by Celina Grace
She was walking back through the reception area when she spotted the filthy back of Charlie Petworth’s tweed coat. Baxter was standing quietly and obediently by Charlie’s legs.
“Now, Charlie, what’s the problem—” she began to say, and then Charlie turned and Kate stopped speaking abruptly.
He had a baby in his arms. A toddler; a blonde child, sleeping peacefully.
“What the hell?”
Charlie’s bloodshot, watery blue eyes met her gaze. “I found her.”
Kate’s arms were already reaching out to take the child. “What do you mean, you found her?”
Charlie sounded defiant. “I found her on the step. Where I sit sometimes. Just turned up and there she was.”
Kate recalled the photograph she’d seen of Sophia Walker. This was the same face. Relief made her legs weak. “What do you mean?” She reached out for the baby but Charlie pulled the child closer to him. “Charlie, don’t be ridiculous. Give her to me.”
Charlie shook his head. “No. She’s safe with me.”
Kate could feel the backwash of adrenaline, spiking within her. “Charlie, for f—” She recalled herself. “For God’s sake. Give her here. You know I won’t hurt her.”
People were gathering, drawn by the intimation of drama and by Kate’s rising voice. Charlie looked down at the sleeping child and then looked at Kate.
“Her name is Joy,” he said, very distinctly.
Kate had got her arms underneath the child now. In this close proximity to Charlie, she tried not to breathe too deeply. “Just give her here, Charlie. She’ll be safe with me.”
“She will be?” Charlie said, doubt in his voice but he allowed Kate to take the child. Feeling the weight of the sleeping child, the warmth and life of her, Kate felt almost sick with the relief of it.
“Now, what’s all this then?” Sergeant Bill Osbourne was looming. Kate, her throat thickened, found it hard to speak for a second.
“Bill, take Charlie into one of the interview rooms. I need to – this is the missing child, Sophia Walker. Her parents are right over there. Oh Christ, we need to let them know we’ve got her, right now.”
Even as Kate spoke, there was a scream behind her. A second later, Amelia Walker had snatched the baby from Kate’s arms and was holding her close. Sophia jolted awake and immediately began to cry.
“Sophia, oh, Sophia…” The rest of Amelia’s words were lost in a torrent of sobs. Paul Walker had come up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder, tears standing in his eyes.
Unnoticed in all the commotion, Charlie Petworth was being led away by Bill Osbourne. He stopped still and shouted loud enough to be heard over the tumult. “Her name is Joy!”
For a brief moment, silence fell. Kate, her gaze on Amelia Walker’s face, saw for a moment the look of shock that occurred. Paul Walker was frowning.
“Come on, Charlie. Let’s not have any trouble.” Bill Osbourne placed a hand on Charlie’s arm.
For a moment, it looked as though Charlie wouldn’t concur. Then, his head drooping, he allowed himself to be led away.
*
Several hours later, Kate faced Anderton across his desk.
“Christ,” was his eloquent remark.
Kate was not religious but she didn’t like to hear the Lord’s name taken in vain. “Don’t.”
Anderton pushed one of the pens on his desk. It rolled to the edge and dropped to the floor. “What made him do it?”
Kate was silent. She and Anderton both knew the usual reason a middle-aged man would abduct a young female child.
“There’s nothing in his history, nothing to indicate he is – is that way inclined.” Anderton spoke reluctantly.
Kate looked over at Olbeck, sitting next to her. He’d so far remained silent. “What do you think, Mark?”
Olbeck lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Maybe – well, you know Charlie’s always nicking things so he can get a bed for the night, isn’t he? Is it beyond the realms of possibility that he decided to commit a much more serious crime so he’d get a prison sentence? Somewhere relatively warm and safe to stay over the whole of the winter?”
They all contemplated that thought. “It’s possible,” said Anderton.
Kate was shaking her head. “I don’t think he would have done. He wouldn’t have wanted to leave Baxter.”
“Baxter?” questioned Anderton.
“His dog. He loves that dog. That’s why he won’t go to the refuge, because he wouldn’t be able take his dog with him.”
Anderton bent down and picked up the pen that had dropped to the floor. “Well, I’m not sure that we have any other choice than to charge him with child abduction.” He looked at them both. “Anything you want to add?”
Kate and Olbeck both shook their heads.
“Okay.” Anderton pushed his chair back from the desk and sighed. “Well, it’s hardly filling me with Christmas cheer but there we go.”
Kate got up, quickly followed by Olbeck. “I’d better talk to the Walkers, check that everything’s okay.”
“Good. Do that.” Anderton rubbed a finger along his chin. “There’s something… Did you say Walker?”
Kate nodded. “Yes. Why?”
“That name is ringing a faint bell. There was something… Hold on a minute…” Anderton sat back down, grabbed his keyboard and began typing something. “Hold on. Yes, I thought so. My God, I thought so. What relief the child came back—”
Kate was thoroughly lost and, from the look on his face, so was Olbeck. “What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem. It’s just that the Walkers lost a child about five years ago. A tragedy – the little girl fell down the stairs.” Anderton swung his computer screen around so that Kate and Olbeck could see it. There was a local newspaper account of the accident. Biting her lip, Kate read it quickly. What immediately jumped out at her was the name of the baby who’d died.
“’Joy’” she said, softly.
“Yes, little Joy Walker. Dreadful accident. She was only about eighteen months.”
“Joy,” repeated Kate. She looked at the two men. “Don’t you remember that’s what Charlie said when he brought Sophia into the station?”
“What’s that?”
“He called her Joy. Charlie did.” Kate pointed to the screen and the flaring black capitals of the headline. “That’s the name of the Walkers’ first child, the one that died.”
Both men looked at where Kate was pointing. “He’s confused,” said Anderton. “Not surprising, really, the amount he drinks.”
For a moment they all continued to stare at the screen. Then Kate turned away. “Maybe,” she said.
*
When Kate got back to her desk, she sat for a moment, thinking about what to do. Then, slowly, because she wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for, she brought up Charlie Petworth’s records. She looked at all the things he’d been accused of stealing. A hand trowel. A flowerpot. Some gardening gloves. Kate scrolled back down the page. What a lot of things he’d taken and yet all of them so inconsequential. Why would Charlie go from stealing a packet of flower seeds to taking a baby girl from her car seat?
Remembering the Walkers, she jumped up and hurried back to the interview room, where they were still waiting. Sophia had calmed down by now and was lying quietly in Amelia Walker’s arms, her big blue eyes fixed on her mother’s face.
“Well, Mr and Mrs Walker, we won’t keep you much longer.” Kate sat herself down in the chair opposite the two of them. “Would you like our on-call doctor to have a look at Sophia?”
Amelia Walker blanched. “Why would you say that? Did he – oh, God, did that man do something to her?”
“No, no.” Kate hastened to reassure her. “There’s nothing suggesting a
ny kind of abuse took place. I know it’s hard to believe but the man who took Sophia, Charlie Petworth, is really completely harmless. He’s never done anything like this before, it’s totally out of character.”
“He must be a goddamn lunatic.” Paul Walker was angry, and Kate couldn’t blame him.
“Well, he’ll certainly be charged and remanded. You won’t have to worry about him any longer.” Kate leant forward a little. “Could you say that you recognised him, Charlie Petworth, I mean? Had you ever seen him outside the house before?”
Paul Walker was already shaking his head. Amelia cuddled her daughter closer to her, her head down. Then she looked up. “No, I don’t think so. I can’t remember seeing him.”
It was odd, but even as she was saying it, Kate got the impression that Amelia was saying something quite other than what she wanted to. She frowned, and was going to probe a little further, when Amelia’s gaze met her own and there was something in her eyes that silenced Kate.
“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” Paul Walker said emphatically. “And now, Sergeant, might we be permitted to take our daughter home? I think I can speak for my wife when I say we’re all quite exhausted.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Kate. “Now we’ve got your statements and so forth, I don’t see why you can’t head home. You’ll be contacted in due course about the case, obviously, and you can also expect a visit from Victim Support.”
“That’s kind but I don’t expect we’ll need them,” Paul Walker said in a tone that was polite but firm. Kate looked over at Amelia, but she was looking down at Sophia, who was drifting into sleep again.
Kate ushered them through the reception area, shook hands with them both, and watched them walk out the door. Was that snow she could see in the light from the doorway? She squinted harder, almost convinced she could see tiny white whirling flakes. Then she realised that Amelia Walker had come back into the station, almost hurrying.
“I forgot my gloves, I won’t be a sec – you settle her,” she was saying over her shoulder, clearly to her husband. Then she caught sight of Kate and hurried over.
“I just wanted to say – it’s just that I think my husband’s – well, I’m not sure, it might be that he doesn’t remember because it’s quite a long time ago, but I’ve realised I did recognise him. The man who took Sophia, I mean. I think it was him.”
Kate was alert now. “You think you recognised him? From where?”
Amelia looked worried. She cast a glance over her shoulder. “I can’t say for certain, but he did look familiar.”
“You mean you’ve seen him recently?”
Amelia shook her head. “No – not recently. Sometime in the past, but I can’t exactly remember when or where.” She paused and said, “It’s probably not very helpful.”
“Well, it’s something we can look into,” Kate said. “Could you please let me know if you remember anything more? Feel free to call me at any time.”
“Yes, yes of course. Oh, I must go—” Amelia said a hurried goodbye, pivoted on her heel, and scurried back out of the main entrance. A little flurry of snow blew in after her. So it was snowing – perhaps they would have a white Christmas after all.
Kate was about to call after her – what about the woman’s gloves? – but then she realised that had been the pretext for Amelia to come back into the station. Shrugging a little, she made her way back to the office, thinking about Sophia and Charlie and whether this case was as straightforward as it first appeared. She switched off her computer, wondering whether the snow would be too deep as yet to drive home. Surely not? Still, there was no point hanging about here any longer, waiting to find out.
She was about to leave the office – she was the last one there, as usual – but after a moment, she dug out the box of chocolate willies that Theo had given her and proceeded to decorate his desk profusely with them, until scarcely a pen pot, folder, keyboard or square inch of desk space was clear. There. That would take him a while to clear up the next morning – if the cleaners didn’t move them first. Giggling, Kate left the office, gleefully anticipating the look on Theo’s face the next morning.
*
By eight o’clock the next morning, the snow had settled in earnest. Kate abandoned her intentions to drive in, swapped her office shoes for her walking boots, packed her things into a rucksack and set off for the station on foot. She’d forgotten all about her little redecoration of Theo’s desk in the chaos of the morning and was pleased to find he hadn’t yet made it into the station. Rav and Anne were already there and laughing.
“Don’t touch them,” Kate warned as Rav went to eat one of the chocolates.
“Come on, there’s tons here.”
“I know but I want him to experience the full effect—” Kate realised Theo was walking in through the door of the office and immediately swung her chair back to face her computer, pretending nothing was wrong. Rav and Anne did the same, although Kate could see Rav’s shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. She held her breath for Theo’s reaction.
“Oh, ha ha. And ho bloody ho.”
Kate started laughing. “Serves you right.” She ducked as Theo threw a fusillade of tiny chocolate phalluses at her. “Don’t be so childish.”
“You can talk—” Theo was laughing himself now. They all got up to help him clear his desk and eventually settled back to work, each fortified with their own stash of chocolates.
Still grinning, Kate turned to her emails. There was one from the duty sergeant from the cells downstairs, informing her that Charlie Petworth would be moved to a remand prison later that day. Kate frowned, her good mood dipping. Of course, for an offence as serious as the one he’d committed, the chance of bail was unlikely… Who on Earth would bail him out anyway? No, being on remand was probably the best thing for him. Was that why he had done it?
Kate tapped her fingers on the edge of her desk, chewing her bottom lip, thinking. Then she got up and headed for the stairs, collecting a cup of tea from the machine along the way.
When the door to cell three was opened for Kate, she could see Charlie sitting quite peacefully on the edge of the narrow bed – well, hardly a bed; more a ledge with a thin foam mattress upon it. He looked up as Kate came into the room.
“Here you go, Charlie. I thought you might like a cup of tea.”
“Ta, love.” Kate handed it to him and then leant back against the wall of the cell, seeing him sip it with shaky hands.
“I just wanted to let you know that Baxter’s been picked up by the RSPCA, okay? They’ll keep him until we get everything sorted out.” Charlie looked anxious. “He’ll be fine, Charlie. Don’t worry about him. They might even be able to get him into foster care so he won’t have to stay in kennels.”
“He don’t like kennels, does Baxter. He doesn’t like being locked up.”
“I know.” Kate, watching Charlie’s shaky hands, made a mental note to be sure that the doctor should come and see him if she hadn’t already. Kate wasn’t sure exactly how much Charlie drank on a regular basis, but she didn’t want him having a fit or something similarly awful because of having to go cold turkey.
It was warm in the cells, and Charlie had divested himself on his awful old tweed coat and the scarf he’d wrapped around his head. He was wearing a big black fleece with an old faded logo across the front of it. Greenfingers Gardening. Kate recalled all the little petty thefts that Charlie had committed and thought of something. She pointed at his top. “Do you like gardening, Charlie?”
He looked at her as though she were stupid. “I am a gardener. This is my company.”
“Your company?” Kate asked, confused.
“Aye. This.” He pointed to the faded logo. “Been a bit quiet recently but once I get myself together, it’ll be fine.”
Kate smiled sadly. “Of course it
will, Charlie.”
She left him then and made her way back to her desk. Absentmindedly removing a chocolate penis that Theo had sneakily placed on the seat of her chair, obviously hoping she’d sit on it, Kate brought up a browser on her computer screen. Idly, she typed in the URL for Companies House, found the appropriate search box and typed in Greenfingers Gardening.
There were at least twenty companies with that name or variants thereof. Kate cast her eyes down the list, wondering why she was doing this, why she was bothering. Well, well. Right at the bottom, a gardening company was listed to a Charles Petworth. Kate clicked on it to bring up any further information. She sighed. Written under the company name was the date of its insolvency, some four years ago now.
Kate shook her head and shut down the browser. Poor old Charlie. Had he lost track of time so badly that he genuinely thought his company was still flourishing? Why had he gone bankrupt? Did he drink because of his failure as a businessman, or had the collapse of his company come about because of his drinking?
Kate got up to make herself a hot drink. While she was waiting for the kettle to boil, she wandered over to the window. Snow was still falling, the air a mass of fluttering white flakes. Lucky she didn’t live too far away… She remembered the forerunner of all this bad weather last night, the tiny flurry of snow that had blown in as Amelia Walker left the police station…
Kate stopped dead, her hand holding a heaped spoonful of instant coffee. She let it fall, scattering brown grains everywhere, and ran back to her desk. There was something, just a glimmer; if she thought too hard about it, it would disappear. Frantically, she grabbed her phone and stabbed at the buttons. How difficult would it be to get hold of the thing she wanted? Was it likely that the information she was seeking had already been archived?
She made the call, spoke to someone, got a number from them and then she spoke to someone else. There was a frustrating wait for yet another person to get back from their lunch break. An hour and half later, a cardboard folder was deposited on Kate’s desk and she thanked the young officer who had brought it up.