Stolen Children

‘Are you all right?’ Sian asked.

‘No.’ She shivered as a gust of wind blew around her. ‘No, I’m not.’ She headed for the car.

‘I’ll get Rory and Scott to search online and on social media,’ Sian said as she lowered herself in behind the wheel and put her seatbelt on. ‘We need to find out everything we can about the family. Like he said, they’re just a normal, regular, everyday kind of family. Why them?’

Matilda didn’t reply.

Sian started the engine. Matilda looked out of the window and back at the house. Craig was standing at the large living room window looking out at her. They made eye contact. Matilda offered a sympathetic smile, but it wasn’t returned. Craig continued to stare.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Sian asked when she glanced at Matilda and saw a heavy frown on her face.

‘It’s nearly always the father, isn’t it?’

‘What is?’

‘When a child goes missing or dies or something happens, it’s nearly always the father. What do you think of him?’

‘Craig? I get the feeling he’s screaming on the inside but trying to remain calm for Linda and the kids.’

‘You don’t suspect him?’

Sian thought for a moment. ‘No. I don’t think I do. Do you?’

Matilda remained silent. Until she found evidence to the contrary, she suspected everyone.

Chapter 10

While Matilda and Sian were at the Armitage house, DI Christian Brady was setting the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team to task. Until the kidnappers made their next move, there was very little they could do. However, in case the kidnapping was a hoax, a contingency plan was set up for the investigation into a missing child to begin. The first step was to contact everybody on the child sex offender’s register and find out their movements for the time Keeley disappeared.

‘Sir, I’ve been scrolling through Twitter and Jodie Armitage has been tweeting quite a bit since last night,’ DC Scott Andrews said. He stood in the doorway to Christian’s office.

He sighed. ‘I bloody hate social media. Thanks Scott, I’ll give Ellen a ring.’

‘I’ve just seen Sian’s car pull up in the car park.’

‘Right. We’ll need to get the briefing started. I’ll be right out. Scott, keep an eye on social media. Anything that sounds a bit dodgy, let me know.’

‘Will do.’

Christian stepped out of his office as Matilda and Sian entered the HMET suite.

‘How did it go?’ He asked.

Matilda rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t ask. Listen, is the ACC here yet? Her car isn’t in the car park.’

‘Oh. I’m not sure.’

Sian had made two strong coffees and handed one to her boss. It was greatly needed, and Matilda inhaled the caffeine before taking a sip. She could feel herself relaxing immediately.

She looked up at the whiteboard on the wall behind her. Keeley’s school photo was already at the top, smiling at the whole room.

‘Ok then, let’s begin …’

DS Aaron Connolly’s mobile rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the screen and silenced it. He mouthed ‘sorry’ to Matilda.

She continued. ‘We have a missing child to find. Keeley Armitage is nine years old. She lives in Acorn Drive, Stannington with her family. Parents are Craig and Linda and she has an older sister, Jodie, who is fourteen and younger brother Riley who is four. Keeley looks more or less as she does in the photo on the board. She’s four feet tall with shoulder-length curly blonde hair which she wears tied back in a ponytail. She is slim, has blue eyes and a fresh complexion and wears size two and a half shoe. When she went missing, she was wearing her school uniform, as seen in the photo, and a yellow lightweight coat and carrying a pink backpack with characters from the film Frozen on it.’

Scott was stood by the board adding the details as Matilda spoke.

‘The last person to see Keeley was her sister who told her to wait for her outside the Co-op on Oldfield Drive while she went inside to do some shopping.’

DC Rory Fleming, with a mouth full of Snickers, raised his hand and waved it about to get Matilda’s attention. He quickly chewed and swallowed. ‘Sorry, I missed breakfast. I’ve got the CCTV footage from the Co-op,’ DC Rory Fleming said. ‘Do you want to watch it now?’

‘No. Shall we wait until Keeley’s been found?’ Scott said. A ripple of laughter ran around the room.

Matilda pulled down a white projecting screen while Scott turned off the lights. Rory hammered away at his laptop and the image from the Co-op’s CCTV camera above the entrance appeared.

The picture was of high quality and showed shoppers entering and leaving the store. At 15:39, Jodie and Keeley walked towards the automatic doors. Keeley was licking an ice cream. Jodie knelt down, held her by the shoulders and said something to her before going into the store. A few minutes later, Keeley had finished her ice cream and walked off, disappearing out of shot.

‘Play it again,’ Matilda instructed.

The officers watched the footage for a second time in silence. When finished, Scott turned the lights back on.

‘It’s like she had no intention of waiting for her sister,’ Sian said.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Rory said.

‘Is she heading in the direction of home?’ Matilda asked.

‘She is.’

‘But she didn’t make it.’

‘No.’

‘Are there any other CCTV cameras on the route she should have taken?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘I didn’t think so. So, is this all we’ve got of her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rory, take this to the tech department. See if they can zoom in on the people, clean it up and get some decent images. We can see most of the kids are wearing school uniform. If we can show this to the teachers, they may be able to identify the kids and we can ask them what they saw.’

‘Will do. Can I finish off my breakfast now?’

‘You may.’

Rory nodded then bit off another chunk of chocolate.

‘One more thing Rory.’

He almost choked which made the room roar with laughter. Even Matilda smiled.

Aaron’s phone rang again. ‘Sorry. I’ll turn it off.’

‘Someone’s popular,’ Sian said with a hint of a smile.

‘Scott, what did you manage to dig up on the family?’ Matilda asked.

‘There is a lot about the family online, especially the father, Craig Armitage.’ He went over to his laptop and projected images onto the screen showing various newspaper articles. ‘Craig does a great deal of charity work. He runs marathons, half-marathons, bike rides, abseils buildings, anything to help raise money for charity.’

‘Which charity?’

‘Well, at first it was to buy the specialist equipment they needed at home for Riley. They’ve had the doors widened downstairs to accommodate Riley’s wheelchair. The garage has been turned into a bedroom and en suite wet room for him, the garden has had to be adapted, and various other pieces of equipment he needs. None of it is cheap.’

‘Do we know what happened to Riley?’ Sian asked.

‘Yes. He developed epilepsy not long after he was born, and the seizures grew in strength. When he was one, he had one during the night while everyone was sleeping. He banged his head on the side of his cot, knocking him unconscious. His brain was starved of oxygen for too long for the damage to be repaired.’

‘The poor boy,’ DC Ranjeet Deshwal, who had recently become a father for the first time, said, putting his head down.

‘How did the family react to all this?’

‘According to the article I read, Craig talked about his wife and daughters rallying round and helping out. They come across as a close-knit family, but he’s going to say all that for a newspaper article, isn’t he?’

‘True. We need to chat to the neighbours, close friends and family; find out as much as we can about them,’ Matilda said.

‘I expect Linda feels guilty,’ Sian said.

‘How do you mean?’ Scott asked.

‘Well, when you’ve got young children, especially when they’re babies, you want to protect them, look after them. They’re vulnerable and rely on you,’ she said from experience as the mother of four children. ‘When they’re ill, especially with the condition Riley has, you’re even more protective. On the night his injury occurred, she’ll have been asleep and will have berated herself more than once for indulging in sleep while her child had stopped breathing. It’s natural.’

‘But it wasn’t her fault.’

‘That doesn’t stop her feeling guilty. You ask any parent of a child who injures themselves.’

‘So, how is Linda going to be feeling now?’ Scott asked. ‘Will she blame herself for allowing Keeley to be kidnapped?’

‘Judging by the state she was in yesterday and this morning, yes,’ Sian said. ‘She’s tried to protect all her kids, but most of her effort goes on Riley so she relies on Jodie to pick up the slack. Keeley’s gone missing, so Linda will be hating herself more.’

Matilda gazed out of the window overlooking the car park. She saw the dirty Land Rover belonging to ACC Masterson arrive. Matilda watched through the slats of the vertical blinds. The diminutive Valerie jumped down from the driver’s seat, slammed the door behind her and walked, lazily, towards the building. There used to be a bounce to her step. She was the assistant chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, a role she coveted. Now, everything had changed. Matilda recognised that look, that strolling gait.

The room had quietened. They were all waiting for Matilda.

‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘Now, as I was saying, we need to know everything about their routine, what’s going on in their lives. I know we don’t like to think this, but facts don’t lie, and the majority of the time, when a child goes missing, or is killed, it is by someone they know. Just because Craig does all this charity work and Linda is a doting mother doesn’t mean we don’t investigate them. I want everyone’s movements known for around the time Keeley went missing. Not just of the parents, but of the entire family too, that includes aunties, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great grandparents and third cousins twice removed. Until we know what happened to Keeley Armitage, everyone is a suspect. Is that clear?’

There were nods of ascent from around the room.

‘Good. Now, Sian, I’d like you to pay a visit to Keeley’s school. Find out what kind of child she was there – is she different from when she’s at home, was she being bullied, the usual. While you’re at the school, get a spare uniform and get it photographed. We need to try and get a similar jacket to the one she was wearing too. I’ll try and get Craig and Linda to do a television appeal later if this ransom demand doesn’t play out like it should.’

‘You don’t think she’s been kidnapped for ransom, do you?’ Aaron asked.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said, sitting on the edge of a desk. ‘When you kidnap someone for ransom, you choose a family who has plenty of money, like …’ She swallowed hard. ‘Well, like the Meagans. Yes, Craig has raised over half a million pounds, but you only have to read all these stories of him in the paper to know that he hasn’t put the money in his own bank account. It’s to buy special equipment for his son, or for the Children’s Hospital. He works two jobs, Linda doesn’t work. They don’t have that kind of money.’

‘Why would someone pretend they’ve kidnapped her when they haven’t?’ Scott asked.

‘To cover up what really happened to her,’ Matilda answered.

The room went silent while they all took in the implications of Matilda’s statement. Had Linda Armitage invented the kidnapping because she had killed her daughter?

‘But we’re not discounting the kidnapping completely?’ Aaron asked.

‘No. Nothing is being discounted until we have firm proof. I hope we’re monitoring all their calls.’

‘We are.’

‘Can I ask a very sensitive question?’ Rory asked.

Everyone turned to look at him, and his face reddened at the attention.

‘Go on,’ Matilda prompted.

‘I’m only asking this as we’re keeping an open mind on the whole kidnap thing, but, say she was kidnapped and there is someone out there waiting for fifty grand, do you think, that … well, what I mean is … is there …?’

‘Is it the same people who kidnapped Carl Meagan?’ Matilda finished his question for him.

‘Yes. Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise, you’ve every right to ask. I’ve spent most of the night thinking that myself. Kidnaps for ransom are very rare in this country. Is it possible the people who kidnapped Carl are having another go? I really don’t know.’

‘But Carl’s kidnappers didn’t get their ransom money,’ Scott said.

‘No. But we don’t know what happened to Carl. I screwed up the ransom drop, and they got away with Carl. After that, who knows what they did to him. Maybe they sold him on and made their money that way. We don’t know.’

Matilda’s brow had wrinkled, and her face took on a look of sadness. The Carl Meagan case haunted her on a daily basis, and now it was happening again, just when she was getting her life back on track. This was a cruel twist, and Matilda knew she had to get it right. She could not allow her emotions to get the better of her, and if that meant upsetting the already fragile parents of Keeley Armitage to get some answers, then she was perfectly prepared to do so.

She looked up to find the whole room staring at her, waiting to hear what she was going to say next.

‘Right then,’ she clapped her hands together. ‘You’ve all got things to be going on with. Christian will give you your tasks. Get out there and find Carl—’ Then, ‘Fuck,’ she muttered under her breath.

‘Come on everyone, away from your desks. This is a police station, not a call centre,’ Christian said, covering his boss’s error. ‘I don’t want to see any of you in here until the evening briefing.

Matilda turned away from the room and headed for her makeshift office. She closed the door behind her and pulled the blind closed.

Her small office was a mess, as always. Every available surface was cluttered with files and paperwork; open cases, closed cases, cold cases, any information relating to a missing person somewhere in the world who bore a striking resemblance to how Carl would look now.

She slumped in her leather chair and pulled open the top drawer of her desk. A fragile envelope, coming apart at the seams from permanently being opened, sat on top of a notepad. She lifted it up carefully, opened it and pulled out the five photographs from inside. They were all of Carl with his family; playing in the back garden, on his father’s shoulders at the beach, opening presents on Christmas morning, playing with the puppy in the park, snuggling with the same dog in bed. In each picture, he was smiling, he was happy, he was content.

‘Where the bloody hell are you, Carl?’ She asked as tears began to form.

Chapter 11

The sound of hammering drew Ellen into the living room. The coffee table had been moved to one side and the carpet pulled away from around the window. Craig was on his hands and knees thwacking a hammer down onto the exposed floorboards.

‘Craig!’ She called out over the din. ‘What are you doing?’

He turned around to face her. His face was expressionless. ‘I hate not having anything to do. I can’t just sit around here waiting for the phone to ring at four o’clock. I thought I’d do a few jobs I’ve been putting off.’

‘I think maybe you should leave that for a while, at least until Linda gets up. I’ve made a fresh pot of coffee.’

‘If I drink any more coffee, I’ll be bouncing off the walls.’

‘It’s better than tearing up the living room,’ she smiled.

He smiled back. His face seemed to light up for a brief moment.

In the kitchen, Ellen poured them both a coffee from the cafetière. They sat at the heavily scratched pine table.

‘I like the garden,’ she said, looking out of the window. It had been designed with wide walkways for Riley’s wheelchair to go down, raised patches of grass for him to sit on without too much trouble getting out of his chair.

‘Thanks. I did most of it myself. It took me ages.’ He added a splash of milk to his strong coffee and poured in three heaped spoonfuls of sugar. ‘Riley loves it. He enjoys the fresh air.’

Ellen cleared her throat. ‘Tell me about Keeley. What sort of a child is she?’

‘She’s a good child,’ he replied without giving the question any thought. ‘She’s never given us any worry. She dotes on Riley and I think she listens to Jodie more than she does me and her mum,’ he laughed nervously.

‘How’s school? Does she have any favourite lessons?’

‘Maths. She’s good at it, too. I don’t know where she gets it from. I’m useless with numbers. She got a certificate last year for one hundred per cent attendance. She loves school.’

‘Any best friends?’

He frowned as he thought. He took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. I think Jodie would be your best bet to answer that one.’

‘What does she like doing out of school?’

‘She’s a big Disney fan. She’s got all the DVDs. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve sat through Frozen. She enjoys drawing too. She’s always drawing pictures of clothes, especially dresses. She designs dresses for Elsa to wear. She even drew a wedding dress once. She said it was going to be the one she’d wear when she was old enough to get married.’

‘Does Keeley think about things like that? Getting married?’

‘No. I think it’s the whole Disney princess thing? I expect she’s waiting for Prince Charming to ride up on a white horse and whisk her off to his castle.’ He smiled.

‘Craig, if someone acted the Prince Charming to Keeley, a stranger, is she the type of girl to go off with them?’

He paled instantly as if all the blood had been drained out of him. ‘You mean, grooming her?’

Ellen nodded. ‘It’s not easy to hear, I know, but I’m afraid I have to ask these questions.’

‘To be honest, I’ve no idea. When we bought her the tablet, we told her all about not talking to people she didn’t know. We go through it from time to time and it’s got all those protection locks on it, but these people are sneaky fuckers, aren’t they? I like to think she’s sensible, but at the end of the day she’s only nine. If somebody told her they had a castle and horses, I think she may fall for it.’

‘I’m sorry, I had to ask,’ she leaned forward and placed her warm hand on his.

‘That’s ok. You need to know these things. If some sick bastard has laid one finger on her, though, I swear to God, I’ll rip him apart.’

‘She wouldn’t.’

They both jumped at Jodie talking from the doorway. Ellen quickly removed her hand from Craig’s.

‘Sorry?’ Ellen asked.

‘What you said, about Keeley falling for someone who said they had a castle and horses, she wouldn’t. I’ve told her all about the internet. I’ve explained, in detail, what people are like on there. Whenever anybody new starts chatting to her on Snapchat, she tells me, and I sit with her, and watch the conversation play out. She’s a good girl. She wouldn’t go off with a complete stranger.’

‘You seem very confident about that.’

‘When I started picking her up all the time from school, we came up with a safe word that only me and her knew so if I had to arrange for someone else to collect her, I’d give them that word and she’d know it was ok to go with them. I never had a reason to use it.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Craig said.

‘That’s very sensible of you, Jodie,’ Ellen smiled.

Jodie went over to the fridge, took out a can of Coke and pulled out the chair at the top of the table. She swiped a speck of fluff from her father’s jumper, closed a magazine left open, and sat down.

‘We’ve had lessons in school about strangers approaching you online and how predators try to groom you. I wanted to make sure Keeley was safe without frightening her.’

‘Would Keeley go off with someone she knew if they turned up at the school, without seemingly needing a safe word?’ Ellen asked.

Jodie’s bottom lip began to wobble. ‘I can’t protect her all the time,’ she cried. ‘I’ve warned her against strangers, but how do you warn someone against people they’re supposed to trust?’

‘Like who?’ Ellen asked.

‘I think we should leave it there,’ Craig said. He leaped from his seat and went over to his daughter. He held her firmly in his arms, pulling her tightly to his chest, and stroked her hair as she cried loudly.

‘Jodie, is there someone …?’

‘Please. Can we leave it for now?’ Craig demanded.

‘Of course. I’ll just …’

Ellen left the room and closed the door on Jodie’s cries and Craig making reassuring noises.

She stood in the hallway and ran her fingers through her greasy hair. She looked into the living room and saw Riley strapped into his highchair. He looked back at her with a vacant stare. She went in and picked up the small penguin he’d been playing with that had dropped on the floor. She handed it back to him.

‘Here you go, sweetheart.’ Over her shoulder, she saw an episode of Pingu playing on TV. The sound had been muted. She looked back at Riley. He was smiling. ‘What happened here last night, Riley?’ She asked him quietly.

Chapter 12

Matilda knocked on ACC Masterson’s door and waited for Valerie to tell her to come in. It was a long wait.

‘Come in.’

Matilda pushed opened the door and carefully entered, closing it behind her.

Valerie wasn’t behind her desk, as usual, buried under a mountain of paperwork and reports. In fact, her desk was relatively tidy. The ACC was standing by the window, her back to the room, gazing out at the sprawling view of Sheffield in autumn. Beyond the double glazing, new buildings were rising as Sheffield continued to go through its seemingly endless regeneration process. The high street was facing the same hardship as others up and down the country. People didn’t seem to want to shop on the street anymore, preferring to do it online. Shops were closing, footfall was easing, and city centres were turning into ghost towns. Sheffield seemed to have the solution. A new cinema had recently opened, and a bowling alley and pool hall were scheduled to open sometime next year. New restaurants and coffee shops were popping up, and, thanks to the new HSBC headquarters opening next summer, the city centre would hopefully start to see people return, if not to shop, then to be entertained.

Valerie’s eyeline followed a crane as it turned, carrying a heavy slap of concrete high up above the streets of the city centre.

‘Do you think Sheffield needs any more hotels?’ She asked, not turning around.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought,’ Matilda said, stepping further into the room.

‘Apparently there’s going to be one where the old market was and there’s talk of an Ibis at the bottom of the Moor, right next to the Premier Inn. Who knew Sheffield was in such high demand.’

‘It’s not exactly a holiday destination,’ Matilda sniggered.

‘No.’

‘Is everything all right?’

Valerie turned from the window. She looked smart in her crisp uniform. Her grey hair was swept back. She was a small woman, barely over five feet tall, but her personality was titanic, as was her reputation as a powerful leader. However, recent events had taken their toll. Her face was heavily lined and there was an air of sadness about her which filled the room.

‘Fine,’ she quickly replied, taking her seat behind the enormous desk.

‘How’s Arthur? Any news?’

Valerie visibly sank in her seat. Her head bent down to her chest. She sniffled. She wiped away a tear before looking up.

‘Not good,’ she managed to say, her voice cracking. ‘He’s regained consciousness, but …’ She shrugged. She couldn’t speak.

Matilda sat down in front of her desk. ‘Is there anything I can do?’