by BL Pearce
Fuck me.
“That puts him in the frame for the abduction.” He couldn’t believe it.
“Yes, sir. Here’s the clip of him coming back.”
She ran the footage. Payne could be seen strolling back up the road toward the gallery. Relaxed, unrushed, the same loping gait as before, except the iced coffee was gone.
“Can you track him?”
“Only as far as the green. He disappears after that.”
“But he’d have gone down the high street to get to Katie’s road. There must be cameras on the high street.”
“There are, sir, but he isn’t on any of them. We’ve checked several times.”
The young man next to her nodded.
Shit.
“What happened to him? He can’t have disappeared?”
“He could have sat on the green and drank his coffee,” the constable said.
“Or walked up Station Road.” The female DC brought up an aerial view of the town. She pointed to a section of road. “There are no cameras until you get to Barnes Station.”
Rob stared at the map until his eyes watered. “Could he have cut through, taken another route?”
“It’s possible,” she said. “The area is riddled with pedestrian footpaths running between the houses.”
Rob let out a long, slow breath. Payne could have gone anywhere in that hour, and they’d never know. “Thanks guys. Keep on it. Let me know if you find anything else.”
He turned to Mallory. “The guy disappears for the exact time frame of Katie’s abduction. How can he not be involved?”
“He was on foot,” Mallory pointed out. “Very difficult to pull off an abduction without transport.”
“He could have parked a car by the river towpath the day before. Then, all he’d have to do is lure her down to the river, walk along the towpath and get her into the car.”
Mallory nodded. “That’s possible. We’ll go through CCTV again and see if any of the vehicles are registered to Anthony Payne.”
Rob gave him a hard look. “He had her drawing, mate.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, it’s enough to hold him overnight. We can have another crack at him later.”
“You think there’s a chance she’s still alive?” It’s what they were all wondering.
Rob met his gaze square on. “No, not if he took her.”
In sexually motivated abductions, the victim was usually murdered within the first three hours of being taken. They both knew that.
Rob was about to go through his line of questioning for later that evening when his phone buzzed. He wanted to put the pressure on Payne, make him crack.
It was Jo.
“Hi.” He answered before the third ring.
“Ah, I’m surprised you picked up,” she said. “I know how busy you must be.”
“Never too busy to talk to you,” he said.
She laughed. “Listen, I got hold of our contact in Iran. She’s going to look into Arina’s whereabouts. She’s got an address for the father.”
“That’s great news. How soon do you think she’ll know something?”
“A day or two. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“Thanks. Hey, we arrested Anthony Payne, the sex offender. He had a picture that Katie drew in his desk drawer, and he’s got no alibi for the time of the abduction. He’s looking good for it.”
“Really? Wow, okay. I did a basic check on him, but nothing jumped out at me other than what you already know.”
“Do you have a record of his whereabouts over the last five years?” he asked. “He moved around a lot.”
“Yeah, we should have everything on file.”
“There are others, Jo.”
“Other missing girls, you mean?”
“Yes. Same age range.”
There was a long pause.
“Are they related?” she asked.
“Can’t tell at this stage.”
“Do you think this guy is responsible?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll get right on it,” she said. “Check your email.”
“Thanks, Jo.”
True to her word, Jo emailed through a list of Payne’s places of abode since his release. He got around.
“Look at this,” he said to Mallory. “He lived in Croydon, then Guildford and now Barnes. Didn’t one of the other missing girls live in Sutton? That’s near Croydon, isn’t it?”
“Fairly close,” confirmed Mallory, who had all the locations committed to memory. “Elstead is near Guildford too. Do you have the dates he stayed there?”
Rob forwarded him Jo’s email. Was Payne responsible for the disappearances of the other girls too?
22
“Where were you between eight thirty and nine thirty on Tuesday morning?” Rob spread the stills from the CCTV footage out over the table. “And don’t tell me you were at work, because we know you weren’t.”
He watched as Payne’s eyes dropped to the photographs. In the first, he was walking away from the Olympic Cafe, iced coffee in hand. In the second, he was further along Church Road, and in the third, he was walking past Barnes Green.
“What did you do after this?” Rob tapped the third photograph.
“You don’t have to answer that,” his solicitor said.
“It’s advisable that you do,” snapped Rob. “If you want us to believe you’re innocent.”
“I didn’t do anything.” His shoulders sagged. “I sat on the green and drank my coffee, I watched the kids feeding the ducks for a while, then I walked back to the gallery.”
“You did that for an hour?” Rob narrowed his eyes.
Payne didn’t react. “Yeah, what’s wrong with that? It was a nice day.”
“You like watching the kids feeding the ducks?” Rob goaded him.
The solicitor shot him a warning glance.
“Is that why you lured Katie down to the old reservoir at the nature reserve?”
“My client has already stated he was by the pond on Barnes Green,” said Chubby. “Not at the Leg O’ Mutton Reservoir in the nature reserve.”
“Come on, Ant. I know you didn’t want to hurt Katie, just like you didn’t want to hurt the others, but you can’t help yourself, can you?”
Mallory glanced at him in surprise.
“What others?” Chubby cut in.
“Oh, you don’t know about those?” Rob raised an eyebrow. “Do you know about Katie then?”
“Of course not. My client has already stated he had nothing to do with Katie Wells’ disappearance.”
“As you’ve repeatedly said,” finished Rob.
Chubby leaned back in his chair. “Can we move on, then? Either charge my client or let him go.”
“What others?” Payne growled.
“Don’t indulge him,” his solicitor warned.
“The other missing girls,” Rob explained as if he were talking to a child. “You know, the ones who disappeared from the areas you used to live in. Croydon, Guildford…” He studied Payne’s face, but it was a mask.
“Detective? Is there a charge?”
Rob had to let it go. “Not at this point, but I’m going to remand your client in custody for the maximum time allowed under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.”
The solicitor puckered his lips, then nodded. “Once again, I’d like a word with my client in private.”
“By all means.”
Rob and Mallory terminated the interview and left the room.
“What are you playing at?” blurted out Mallory, as they took the stairs up to the squad room.
“I wanted to see his reaction.” Rob tucked the case folder under his arm. “If he knows we’re on to him, he might crack.”
“He might not be responsible for those other victims,” pointed out his DI. “We don't even know if he’s responsible for this one.”
“I thought it was worth a shot,” Rob said. “Although, I couldn’t get a read on him. Could you?”
“I don’t think he knew what you were talking about.” Mallory swung open the door and stood back to let Rob enter first.
He didn’t reply.
Payne had shut down faster than a steel security door. Something had been behind those blank eyes, but he didn’t know what.
Six professional civilian telephone operators arrived a short while later and were shown into a designated control room. Their job was to monitor the hotline that would be buzzing once Crimewatch aired tonight at nine o’clock. They had strict instructions to vet the callers and were armed with a list of keywords to look out for and specific questions to ask.
For example, Katie’s hair had been tied up in a ponytail, a fact that hadn’t been released to the public. Anyone claiming to have seen a little girl with pigtails or hair that was loose, could probably be discounted.
Katie had been lured into the nature reserve, but the sniffer dogs had followed her trail all the way along the river towpath to a grassy patch near Nassau Road, a stretch of roughly seven hundred metres. Anyone sighting Katie in this vicinity, or on Lonsdale Road itself, warranted further investigation.
Rob didn’t hold out much hope. He knew the kidnapper had been very clever and avoided crowds and CCTV. Besides, eyewitness testimonies were notoriously unreliable. The amber alert they’d put out the day Katie went missing hadn’t resulted in many follow ups, and those they had, had turned out to be false alarms.
At nine o’clock they all gathered round the wall-mounted television and watched Crimewatch. The re-enactment was pretty authentic, apart from the few details that the press wasn’t aware of like Katie’s ponytail, the meeting with the dog walker and her friend Candy’s involvement. Everybody cheered when Harry made his appearance. He did a great job of filling in the factual details of the case for the viewers. A natural on camera.
There was a plea by the distraught parents. How the Crimewatch team had managed to get them in the same room together, Rob had no idea.
A hundred thousand pound reward for her release! The Wells didn’t have that kind of money. It wasn’t them, so someone else must be footing the bill.
“Who’s paying the reward money,” Rob asked Jenny, who was sitting next to him.
“I’ll find out.”
The call lines opened, and the operators got to work. The room was soundproof, thank God, otherwise they’d all be driven mad by the constant ringing of telephones.
“Just one reliable witness,” prayed Mallory, as they watched through the glass partition. Serious-faced operators furiously jotted down information on notepads.
“How do you think he knew the camera at the Swedish School was out?” Rob muttered.
Mallory shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”
“I’m not so sure. Payne used to be a teacher, right? He could have known someone at the school. Maybe he had inside information.”
“Or he could have sabotaged it himself,” suggested Mallory.
Rob grunted. That was a much more likely explanation.
“Do we know what’s wrong with it?” he asked.
“No.” Mallory gave him a look that said, really?
Rob shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to find out.”
“Okay, I’ll put someone on it.” Mallory was learning to delegate. As a DS, he was used to doing most of the dog work himself, but lately Rob had noticed him passing on tasks to Will, Jenny and the other DS’s on the team.
It was a skill he still had trouble with.
After the broadcast, Harry came up to him. “Can I have a word, guv?”
“Yeah, what’s on your mind?”
“I spoke to Fatima, who got in touch with her uncle in the police force, over in Iran.”
“Aah, yes?”
“He said he might be able to help, but it will take a few days. He’s going to make some enquiries. I passed on Ramin Parvin’s details, I hope that was okay?”
He looked warily at Rob.
“That’s great,” Rob put him at ease. “Good work, Harry. And well done on how you handled the Crimewatch crew.”
Harry glowed with pride. “Thank you, sir.”
Rob picked up the case file and prepared to have another stab at Payne. There was no fresh evidence, but the man would be tired and nearing the end of his tether.
If they left it any later, the guy wouldn’t get his eight hours uninterrupted sleep before morning.
Rob was halfway down the stairs when Mallory called after him, “It’s Ed Maplin on the phone. He says they’ve found something buried in the wetlands.”
23
“Fucking hell.” Rob jogged back up the stairs. “Are you serious?”
“Afraid so.”
“What have they found?”
Mallory didn’t meet his gaze.
“Please tell me it’s not a body?”
“I’m not sure. Ed said it looked like a skeleton of some sort. Small, half-buried in the ground.”
Rob squeezed his eyes shut. “Jesus.”
“Even if Katie is dead, she wouldn’t have decomposed so fast,” Mallory pointed out rationally. “It’s not likely to be her.”
“Still, we don’t know what he did to her. Have forensics meet us down there. I want to be sure before we jump to any conclusions.”
“What about Payne?”
“He’ll keep. We’ve got twenty-four hours before we have to charge him or let him go.”
By the time they got to the Barnes wetlands it was well after midnight. The heat of the day hadn’t let up and it was a balmy twenty-four degrees according to the temperature display in their vehicle.
It had been a quiet drive there. There wasn’t much to say and no point in surmising. They had to wait until forensics identified the bones. Then they’d know what they were dealing with.
They drove down Queen Elizabeth Walk toward the Barnes Elms Sports Club and parked in the centre carpark. The white SOCO van was already there, as well as two police vehicles, blue lights blinding in the darkness. There were no streetlamps, the only source of light a grinning half-moon. Giant oaks cast black shadows onto the tarmac. They’d seen it all before.
“Bloody hell,” muttered Rob as he tripped over a pothole and nearly went flying.
“Watch your step,” the PC guarding the vehicles called out helpfully.
“Yeah, thanks. This way, is it?” He pointed down a gravel path that vanished into nothingness.
“That’s it. Then across the rugby pitch and left along the river for about two hundred yards. You’ll see it from there.”
Rob nodded and they set off, their torch beams jumping over the dry, pockmarked grass.
“You play rugby?” he asked Mallory. The white goalposts stretched forever into the night sky. It seemed an inconsequential thing to say, but he was trying not to think about what they would find two hundred yards down river.
“No, I was more of a football player myself,” Mallory replied. “How about you?”
It was clear he was having the same problem.
“Nah, I didn’t go to that sort of school, mate.”
They trudged along the river path, toward the hazy glow from the forensic lights in the distance.
“What if it’s her?” said Mallory
“Don’t. It can’t be her, you said so yourself. It’s too soon for that level of decomp.”
He prayed they were right.
The remains weren’t on the river path, they were about twenty-five metres inland, in a heavily wooded area. A mound of freshly dug earth drew their attention and on a plastic sheet beside it lay a collection of tiny bones. A portable floodlight illuminated the find.
It couldn’t be Katie. The bones looked far too old.
“What you got?” The forensic pathologist, a slim woman with dark hair tied up in a bun, leaned over the bones.
“We’re still digging them out,” she replied over her shoulder, “but from what I’ve seen, I’d say they were canine.”
“Canine? You mean those are dog’s bones?” Rob s
tared at the array of bones scarcely bigger than his finger. They could just have easily passed for a child’s rib cage.
She glanced up. “I think someone buried the family pooch here.”
Mallory broke into a deep chuckle. “This was probably his favourite spot.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Rob bent over and took a few deep breaths. When he stood up, he was shaking with the release of adrenalin. “So definitely not human?”
“No chance,” the technician confirmed.
Rob shook his head. “Unbelievable. Is Ed Maplin around?”
The woman shrugged. “Who?”
“Never mind.”
It turned out the neighbourhood watch group had been sent home once the emergency services arrived. “We didn’t want them contaminating the scene,” the officer said. “Didn’t know it was Fido at that point, did we?” He grinned.
“For once I’m glad this was a false alarm,” said Rob as they walked back to the car.
Mallory nodded, but didn’t reply.
It hadn’t been her this time, but they both feared that next time, it might well be.
“Coffee anyone?” DS Bird breezed into the squad room the next morning carrying two take-away trays filled with coffee. “Flat whites only, I’m afraid.”
The team fell on them, but she reserved one for Rob. “Here you go, guv.”
“Thanks Jenny.”
He’d been at the station since six that morning reading the reports from Arina Parvin’s case. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it was related somehow, even though it appeared not to be.
She’d cut through Bisley Wood on her way home from school with two friends. They’d split up less than a hundred metres from the end of the path. The road would have been in sight. Both girls had given matching statements and Rob had no reason to doubt them.
Arina had been abducted on a hundred metre stretch of woodland. Her school bag hadn’t been found, nor was there any trace of her, although no official search had been authorised.
Because Tessa Parvin had initially said she feared her husband had abducted their daughter, they hadn’t looked into any other possible lines of enquiry.