Gone Astray (6 page)

Yeah, I’m sure you can. Well, wish me luck . . .’

‘Where are you off to?’

‘To speak to the security firm that has the contract for Burr Way and the surrounding roads. Umpire wants me to go through all the CCTV from the street and all the houses. I’ll have
to get the owners’ permission first though.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘To think I could be at home cuddling my newborn son . . . See you later, Maggie.’ He squeezed her
arm affectionately then trundled off.

Umpire was the first person she noticed as she stepped outside. At six foot three, he wasn’t hard to miss. Nor had he changed at all in the months since she’d last seen him. His
short, strawberry blond hair was still doing a good job of disguising the creeping grey and, while broad-shouldered, his frame maintained a natural leanness. He wasn’t smiling, which
wasn’t unusual, but when he did he was good-looking in a craggy, weather-beaten kind of way. Maggie didn’t know his exact age but guessed he was around forty and he was married with two
pre-teen children. She knew a few female officers who’d admitted to fancying him but she never would. She had a rule that anyone in a relationship was out of bounds even to daydream
about.

He was standing on the terrace with Mal Matheson, the Chief Crime Scene Examiner and head of the force’s Forensic Investigation Unit. Matheson noticed Maggie first and gave her a warm
smile as she walked towards them, which she gratefully returned. She liked Matheson, everyone did. He didn’t grandstand, pushed the labs hard for a quick turnaround and never turned down a
request for a favour unless it was impossible. What was left of his silver hair was cropped millimetres short, which made him look far more intimidating than he was, but the only thing his
colleagues feared was the fact he was two years from retirement and no replacement would match up.

‘Hello, Maggie, good to see you,’ he said. ‘Have you been inside with the mother? How’s she bearing up?’

Before answering, Maggie glanced quickly at Umpire, expecting him to say something about not checking in with him first, but he made no comment. Whatever his reaction was to seeing her after all
this time, he wasn’t showing it. His expression was inscrutable.

‘She’s okay,’ she answered Matheson. ‘Very distressed but trying to hold it together.’

Mindful of keeping her voice steady, she turned to address the DCI.

‘Sir, Mrs Kinnock and I went through Rosie’s bedroom again but Mrs Kinnock wasn’t able to identify if any belongings are missing. I think we might have more luck when Mr
Kinnock is here.’

‘Why’s that?’

And there they were: his first words to her. No recrimination, no aggression. Not even a hint of sarcasm. Maggie felt her confidence rise. Maybe it
would
be fine.

‘Rosie doesn’t like her mum going in her bedroom, so Mrs Kinnock isn’t sure where anything is kept and can’t tell if there’s anything missing. It sounds like their
relationship can be fraught at times. Mrs Kinnock says their conversation this morning was minimal.’

‘I asked her earlier if she thought Rosie might’ve run away but she said no,’ said Umpire.

‘Even if she ran away of her own accord, that doesn’t explain the blood on the lawn,’ said Matheson. ‘What we’ve found suggests a fairly significant loss and if
it’s not hers someone else was hurt here this morning.’

‘How soon until we know if it’s hers?’ Maggie asked Matheson.

‘It’ll be a few hours until we can say for sure, but it’s definitely human: the peroxidase test came up positive. There’s a spatter line too, down towards those
firs.’

Maggie saw a line of markers on the grass indicating where the blood was. The trail led to a row of fir trees at the bottom of the garden.

‘Behind them is a fence approximately two metres high,’ Matheson added. ‘There’s blood smeared across the top and down both sides. Rosie – if it is her blood
– must’ve gone over it.’

‘She only five foot one,’ said Umpire. ‘Could she have climbed it on her own, with an injury?’

‘More likely dragged over.’ Matheson grimaced. ‘We’re checking the panels for fibres and DNA. On the other side of the fence there’s a pathway separating the houses
on this side from the back gardens of the ones in the next street. One end of the path comes out by the security gate at the start of Burr Way, the other leads to a meadow. So far we’ve only
found a couple of drops of blood on the pathway, which makes me wonder if the wound had been staunched by that point, but we’re still looking.’ He walked down the steps from the terrace
and dug the plastic-covered toecap of his boot into the lawn. ‘Our biggest obstacle is the hardness of the ground. Thanks to this dry spell, moisture is being quickly absorbed. It’s not
too bad with the patch by the blanket, because that’s quite large, but it’s harder finding smaller drops.’

Maggie didn’t imagine they’d have much luck with eyewitnesses either. The Kinnocks’ garden was far too secluded to be overlooked. The bushes bordering either side of the lawn
were so dense she couldn’t tell what was behind them, fence or wall. Between the tops of the firs, where the branches narrowed to a point, she could make out the slate-tiled roof of a house
on the other side of the pathway. But it was too far away for whoever lived there to have heard a thing, let alone seen what happened.

‘Any other signs of a struggle?’ she asked.

‘Not immediately,’ said Matheson. ‘The mother says the rug was laid out neatly when she came out.’

‘There’s no CCTV footage of Rosie going missing either,’ said Umpire. ‘The alarm system either went down or was switched off just after ten thirty a.m., including the
cameras set up to monitor out here. I’ve not seen it yet, but apparently the last recorded footage of Rosie shows her going inside the house from the garden and she’s alone.’

Matheson checked his watch as he returned to where they stood. ‘It’s five forty-five p.m., which means we’ve got three hours or so at most before the light fades.’

‘Keep going for as long as you can, Mal,’ said Umpire. He turned to Maggie. ‘I need to speak to Mrs Kinnock again.’

‘Yes, sir. She’s got a neighbour with her, but I can get rid of her and then she’s yours.’

‘Ten minutes?’

Maggie nodded, painfully aware of how forced the exchange was. There was once a time when she would have asked the DCI how he was, when he’d have certainly asked the same of her. They had
always been comfortable in one another’s company and she’d liked it when they talked about topics other than work because he could be funny and interesting. Now it was like a layer of
frost had settled over them.

‘Has the neighbour had anything interesting to say?’

‘DC Belmar spoke to her but he didn’t have a chance to brief me before I came out here.’

‘Make sure he feeds anything of note back to me and fills out his log. That goes for you too, Neville. I want every word recorded.’

She knew immediately what he was getting at and so did Matheson, judging by the way he muttered something about checking the markers and peeled away from them.

Every family liaison officer was required to log their conversations with the victims’ relatives and any friends who came by the house during an investigation. The idea was to make the
record as verbatim as possible, so no detail was missed and the FLO could easily check back to see if there were lingering questions the family wanted answering. Maggie liked to make notes as she
went along, whenever she had a minute to spare, but other FLOs she knew sat down at the end of the day to record theirs.

It was Maggie’s log that had indirectly sparked Umpire’s complaint against her during the investigation into the murder of eight-year-old Mansell schoolgirl Megan Fowler. For reasons
she still stood by, Maggie chose not to record a particular conversation she had with Megan’s mother. It had no bearing on the outcome of the case, but Umpire deemed the omission serious
enough to report her to DI Gant for breaching FL guidelines.

As Matheson hurried down the garden away from them, she waited for Umpire to continue. But his mouth was set in a line and she could see he wanted an acknowledgement of his order, not a
discussion, however much she itched to have one.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said resignedly.

‘Good. I’m glad we understand each other. Let’s keep it that way,’ he said, and strode off in Matheson’s wake.

Two forensic techs standing on the terrace eyed Maggie as she went past and one made a comment under his breath to the other that she assumed was about her and the exchange they’d just
witnessed. Speculation about her inclusion on the case must be rife, she thought. The question they must all be asking – the one
she
was asking – was why Umpire was giving her
another chance. She wondered if they agreed with what she’d done, though. Would they have done the same thing in her shoes? She’d love to know but dared not ask. Her fragile
relationship with Umpire would not survive her gossiping about the Megan Fowler case with the rest of the team.

She was heading across the entrance hall when the sight of two teenage girls hovering by the front door with their backs to the room stopped her in her tracks. One had muted red hair braided
into a French plait, the other had long, dark hair that hung below her shoulders. It couldn’t be . . .

‘Rosie?’

The sound of Maggie’s loafers skidding across the parquet floor as she dashed forward must’ve startled them and their eyes widened like frightened rabbits’ as they swung round
to face her.

The brunette wasn’t Rosie. Her hair was the same shade, and the same length, but her features were more angular, with high cheekbones and a sharp chin. The most recent picture of Rosie,
the one DI Gant had texted, showed her face to be softer and rounder. Reaching her side, Maggie realized the brunette was the girl pictured with Rosie and One Direction in the photograph above her
desk in her room.

‘Are you Kathryn?’ Maggie asked.

Nodding, Kathryn Stockton dissolved into tears.

‘It’s all my fault she’s missing. I should’ve stayed, I should never have left her this morning!’

‘Don’t cry,’ implored the redhead, rubbing Kathryn’s arm. She looked terrified and her skin was so pale Maggie could see tiny blue veins fanning out like a spider’s
web beneath its surface.

‘Are you a friend of Rosie’s too?’ she asked.

The redhead nodded. ‘I’m Lily.’

‘Lily what?’

‘Flynn.’

‘Do you live on Burr Way too?’

‘No, my house is across the village.’

‘How do you know Rosie? From school?’

No, I go to Mansell High, the girls’ grammar school.’

‘Lily knows Rosie through me,’ said Kathryn, still weeping.

‘When did you last speak to her, Lily?’

‘Yesterday evening. We FaceTimed for a bit before I went to bed. She was fine then.’

‘What about you?’ said Maggie gently to her friend.

Kathryn was too overcome to answer. She was crying so hard that trails of phlegm ran from her nose to her lips.

‘Let’s go in here,’ said Maggie, steering the girls into the lounge and sitting them down on the purple sofa Lesley had earlier occupied. As she waited for Kathryn to calm
down, Maggie sat down opposite and explained who she and Belmar were. Both girls confirmed they were sixteen, which meant an appropriate adult wasn’t needed to sit in, but Maggie still asked
if they wanted one. Both said no.

‘Kathryn, you said outside it was your fault Rosie’s missing. What did you mean?’ She kept her voice low and soft.

‘We had a big row. I came round earlier to see if she wanted to go riding and she was in the garden. She said no, she needed to revise. I told her she was being stupid,’ she said,
bookending the sentence with sobs.

‘Why did you think she was being that?’

Kathryn wiped her nose on the sleeve of her long-sleeved white T-shirt, which she wore with cream jodhpurs and silver trainers bearing a ‘Superga’ logo. Her large brown eyes were
heavily made up with thick mascara and eyeliner and there were slicks of rose-pink blusher accentuating her sharp cheekbones. The kind of make-up Maggie was only allowed to wear on special
occasions when she was that age. By contrast, Lily’s face was scrubbed clean. She was dressed in jeans, an emerald green hooded top that zipped up the front and white Converse plimsolls.

‘I know it sounds stupid, but I got really angry with her and I – I said some things I shouldn’t have,’ said Kathryn.

‘Like what?’

‘I called her a stupid bitch and said she was being a baby. I was just really angry. I also said if she didn’t come riding with me I’d make her sorry.’

Maggie looked directly at Kathryn so she could see her expression clearly. She wanted her to see there was no judgement in it. She didn’t care what she’d said to Rosie, just why.

‘I’m sure she knew you didn’t mean it,’ she said, holding Kathryn’s gaze. ‘Even good friends row sometimes.’ She glanced at Lily, who was even paler now
as she listened. ‘It does sound like you were very angry with her though.’

‘I didn’t mean what I said,’ Kathryn cried. ‘I was annoyed because she wouldn’t listen to me and I was worried about her being at home on her own. I thought if she
came riding then I could keep an eye on her. I went on and on until she told me to go away, so I did. But I shouldn’t have left,’ she wailed, breaking down again. ‘I
should’ve stayed until her mum came home.’

An alarm bell rang loudly in Maggie’s ears.

‘Why were you so worried about her being here alone?’ she said carefully. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lily fidget nervously in her seat.

‘I can’t say,’ Kathryn mumbled.

‘Is the reason something her mum and dad know about?’

Kathryn shook her head, her big brown eyes filled with fear. Lily also looked scared.

‘No way. They’d go mad if they knew.’

Maggie remembered Lesley’s comment about Mack being strict with Rosie and debated the best way to frame her next question. She wanted to know why Kathryn was worried, but had to ask in a
way that didn’t sound as though she was interrogating the poor girl. This wasn’t a formal interview.