Innocent Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  They were nearly out of the door when Goodway called after them, uncertainly. ‘Yasmin’s a good kid. I hope she turns up soon.’

  Mariner turned back. ‘So do we, Mr Goodway. So do we.’

  CHAPTER 6

  ‘A committed teacher,’ Mariner remarked on the walk back through the school.

  ‘He’s inspirational,’ Mrs Darrow agreed. ‘A real Mr Chips. We don’t get many of those any more. I think having his own teenage children helps him to stay in tune with the girls.’ She was full of admiration. ‘We’ll be sorry when he goes.’

  ‘Goes? He seems a little young for retirement.’

  ‘Mr Goodway wants to spend more time with his family,’ was all Mrs Darrow would say.

  * * *

  From the art department Mrs Darrow took them to Yasmin’s locker, opening it with a master key. It revealed little. The inside of the door was lined with the ubiquitous teen posters of pop stars and TV presenters, none of whom Mariner recognised. A wad of drawings fell out and scattered on the floor. The drawings were good. Some of the same ‘body art’ that they had seen in the classroom. On the face of it they’d learned little to progress their search, except perhaps to learn that Mr and Mrs Akram hadn’t been entirely candid with them.

  * * *

  They were standing directly underneath the bell when it rang deafeningly, signalling the end of the day. Through the open door of the classroom opposite, they watched girls filing out, dipping into a bright red plastic crate on the way.

  ‘Retrieving their mobile phones,’ Mrs Darrow explained. ‘The things are a nightmare. We tried banning them completely at first, but it was hopeless as practically all the girls have them. Parents complained too that they needed to know that their daughters were safe. Ironic given this current situation. So instead most teachers collect them in at the beginning of each lesson, to remove the temptation.’

  ‘Couldn’t the girls just put them on silent or switch them off?’

  ‘I’m afraid they can’t always be relied on to do so. With text messaging they can be holding lengthy conversations without staff even knowing. It’s a distraction we can do without.’

  ‘Do any phones ever get left behind?’

  Mrs Darrow knew what he was getting at. She shook her head. ‘Very rarely. It’s amazing. These girls might lose everything else: clothing, books, you name it, but their phones seem to be surgically attached. The few that are get put in lost property. You’re welcome to have a look.’ They did, but neither of the couple of outdated handsets that were there could be identified as Yasmin’s.

  ‘Well, thank you for your time Mrs Darrow.’

  ‘Not at all, Inspector. Whatever we can do to help.’

  * * *

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Millie as she and Mariner drove from the school. ‘How can someone just disappear?’

  ‘If she wants to, it’s easy.’ Mariner knew from personal experience. He’d done it himself when he couldn’t face another night of coming home to the Spanish Inquisition. His mother had taken his popularity with girls particularly hard. Although he had vague memories of the occasional short-term ‘uncle’ early on, latterly it had just been the two of them and as Mariner grew, the dynamics of dependency had shifted as his mother discarded other facets of her life to concentrate on him. Her whole life became dedicated to her only child, and at the time when other parents were letting go, Mariner’s mother clutched on with increasing desperation, until finally he had to take the initiative and break away completely. Instead of getting the bus to school one day, on an impulse he’d caught the train to Birmingham and gone to look for a job. Except for brief visits since, he’d never gone back.

  ‘If what Suzanne told us is right though, it sounds as if everything wasn’t as rosy in the Akram household as we were led to believe,’ he said now.

  ‘You think she was telling us the truth?’

  ‘It would account for the tension between Mr and Mrs Akram, wouldn’t it? I thought he was just annoyed that his wife had contacted us before telling him. And having left her in charge it may be natural to hold her responsible. But if she’d gone against his wishes as well . . . Let’s go and see what we can pick up at home.’

  * * *

  The two uniformed officers who were to help with the preliminary search met them at the Akrams’ house, which turned out to be a detached and imposing red-brick in Edgbaston, probably, like those around it, built at around the turn of the century. It was the home of a successful couple. With the shrinking of the nuclear family, these houses were normally too big to fulfil a useful purpose as a family home and several of the other properties on this street displayed boards to indicate their conversion to business hotels and retirement residences. The Akrams’ property was set back from the road behind a five-foot high decorative wall, the entire front of the house shaded by a dense umbrella of chestnut trees, which created a cool oasis of relief from the heat. Grandma, an elderly woman in a white saree, came to the door, her eyes watery, whether from age or from weeping it was hard to say.

  ‘Salaam Allah Kouom,’ Millie smiled, knowing that she spoke little English.

  The old lady nodded. ‘Walaik um-asalaam.’

  Millie explained in Urdu the reason for their visit. Scrutinising Mariner’s ID, the old lady nodded wordlessly and indicated that they should follow her. True to his word, Akram had phoned ahead to let her know they were coming. She led them through the house. Cool and dark with high ceilings, it was neat and tidy and deathly quiet in the absence of anyone else.

  Leaving the rest of the house to the uniforms, Mariner and Millie focused their efforts on Yasmin’s bedroom on the first floor. It was comfortably furnished, the décor in feminine pastels, but without frills or luxury. A giant desk dominated the room, beneath a solid shelf of reference books, but there was no CD player, TV nor any of the other usual electronic paraphernalia that most kids were reported to have these days. Cuddly toys were neatly arranged on the bed and a further shelf displayed a number of photographs including a formal family group, presumably taken at Yasmin’s older sister’s wedding. Millie picked up the photograph to verify this with grandma. The two women embarked on an animated conversation, during which Millie successfully shepherded the older woman back downstairs leaving Mariner to continue the search unobserved.

  Yasmin’s hair brushes were neatly aligned on the dressing table. If they were going to need DNA . . . Mariner refused to let his mind move along that track. A small jewellery box contained a few simple gold chains and bracelets. Checking in the drawers her clothes were neatly folded. The only hidden treasure Mariner found was a small pouch of eye shadows and mascara hidden under some T-shirts at the back of a drawer. Apart from the schoolwork there were no personal items: no diaries or letters to help them out.

  There was the distant sound of a door slamming and moments later a diminutive figure appeared in the doorway, dark eyes watching Mariner intently while he fidgeted against the door frame. Yasmin’s younger brother.

  ‘Hello. It’s Sanjit, right?’ said Mariner.

  A nod. ‘You’re a policeman?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Are you looking for Yaz?’

  ‘Yes. Have you got any idea where she might have gone?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘She doesn’t talk to me, except for a bit of verbal abuse.’ He made a quacking gesture with his fingers and thumb, and Mariner curbed a smile.

  ‘What are you looking for in here?’ Sanjit asked.

  ‘Anything that might give us clues about where Yasmin is.’

  ‘Have you found her secret box?’

  ‘No.’

  Without another word the boy dropped to the floor and wriggled on his belly under the bed, emerging minutes later with a small, cardboard shoebox. ‘She thinks I don’t know about it.’ He handed it to Mariner. Inside were an ornately carved rubberwood chest and a ceramic moneybox in the shape of a teddy bear. Mariner lifted the lid off the first. It contained more makeup, a lea
flet for the Tate Modern, illustrated with a Lucian Freud nude, and a couple of tickets for the London underground dated March of that year. ‘Did you go down to London too?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Nah, she went with her school.’

  Zone One. Must have been a special trip if she’d preserved the tickets. And why two tickets? Yasmin and Suzanne?

  The money box, when Mariner prised off the stopper in its base, contained three ten-pound notes and some loose change.

  ‘It’s her pocket money,’ said Sanjit. And surely the sort of money Yasmin would have taken with her if the disappearance had been planned.

  ‘Anything unusual happen lately?’ Mariner asked, replacing the items. ‘Yasmin fall out with anyone?’

  Sanjit rolled his eyes, forcing Mariner to suppress a smile. ‘She’s always arguing with dad, stomping around and slamming doors. We have to walk on egg boxes all the time,’ he said, getting the idiom almost right.

  * * *

  The uniforms had given the house a good going over but found no sign of Yasmin nor anything else unusual, and nearly an hour after their arrival, Mariner pulled out of the drive feeling frustrated at the lack of progress. He was hoping that Millie had been more fortunate. She shook her head.

  ‘Not much to help us then. All we know is that Yasmin had a row with her dad about staying at Suzanne’s, then apparently Mum gives in while Dad’s away and says she can go. Did you ask Grandma about that?’

  ‘Yes, and she has views all right, although she was shy about expressing them. Naturally she sides with her son and sees this as a direct consequence of Yasmin’s mother flouting his wishes.’

  ‘So she blames Shanila rather than Yasmin.’

  ‘Not exactly. She just implied that Yasmin is no different from your average teenager and that it’s her parents’ duty to give her strict boundaries. “Righteous women shall be obedient. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish” — it’s what the Koran says.’

  ‘Then perversely, when her mother lets her beyond those boundaries, Yasmin decides not to go to Suzanne’s after all, but for some reason doesn’t make it home either.’

  ‘Because she’s had enough of rules and wants out completely?’ Millie speculated.

  ‘She didn’t take her pocket money with her.’

  ‘It’s not necessarily long-term. It could just be a gesture. Giving her old man the finger because of the hard time he’s been giving her?’

  ‘Anything’s possible,’ conceded Mariner. And that was the whole problem. There was nothing to narrow things down.

  * * *

  Back at Granville Lane, DS Tony Knox had requisitioned the CCTV footage from Kingsmead railway station, where Yasmin boarded her train.

  ‘What’s it like?’ Mariner asked as they settled down to watch.

  Knox shrugged indifferently. ‘See for yourself.’

  The black-and-white image was crude and snowy. Knox perched on a desk behind Mariner and Millie as they watched a train draw into the station. A number of people disembarked while a couple further down the platform climbed on. The train waited. Then at the last minute, in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, a figure could be seen running for and jumping on the train. A split second before, she turned and gave them a full facial shot. No question it was Yasmin.

  Knox snapped off the film. ‘The footage from the university station isn’t quite so helpful.’ This was the station at which Yasmin would have disembarked. ‘It’s harder to see Yasmin, there’s a lot of movement.’ He wasn’t wrong. The platform was crowded and although several people left the train, they had to strain their eyes to pick Yasmin out as any of them.

  ‘There,’ said Millie eventually. Reaching out, she pointed to a figure moving across the bottom of the screen.

  ‘Right height and build,’ Knox agreed. ‘Same colour clothing from what you can see, and a bag over her shoulder.’

  ‘Like just about everyone else,’ said Mariner.

  ‘She’s walking pretty casually, too. In no particular hurry.’

  ‘That’s Yasmin Akram?’ They all turned. They hadn’t heard Fiske come into the room.

  ‘We think it might be.’ Mariner remained cautious.

  ‘Good, so we know that she followed her normal route.’

  ‘We’re not—’

  But Fiske didn’t want uncertainty. ‘Which means that she must have disappeared somewhere between the station and her house,’ he cut in. ‘I understand that from there she walks through part of the university campus to get home?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘In that case let’s do a search of the area between the station and her home. If that turns up nothing we’ll do the railway track.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’ll need to talk to university security, too,’ Fiske went on. ‘Are we absolutely certain there’s no one she could be staying with?’

  ‘Her parents have spoken to anyone they can think of,’ said Mariner. ‘Robbie Thorne is double checking that. And we’re doing the usual phone round of hospital emergency departments. I think we should wait until—’

  ‘So let’s just get on with it, shall we?’ Fiske rubbed his hands together. ‘Organise the search for first thing in the morning. I’ll make sure that there are uniformed officers at your disposal and we can bring in an additional search team.’ He was halfway out of the door before he turned and added: ‘That’s good work, all of you. Well done.’

  ‘He’s easily impressed,’ remarked Millie when Fiske had gone.

  ‘He’s just hoping that he might be able to stop shitting himself sometime soon,’ said Knox.

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Mariner, getting up from his seat. He caught up with Fiske just outside the DCI’s office. ‘Organising a search at this stage is a bit premature, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Fiske. ‘We’ve got the CCTV footage. What more do you need?’

  ‘It’s not entirely clear. I’d like to get it enhanced to be sure.’

  ‘But I saw it with my own eyes and your colleagues seemed pretty certain. What reason is there to delay? Superintendent Bourne is due to meet with community leaders later this afternoon and it would be beneficial to have something substantial to give them. Get it done, Mariner, first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll need to widen the investigation team,’ said Mariner. ‘Millie and I can’t do this alone. And Charlie Glover’s in the same boat.’

  ‘Use whoever you need,’ said Fiske. ‘Charlie Glover’s on a different inquiry. For the moment our priority is to find Yasmin Akram. If Charlie Glover doesn’t like it he can come and talk to me.’

  And giving Mariner no more opportunity to argue he turned and went into his office, resolutely closing the door.

  So that’s what the hurry was all about: Fiske’s desperation to impress Superintendent Bourne with the efficiency of his leadership. More than anything Mariner wanted Yasmin Akram to turn up soon, alive and well. But he also harboured the hope that somewhere along the way Fiske would shoot himself comprehensively in the foot.

  * * *

  When he got back to the office he found that Knox had gone.

  ‘Isn’t he a jolly soul,’ said Millie. ‘Not one word to me after you’d gone out.’

  At the time Mariner had barely noticed but now he thought about it Knox had seemed unusually subdued, and he hadn’t been particularly welcoming to Millie. ‘Promotion back to CID must be losing its novelty value,’ he concluded, hoping he was right. After all it had been a couple of months since Knox had returned to the fold following a previous digression, so the initial elation must be wearing off.

  ‘Anything else happened?’ he asked.

  Picking up the phone, Millie shook her head. ‘I’ll get on with the calls.’ She’d be checking the usual: hospitals, hostels and women’s refuges within a ten-mile radius. If that yielded nothing, they’d spread the net.

  Meanwhile Mariner ensured that the photograph of Yasmin was being circulated citywide, in
cluding to the press, and arranged a TV bulletin for the ten o’clock local news.

  It was close to eleven when they both resurfaced. Now they had to sit back and wait for the results. ‘We’ve done everything we can for now. We might as well knock it on the head for tonight,’ said Mariner.

  Millie smiled. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, sir.’

  CHAPTER 7

  It being mid-week, Anna would have her hands full with Jamie, so there was little point in Mariner calling round to see her tonight. Despite the heat, the aromas of Sparkhill had lingered with Mariner and were tweaking at his hunger, so when he drove past Yasser’s, his local Balti house and saw that it was still open, it was impossible to resist stopping.

  Only when he was inside did he see that Tony Knox had fallen on the same idea. Nodding a greeting, Mariner placed his order and sat down beside Knox on the bench. ‘Dinner’s in the dog, eh?’ he joked.

  Knox looked momentarily blank. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, eventually catching on.

  ‘Tell Theresa it’s my fault,’ Mariner went on. ‘Keeping you out all hours.’

  ‘Sure.’ But unusually for the otherwise gregarious Knox, he wasn’t inclined to talk. Not that Mariner minded. He was tired himself and there had been enough talking today. So the two men sat in companionable silence until Knox’s order was called and he got wearily to his feet.

  ‘See you in the morning,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Right, boss.’

  But ten minutes later, driving away from the restaurant, Mariner was surprised to see Knox with his carrier bag standing waiting at the bus stop. He pulled over and lowered his window. ‘Want a lift?’

  ‘Nah, you’re all right, boss.’ Knox glanced up the road hopefully, though it was late and Mariner could see in his rear-view mirror that there was no sign of any red, white and blue double decker.

  Both men knew that Mariner would have to virtually drive past Knox’s doorstep on his way home and by now Mariner was curious to know what was going on. ‘This is ridiculous, Tony,’ he said. ‘Get in.’

  Knox wouldn’t meet his eye, but this time he concurred.