Chloe- Lost Girl

by Dan Laughey

  Oct 83… hunt intensifies for Hartlepool man Larry Hart accused of murdering family of three in their Sheffield home a week ago; detectives examine telephone call Hart made to the Yorkshire Post for clues as to his whereabouts.

  Suddenly alarm bells started ringing:

  Nov 84… detectives searching for two men, one believed to have shot dead Sergeant George Gray outside Leeds Parish Church yesterday.

  And exactly a year later:

  Nov 85… THE IRISH CONNECTION – on the anniversary of Gray’s murder the Yorkshire Post can reveal it may take 12 months to extradite Tom Kelly, the man wanted for questioning over the murder; Kelly has engaged the services of a top Irish criminal lawyer in attempt to block extradition; the Irishman lived in the Stoney Rock area of Leeds until six years ago and still has connections in the city.

  The Irish extradition case didn’t seem a likely contender, but the murder to which it was connected certainly did. If so, there was deep, dark irony in Dryden investigating the killing of a policeman and getting himself killed as a result.

  Sant skimmed through his notes for the later years but nothing stood out like the Gray murder. On the 1st of September 1988 two men were due to appear in court after the discovery of a naked sixteen-year-old girl by the side of the M1, but this story was not related to events of the 31st of August.

  The same front page had a story about a fishing boat that had been found at sea and towed back to Bridlington harbour, the two-man crew still missing. Could these men have had anything to do with what Dryden’s informant told him?

  Unlikely, Sant thought. For one thing, Bridlington wasn’t exactly close to Leeds.

  The other relevant newspaper issues hinted at nothing of local interest, though on the global front he couldn’t help glancing over the November ’89 headline hailing the first ever superpower summit between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George Bush, to take place on two warships in the Mediterranean Sea. Times were changing on the political front, the New World Order unfolding fast.

  It was only after they’d finished their decade-long news binge that Sant glanced at his watch and realised how late it was.

  ‘One thirty. We’ve overstayed our welcome.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Mia. ‘I know the security. It’s amazing what a smile can achieve.’

  He gave her a broad grin. ‘I wouldn’t doubt you.’ And then he went a little further – not certain of where, but certain he wished it. ‘Any chance we can… hook up again?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Why not indeed, he thought. ‘How does dinner tomorrow sound?’

  She looked startled but gave a little nod. ‘Okay, it’s a date.’

  They exchanged numbers and left in the manner they’d met, with a handshake. He felt the pleasant warmth of her tiny palm. He could have held that hand for a while longer, though it hardly seemed appropriate.

  He didn’t know her. She didn’t know him. But he left determined to put that right. Mia, he told himself, was a woman he could get to know well.

  10

  The man wearing Ray-Bans towered over her, a vulture surveying its prey. The expensive sunglasses didn’t keep her from recognising the low-down scum he was. Standing alongside him was the ever-present Baseball Cap, licking his lips and leering at her.

  Good cop, bad cop.

  The trembling she expected at this moment never came. A calm smouldering shone on her skin as she traced a finger over her brow to move a single hair, jaw set. Now that they were facing her – their sneers and empty sentiments – she felt a loathing for these men. Men without hearts, men without consciences, men full of hate who deserved hate in return.

  She sensed the helpers were there too, prowling in the wings. She felt no anger at them. Wasn’t even afraid of them. They were just hit-men making a living. They worked to live. Unlike their employers, who lived to carry out their vile work – and got others to clear up their mess.

  She’d been moved to an expansive room, this one whitewashed too, on what looked like the top floor of a barn conversion. The pong of manure reinforced her impressions. The place was barely furnished. A garden hose and a few odd items of flat-packed furniture.

  Whether it was a living room or bedroom she couldn’t tell. The dressing mirror and chest of drawers stood incongruous with the square coffee table and makeshift mantelpiece enclosing a gaping hole meant for a gas fire. At the centre of the room, under a naked light bulb hanging from a worn flex, were a high lean-back mauve chair and two smaller wooden chairs, one a hard-back Chippendale repro more suited to dining. Alongside these was a half moon console table, probably designed for a hallway. Half-opened venetian blinds let thin rays of sunlight break in from below, casting a patterned shadow over the tatty floorboards.

  Ray-Bans aimed a spindly finger at the hard-back chair. ‘Sit her there,’ he called to Jim. ‘If she struggles, rough her up a bit, yeah?’ He showed a gap between his index finger and thumb. ‘Just a little bit.’

  He turned to her. No smile. No frown. Just the stone cold gaze of control.

  ‘Take her clothes.’ His face darkened, turning from his men to stare at her again. ‘Resist if you like. I know I’ll like it – my associate here will take a hammer to your toes.’ He pointed to a grinning John. ‘We have urgent matters to resolve. Don’t fuck us around, sweetheart.’

  He exchanged nods with the two hit-men and left the room, Baseball Cap ambling in close proximity.

  Jim got to work. He pushed her forward, firmly but without aggression, and clasped her shoulders and guided her into the chair. Grasping her neck he exerted enough pressure to hold her down before lifting a pen-knife from his jacket pocket and slitting the rope around her wrists. He pocketed the knife immediately before placing his right arm beneath her chin and pulling her upright.

  For a split second, with her hands momentarily free and the blood working its way back into her lower arms, she felt the urge to attack her captors. But her feet were still tied with the same thick rope, and when she pictured herself boxing free… she hung her head. With a rapid twisting of her wrist and binding of spare rope, the other man – John – pinned her arms back and fettered her to the back of the chair. In panic, she tried to place all her weight on her feet and lift the chair over her back, but it was heavy and she was glued to it.

  John grabbed her by the throat and held a flick-knife on the surface of her skin. ‘Remember what the gentleman said, love. Struggle and you get hurt. I might use the hammer or I might use the knife. Understand?’

  ‘Leave it out,’ came Jim’s response from behind her.

  John stilled, her heavy breaths loud in the moment.

  ‘What the fuck did you say, Jim?’

  ‘I said, leave off. She’s got a bad time coming without you making it worse for her.’

  Still holding the flick-knife to her throat, John turned his gaze on Jim: ‘If you ever question my actions again, cunt, I will stab you where the sun don’t shine. Comprehend?’

  No reply from Jim, though she sensed a muffled sigh.

  John removed the knife and she let her arms relax. No point in wasting energy. All she could do was sit there and hope for a way out, a taste of possible freedom.

  Fear bottled in her gut rushed into her throat as she felt the blade of the flick-knife running down her spine. It slit her blouse clean through. She felt cold air as the two halves tumbled to the floor. Next her trousers were slit at both legs right up to the waist, evoking a memory of her youth when she’d broken her leg and the surgeon had cut up her favourite jeans on the operating table. To her amazement, she looked down at her exposed thighs and saw no blood.

  The man had a steady hand at least.

  The chill was enveloping her flesh, bra, knickers and shoes – the only things left. But she felt no more vulnerable without clothes than with them. She’d reached the very pit of fear. However sinister these men became, her final hours couldn’t possibly be ghastlier than they already were.

&nbs
p; He dreamt of months and years and buses painted with threes and fives and eights. He woke, went back to sleep, and dreamt of news headlines and dead policemen and police killers. He woke again, prayed for a good dream, and instead got concentric circles of library maps and microfiche reels and oval-faced women with sapphire eyes, one of whom looked like a student and kept nuzzling his wet neck while scholarly works rained down from above.

  He got up, made haste wolfing down tea and toast, then called Capstick.

  ‘Something to get your teeth into, partner.’

  ‘Hopefully not that steak I had last night.’

  ‘Tough, was it?’

  ‘More fat than flesh.’

  ‘That’s how I like them.’ Sant plucked a toothpick out of a plastic container, bit hard on it. ‘You know that archive you’ve been working on?’

  Capstick coughed down the line. ‘The one coated in three inches of dust, sir?’

  ‘That’s the one. Find out all you can about a police murder in Leeds on the 31st of October 1984.’

  ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘I’ll explain later. Don’t forget your dust mask.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.’

  He picked up the morning paper and saw the image of the ‘Death Bus’, a massive wreck in the leisure centre car park alongside shots of Lister and Hardaker speaking to the press. Chief Constable Lister was quoted as saying he had complete confidence in Hardaker and wouldn’t involve himself directly in the investigation. No Gilligan anywhere: a rebuff maybe? Was Lister keeping the eccentric Old Man away from the glare of the public eye?

  Don’t blame him, Sant thought.

  He pointed his Fiesta towards HQ. But not for long. It was time for another move.

  Chloe Lee…

  Anything related to Chloe was tied up with Dryden and the bus killings in his mind’s eye. Gilligan remained sceptical. But someone a little more convinced about the Chloe-Dryden link had tipped off the Old Man. Who? Sant was confident Holdsworth and Capstick weren’t the blabbers.

  He scratched at his chin. Jake Downing came to mind. It was something he’d said in interview: couples argue all the time. Jake and Chloe had argued, often and loudly, though just that made them a couple. After he’d asked Holdsworth to call Jake and arrange a further round of questioning, they found out that the young man was away in London visiting relatives and wasn’t due back until tomorrow evening.

  London… he scratched again. Chloe’s phone had been discovered near King’s Cross station. Could she be with Jake’s relatives down there, dead or alive?

  Sant preferred to wait for a face-to-face interview with Downing rather than talk over the phone. The art of interrogation was far more effective when up close and personal. And interviewing someone – anyone – was an exercise in visual as much as verbal communication. He doubted the usefulness of those criminology textbooks Capstick was so fond of, but the body language stuff he found fascinating.

  Gripping the wheel, he grinned at the thought of textbooks, November morning blustery beyond his reflection on the windscreen, another trip to the university his chosen destination. Not the library – he’d wait for Mia’s help on all matters microfiche – but Chloe’s academic department. He’d been there before. As soon as the missing person case was passed on to him. But Chloe’s tutors had been attending a conference on Histories of Suffering in Modern Europe.

  Where’s the attraction in that? Sant mused.

  A sprawl of Victorian and sci-fi Brutalist architecture built on a moor: that much described the main Leeds University campus. Historically, the site was renowned for great battles against the Establishments of the time. At the height of the English Civil War, Parliamentarians had gathered here before overcoming the Royalists and occupying the city. It was here that Suffragettes had fought for women’s rights, miners had gathered to demand higher wages and better working conditions… These days, fracking and trident exercised the collective consciousness.

  Owing to an unpleasant experience involving a brick and his forehead, Sant was no fan of protests and the people they attracted, but he was a keen advocate of free speech and holding the powerful to account. As he entered the art-deco Parkinson Building at the top end of the campus, he felt a deep respect for the intellectual mind. Here stood, in statue form, the unsung heroes of the past: great men – and a few women – who’d put their blessed grey cells to use by inventing things, solving dilemmas, challenging the orthodox fallacies of their day.

  If only he’d buckled down at school. Sant shook his head. His school had only offered ways of learning to get out and find work.

  He weaved his way along corridors, harassing students at intervals to ask for directions, and at last he came to the School of History and Politics. The woman at the reception desk, ‘Debbie’ according to the badge pinned on her suit jacket, looked colder than the corridors he’d just walked down. He showed her his ID.

  ‘Oh, have you come about the missing student?’

  ‘Did you’ – he corrected himself just in time – ‘do you know Chloe Lee?’ He pushed back one side of his jacket, hand on waist, the other on the desk.

  ‘Not to any extent, Mr Sant.’ Her eyes narrowed when his fingers started tapping. ‘We exchanged greetings – that was all. Besides, she was often in a rush.’

  He waited for her to continue but she didn’t. ‘A rush?’

  ‘Quite so. She was frequently late for classes.’

  ‘Did she explain why?’

  Debbie shook her head. ‘Is there anyone in particular you’d like to see, Mr Sant?’

  He thought for a moment and then asked: ‘Who’d be the best tutor to speak to, Debs?’

  ‘Let me see.’ Her mouth puckered at the informal address. She tapped her keyboard with touch-type ease, Sant all the time craning his neck for a peep at her screen, shoulder surfer extraordinaire. ‘Her Head of School is here. He’s busy right now.’

  ‘You’d better make him un-busy.’

  Five minutes and an incomprehensible phone call later, she gave him directions to the second floor, Room SSPS245. It sounded like a rocket launcher. He took the lift and then followed signs along more cold corridors before discovering a faux wood door with the polished brass nameplate NEIL ROTHWELL PROFESSOR OF MODERN POLITICAL HISTORY fixed to it. Below the name and title were the words HEAD OF SCHOOL. Clearly a big cheese.

  He knocked.

  No response.

  He knocked again, a little louder.

  Still nothing.

  He knocked once more, much louder, then pushed down the door handle and walked in.

  Professor Rothwell – donning Beats as he whistled to a jazz number on his top-of-the-range laptop – caught Sant in the corner of his eye and waved him in. He threw off the headphones and made a series of strange arm gestures that Sant took to mean he was welcome.

  He was a thin man whose age was impossible to place. His tatty blazer and brown corduroys spoke of middle-aged inertia, but his shock of dishevelled fair hair gave him an oddly juvenile character. Maybe he’d donned the same new-romantic hairstyle for a few decades, and at last the style was trendy again. The illusion of youth was supplemented by an acute drooping upper left eyelid not unlike Thom Yorke’s of Radiohead fame.

  ‘Good afternoon, Inspector.’ He spoke with a Cornish twang. ‘Can I trouble you for a drink?’

  Sant declined the offer. ‘I’ve come about Chloe Lee. I believe you’re one of her tutors.’

  Rothwell hesitated before replying. ‘I have been Chloe’s dissertation tutor since September. But under the circumstances, I have not seen her as yet. Such an intelligent girl’ – he admonished himself – ‘intelligent woman. I’m not allowed to call my students girls any more. It’s politically incorrect.’

  ‘Know her well, Professor?’

  ‘Please, call me Neil. Hierarchies are so stifling, don’t you think?’ Sant didn’t think much of hierarchies either, but this was hardly the time for a philosophical debate on the mat
ter. The professor ruffled his abundant hair. ‘Let me see. I took tutorials with Chloe and her peers every week in their second year, though in the second semester – January to May – tutorials were voluntary. They could come and go as they pleased.’

  ‘Did Chloe attend?’

  Rothwell shook his head. ‘Only my weaker students attend the voluntary tutorials. Chloe doesn’t come close to weak. In fact, she is an outstanding student more than capable of entering graduate school.’

  ‘Graduate school?’

  The professor laughed. ‘Sorry, Inspector – I forget that you are not familiar with university lingo. Graduate schools are for postgraduates; for those students who have excelled as undergraduates and continue on, beyond their degree, to Masters’ programmes and PhDs.’

  ‘And you think Chloe has a PhD in her?’

  ‘Oh, hell I. Chloe was producing postgraduate-quality work the moment she started here.’

  ‘Has she expressed interest in an academic career?’

  Rothwell inhaled deeply. ‘Not to myself, but I understand so.’

  Sant was puzzled. ‘How can you understand if she hasn’t mentioned it?’

  Rothwell twitched his drooping eyelid and fiddled with his headphones. ‘Umm… well, a colleague of mine – her personal tutor – may have discussed career options… though perhaps I am mistaken.’

  ‘Your colleague’s name?’

  Sant noticed how the professor had gone from laid-back to defensive.

  ‘Now look here, Inspector, it would be remiss of me to disclose any personal details without – ’

  ‘All I want is a name. I’m not issuing an arrest warrant.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Rothwell said with a nervous titter. He stared into Sant’s eyes as if aiming for distraction, but the inspector didn’t flinch. ‘His name is Anthony Gordon, Tony to those who know him.’ He closed his shiny laptop dejectedly, placing the headphones carefully on top. ‘And I would urge you to proceed with caution. Tony possesses a brilliant mind, but he lacks certain… sensibilities. He has Asperger’s –high functioning. But at times he becomes a little… charged up. Let’s just say we do not always see eye to eye.’