Stranger Child Page 2

‘I’m fine – but somebody’s nicked my bloody pig.’

  Tom stood up, brushing the knees of his suit trousers to get rid of the dust from an un-vacuumed floor. ‘Honestly, you’d have thought at police headquarters you’d be reasonably confident of finding upright, law-abiding citizens, wouldn’t you? I thought he might have been kicked under here, or something, but he’s nowhere to be seen.’

  ‘I think if anybody kicked your pig, you’d find them limping around with a broken toe. And nobody steals from a detective chief inspector unless they’re very stupid – although on that basis I suppose we have a few candidates to consider. I’ll ask around for you.’

  Tom pulled out his chair and sat down, indicating that Becky should do the same. ‘How’ve you been, Becky? Anything exciting happened while I’ve been away?’

  ‘Run of the mill stuff, on the whole,’ Becky replied, as she grabbed a chair. ‘Except for a particularly violent rape, which we thought was stranger rape but wasn’t.’

  ‘Who was it, then?’

  ‘Her bastard boyfriend. He’d worn a mask and everything and was waiting for her on her way back from work. He beat her to a pulp, raped her viciously and then left her.’

  ‘What gave him away?’

  ‘She did. To start with, when she came round in hospital she said she had no idea who it was, but we could see she was hiding something. Turns out she was terrified that if she named her boyfriend, he would kill her. Finally she caved and told us, but said she wasn’t pressing charges because there was no evidence other than her word.’

  Becky leaned back and folded her arms.

  ‘But we got him. He’d been smart enough to wear a condom, but then stupidly chucked the used one in a bin, fifty metres down the road. Said his girlfriend had it coming to her because of the way she was flirting with other guys in the pub where she works.’

  Becky’s lip curled in disgust, and Tom had a quick mental image of the icy determination with which she would have interrogated this guy. For all her personal vulnerability, his inspector had an uncanny ability to get the truth out of people.

  ‘Anyway, how was the holiday?’ Becky asked.

  ‘Good, thanks. Leo and I had a few days in Florence, then we went to my cottage in Cheshire. I had a pile of my brother’s papers to sort out, and Leo had to study for an exam, so it was one of those easy weeks that seem to disappear and be gone in no time.’

  On the whole, Tom tried to keep his personal life private and had only recently started to occasionally mention Leo to his colleagues. He had been vaguely amused to find that one or two of them hadn’t realised that Leo was short for Leonora, and he’d seen the odd startled expression until Becky put them all straight.

  Only a handful of people knew about the Cheshire home that Tom had bought when he left the Met. He rarely mentioned his brother Jack, either, although he knew Becky was aware of the tragic accident that had cut short his life a few years ago, just as she knew Jack had left Tom a fortune from the sale of his internet security business. She never raised the subject, though, unless Tom did.

  Tom’s phone interrupted any further discussion about holidays.

  ‘Tom Douglas,’ he answered. He listened as his boss, Detective Superintendent Philippa Stanley, gave him the kind of news that he hated more than any other. His cheery mood disappeared in a flash.

  He hung up the phone. ‘Grab your coat, Becky. We’ve got a body, and I’m sorry to say it’s a young girl, barely in her teens by all accounts.’

  2

  For once, Tom had relinquished control and agreed that Becky could drive them to the scene, but he regretted that decision a few minutes into the journey. Becky’s one-handed steering and apparent lack of regard for other motorists had been a bone of contention between them since they first met, and nothing had changed. He had tried to get her on to an advanced driving course, but she couldn’t see the need. As she said, she had never had an accident, and Tom could only assume it was because everybody saw her coming and simply got out of her way.

  Now, as they screeched to a halt on a long straight road behind several other police vehicles, he was glad to get out of the car.

  The road was lined with well-established trees that shielded some large detached properties from view on the right-hand side. On the left, a dense area of woodland was separated from the pavement by a solid wall. About fifty metres ahead, a uniformed officer was standing guard at an old-fashioned kissing gate that opened onto a narrow dirt path leading into the wood. A thin strip of crime scene tape was already in place.

  Without a word, they pulled on their protective clothing and then made their way towards the path.

  After a brief word with the policeman to establish their identities, Tom and Becky walked in single file along the muddy path, overgrown brambles catching at the legs of their suits, until they reached an arched tunnel. Tom assumed that an old, disused railway line ran above, and he saw Becky wrinkle her nose as they entered the dark and gloomy space. Based on the smell and the rubbish lying on the ground, it would seem the tunnel was regularly used for less than salubrious activities, and as they picked their way over broken bottles and beer cans, keeping to the centre of the path to avoid some of the unpleasant detritus littering the area further out towards the walls, Tom looked around. If the girl had been murdered, why kill her out in the open and not in here, where there was less chance of being seen? The place had crime scene written all over it – and if not this crime, he was sure the tunnel had witnessed its fair share of depravity.

  Beyond the tunnel, another officer was waiting to point them in the right direction, and ahead they could see two white tents, erected either side of an oak tree and taped together to enclose its thick trunk. Standing just outside the scene perimeter tape, Tom spotted the oversized figure of Jumoke Osoba, better known to Tom as Jumbo. He was glad to see that – for whatever reason – this girl had been allocated the best crime scene manager that Tom had ever met. For once, Jumbo’s huge, infectious grin was missing. Tom nodded his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘What do we know, Jumbo?’

  ‘Young girl – at a guess I’d say she’s about twelve, but could be a bit older. Luckily for us, a Home Office pathologist was already in the area, so we haven’t had to wait. He’s with her now, and he’ll be able to tell you more. It’s James Adams, by the way, and he knows what he’s about, thank God. Before we got the tents up I could see the girl had been there a few days at least – so it’s not a pretty sight.’ He looked at Tom with understanding. ‘You going in?’

  Tom nodded, and as he lifted the perimeter tape to stoop under it, he turned to Becky.

  ‘I don’t think this needs both of us, Becky. You talk to Jumbo. He can fill you in on anything we’ve learned up to now.’ There was no disguising the look of relief on Becky’s face. She had seen her share of bodies, but kids were always different – especially ones who had been dead a while.

  As Tom entered the tent, his eyes were dragged to the body in front of him. From where he was standing, he could see that putrefaction was advanced. Given that it was early March and cold for the time of year, that meant the girl had been here for a while, slumped against the oak tree, partially buried in rotting leaf litter, wearing nothing more than a thin white nightie. On her feet were a pair of trainers, grey with age and splitting around the sole. What looked like a blue anorak was bunched up a few feet from the body, and the neck of the nightdress was ripped.

  Tom looked around, but there was nothing more that he could see. It would be down to Jumbo’s team and James Adams to collect the evidence, and Tom’s job to work out what had happened to her. He spoke briefly to the pathologist and left him to his work.

  Stepping back outside the tent, Tom took a deep breath of cold, clean air, closing his eyes for a second as he thought about the girl’s family. If she had been reported missing they would identify her soon enough.

  He made his way back along the approach path, careful as always not to deviate from the steppin
g plates and contaminate the scene. He could tell from Becky’s body language that she was eager to speak to him. Hopefully, the team back at base had been doing their work and had a name for this kid.

  ‘What have you found, Becky?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. Absolutely big fat zero. I’ve just had a call to say that no girl in the age range ten to fourteen has been reported missing in the last two weeks. We’ve drawn a blank so far. We’re going to have to go back through kids that have been missing for longer that fit the profile and extend the search to neighbouring forces.’

  ‘She can’t have been missing for long, because I don’t think she’s been living rough,’ Tom said, shaking his head. ‘She’s wearing a white nightie, for God’s sake. How many street kids put on a nightie to go to bed? What do you think, Jumbo?’

  Jumbo had been standing quietly by, listening to the conversation.

  ‘We’ve found no personal effects, but until we move the body we can’t search the area immediately around her. There’s no ID in her anorak pockets. But I’m with Tom. She’s not a street kid.’

  ‘Was the anorak on the ground, away from the body?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Just where you saw it,’ Jumbo answered. ‘It was all photographed, of course, but I put it back when I’d checked the pockets so you could see it in situ.’

  Becky’s radio beeped and she moved to one side to leave Tom and Jumbo to talk as she pulled out her notebook and answered the call.

  ‘If she’s left home in the last week or so, obviously nobody’s bothered to let us know. It makes me sick to think of all the runaways that aren’t even reported,’ Tom said. ‘The parents or carers are probably expecting her to come back after a few nights of sleeping rough.’

  ‘Yeah, and most of these kids have no idea how many predators are out there, waiting for the opportunity their isolation presents.’

  The two men stopped talking as they heard a rise in Becky’s tone. She turned round and came towards them.

  ‘Has her ethnicity been established? They did a trawl of all girls, and we have a few that have gone missing that might fit the bill. It’s all down to the ethnicity.’

  Tom looked at Jumbo.

  ‘James was certain she was white – although quite how he could tell, I don’t know. Is there somebody in mind?’

  Becky spoke into her radio again and all three listened to the response.

  ‘We’ve been looking through old cases – kids who have been missing for months or even years. We’ve come up with three possibles: Amy Davidson, Hailey Wilson and Natasha Joseph.’

  3

  Tom’s post-holiday good spirits had totally evaporated by the time he and Becky returned to headquarters. The sight of the body bag being transported from the tent had hit him harder than he had expected. It was always traumatic when children were hurt, but the image of the child dressed in a white nightie propped up against a tree with her thin legs stretched out in front of her was particularly disturbing. Tom thought of his daughter Lucy and wondered what she was doing at that moment.

  The pathologist, James Adams, had called with his initial report.

  ‘She was a white girl aged around twelve I would say. No identification on her, and no clear distinguishing features that I could see. Naturally blonde hair, very slightly built but not malnourished. We bagged her hands at the scene but I think it will be difficult to get fingerprints. We’ll get what fragments we can when I’ve done the post-mortem. My initial estimate is that she had been there for about a week, but we’ve had some very cold weather – particularly at night – so I may want to reassess that. At the moment, I’m not able to give you cause of death, but you’ll be the first to know. I presume you’ll be attending the PM?’

  Tom agreed that he would be there and was ending the call as Becky nudged his door open with her hip, juggling two cups of much-needed coffee while trying not to drop a stack of files held tightly under one arm.

  ‘Here you go, boss. I think we both need this,’ she said, putting the cups down and pulling up a chair. ‘The incident room is being set up as we speak, but I brought through some notes on the three missing girls.’

  Tom reached for his coffee and took a sip, not caring that the scalding liquid was burning his tongue.

  ‘OK, let’s take a look at them, but any number of kids could have done a runner in the last couple of weeks and not been reported,’ Tom said, ‘so let’s not limit ourselves to considering these three. I still can’t quite work out what’s bothering me about the nightie. It’s as if she was plucked from her bed. But how many girls of that age wear white nighties, buttoned to the neck? I don’t like the fact that the neck had been ripped either. The buttons were fastened, so a hand must have been placed inside the neck and the fabric torn with some force. It will be interesting to see if James can find any evidence of sexual trauma, but I’m not liking how this feels.’

  Becky nodded and referred to her notes.

  ‘James also said there were no obvious signs of malnutrition. So she’s either a recent runaway who has somehow got caught up in something – been picked up by one of the bastards who prey on unprotected kids – or she’s one of the long-term missing who may have been through God knows what. We can rule one of them out, though. Hailey Wilson has dark hair. So that leaves Amy Davidson and Natasha Joseph. Amy Davidson was a child in care. She started going AWOL when she was about eight, just for a night at a time, but her nights away became more frequent and then she stopped coming back altogether when she was eleven, eighteen months ago. We don’t have any DNA to compare, and I’m not sure what the parental history is – we’ll have to look into that.’

  Becky put one of the files on the floor by her chair and picked up the next one. ‘Natasha Joseph – do you know anything about her? You were here in Manchester at the time, weren’t you?’

  Tom nodded. ‘I remember her case, but I wasn’t involved.’ Tom decided not to share the fact that he had gone on compassionate leave a few days after the child went missing. ‘Her mother was killed in a car accident, and Natasha should have been in the back of the car, but wasn’t. They never found a trace of her, or a plausible reason for the accident either.’

  ‘Jumbo remembers the case too,’ Becky added. ‘He was called out when they realised it was more than a collision, but he says there was nothing of interest to report. No sign that the child had been hurt in the accident – in fact no sign that she had been in the car at all. They’ve got some DNA on file but he says we need to treat it with caution. It was from a hairbrush and could easily have been contaminated with somebody else’s hair – although the father was adamant that nobody else would have used it.’

  ‘Why don’t you track down the father and explain the situation to him, Becky? Get a DNA sample for comparison but make it clear that we just want to rule Natasha out. Same for Amy Davidson. Social services will need to be notified in her case, and her carers, but see if you can trace one of her parents to take a swab. And we should notify Hailey Wilson’s family that we know it’s not her so they don’t panic when the news gets out. Speaking of which, I want it kept under wraps for now until everybody relevant has been informed. In reality we know nothing about this girl, and we can’t risk compromising the investigation by following up a mass of hysterical reports if it’s made public before we’re ready.’

  4

  Day One

  ‘Come on, Mr Grumpy. You’re all clean and dressed again now, so let’s have a smile.’

  Emma tickled Ollie’s little tummy and he started to giggle – her favourite sound in the world. He had always hated being dressed. As a baby he had cried, and Emma had worried that he had something wrong with him – one of those terrible illnesses where children can’t be touched because their bones break easily. For weeks she had dreaded dressing him, until she realised that at all other times he was happy to have his limbs manoeuvred. It was putting clothes on that he hated. Now he sometimes offered physical resistance as Emma tried to push his legs into his
cute dungarees, and he shouted his indignation as loudly as possible – a trick he had learned from one of the workmen who had come to fit their new kitchen. The foreman had shouted ‘Ay’ every time he wanted something. ‘Ay, Bill – pass us that hammer,’ or ‘Ay, missus – any chance of a brew?’ and Ollie had copied, adopting it as his favourite sound. He could do a bad-tempered ‘Ay’, as if to say ‘stop doing that’ but more often than not it was just to get attention. Emma hoped he would grow out of it as his vocabulary expanded from its current limitation of about ten words.

  Lying next to him on the bed, propped up on one elbow, she used her other hand to creep her fingers up Ollie’s body, singing, ‘Incy wincy spider climbed up the water spout.’ Ollie shouted, ‘Dow, dow.’ He knew what came next.

  ‘What a clever boy, Ollie.’ Emma blew a raspberry on his tummy. She felt a burst of happiness at the thought that this beautiful baby was hers. She had been thirty-seven when she had married Ollie’s father and hadn’t dared to hope for children in case she was disappointed.

  ‘Come on, let Mummy put your socks on,’ she said, smiling to herself. She had always sworn she would never refer to herself in the third person – it seemed such a bizarre thing to do. But she got it now.

  Ten minutes later, Emma carried Ollie downstairs, stopping at the bottom – as she always did when she was alone in the house – to look at the portrait facing her at the end of the hallway.

  Her husband’s first wife had been beautiful. There was no doubting that at all. Her delicate features and pale, almost translucent skin had been captured to perfection in a painting commissioned by her father on her twenty-first birthday. Emma tried so hard not to make comparisons between this woman’s fragile beauty and her own rather more prosaic, if not unattractive, features. But it was difficult. She could never ask to have the portrait removed, though.

  Irritated by her inability to shake off the last vestiges of insecurity, she pushed open the door to her fabulous new kitchen. It had taken Emma some months to get her own way with the alterations to this part of the house. David had lived here for seven years before Emma moved in and said he loved it the way it was. But Emma had explained the practicalities of demolishing the back of the house and adding a full-width extension to create one large room – a kitchen, dining and living room combined.