of those knitted ties. I don’t recognize him. And he doesn’t give his name.
‘No.’
‘Are you talking just about Thames Valley or more widely?’
I fix his gaze. ‘There are none that I’m aware of.’
The other hacks start to look round at him; there’s a stirring, a sense that there may be more to this than meets the eye. More than we’re letting on. And there’s nothing the hacks love more than a police cover-up. I can hear the murmurs rising: ‘What incident?’ ‘Do you know what he’s talking about?’ And judging by their faces, a couple of the locals are pretty pissed off that an out-of-towner has scooped them; the BBC Oxford bloke for starters. At the other end of the dais, Harrison has started jiggling his leg up and down; I can feel it through the floorboards. Though thankfully the press can’t see that behind the drapes and the large sign saying THAMES VALLEY POLICE: REDUCING CRIME, DISORDER AND FEAR. Something tells me I may not be doing very well on that last one.
‘Inspector Fawley?’ says the man as the noise in the room intensifies. ‘Was there or was there not an incident involving a young woman on Monday April 1st?’
‘There was an incident, yes. But the young woman sustained no significant harm.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ asks a woman in the front row. ‘No significant harm – what sort of mealy-mouthed crap is that?’
And she’s right. Some are born bullshitters; the rest of us just have bullshit thrust upon us.
‘We have no evidence indicating a link –’
Knitted Tie pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘Don’t you mean, no evidence yet?’
Harrison’s leg-jiggling intensifies.
Knitted Tie checks back through his notes, but that’s just grandstanding; he knows it and I know it.
‘According to my sources, the victim of the attack on April 1st lives less than a mile from Sasha Blake.’ He looks up at me. ‘Now clearly I’m just a rank amateur when it comes to investigative policing, but that looks suspiciously like a link to me.’
There’s some laughter at that. But it’s the hard, dry kind. The mood in the room has changed and I can feel Fiona Blake’s eyes on me. She’s wondering why we didn’t tell her about this other girl, why we didn’t do something to stop it happening again –
Knitted Tie is still looking at me. The room is growing silent.
‘But perhaps I’ve got it wrong,’ he says. ‘You tell me, Inspector – after all, this is your patch, not mine.’