It was Turner’s voice oozing out of the siren. Across the road, a front window opened and a woman looked over, also listening. The councillor had installed or commandeered a public address system to speak to his people. Bennet was surprised for all of half a second.
‘…there’s talk about this new infection becoming very large and very deadly, but I don’t think we need to worry. Also in America, it’s National Hug Day, so let’s adopt it. If you’re out and about and get a chance…’
When the announcement was over, Bennet felt his already low mood sink a little further. He’d had good times here, but they were gone forever. He wondered why he’d even detoured here. It was no longer Lorraine’s house, and he wasn’t the same person he’d been back when he used to visit. His home was miles away and it was time to head back there.
20
Bennet’s phone rang as he was approaching the Panorama. Unknown number, so probably not Lorraine. Still, he cut a sharp turn into the Panorama’s car park and answered with urgency. But it was a male voice.
‘Former Detective Sergeant Ford,’ it said.
It was the former detective Hooper had mentioned, once part of the investigation into the disappearance of Sally Jenkins.
‘I hear some people are making a documentary. For the ten-year anniversary of a missing girl, Sally Jenkins. Up in the Peak District. As you probably know, I was part of the investigating team, and I’d like to help.’
For about half a second, Bennet didn’t care to speak to the guy. But then he realised he’d spoken to the mother of the missing girl and a man who’d put himself centre of the investigation, and he barely knew a thing about the events of March 6, 2010. He was intrigued and to learn everything all he had to do was hold an electronic device against his ear for a few minutes.
‘Thanks for your call, Mr Ford. Anything you can tell me would be great.’
‘Happy to. Do you know if they pay? And will I be interviewed for the film?’
Bennet sensed the guy might open up more if he thought he’d get some glamour and cash. ‘Could be. I’ll pass your information and number on to them, then we’ll see. But I need to know what you know. Start with an overview of the case. Everything you remember.’
‘Sally Jenkins, ten years old…’
21
Sally Jenkins had been at a birthday party at a place called the Winding Wheel, in Chesterfield, about twelve miles away. The party was due to end at six thirty, but Sally wanted to leave at half five. She’d gone with a friend and that girl’s mother, Kate, and they dropped her off. But not quite at home. Sally had exited the car at the end of Arton Place because her friend lived closer to the centre of the village; it was a short walk down the cul-de-sac, across the green, where children often played, and onto Grodes Place. It was a journey Sally had made myriad times without problem.
‘Nobody saw Sally on Arton Place or crossing the green, but she never arrived home,’ former detective Ford said. ‘She was dropped off at 6.05, and a dog walker on the land saw nothing and no one at around 6.45. So we believe she was abducted or ran away in that forty-minute period. Our information is that no other children were at the park.
‘Sally’s mother, Anika, hadn’t known that her daughter had left the party early, because Sally had said she wanted to surprise her, and so the friend’s mother, Kate, hadn’t informed her. When Sally hadn’t shown up by about half seven, Anika called the police. Their response was rapid and within half an hour officers had invaded Lampton’s streets, rapping doors and searching. By midnight, all manner of nooks and crannies had been examined and all Sally’s friends and neighbours spoken to. As darkness rolled around the next evening, it was determined Sally wasn’t in the village and the search boundaries moved outwards to include every home, farm and other building within a two-mile ring around Lampton. Roadblocks were installed to stop and question drivers. Nothing. The search widened.’
‘What about the friend who dropped her off?’ Bennet asked, transferring his phone to the other ear. ‘Why didn’t the mother or father take her?’
‘I was getting to that. The party was hosted by someone Sally’s friend’s mother, Kate Harper, knew. Sally’s parents didn’t have an invite. But she offered to take Sally along.’
‘CCTV of any of the journey?’
‘Yes, I was getting to that too. CCTV outside the Tesco captured Kate Harper’s car entering Lampton from the north, and it was slowing down, suggesting it did indeed stop at the end of Arton Place. Kate’s car was on a neighbour’s camera arriving home eight minutes later, just her and her daughter inside. No Sally. Unfortunately, there was only one resident on Arton Place with a camera, but it covered their garden and didn’t show the street.
‘Nothing led us to think Kate Harper had anything to do with Sally’s disappearance; we accepted that she did, as claimed, drop Sally off at the end of Arton Place. We spoke to everyone present at the Winding Wheel party, but again we got nothing. The days and weeks rolled by.’
‘Mr Ford, I know you want to tell this story, but for the sake of the documentary, I’d like to hear it by asking questions. Can we do that?’
‘Sure, yeah, go ahead. As long as I get to say my version for the interview.’
‘I just want to confirm that your team investigated the chance that Sally ran away? And did you suspect a local or a stranger? If she was taken from the green, that seems like a user-friendly zone that outsiders wouldn’t know about.’
‘Exactly. As soon as we got the call, our thoughts were on transients, Lampton being a tourist spot and all. We considered that the abductor could be passing through, or had left. We sought information on visitors who might have cut short a holiday, and anyone who seemed suspicious in the days before or after she went missing. But one look at that green area told us we probably had a local perpetrator, and that was our main focus.’
‘I get the impression that the people of Lampton wouldn’t take too kindly to being suspected. Any problem there?’
‘Hell yes. Sorry, I won’t swear on the video. Anyway, we got that same feeling, so at first we tried to keep the theory of a local perpetrator quiet and work on it on the sly. We sent undercover officers into the pubs and shops, just to gather gossip.’
‘Let me guess. Nobody really talked about it.’
‘That’s right. Christ, you’d have thought a dog had gone missing instead. Sorry, I didn’t mean to swear again. Anyway, when this tactic failed to get us anything worthwhile, we got a bit bolder. We sent out questionnaires to the womenfolk, hoping they’d feel guilty if they knew anything. We started visiting men of possible interest at home. Again, nobody stood out. Then, we upped the boldness. We announced our intention to hold a mass DNA screening of all males in Lampton at the village hall. We let out a rumour that there was DNA found at the playpark. It was a lie though. I mean, we weren’t even sure that was a crime scene because we found nothing there to indicate a snatch. So it was a ploy to see if it prompted anyone to suddenly leave the area, or to try to avoid the DNA test.’
‘Any takers? Or non-takers, I mean?’
‘It failed. We commandeered the village hall to do it, but the people called their own meeting at the same time. Outside, one of the local big shots–’
‘One Councillor Richard Turner, by any chance?’
‘That’s him. He rallied his people, condemning us for daring to accuse one of their own. He said his people would know if someone amongst them did this, and he would know if his people knew.’
‘Hive mind,’ Bennet said.
‘Exactly. So, in front of a bunch of police and reporters, he proved his people had had nothing to do with Sally’s disappearance. Ready for this? He asked his mass of people if any of them had taken her. And they all shouted no. And that was that. He gave us a smug look, as if to say, there you go. You believe that?’
Bennet did. Now it made sense why Turner had earlier mocked Bennet’s claim that a child abductor would not admit to being so. Did this guy think his people
worshipped him? He was just a councillor living in a tiny village.
Ford continued: ‘So now the people insisted the police should focus on the perpetrator being a transient, some tourist passing through. They have a word for visitors…’
‘Loper.’
‘That’s it. They were dead certain that if Sally hadn’t run away, she’d been taken by a Loper. Needless to say, many of the local men refused to give their DNA because of this. Nothing we could do without a serious hue and cry, and it was a trick because we had no DNA, prints, anything. So our killer, if there is one and he was one of the Lampton locals, got a lucky break.’
‘So Turner and his people were a hindrance? He told me the police did a shoddy job. Sounds like they were shoddy only because they didn’t follow his directions.’
‘He was an obstacle for sure, but he didn’t see it that way. When we were quite insistent that we needed to search the village, he organised searches. He got people to check their barns, sheds, to look in all the nooks and crannies. It took about an hour, tops, and then he came to my boss to declare it done. As in, look, we catered to your whims, and now we’ve proved it wasn’t one of us, and now can you please stop thinking she’s still here.’
‘Richard Turner to a T. Did his people really just accept what he said? Nobody thought it could be one of them?’
‘No, some people were worried. Kids were kept indoors. We would see that at night if we were about. Kids used to play in the evening all the time. Not after Sally went missing. But could you get a parent to admit they were keeping their kids close because there might be a wacko in the village? Good luck with that. His people knew not to spread gossip. But, you know, time favoured Turner. How often do we see weirdos like this snatch one kid and never do it again?’
A fair point. The kind of man who’d abduct a child, and possibly kill them, didn’t satiate those urges forever with a single affair. ‘I understand his people worshipping his every word. But not the police. You didn’t listen to him, I assume.’
‘Of course not. We couldn’t just take the townsfolk at their word that they’d performed a thorough search. I mean, if Sally’s abductor was in the village, he was hardly going to bring her out and say, hey, look what I found in my shed. But saying such a thing wouldn’t keep the people sweet, so we went with trying to convince them that our searchers would do a better job. This meant we didn’t just jump at their insistence we go search other towns and villages, and you want to know their response to that?’
‘Mass protest in the streets?’
‘Not far off. Turner complained to the media. They already had the story and they had people in the village, and he spoke to them. He accused the police of laziness and not accepting help from the locals.’
‘Because you wouldn’t effectively let him dictate how you did your job?’
‘Yes. And you know how it is with the media, detective. They give you heart-shaped eyes that turn to daggers.’
Different police teams had other terms to describe this, but Bennet knew what the former detective was saying. At the start of a serious investigation, the police were given space and time to work the clues, gather the evidence, and arrest a suspect. In that honeymoon period, they got left alone to work. But a couple of days or a week or so in, the tone would change. The public and the media would get impatient and demand answers, and the police would come under fire, accused of failure. A man with Turner’s clout could stoke this fire into an inferno with ease.
‘I know what you mean, Mr Ford. Turner’s a man who craves complete control and if you don’t heed his counsel, you’re wrong. Did it ever seem as if he was trying to deflect attention away from himself? Did you look into him as a suspect?’
‘Of course. We were interested in him briefly because Sally used to spend time on his land, riding horses. But he had a cast-iron alibi. He was at a function some miles away until close to ten o’clock. Thirty people there. They were all cleared. We tracked his phone. It went from the function to his home and stayed there all night. He was very consoling and helpful to the mother. I think he paid for the funeral. But he also had an affair with her within weeks of the disappearance. Apparently he bought her a dress for press conferences, but she wore it out to dinner with him about ten days after, so who knows his real reason.’
‘The dress, yes, but I didn’t know about the affair. And you looked into the family? I know the parents drifted apart soon after.’
‘I was about to say that. Yes, yes, we checked out all the family too. Always the first port of call. Only a mother and father anywhere close. They alibied each other because they were at home, but Turner was on their side and wouldn’t let a bad word be said. The husband soon left her though. And the thing with the husband wasn’t about drifting apart. A couple of years before, he’d been investigated by the Child Protection Service – a neighbour claimed to have witnessed him physically abusing Sally one day.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘It was. But the CPS investigation found nothing. However, we still had to question him, and we had dogs search their house for human remains. Again, nothing, but shit sticks. Some believed him to be dodgy – why didn’t he pick his own daughter up from the club? The old abuse charge and our early interest in him and all the gossiping became too much. So he left the area. But that just raised more eyebrows, although it soon became the local opinion that he wasn’t a likely suspect in the abduction. The police never had him as a person of interest, but he was never wholeheartedly ruled out, either. Apparently he’s doing okay now, new family, new job, new life. Tabs were kept on him for a couple of years after, but nothing in his behaviour since he went to Germany raised any flags.’
‘You keep using the word “abduction”. Was this not upgraded to a murder enquiry?’
‘We upgraded the scope of the investigation within a couple of days of Sally’s disappearance, and treated it much like a homicide enquiry. Less emphasis on where she might have gone, more on who might have snatched and killed her. But we were basically told by higher-ups not to make it official. So it stayed a missing person’s enquiry. Months later we were still getting reports of sightings of her all over the country, and we had to follow them up even though we doubted they were credible. Anytime anyone talked about murder, there was a complaint, so today Sally Jenkins is still a missing person.’
‘Turner again?’
‘Everyone. But he runs things behind the scenes. You and I and know Sally is likely dead, but saying it out loud would get a lashing. So I wouldn’t go around talking about murder. That film crew should be careful, too, or everyone will clam up.’
‘I’ve learned that. And I think the film crew knew they’d get the cold shoulder. It looks like they came in on the quiet to do their shooting, possibly under the guise of simple tourists, and didn’t try to ask too many questions. Not sure they even spoke to people about that missing girl.’
‘From the very outset, the village didn’t welcome the publicity. The police and journalists were all over the village, but all for the wrong reasons. Journalists took all the hotels for the first few days, but even the extra money coming into the village annoyed the locals. Their cars were parked all over the place. But even after a few days, when we didn’t find a body or arrest anyone and the story lost momentum and the reporters left, the village went through a change. The dark cloud over the village forced people out. Local businessmen with the ability to up and move did so. Some business enterprises cancelled. People sold homes and shops and left. Nobody wanted to be associated with the new infamy of the village. Tourists would come, but only to ask about what happened to Sally. Like the journalists, they all got told to sling their hooks. Basically, the village still has the wool pulled over its eyes about the whole Sally thing. I think they’d rather forget she ever existed.’
22
Bennet wrapped up the call when his phone beeped with another incoming. The screen said it was from a DC called Banks. One of his low-level workers, good at ta
lking her way into homes to get information. It must be about the Pond Street case, although it puzzled him as to why a DC had gone straight to him, not to one of his sergeants or DI Todd.
When he answered, Banks was apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I messed up. I’ve got Joe with me.’
It turned out that DI Todd had had an important call while en route to collect Joe from school, and had passed the task on to DC Banks. Banks got told Bennet was in Lampton. Banks then told Joe. Unfortunately, Joe had already looked his mother up on Facebook, now that he had her real name, and knew about Lampton. And now the kid thought his dad was bringing his mother back. Bennet was nervous when Joe came on the phone.
‘Did you find Mum yet?’
He sounded elated, which made the bad news harder to impart. ‘Not yet, Joe. I think I just missed her. Look, I don’t think I can find her today. I won’t be coming home with her tonight. Are you okay with that?’
‘Where did she go? Back to Birmingham? Are you going there next?’
‘Not tonight, Joe. She might not be there. She’s got a job to do and she might be moving around. It might be for a few days. You won’t see her today.’
Silence. Bennet could almost sense Joe’s heart breaking. ‘Patricia wants to take me to the cinema tonight and she’ll make me dinner.’
Joe had changed the subject. Good. ‘That’s nice. You should do that. It’ll be fun.’
‘So you don’t need to come home yet. You can carry on searching and go to Birmingham and other places. You can take all night. I can stay with Patricia again. Will you do that? Will you carry on looking? I won’t stay up for you. I can wait till tomorrow. Please?’
‘Okay.’
Joe whooped with glee. Had Bennet just made a bad choice? His promise to continue the search for Joe’s mother might cause more pain in the long run, but he’d rather let his boy down face to face, where he had more control.
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