by Cara Hunter
Ross had turned to look at me, but suddenly he’s not meeting my gaze. There’s something going on here – something he’s not telling me.
I let the silence lengthen. Then take a step closer. ‘What is it, Derek?’
He glances at me, then away. His face is flushed.
‘What else is William Harper hiding?’
* * *
* * *
At the John Radcliffe hospital, DC Verity Everett has been waiting for over two hours. Most people hate hospitals, but she trained as a nurse before switching to the police, and places like this never unnerve her. She actually finds the atmosphere rather comforting – even in an emergency, people here know what they’re supposed to do, where they’re supposed to be. The white coats, the white noise, it’s all strangely soothing. And what with the slightly overheated corridor and how badly she’s been sleeping lately, it’s no surprise she’s struggling to stay awake, even on the hard plastic chair. In fact, she must have been nodding because the touch on her arm lurches her head backwards and she jolts upright.
‘DC Everett?’
She opens her eyes. The doctor’s face is kind. Concerned.
‘Are you OK?’
She shakes herself awake. Her neck is aching.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Sorry. Must have dozed off for a minute.’
The doctor smiles. He’s very good-looking. Think Idris Elba with a stethoscope.
‘Rather more than a minute, I think. But there was no reason to disturb you.’
‘How is she?’
‘I don’t have much news, I’m afraid. As the paramedics suspected, she’s badly dehydrated and very undernourished. I don’t think there’s anything else seriously wrong, but she became very distressed earlier, so we decided not to do a full examination just yet. It might do more harm than good at this stage. We sedated her, so she can sleep.’
Everett gets up stiffly from the plastic chair and walks the few steps to the window giving on to the girl’s room. She feels about a hundred years old. In the room beyond the glass, the girl is lying still on the bed, her long dark hair tangled across the pillow and the blanket clutched in her hand. There are deep shadows round her eyes and her features have shrunk against the bone, but Everett can tell she was pretty. Is pretty.
‘And the boy?’ she asks, turning back to the doctor.
‘The paediatrician is with him now. As far as we can tell he’s in surprisingly good shape. Considering.’
Everett looks back at the girl. ‘Did she say anything? A name? How long she’d been there? Anything at all?’
He shakes his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘When will I be able to talk to her? It’s really important.’
‘I know. But my patient’s well-being has to be my first priority. We’re just going to have to wait.’
‘But she’s going to be all right?’
He comes to the window and looks at Everett’s anxious face. ‘To be honest, it’s her mental health I’m more worried about. After what that girl’s been through, sleep is the best thing she can possibly have. After that, well, we’ll just have to see.’
* * *
* * *
‘Derek – talk to me – if there’s something you saw, something that could help us –’
He glances up at me. He’s gripping the cup so hard the plastic suddenly snaps. Water lurches over his hands and down his trousers.
‘OK,’ he says eventually, wiping himself down. ‘It was about six months ago. December, I think. One of the neighbours said she’d seen him in the street with only his slippers so I had a look round to see if I could find his shoes. He’d started losing things, putting them down and forgetting where they were – I assumed they were probably under the bed.’
‘And were they?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. But I did find a box. Magazines, mostly.’
I don’t need a hint. ‘Porn?’
He hesitates, then nods. ‘Hard stuff. Bondage. S&M. Torture. Or at least that’s what it looked like. I wasn’t exactly poring over it.’
Like Harper must have done. Not that Ross says that.
There’s a silence. It’s no surprise he was wary of telling me.
‘Where do you think he got it?’ I say at last.
He shrugs. ‘Not off the web, that I do know. But you can probably get that sort of stuff from the small ads in girly magazines if you look hard enough. He was still going down the shops on and off, back then.’
‘Is the box still there?’
‘Probably. I just shoved it back where I found it. If he noticed he never mentioned it. But even accepting he had that sort of – of – taste – it’s a hell of a long way from looking at dodgy magazines to abducting a girl and locking her in the bloody cellar.’
Personally, I’m not so sure. I’ve seen the wreckage of dementia too, and I wonder again about those months when the disease first took hold, and no one, not even Harper, knew it was there. When he still had his willpower, his physical strength, but his personality had started to shrink back and harden. Did he really turn into a completely different man or just a colder, crueller version of the one he was before?
I get up and go out to the corridor, leaving Ross alone. Gis is at the water cooler and comes over.
‘Anything?’ he asks.
‘Not much. Ross says he found a stash of hardcore porn in the house a few months back, so get on to Challow and make sure they check over the whole place, not just the cellar and the ground floor. It’s possible there’s other stuff in there.’
‘Right.’
‘And let’s start checking Harper’s background. Speak to the university where he worked – 1998 isn’t that long ago, there must be someone who remembers him.’
* * *
* * *
Phone interview with Louise Foley, Human Resources Manager, Birmingham University
1 May 2017, 1.47 p.m.
On the call, DC C. Gislingham
CG: Sorry to bother you on a bank holiday but we’re hoping you might be able to give us some information about William Harper. I think he taught at Birmingham until the late nineties?
LF: Yes, that’s right. I wasn’t here then myself but I do know Dr Harper was part of the Social Sciences faculty. His specialist subject was game theory. Apparently he wrote quite a famous article on role-playing games. I believe it was quite ahead of its time.
CG: So apart from what he’d do on Mastermind, what else can you tell me?
LF: He retired in 1998. That’s a long time ago, Constable.
CG: I know, but it’s not prehistoric either, is it? I mean, you had computers back then. You must have some sort of records.
LF: Of course, but there’s a limit to what I can tell you. I have to comply with our internal policy on data protection. You of all people would surely understand that. Do you have Dr Harper’s consent to release his personal information?
CG: No, but as I’m sure you know, I don’t actually need his consent if the information requested is pursuant to the apprehension or prosecution of an offender. Data Protection Act, section 29(3). If you want to look it up.
LF: What’s he done? I mean, he must have done something. You wouldn’t be taking all this trouble for a parking ticket, now would you –
[pause]
Wait a minute – it’s not that case on the news is it – that girl in the cellar? That bloke must be about the same age –
CG: I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Miss Foley. Perhaps you could just email over the relevant files – that would save everyone a lot of time.
LF: I would need permission from the university’s HR Director to do that. But if you have specific questions now I can try to answer them.
CG: [pause]
OK. Perhaps you can start by telling me why he left when he did.
LF: I’m sorry?
CG: Well, if my O level maths serves me right, he’d have been fifty-seven in 1998. What’s the usual retirement age for academics – sixty-five, seventy?
LF: [pause]
Looking at the file, it appears it was agreed by all parties that Dr Harper would take early retirement.
CG: Right. So what was the real reason?
LF: I don’t know what you mean –
CG: Come on, Miss Foley, you know as well as I do that that’s HR bullshit speak for ‘we had to get rid of him’.
LF: [pause]
I’m afraid that’s all I’m prepared to say. I will speak to the director and get his permission to send you the file. But you should be aware that he’s in China at the moment. It may take some time to reach him.
CG: Best I let you get on with it then.
* * *
* * *
BBC Midlands Today
Monday 1 May 2017 | Last updated at 14:52
Girl and child in Oxford basement: Police issue statement
Thames Valley Police have issued a brief statement about the girl and small boy found in a cellar in Frampton Road, Oxford, earlier this morning. They have confirmed that a young woman has been taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital, and that she and a child are being assessed by medical staff and Social Services. The identity of the young woman has not been released, and although it is reported that the child is her son, this has not yet been confirmed. Those who witnessed events at the house say she appeared to be conscious when paramedics placed her in the ambulance.
Neighbours have told the BBC that the house in question is owned by a Mr William Harper, who has lived in the area for at least twenty years. Mr Harper was seen leaving the house this morning in the company of police officers, in a state of some distress.
* * *
* * *
In the upper storeys of 33 Frampton Road, all the curtains are drawn. Dust hangs in the air and cobwebs blur the corners. Something’s been chewing the stair carpet and Nina Mukerjee, the forensics officer, steps carefully round a scatter of beady droppings, then stops in the doorway of the master bedroom. There’s no linen on the bed, just a bare mattress with a large musty stain in the centre. On the wall on the right there’s an ornate glass display cabinet with nothing in it, and the dressing table is cluttered with lipstick, perfume, a pot of face cream left open and dried to cement, and a scatter of tissues still marked with a faded red mouth.
A second officer joins the woman at the door. ‘Blimey,’ he says. ‘It’s like the Mary Celeste.’
‘Or Miss Havisham. That film always gives me the creeps.’
‘When did the second wife die again?’
‘2010. Car crash.’
The man looks around, then walks over to the bedside table and runs a gloved finger across a surface thick with dust. ‘I’m prepared to bet he’s not been in here since.’
‘Grief takes some people that way. They can’t bring themselves to throw anything out. My gran was like that. Took years to persuade her to get rid of my grandad’s stuff. Even all that time later she said it still felt like sacrilege.’
The man gestures towards a photo frame lying face down on the bedside table. He picks the picture up and looks at it, then turns it towards his colleague. ‘There’s one like this downstairs. Attractive. Not my type, personally. But attractive.’
Priscilla Harper is looking straight into the camera, one hand on her hip, one eyebrow arched. She looks confident, self-possessed. And very high maintenance.
Nina walks over and opens the wardrobe, pulling out items at random. A low-cut scarlet evening gown, a cashmere coat with a fur collar, a pale green blouse with a ruffled neck.
‘This is real silk. She had expensive taste.’
The man comes over and takes a look. ‘Pity about the moths. Otherwise you could have flogged the lot on eBay.’
Nina makes a face at him – ‘Thanks for that, Clive’ – then pushes the clothes back into place. ‘Do CID really want us to bag up all this stuff? We’ll be here all week.’
‘I think it was porn Fawley was interested in. So for now, I think we can make do with checking there isn’t a case full of bondage gear under the bed and leave it at that. I’ll check round upstairs. But by the looks of it the top floor’s pretty much empty. Just a metal bedstead in one room and a stack of old copies of the Daily Telegraph.’
Nina goes over to the bedside table and pulls open the drawer to a rattle of white plastic bottles.
‘Blimey, that’s quite a stash,’ says Clive as she opens an evidence bag and starts to take them out. The labels are all in the name of Priscilla Harper; most of them are sleeping pills.
‘Did you find any papers downstairs?’ she asks.
‘Apart from the porn, you mean? There’s a desk full of letters and old bills though I doubt any of it will be much use. But we’re boxing it all up just in case. The cellar’s pretty much clear now.’
Nina shudders. ‘I can’t get it out of my head. Those scratch marks in the plaster. The state of mind she must have been in to do that. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘I think she could hear them.’
She turns to him. ‘What do you mean?’
His face is grim. ‘Think about it. That house next door had been lived in by the same old biddy since the eighties. But suddenly, a few weeks ago, the workmen move in. There were people in there for the first time in years. That’s what she was doing. She could hear them.’
* * *
* * *
3.15 p.m. Given the issues we’re facing in questioning Harper, I’ve decided not to interview him again until we’ve talked to the girl. And she’s still sedated. No one’s expecting to get anything out of the boy, and forensics will need a few hours yet to come up with preliminary findings. All of which means that, right now, I have the Super on my back, a press office in crisis and a full team of people with a lot of nervous energy and nothing to do with it. Gislingham is trying to track down anyone who worked with Harper in the 1990s, someone else is on to the supermarket to see if we can speak to the delivery people and Baxter is checking Missing Persons for anyone who looks remotely like the girl. It’s a job with his name on – he doesn’t need to dig that deep to find his inner geek – but when I look in on him an hour later there’s a weary frown line across his brow.
‘No luck?’
He glances up at me. ‘Sod all. We don’t have a name, we don’t know where she came from, we don’t know how long she was down there. We don’t even know if she was ever reported missing. I could spend a month on this thing and get nowhere. Even facial recognition can’t find someone who isn’t there.’
* * *
* * *
Sent: Mon 01/05/2017, 15.45 GMT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Bill
Thanks for the email. I’m staring at the news right now and there are pictures of Frampton Road – even on Canadian TV. They’re comparing it to that man in Austria who kept his daughter in the cellar all those years. But Bill – doing something like that? He was always a bit of a bolshie sod but he wasn’t violent. And I never knew Priscilla but as far as I can tell he’s never even had a relationship with a woman since. If he did he never told me. And OK, a shrink might just say I’m being naive and people like him are very good at hiding it, but surely there would have been some sort of sign? Sorry – I’m probably not making much sense. It’s early here and I still can’t quite believe it. I probably sound like those people the press interview at times like this who stand there saying inane things like ‘he seemed like such a quiet bloke’. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do.
* * *
* * *
Somer is round the corner in Chinnor Place.
From where she’s standing she can see the forensics team carrying out boxes from 33 Frampton Road and loading them into the van. There are two TV vans parked on the other side of the road. She steps forward again and rings the bell for a third time. It seems this house is empty, though from the bikes and the number of bins and its general state it’s probably student digs. One of the few like it left round here. Thirty years ago these houses were dinosaurs. No one wanted them: too big, too difficult to maintain. Most of them were split up into bedsits or picked up cheap by crammers or university departments. Not any more. Now they’re gradually turning back into the family homes the Victorian developers built them to be, complete with suitable quarters for live-in staff. Mark Sexton is only the latest example of a much bigger trend.
She rings one last time, and is just about to turn and walk away when the door finally opens. He’s about twenty, ginger hair, rubbing the back of his neck and yawning; it looks like he’s just got out of bed. There’s a line of empty bottles leading down the hall and a smell of stale beer. He takes one look at Somer and does a pantomime start.
‘Shit.’
Somer smiles. ‘PC Erica Somer, Thames Valley Police.’
The boy swallows. ‘Have those old farts been complaining about the noise again? Seriously, it really wasn’t that loud –’
‘It’s not that, Mr –’
‘Danny. Danny Abrahams.’
‘OK, Danny. It’s about the house in the next road. Number thirty-three. Do you know the man who lives there – Mr Harper?’
He scratches his neck again. His skin is blotched and red. ‘Is that the nutter?’
‘Do you know him?’
He shakes his head. ‘Just wanders about talking to himself. Gave us a four-pack of lager once. Seems all right.’