No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) (45 page)

Bradshaw walked straight into Andrew Foster’s living room and there in front of him was a miracle. Tom Carney had not been deluded, nor was he winding Bradshaw up. Seated on a sofa was a young girl. Though he had never met her, Bradshaw instantly recognised Michelle Summers from her description and photograph. Even if
she was a little more grown-up than the image the police had been using, this was clearly the same child. It was almost too much to take in at first. Against all the odds of probability, Michelle Summers was alive and seemingly unharmed.

The young girl was sitting next to a man in his twenties who Bradshaw had to assume must be the teacher Tom had mentioned. They both had anxious looks on their faces and if the sight of them sitting together was not shocking enough, Bradshaw suddenly realised they were holding hands.

‘Michelle?’ asked Bradshaw in disbelief, and when the girl slowly nodded, he demanded of them both, ‘What the bloody hell has been going on here?’

Andrew Foster opened his mouth to answer on their behalf but his words were drowned out by the sound of police sirens.

Helen was the first reporter on the scene, if you didn’t include Tom Carney. She heard the sirens of multiple police cars and instantly abandoned her post at the W. I. event because that kind of din could only mean something major had happened or was just about to.

As she left the village hall, Helen looked towards the sound just as it dimmed. Ahead of her was a small village green in front of a steep hill, with two public footpaths snaking up it, one on either side. They rose until they combined at the top as they reached a road and a row of small houses set back from it on the high ground. Three police cars were parked carelessly outside an insignificant-looking house with whitewashed walls. They
blocked the road, their lights blinking pointlessly, the officers having seemingly abandoned their vehicles to attend to something urgent inside the house.

As Helen climbed the hill three more police cars suddenly sped into the village with lights flashing and sirens blaring. As she reached the top of the footpath they screeched to a halt in front of her. A half-dozen uniformed officers and several plain-clothes detectives spilled from them, then darted into the house.

It was a scene of exhilarating chaos and Bradshaw found himself numbly taking charge, buoyed by the knowledge that, whatever had been going on here, it did not constitute murder and for once, there would be some good news to report to a salivating media. The uniformed officers who arrived shortly after Bradshaw happily obeyed his instructions to keep the public back from the house and take Andrew Foster in for questioning. Michelle would be leaving for the station too for her own safety and to ensure a proper explanation for her disappearance was secured.

Aware that their noisy arrival would soon ensure a crowd of onlookers, Bradshaw said, ‘Get them out of here quick.’ Then he glanced at Tom. ‘And you’re coming too,’ he ordered.

Helen waited outside, watching the comings and goings at the house from the top of the footpath at the other side of the road. Neighbours were beginning to emerge and other onlookers began to congregate, drawn to the scene
by the police sirens. Two uniformed policemen pushed and waved them back to create some space. They did not have to wait long to witness the cause of all the excitement. First, a man that she had seen talking to Tom in the pub came out through the front door, manhandled by two burly policemen who did not look happy. His arms were pulled back behind him and his head pushed down but he managed to raise it and, for a second, his gaze caught Helen’s and he looked right back at her, his face a picture of resignation. They bundled him into the back seat of a police car and Helen watched them speed away.

Next, Tom emerged from the house with the detective she had seen in the Red Lion. What was going on and what was his role in all of this? Had he discovered the teacher was up to no good or merely received his confession like some parish priest? Before she could consider this latest complication further, something else happened, something that put a seal on the whole day.

Another person came out of the house then, accompanied by the police. Helen knew her in an instant, for her face had been on TV and in every newspaper. It was Michelle Summers; a young girl thought taken, a lost innocent, presumed dead. And here she was. This was the end result none of them could have hoped for.

It was too much for Helen to take on board at once and it was clear that the small band of onlookers felt the same way. Aside from a few gasps and one or two cries of ‘Michelle’ and ‘it’s her’, nobody did anything. They simply stood and stared at the girl as if she was an apparition.

Just when she was wondering if Tom had somehow
solved the mystery of her disappearance and rescued the girl, another familiar figure arrived. Michelle was halfway up the front garden path when her mother suddenly appeared, red-faced and breathless, for she had been forced to run halfway across the village to the schoolteacher’s house. Fiona saw her daughter and let out a loud cry of, ‘Meee-shell!’ then she ran forward to embrace her, almost knocking her off her feet in the process. The police stood back and let her do it and Bradshaw did not intervene. It would have been a brave or foolish man who would have tried to come between a mother and her daughter at the moment. Instead they stood back and watched, looking on as Fiona Summers clasped her daughter to her so tightly it looked like she might break the girl in two. Her mother was sobbing and reciting the same words over and over again like a mantra, ‘Oh my God, Shell … oh my God, Shell … are you all right? … oh my God, Shell … what did he do to you? … did he hurt you? … did he touch you? … the bastard!’

Helen couldn’t make out all the words of Michelle’s reply but she did hear, ‘It wasn’t like that, Mam …’ before Michelle Summers’ voice dropped to a level where nothing more was audible. Helen watched as her mother released her and Michelle presumably began an explanation for her presence in the village. Helen could see the young girl’s face and it looked as if Michelle was trying to calm her mother, while explaining something to her that was actually very simple and that all was really quite well with the world

When Fiona Summers answered her daughter, Helen heard everything.

‘What?’
the single, startled word encapsulated her mother’s shock. Fiona Summers was staring at her daughter through disbelieving eyes, her face still streaked with tears.

The girl continued her explanation at a level only her mother could make out. And, just when the surrounding group of officers had begun to relax and enjoy the reunion between the relieved mother and the naïve girl wrongfully imprisoned by the older man, a strange thing happened. The mother took a step forwards and hit her.

Fiona Summers struck her daughter hard, right across the face.

It wasn’t a small slap. This was a full-on, wide-arm blow that made onlookers wince and instantly turned Michelle Summers’ cheek bright red. ‘How could you do that!’ hollered Fiona and she aimed another slap which, fortunately for her daughter, missed its target as she tottered backwards, merely catching the ducking girl a glancing blow on the top of her head. This was the signal for the shocked police officers to belatedly intervene, wading in between them to drag Michelle’s mother away from the young girl, though she was still flailing her arms. ‘How could you do it?’ she screamed once more as she was dragged backwards up the garden path. ‘He’s left me!’ she hollered, ‘he’s fucking left me! Because of you! All because of you! Are you happy now? Are you?!’

Michelle Summers’ face bore the lurid welt from the first blow and she was already catching up with her mum in the waterworks department; her mouth was clamped shut and her bottom lip began to quiver. Then the tears came and she started to sob uncontrollably. Suddenly she
looked exactly what she was: a small, frightened child snapped back into the real world, being led away by the police.

Helen watched Michelle climb into one car with a policewoman, while two male police officers led her mother to a different one. ‘You’ve got her back,’ Bradshaw reminded Fiona. ‘At least you’ve got her back,’ and he opened the door for the weeping woman.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

When the cars started to pull away, Helen walked over to Tom.

‘Did that just happen?’ she asked dumbly.

‘Michelle and the teacher?’ he asked. ‘Yes. Think they’re Romeo and sodding Juliet.’

‘Oh dear God,’ she said, ‘all this time and everyone thought she was dead. Are they crazy?’

‘I think they are,’ he agreed, ‘or at least deluded.’ Then Tom shook his head as if he couldn’t believe their idiocy. ‘And he is going to burn for this.’

They watched as, one by one, the remaining police cars made careful U-turns in the road, all except the last.

‘I have to go too,’ he told her. ‘They want my statement.’

‘How did you know?’ she asked him.

’It was just something he said, about not knowing Michelle,’ Tom explained, ‘but I found out he taught her.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Bloody hell.’

A tape recorder whirred in the background and DC Ian Bradshaw listened intently while Tom Carney told his version of the events of that day and, as he did so, the room
began to fill up around him; first DI Peacock, then Skelton and O’Brien and finally DCI Kane.

When his statement was complete, the tape recorder was turned off and Kane spoke.

‘If we hadn’t heard it from them and you,’ Bradshaw told him, ‘I doubt we would ever have believed it. Does that teacher not have any idea of the grief he has caused everybody?’

‘No, I don’t think he does,’ confirmed Tom, ‘though I suspect he is about to find out.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kane, ‘he will be left under no illusions as to the severity of his situation.’

‘Can we do him for kidnap?’ asked Skelton.

‘Not when she went voluntarily,’ Bradshaw told him, ‘and she did go voluntarily, right?’

‘So she says,’ said Tom.

It was the DI’s turn now. ‘But we have got statutory rape of a minor, wasting police time, obstructing justice and that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I can think of a few more,’ said Peacock.

‘No need,’ said Kane. ‘Cleverer men than us are currently formulating charges that will guarantee that bastard jail time. The ACC won’t be happy till he gets ten years.’

‘That won’t happen,’ muttered O’Brien.

‘No but he’ll definitely see prison,’ Kane assured his DS. ‘He embarrassed several police forces, caused us all untold grief and damaged a few important careers along the way, so an example will be made, of that you can be certain.’

‘And he ran off with an underaged girl,’ Tom reminded him.

‘The
least of his crimes,’ said DI Peacock and there were a few wry chuckles at that one.

When the formalities were over, Kane said, ‘you can get off now if you want. One of our lads will run you back.’

But Tom didn’t move. ‘There’s still a man out there,’ he said significantly, ‘killing little girls.’

‘What’s your point?’ asked Bradshaw.

‘Helen Norton and I have been talking about the Kiddy-Catcher and we think we might know how he’s doing it, how he is getting them to come with him,’ Tom told him. ‘We have a couple of ideas in fact, but you’re probably not going to like either of them.’

‘Go on.’

First Tom explained Helen’s theory, causing murmurs all around the room. That told Tom they were taking the female accomplice idea seriously but were all really hoping it wasn’t true.

‘Okay,’ said Kane, ‘that we can look at.’ And he turned to Peacock. ‘Start with any known offender with a partner who could be an accomplice. Most sex offenders are so pathetic they couldn’t possibly get a girlfriend but there are some who could persuade lasses to help them. Let’s track them down and see where they were on the nights our girls disappeared.’ He turned back to Tom. ‘What’s your second theory?’

‘I think he might be impersonating a police officer,’

‘What?’

Tom shrugged, ‘I’ve accepted lifts from strangers lately, but only because they showed me a warrant card. That made me feel safe somehow,’ and he gave O’Brien and
Skelton a wry look. ‘How else does he get the girls to climb into his car?’

‘All of us have been wondering about that,’ said Kane and he turned to the other officers. ‘Has anyone been pulled up for impersonating a police officer? Not just recently, check the records, go back a few years then have a word with them all. Do they have alibis for the nights when the girls disappeared? Look out for fake IDs and warrant cards. Spread the word but do it quietly and discreetly. I don’t want anyone from the press picking up on this and running with it or nobody will trust us again, and that includes you,’ he jabbed a finger at Tom.

Tom nodded. ‘Don’t panic. I’m not about to create a news story out of nothing more than my own half-baked theory.’

‘Really, I thought that’s what you guys always did,’ Kane told him with a half-smile. ‘We’ll look into it and thanks for rumbling the teacher. You did a good job.’

When Tom was finally finished with the police he was driven back to Great Middleton. This time he went straight to the Greyhound. After the excitement of the day’s events he knew he was beginning to crash. He’d eaten nothing for hours so he ordered crisps with a pint of IPA and took them to a table. He sat there numbly, trying to put some level of sanity into the events of the past few days.