Double Fault (7 page)

As if tacitly accepting her advice, he fell into step with her as she walked to the car park. It wasn't Hilary Baird driving her this morning, but a constable so slight and bony you'd never have him down as opening bowler for the county police cricket team. Abdul Aziz, known to his mates as Dizzy. He'd driven her in from the rectory as if he was driving a hearse, not like a lad desperate to join the elite team of drivers whizzing VIPs round the country and making sure they were kept out of harm's way. This morning she'd been glad of his silence, working her way through texts and emails as he drove. She had to admit that having a driver gave her another hour of working time each day, but she hated the lack of independence, not to mention the appearance of elitism. In such desperate financial times, too. Mark usually did the honours, but after all his exertions yesterday and with his day with the kids coming up, she'd decided to accept what she was entitled to, just as she'd had to yesterday. But the sooner she could get behind the wheel the better. Another couple of weeks at most now, even if that felt like years.

Ray was about to say something when his mobile rang.

You didn't stand on ceremony when you were on a case like this. ‘Go on, take it,' she said, huddling into her jacket.

He'd turned away but now, with a grin, he faced her, tilting the phone so she could hear the voice at the other end. Mark's! So much for his having a lie-in.

‘Ray, I don't want to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs, but a thought's just struck me,' Mark was saying. ‘Livvie was very proud of her appearance. Very. I know it's a long shot, but what if she was so disgusted by the oil on her dress that she took it off? Or covered it up? I heard some mother yelling at her child yesterday that she was sure she'd taken a waterproof to the court and the child insisting she'd left it at home. What if the mother was right? What if the child had taken it and Livvie had borrowed it, as it were? Everyone's been alerted to look for a child wearing petunia. What if she wasn't?'

‘Thanks, guv'nor. Mark. There'll be a note somewhere of the mother's complaint: I'll get someone to check with her now and get a description of the coat – assuming it isn't actually at home, like her daughter said. I'll get back to you.' He cut the call immediately.

Fran sighed. So much for Ray's two hours' sleep. But given this new lead, she wouldn't protest. But he turned to her with a huge grin. ‘Looks as if having a kip gave Mark a good idea. I'll get the team up to speed with this and get my head down. Promise,' he added, as if she was his mum.

‘Thought you'd still be tucked up in your nice warm bed, Fran,' Don greeted her, with an obvious effort. A sheen of sweat made his face paler, greyer. Worse than yesterday. But Fran knew him well enough to know he wouldn't welcome a direct enquiry. It must be business as usual until it obviously couldn't be any longer.

She patted a folder by way of reply, adding, as he raised his eyebrows interrogatively, ‘I knew you'd want to be here when the archaeologists started again, and I thought you ought to see some of this.'

‘This is the twenty-first century, Fran. Texts and emails and – oh, yes, even a little thing called a phone.' He fished an indigestion tablet from his pocket and chomped.

‘I know, I know … I know you can even send me live footage as it happens … But they can't replace my eyes and ears and – I don't know – my copper's nose, can they? Anyway, since I am here, these are more details of kids who went missing in the early Nineties. And several photos of each that aren't on the computerized files. The facial reconstruction people might find them useful confirmation – and vice versa, I suppose. They were all investigated as mispers – but to my mind the investigations were desultory at best, especially compared with today's procedures.'

‘I gather there's no news of that missing kid. Jesus – it makes you feel sick to think of it,' he added as she shook her head. Was that sufficient explanation for the tablet? She caught him in a wince. But he straightened quickly.

Just as she did when another back spasm bit – which it did now.

‘Quite. Our work here's important but Ray Barlow's is beyond urgent, isn't it?' There was a short silence. She didn't think he'd been offering a prayer as she had, but was sure he was wishing at least as hard. She coughed, and pointed to the half-demolished wall. ‘There seems to have been a general assumption that because most of these kids were either school drop-outs or unemployed kids not in college—'

‘NEETs,' Don supplied. ‘Except they're always bloody scruffy.' His attempt at a belly laugh made him wince again. And she thought he rocked slightly.

She pretended she hadn't seen anything, and continued her sentence: ‘… they probably mooched off to London without bothering to give anyone precise details of where they were heading. They all had one thing in common, however – they were supposed to be part of the group turning these premises into the youth club it became. No-hopers, was how the youth leader described all of them – or variants of the term. Other kids confirmed that their missing colleagues didn't like the hard physical work or the fact they had to be there nine till five, and had likely done a runner.'

Don, ever hard to impress, looked interested. And then swayed. Visibly. But he took a deep breath and dared her to comment.

‘The person who's the common factor is the youth leader, of course – a guy called Malcolm Perkins. Known to his friends and the kids as Mal, sometimes Big Mal.'

‘Any criminal record?' he managed.

How long could they continue this charade? Would she have to order him off the site? ‘Nope. Generally considered a good bloke by the kids and indeed by their parents. Tough but fair. Services background. Left with an exemplary reference.'

‘Left!' Don raised an eyebrow. ‘Was this Perkins ever questioned as a possible – let's put it bluntly – mass murderer?'

‘Nope. But it'd be nice to talk to him now, wouldn't it?'

‘You're telling me. I suppose you and your magic papers don't know what happened to him?'

Fran grinned. ‘I did try Googling him, actually. But Malcolm Perkins isn't such an unusual name, and I didn't have time to chase them all down.'

‘More of a job for a junior officer – young Sean, for instance.'

‘Come on, a DCI is hardly a junior officer! I've got someone good on to it, Don. As to the question you've been too polite to ask straight out –
why are you here? –
I lived through these investigations when I was a youngster. I know the shortcuts some of the SIOs took. I didn't like them at the time and I like them less now. I'll delegate when I want to delegate, Don. As in the case of chasing Malcolm Perkins.'

Raising a hand to acknowledge her point, if not apologize, Don asked, ‘Anyone else on your radar?'

‘One name came up – one of the lads supposedly working on the project. He was supposed to have a temper and a half. Strong, too – had once played football for his school before he found training too much of a fag. A couple of the lads and several of the girls questioned said they were afraid of him.'

‘Was he a bully or something?'

‘Not as such: they said something was always simmering under the surface. But – no, take it.'

Don turned aside to speak into his phone. As he did so, the wind caught some of the pages Fran had given to him, fanning the faces of what they both clearly now thought might be victims.

She put out a finger to stop them moving further.

He ended the call. ‘What's up?' Pocketing the phone, he shifted the file so they could both look at the face. His frown matched hers. ‘Looks familiar, somehow. Just for a moment. All that hair, though—' He covered the flowing locks with a big, square hand. ‘No. No one I can place. Can you?'

‘No. With or without hair. Just something about the eyes. Christopher Manton. The angry one. But then he disappeared too. So perhaps his strength was no use to him in the end. Maybe he's over there, poor kid.' She nodded at the remaining section of wall, now covered with scaffolding. The first archaeologists were swarming round.

‘Or maybe he did it and scarpered,' Don said, clutching his gut but gritting his teeth as he continued. ‘Thank God for DNA: at least we should be able to identify them all fully and comprehensively. I'll get someone to run to earth the latest addresses of the parents. Are you hanging around, Fran, for a bit?'

‘If you've got something pressing, yes, I am.'

‘The wife's been on at me to get a doctor's appointment – and I thought the first in the morning shouldn't have much of a wait. So I let her talk me into it.' This from a man who always joked about dying in harness.

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Good. Before you pass out in front of my eyes. Go. Now. And if the doctor wants tests or whatever, you bloody take time off, or I'll know the reason why. Get it? I'll give your apologies if that damned budget meeting goes ahead. And tell you what, young Dizzy can drive you. Don't argue.'

Terrifyingly, he didn't. Neither did Dizzy.

The archaeologists weren't quite under way. She had a moment to take a phone call. ‘Ray?'

‘Mark was right, Fran. The mother didn't much appreciate one of our constables turning up at feeding time, I gather, and
he
didn't appreciate having kiddie porridge slung all over him, but the raincoat was definitely missing. Cue for one of those
you-said-I didn't-say
arguments, I gather. But no coat. That's the main thing. At least she gave us a picture of her own child wearing it, so we know the make and colour and everything. So we're doing another trawl through CCTV we've already had checked for one outfit to see if we've missed her in another.'

‘That's brilliant. Brilliant. I'd phone Mark with the good news but I'll have to leave it to you: I've a horrible idea another skull is just appearing …' She was lying, but this wasn't a fingers-crossed-behind-the-back lie – just a white one to get him in touch with Mark. Could hierarchies persist in the mind even when the top dog had retired? It seemed they could, in Ray's mind at least.

It took only a few minutes before her lie became the truth, however. Twice over.

‘It seems weird, them being buried vertically – like some nod towards an ancient religion,' she said to Dr Evans, whose colleagues were watching the pathologist examine two more skeletons.

‘I don't think I know any burial practices like that, not in the UK,' Evans replied slowly.

‘OK, let's go with my original theory: that they were killed at the end of the working day and sort of slotted in the gap that was left between the wall proper and the false wall.'

Evans said aloud what Fran wanted her to say: ‘So you're talking someone big and strong who can stay late without it being remarked. And tidy up any damaged brick or plaster work. So it's got to be a trusted worker or more likely the site supervisor.'

‘Or both.'

‘Bloody hell. Pardon my French. Like Hindley and Brady. Sorry, other way round.' She gripped Fran's forearm. ‘And what if one of them killed the other when the last slot was filled, to guarantee silence? Sorry, you're the detective.'

‘Not any more, not really. I'm the manager who enables everything to happen. And also the sounding block for professionals such as yourself. Though I have to say the last bit sounds more fantastic a theory than I'd encourage any of my team to come up with. But not impossible. At least we don't have the scenario of someone killing all the others and then bricking himself up in the last space.'

‘That sounds more like grand opera than life. No, I don't think even I would go there. Is it you who gets to go to the post-mortem?'

‘Not in this case – it's actually Don Simpson's baby, so he'll get to go.' When he got back from the doctor's. She frowned. Don had to be at death's door to take sick leave; whatever fear had driven him to the GP must be serious. ‘If not, his DCI.'

She looked at her watch. Hell. Wren had a budget meeting scheduled for half an hour's time. Heart sinking, she phoned Alice. ‘I don't suppose Mr Wren's still in London, is he?'

‘You suppose right. Get yourself down here, Fran – and I'll have a nice soothing cup of chamomile tea waiting.'

D
ead teenagers, a missing child, and then all the usual crime you expect in a big county, home to countless career criminals, who preferred to be known as businessmen, and to all sorts and conditions of immigrants, legal and illegal. And that was just the high-profile stuff they had to deal with. So why were they sitting round trying to work out where to shave yet another slice off the budget? Another diktat from the Home Office, presumably. As her colleagues, minus Don, argued, she idly sketched an ivory tower. And then she heard her name mentioned.

‘The chopper, sir?' she repeated innocently.

‘It's hardly the news one wants to hear when one's taking note of budget imperatives, Ms Harman.'

‘And a missing child is, sir?'

‘Have you any idea how much it costs to use the helicopter and crew for just one hour?'

‘Have you any idea how much a child's life is worth?'

‘There's no need to take that tone with me, Chief Superintendent.'

‘I was merely responding to your rhetorical question with one of my own, sir. As the most senior officer handy, I was addressing not a budget imperative but a policing one. As I was sure you would have done, had you been here. I understood that no one was allowed to disturb your top-level meeting. What else could I do?'

Clearly no one present would have done anything else.

Ray Barlow, obviously just as frustrated with the waste of valuable time, flashed a grin at her. But his cough was obsequious and apologetic – symptomatic of an officer who was still only on a temporary promotion. ‘The media response has been very favourable, sir. Often in these cases we're accused of doing too little, too late. And as I'm sure you've noticed, the team's media officer has managed to keep the story right up on the front page, despite Fran's skeletons. Which would have been major, major news any other day.'