A Game of Proof (15 page)

‘Reindeer? Yuck!’ said Esther. ‘Trude, you can’t!’

‘Whales are intelligent animals, like us!’ Jessica protested. ‘You can’t eat them!’

Trude looked amused and hurt at once. She sat down, sweeping her long fair hair back as she tried to explain. ‘Well, most Norwegians don’t kill them ...’

The mobile in Terry’s pocket rang. Irritated, he answered it. ‘Yes?’

It was Sergeant Rossiter at the station. ‘Sorry to trouble you at home, sir, but there’s been a flap overnight about a missing person out your way and I thought you might want to go straight there before you come in.’

‘A misper? Aren’t uniform dealing with it?’

‘Well, yes sir, they are, but like I say it’s out your way and one of the parents is someone you know, as it happens. A Mrs Sarah Newby.’

Terry groaned. ‘All right. But I’m having breakfast with my kids first. Okay?’

‘Sir.’ It was not a thing CID officers usually said. ‘I’ll tell them you’re on your way.’

At the Newby house no one had slept.

Bob had called the police at 8.30 p.m. but at first it had been hard to get them to take him seriously. A fifteen year old girl, still early in the evening - it didn’t seem urgent. Nonetheless they would send a car round.

When the two PCs arrived Sarah and Bob were bemused by the uniforms and crackling radios in their own living room. They gave the details anxiously, submissively almost. No, Emily had no problems except her exams; no, there had been no family quarrel; yes, she was nearly sixteen; yes, she had been out at night before but always with friends; yes, she had a mobile but it was at home. Sarah gave them the number she had got from ringing 1471 and a constable wrote it down without comment. They checked Emily’s room, took a photograph that Sarah gave them, wrote down Sarah’s guess at the clothes her daughter had been wearing, and then - left.

‘They’re not bloody interested!’ she fumed after they had gone. ‘They think it’s just a family quarrel. They’re not going to do anything at all!’

Bob frowned. ‘We did say she might turn up at any time, after all.’

‘If she does I’ll kill her, the spoilt brat.’

‘Maybe that’s why she went.’

‘Oh, it’s my fault now, is it?’

‘You didn’t show her much sympathy over her exams this morning, did you?’

‘I talked to her, didn’t I? You were still semi-conscious, as you are every morning. I said I’d phone her at lunchtime and I did, too. I can’t help a person who isn’t there!’

‘Maybe she thinks
you’re
never there when she wants you.’

‘Oh shut up, Bob, this is no time for pop psychology. The fact is the wretched girl
has
vanished and you’re quite right, it
is
out of character and it
is
late and the useless plods aren’t interested.’

‘They did take her photo.’

‘Yes.’ That was the thing that had shaken Sarah. It was a school portrait in a frame, of a slightly younger Emily smiling engagingly at the camera. The sort of photo of someone posed and pretty and full of bubbling happiness which the newspapers splash on their front pages when a girl has been stripped, raped, mutilated and murdered. Look at me, the photos always seem to say. I’m a star at last!

But unlike newspaper readers, the police and lawyers get to see the real photos, of the naked strangled corpse with the wounds and swollen eyes and the purple tongue hanging out.

That’s not going to happen to Emily, Sarah thought. It can’t. It won’t. This is all a bad dream.

It might.

At 11.05 p.m. the police rang to say the phone number was from a public call box in Blossom Street, and had Sarah and Bob been in touch with Emily’s grandparents? Might she have gone there?

They hadn’t. Sarah and Bob each rang their parents, spreading the ripples of anxiety further. No, of course Emily wasn’t with them. Bob rang the police and asked testily what they were doing now? At 1.00 a second police car with a uniformed sergeant arrived to ask many of the same questions, and probe further. Which were her closest friends? When had Bob spoken to them?  Had Emily ever been out longer than expected, or with someone they didn’t know? Where exactly did she like to go for walks?

The man was serious, concerned, avuncular. They would make some enquiries of her friends, he said, and if she still hadn’t turned up by morning a proper search would be considered.

‘Considered?’ Bob asked. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘Well, sir, we need to know where to look, really. I mean if you said she had gone out to a particular place we could start from there, but it’s not as simple in this case, is it? But we’ll do our best. Her description’s already been circulated.’

Then he, too, left. Neither Bob nor Sarah smoked so they were reduced to pacing up and down, arguing, drinking coffee. Then at two o’clock Sarah remembered Simon! That was it of course - it had to be! Emily and Simon weren’t particularly close but surely Emily had said something about him that morning. What was it now?
‘I’ll be like Simon - he’s happy, at least!’

‘Why didn’t you mention that before?’ Bob asked, aghast.

‘I don’t know, I just ... didn’t,’ she faltered.

‘Didn’t think, more like,’ said Bob angrily. ‘OK, I’ll give him a ring.’

‘No, Bob, I’ll do it. He’s my son!’

‘And she’s my daughter! You’ve done enough damage today already!’ He walked out to the phone in the hall. ‘If she is there I’ll give that boy a piece of my mind. This is the very last time he’s going to screw up our lives, I promise you that!’

Sarah sat down and thought,
how could we be so stupid?
Of course it must be Simon - why was I blocking it out? Is he so very distant from me as well as Bob now, that we don’t think of him at all in a situation like this? At least I know where she is now. She’s with Simon, she’s not a bloody corpse in some field somewhere. The relief was so great it flooded through her. Prize idiots we’re going to look when we tell the police!

She slumped on the sofa, listening for Bob’s voice in the hall. Why does he blame
me
for all this - it’s not just my fault, surely? If this is what they call a bad patch in your marriage I hope it doesn’t get any worse. Then she heard Bob talking.

‘You’re quite sure ... you’re telling me the truth now, Simon ... if I come round there and find she’s been with you I’ll ... yes, okay ... no, I don’t think you need to do that ...’

He stood in the doorway with a wild expression on his face and said: ‘She’s not there.’

‘What? You’ve got to be joking.’

‘No, I’m not. Unless he’s lying, but I don’t think he is. He swears he hasn’t seen her, in fact he seemed quite upset when he got over the shock. He wanted to come over here but I said not to bother.’

‘Whyever not? He might help.’

‘I don’t see how. Anyway she’s not with him, Sarah - he hasn’t seen her.’

‘Oh God, no.’ She moaned as the full realisation hit her.

‘Yes. Yes I’m afraid so. Where the hell can she be?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did but I don’t.’

And so the nightmare continued. When Terry Bateson arrived just before 9 a.m. Sergeant Hendry was already there. He had sent two officers along the river bank behind the house, and four more were making enquiries round the village. Bob had just come in from the riverbank wearing an anorak and rubber boots. He was pale and unshaven. He gazed bitterly at Terry.

‘And who the hell might you be?’

Terry showed his card. ‘We’ve met before, actually, Mr Newby. At the judge’s ball.’

‘Have we? Well, that doesn’t matter now. What I need is someone to find my daughter.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Terry followed him into the living room where Sarah sat, her hands clasped round a cup of coffee. To his surprise she was wearing black motorcyclist’s trousers, jacket and boots. Her face was pale, with dark bruises of sleeplessness round her eyes. She didn’t appear to notice him.

‘Hello, Sarah. I’m sorry to hear about all this.’

She looked up, startled. ‘Oh, it’s you. Hello, Terry.’

He glanced at Bob. ‘Your wife and I work together sometimes at the courts, Mr Newby.’
Where she shows the world how useless I am.
Well, the boot’s on the other foot now.

‘Yes, no doubt. Well, what are you going to do?’

‘I’ve only just come on duty, sir, I’m afraid. I need to know all the facts.’

‘For God’s sake! She’s been missing nearly twenty four hours and they send a complete newcomer on the case!’

Sergeant Hendry intervened. ‘DI  Bateson is the most senior officer to be involved so far, sir. If we set up a full scale search he’ll be the man to co-ordinate it.’

‘Yes, all right. Let’s get on with it then. For all we know every minute counts.’ As Hendry explained the details Terry scrutinized Bob and decided that a display of anger and nervous energy was the only way he had of coping with the situation. A cocktail of fear and despair drove him to constantly interrupt the sergeant, creating more confusion rather than less. Sarah, on the other hand, sipped her coffee in silence, apparently withdrawn into herself.

The basic rule in child disappearances was: first look for the child, then look for the problem. If the child hasn’t simply had an accident or got lost then there must be a reason for its running away, and very often the reason had something to do with family conflicts.

Was there a conflict here? The father pacing up and down manically, the wife silent. Neither offering the other any comfort, hardly looking at each other. Probably. After all, he knew from personal experience what a bitch the wife could be.

‘You’re quite sure, Mr Newby, there’s nothing else your daughter might have said or done to indicate where she might be now?’

‘I’ve told you that - no! Not that I can think of.’

‘And there was no unusual quarrel or family row yesterday?’

‘Not with
me
, anyway. Emily was worried about her exams, and I asked Sarah to talk to her before she went to work. She was supposed to comfort her but I don’t know what she said.’

‘I told her to stick to her revision plan and she’d be all right. I promised to ring her at lunchtime, which I did.’ In comparison to her husband’s voice Sarah’s was perfectly calm and controlled. But that was the danger of it, Terry thought, wryly. It was the same controlled, deadly voice she had deployed against him in the witness box yesterday, when his friendly lunch companion had transformed herself into a razor-tongued witch. If that was how she behaved as a mother, God knows how many emotional wounds her daughter had.

Terry shut his notebook. ‘All right. I think I’ve got the picture. It seems sergeant Hendry has done all the correct things so far. When your men come back from the river, Tom, we’ll put them on house to house enquiries with the others - it’s not a big village, someone must have seen her if she was about yesterday. Get onto the bus company too, see which drivers came here yesterday and show them her photo. Then I want to check that phone box where the call came from ...’

‘How on earth will that help?’ Bob interrupted irritably. ‘If it’s a public phone anyone could have used it.’

‘Yes, sir, of course. But it’s our only real clue so far, and unless it’s at the station or in the city centre it probably has its own group of regular users. Most public phones do. So I’ll check that, and then I’ll need to talk to that son of yours, Sa ... Mrs Newby.’

It didn’t seem right to use her first name, in front of her husband. But the surname felt awkward too.

She picked up her motorcycle helmet with a faint, strained smile. ‘All right. I go near his house on my way to work. If you follow me I can take you right to his door.’

Bob exploded. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Sarah? You can’t go to work! For Christ’s sake - Emily’s missing!’

Sarah’s voice remained quiet and dry; exhausted but determined. ‘I know that, Bob. I’ve already been out on the bike to look for her but it does no good. I don’t know where she is and neither do you. And now we’ve got the police to search for us. I’ve got a job to do.’

‘Defending a bloody rapist - when your own daughter might be lying dead somewhere! You’re out of your mind!’

‘It’s
you
that’s out of your mind, Bob. You’ve been shouting nonstop for four hours, and I can’t take any more. I think Emily will come back when she’s good and ready. In the meantime I’ve got one speech to make in court and that’s it. I’ll ring when I can. Do you want to follow me, Terry?’

Terry, like Bob, was aghast. ‘I ... don’t need to do that, Sarah. Just give me your son’s address and I’ll find it.’

‘Oh, all right. Bob knows it.’ She turned for the door. Terry had the impression she was sleep-walking. Her husband tried to block her path.

‘For God’s sake, Sarah - I need you here! Just ring the court and explain - the judge’ll adjourn the trial!’

To Terry’s amazement, she walked right past him, out of the door. ‘Don’t stop me, Bob. I have to do this. Nothing I do here will make any difference this morning, anyway.’

And then she was gone. The three men heard the motorbike engine start up, cough to a crescendo as she roared out of the short drive, and gradually fade into the distance. Terry had a sense that something was wrong here, something surreal. That woman had just put the defence of a brutal rapist before the search for her own daughter.

Chapter Twelve

I
T WAS, ironically, a sunny day. The sky was a brilliant blue as Sarah rode into York, and sunlight slanted diagonally across her desk to light up the brief, tied with faded red tape. Beside it were the handwritten notes for her speech, prepared last night before going home.

Last night. So long ago it seemed. A decade past.

She tried to recall what the speech was about. That was why she was here, why she had come in. Wasn’t that what she had learned over the years? Never be distracted by the accidents of daily life; identify your main goal, focus all your efforts on achieving it. The other things will sort themselves out on their own.

Emily will come back. Of course she will.

So how was she going to present this case? Sarah bent over her notes, and tried to concentrate.