Double Fault (16 page)

At long last, Ray escorted the girls back to the woman officer. Emily, however, hung back, arguing so quietly Mark couldn't hear – those wretched ears! Monday, yes, Monday, he'd get them tested – but plainly refusing to do as she was told. She reminded him of a small dog, refusing to go walkies, legs braced, head back. Ray summoned the PCSO, who then dragged his reluctant way to Mark. Pushing his head down needlessly hard to prevent him hitting it as he got out of the car, he then grabbed him by the arm – rightly, as Mark forced himself to admit, lest his prisoner tried to make a run for it – and frogmarched him into Ray's presence.

Ray was clearly almost wetting himself in a desire not to laugh. ‘Ferris, I believe you haven't been formally introduced to our former Assistant Chief Constable, Mr Mark Turner. Mr Turner is working closely with me in the search for the missing child, Livvie. Emily, here, and Flora had approached him with information that they thought might be useful. I'm afraid Mr Purton got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He may have overreacted,' he added dryly, still not meeting Mark's eye.

‘Not at all,' Mark lied. He assumed the smooth PR voice that had kept him going during his spell as ACC. ‘In his position, seeing an old man on friendly terms with two schoolgirls, I'd have been very suspicious too. No need for tears, Emily – all's well that ends well.'

The girls looked balefully at Purton, who clearly wanted to huff and puff even longer, with a lot more interesting epithets, but was disconcerted by Mark's response, as were the previously hostile players, who continued nonetheless to mutter.

In response to a jerk of the head from Ray, the PCSO ostentatiously herded the players back to the courts, as if practising recently acquired skills in crowd control.

‘Are you really all right, Mr Turner?' Emily called. She shook off the woman officer's warning hand and came nearer. ‘That crazy idiot didn't hurt you, did he? Because it was us who came to talk to you, wasn't it, Flora? And you made us text home and said we should talk to a proper policeman.'

‘Which I guess you've just done,' Mark said, with an encouraging smile. ‘But don't tell me what you said. It's between you and the police now, and no one else needs to hear.' He looked meaningfully at Purton, who responded by stalking back to his car and grabbing his tennis bag. Funny: half an hour ago the two of them might have suggested a couple of sets against each other. But Purton would have to take his place at the wall or wait his turn. He didn't feel particularly sympathetic.

‘Are you OK to drive, Mark? To follow me?' Ray asked quietly. ‘Because I think when I brief the team you'll want to hear what those kids said.'

T
hey were just concluding a very efficient briefing on the skeletons case: Malcolm Perkins had been certified dead two months ago, after a distressingly prolonged battle with motor neurone disease. He'd never left any confession. But in the years he had managed to work as a youth worker, there had been no reports of any suspicious disappearances. Fran had managed not to snap that they should be investigating the unsuspicious disappearances too. But Madge had jumped in and done that for her: it would be a huge use – and possibly waste – of hours, but they owed it to the Ashford victims to establish everything they could about the possible murderer. Stoke-on-Trent; West Bromwich; Taunton: they had a lot of ground to cover.

‘And, with Tom's assistance, we're checking all the other Ashford mispers of the relevant period to see if any of them might have been the killer and simply scarpered,' she added, suppressing a yawn. ‘Ma'am, how much longer will the press embargo last? I'm feeling really bad that we've not notified the parents of the ones we've identified. And worse that the tests on the others have been postponed.'

The whole team echoed her frustration, which of course Fran shared.

‘Only till Monday. And I have to admit that though I promised I'd go and talk to the bereaved families myself, I can't see me being able to, not until the Livvie case is solved.' She could hardly explain that she'd been ordered to investigate the whereabouts of one of their colleagues on top of everything else. And then she realized they were all waiting expectantly. ‘Oh, and the embargo? It'll hold till tomorrow, and I'll ask the chief constable to press for a further extension, but—' She shrugged, but wished, as her shoulders creaked, that she hadn't. ‘Now, as you know, the overtime budget has been slashed. What little remains is being directed at the Livvie case – which is coming in at about a million a day so far. Personally I don't think it's being wasted. When she's found, I shall argue for more funds for this case. Since I can't pay you to work extra hours, I shan't ask you to work them. In fact, I'd say you all deserve a break. I probably won't say the same thing when the embargo's been lifted, of course. It'll be all systems go – and then some!'

It wasn't until they left the room that she caught Tom's eye. He fell into step with her, strolling casually down the corridor, just as a son might with his mother. ‘You might have to pass some of your work on possible other victims to someone else,' she said quietly. ‘I've got some news. Absolutely confidential. Seems we need to look for Sean Murray.'

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Nothing to do with the rumour that a senior CID bloke did a runner? The word was, though, that although he said he was hightailing it to a wedding, it was something to do with a girlfriend. Though I also heard a rumour that the voice he spoke to on the phone was a man's. Some thought it might be Don Simpson's voice, in fact.'

They exchanged a quizzical look. ‘What a strange rumour. OK, Tom, you report to me and no one else.'

‘Report?'

‘Report. The thing that worries me most,' Fran said, ‘is that Murray once remarked that Ashford was the easiest place in the country to get away from. I know Maidstone hardly hits those heady heights, but once you reach Ashford, in what – half an hour? – the same applies. Or you could simply get a train from Maidstone to London and disappear.'

Tom wrinkled his nose, as if she'd asked him to choose between flavours of crisps. ‘Hard to disappear anywhere these days, isn't it? He'll have his car reg picked up on all manner of CCTV and motorway cameras. If he tries to use his credit card – more data. Mobile phone traceable, too.'

‘In that case it shouldn't take you long to run him to earth, should it?' she smiled affably. She might have been asking for cheese flavour, or salt and vinegar. Heaven forbid she'd ask for either, of course, with those inches to keep off.

‘You really are serious?'

‘The chief's orders, no less. And the chief wants me to update him at ten tonight.'

‘Ten! Does he have any idea how many hours you're putting in on the Livvie case? Not to mention Don's skeletons?'

‘I doubt it. Nor how much time off in lieu you're owed. But that's what folk like you and me do, isn't it, Tom? We get on with things.' She patted his arm, and headed off to Murray's goldfish bowl to check what he might have taken with him.

It looked as if he'd never meant to stay long. Other people personalized their space; Murray's was quite anonymous. Thumbing through his meagre and extremely tidy possessions unnerved her. It was like picking over the property of the dead. At least the paper files he'd been working on were safely locked away, and she didn't fear for one minute that he'd failed to encrypt any information on the laptop he'd walked off with. She should have felt reassured. But she didn't. Not wholly.

One way of easing her back and leg pain was to lie on the floor, head supported by a couple of books, with knees bent and feet slightly apart. The idea was to relax into the pain, which paradoxically had the effect of releasing it. It might be – was – effective, but it was hardly the position to be found in by casual visitors to her office, especially when she had relaxed so deeply she actually fell asleep. At least Ray seemed as embarrassed as she was, though Mark, a pace behind him, naturally took little notice. She declined a joint offer to help her to her feet, rolling over and doing a quasi-press up to return to the vertical. What a pity she spoiled the performance by needing the desk to provide final leverage.

‘Back bad again?' Mark asked, gathering up the books and searching for a vacant spot on the desk.

‘Prevention rather than cure,' she lied. But it was Mark who'd asked, so she conceded, wishing she could just sob on his shoulder and ask him to make the pain go away, ‘OK, it's not so good. But you suffer an injury in one place, it's bound to have repercussions in others,' she added brightly for Ray's benefit. ‘Or should it be,
for
others? Anyway, you both look pregnant with news?' She had an idea that that was a quotation from something; if she cared to know from what, Caffy would be able to tell her off the top of her head. She gestured at the chairs: Ray cleared both of them, dumping files on the floor. Then she remembered her conversation with the chief, and sighed. ‘I've got some news myself, Ray – and it mostly affects you, Mark. Apparently Zac and whatshername – his wife – wanted you both beside them at their next appeal: the chief's vetoed the idea of Mark appearing before it even got put to you. No civilians to sully our TV presentation,' she declaimed in a vague attempt to mimic Wren's precise tones. She raised and dropped her hands to signify the pointlessness of arguing about it. ‘We had a high-level meeting at his golf club,' she continued ironically. ‘Sene Valley, no less. Cut short because he had a meeting in the bar.'

‘Why did you have to go all the way out there? When you're knackered enough to snore on the floor?' Mark demanded.

‘Me? Snore? Never. OK, another issue altogether. One that demanded face-to-face communication. Absolutely between the three of us – OK, Ray? Not so much as a flutter of an eyelid to show you've heard a smidgen of a rumour?' Or he could wave his permanent promotion goodbye. ‘We have a problem with Sean Murray.' She slid a look at Mark, who responded with the tiniest nod.

‘Done a bunk, hasn't he? Everyone knows that,' Ray said, as if stating the obvious, which he clearly was, given what Tom had said. ‘They reckon it was after some phone call. If he wasn't such a cold fish, you'd think maybe he'd got some poor girl up the duff. Or heard he'd won the Euromillions lottery. No? But I won't talk about it with the others if you don't want me to,' he added with a seraphic grin. Clearly there was more to Ray than she'd realized.

She spread her hands, helplessly. ‘So long as you didn't hear it from me, talk all you want.' She grinned, her smile softening and warming as she caught Mark's eye. All the same, she felt even guiltier at having, however tacitly, sided with Wren on the matter of the TV appeal. She should have insisted that they consulted both Ray and Mark: the conclusion might well have been the same. And she would have felt cleaner. ‘I can't help noticing,' she said to Mark, ‘that you're wearing your tennis gear. But you and Ray arrived hotfoot together. Something, apart from young Murray, is clearly up. Your news, please.'

Mark got to his feet and patted the kettle, apparently deciding it was full enough. He ranked three mugs irritatingly side by side and plunged a hand into her tea-bag caddy. ‘Oh, Tom's auntie's cake. And the crumbs still sticky on the knife.' He fished three tissues from the box on her desk to use as plates; his portions were regrettably generous.

She waved hers firmly aside. ‘You've been exercising off your spare calories. I haven't. And I have to say you've pissed around quite long enough. Ray'll burst if he can't get it off his chest soon.'

He placed the mugs and cake delicately in gaps Ray managed to create on her desk. ‘Do you want the long story of how I was apprehended by a PCSO as a paedophile?' He overrode her exclamation. ‘Or the shorter one about what the girls I was talking to wanted to tell me?'

‘The long one, of course. Hell, no I don't. And I don't even have time for the abridged version. We've got that CEOP briefing to take in two minutes flat, haven't we, Ray? Will you come along, Mark, and report to the whole team what you picked up? Bring your tea and cake, both of you.' She picked her mug up to set an example.

‘You'll be an honoured guest,' Ray said promptly.

But Mark pulled a face. ‘Would you mind if I just went and sat quietly in the car for a bit? I want to pick up the football results …' He could have watched them on the TV in her office, or even in the scaled down canteen, but she said nothing. Perhaps he needed some fresh air. Or perhaps he'd had enough of feeling an outsider for one day. Detained by a PCSO, indeed.

‘So two girls who were helping Zac on Thursday went to the Portaloo together, found it unusable – no surprise there – and helped each other through the fence into the woods, where they stood guard in turn while the other used one of the trees as a loo,' Ray told the assembled officers.

Although the CEOP hierarchy would have been well within their rights to lead the meeting, they'd insisted on taking a back seat and letting the locals get on with it. That was fine by Fran, but she had a sense that Ray felt he was under an uncomfortable amount of scrutiny. His delivery was far from smooth; he needlessly consulted notes. ‘While they were there, one of them was sure she saw the glint of what she thought at first might have been someone's glasses. Emily, that is. Apparently she screamed to Flora. Her friend. But then she, Emily, that is, thought she must be mistaken, because though they both listened neither heard so much as a twig cracking. They even looked round – but only a bit, as Flora admitted, since they knew Zac needed them. But as they ducked through the fence on the way back, they both heard what they insist was a jingle. Something metallic. So I'd say this fits in with Mark's horse theory. Though neither of them heard any other sounds – no neighing or whatever other noises horses make. And no manure, shall we say, left behind – I've already had the scene checked. We're busy processing a lot of prints from horses' shoes.'