Nowhere to Run

He was here. She moved faster. At least the noise of the storm would mean he couldn’t hear her.

The side door of the van slid open and she stepped forward, pushing through the wet stems rather than pressing them down. She would just have to suffer the consequences for the next couple of days.

But she was amazed to find that she wasn’t stung.

She heard the door roll shut.

Nearly there. Just another metre to the end of the barn and about three more across the gap beyond. She ran and leapt for the fence and the sweet freedom of the dark and sheltering woods.

CHAPTER 3

Pete stalked up the length of the room as the two senior officers turned back into Colin’s office.

The door had not quite closed behind them when his open hand hit it hard. Silverstone was halfway through the interconnecting door to his own office when the loud slap behind him made him stop and turn.

‘A word. Sir,’ Pete said stiffly.

The DCI’s eyebrow rose. ‘DS Gayle?’

Pete ignored Colin for now. He was standing behind his desk, out of the direct line between him and Silverstone. ‘That case should have come to me and my team. You know it and I know it.’

‘This is your first day back, Peter. And it’s a missing girl.’

‘So? I haven’t got anything else on the board and if it’s a missing girl, it’s not likely to be related to Tom, is it? Paedos’ 101. Basic training. Ninety-eight per cent of the time, they go for boys or girls. Not both.’

Silverstone stepped forward and let the door close behind him. ‘That may be, but I still feel it’s too close and too soon, Peter. I want the parents to know that the person handling this is on it one hundred per cent. No distractions.’

‘Right. So you give it to a guy who’s already got a full caseload. That makes sense. Sir. And what progress has DS Phillips made on the Jane Doe or my son?’

Silverstone sighed heavily. ‘This is not about DS Phillips, Peter. Can you honestly tell me that you’re ready to cope with something like this? Whether it’s a boy or a girl. Because I don’t know that you are, and I’m not going to risk the safety of a thirteen-year-old girl to prove a point.’

Not going to risk the safety of your promotion, more like, Pete thought. ‘If I wasn’t ready, I wouldn’t be standing here. And I’ve got a damn good team behind me so, even if you doubt me, there’s no reason to doubt them.’

‘It’s not that I doubt you, Peter. Your abilities as a detective are well established. I simply don’t want to put you in a position where you might become overwhelmed, for personal reasons – the similarities between this case and your own, albeit this one’s a girl.’

DI Underhill sat down at last and Silverstone turned to him. ‘Help me out here, Colin. What do you think? Honestly?’

‘Honestly?’

Pete looked at him. Honesty was the last thing the DCI wanted from his deputy right now. What he wanted was support.

‘I can see both sides here, sir,’ the older man said. ‘I mean, I can understand why you’d show Pete some consideration, in the circumstances, but I can also understand how it might leave him feeling frustrated. Not trusted. And how it will look to the rest of the guys out there.’ He nodded towards the squad room.

Silverstone’s eyebrows pinched closer together. ‘And how is that, Detective Inspector?’

‘Well, like you’re hedging your bets, sir, possibly to the detriment of the case. And the girl.’

‘I see.’

‘What it comes down to, sir, is who’s able to give the case most commitment at this moment in time. And I have to admit, Pete’s right. If he’s back with us fully and completely, it’s him.’

Silverstone turned to face Pete. ‘And are you, Detective Sergeant? Back with us fully and completely?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The DCI sighed noisily. ‘Very well. But I want you to share the case with DS Phillips. That way, if it does get too much, you can hand it over without any break in continuity. And it may tie in with what he’s already working on, which was why I chose him to begin with.’

Pete drew a long, slow breath. What was he – some bloody rookie on his first job? He’d been a detective since before this jumped-up twat got to bloody secondary school. He didn’t need his hand holding. He let the air out through his nose. ‘Sir.’ He turned away, grabbed the door handle and went back through to the squad room before he had a chance to let himself down.

‘Simon.’

The younger detective looked up. Tall but a couple of stones overweight, with curly brown hair and a baby face, he had been a DS just over two years and Pete still struggled to take him seriously in the role.

‘Hi, Pete.’

‘I’m taking that new case off your hands. The missing girl. DCI’s had a change of heart.’

‘You sure?’

‘Don’t you bloody start.’

‘I mean that he’s got a heart to change.’

Pete smiled. ‘No, but he’s changed something. What have you got?’

Simon handed him a sheet of paper. ‘Just what you heard a few minutes ago. And the parents’ address and phone number.’

‘Apparently, I’ve got to keep you in the loop. Might be a connection to your Jane Doe. What’s that about?’

‘She was found ten days ago in the river, down by Powderham Deer Park. About ten, eleven years old. Sexually assaulted, strangled and naked. We’re still trying to find out who she was.’

‘Shit.’ Pete let his eyes close for a second as he absorbed that information. Still trying to ID her and still trying to find Tommy. Some detective you are, he thought. ‘All right. We’ll have to keep an open mind on a possible link then.’

‘Yup.’

Pete went back to his desk and sat down. He put the report sheet on his desk, picked up the phone and, taking a deep breath, started dialling.

The phone was picked up almost before it had rung. ‘Alistair Whitlock.’

‘Mr Whitlock, this is DS Peter Gayle. I’ve just been handed your daughter’s case and I’d like to come and talk to you about it – and your wife, if she’s there?’

‘She is.’

‘Perfect.’ He glanced at the address. ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes, OK?’

‘Thank you.’

He put the phone down and stood up. ‘Jane, you’re with me.’

‘Boss?’

‘Interview time. The Whitlocks.’ He headed for the door.

‘Wh—We’ve got that now?’

‘Yes. Come on, chop-chop.’ He paused long enough to hold the door for her, then hurried on down the stairs, feet clattering on the polished concrete.

They were moving along the back corridor, towards the car park behind the police station, before she caught up with him. ‘How did you swing this then?’

‘By being open and honest. You didn’t mention the Jane Doe earlier, when I asked you what had been going on. None of you did.’

‘Yeah, well . . . We thought it might be a bit close to home, boss.’

He hit the release button by the back door and pushed through. The late afternoon air struck him with a chill that had not been there this morning. An after-effect of the storm they’d seen earlier, he guessed. ‘You’re driving.’ He followed her across the car park towards her car. ‘My son is missing, Jane. What we’re talking about now is a murdered girl. How would that be close to home?’

‘One paedo case, another potential one. We were trying to do you a favour, that’s all.’ She stopped at the side of her bright green Vauxhall Nova and pressed the button on the remote. The car beeped and the locks snapped open. They climbed in.

‘If there’s something to know, I want to know it, Jane. I’ll hear things eventually. If they’re sensitive, then maybe I’d be better hearing them from one of you, rather than some plod I barely know. Did you think of that?’

She sighed. ‘No, boss. Sorry.’ She slipped the car into gear and back out of her space. ‘Where are we going?’

*

Lauren charged headlong through the green twilight of the woods, the hail a distant clatter on the leaves far above. Down here, it was almost dry, the ground firm beneath her flying feet. She did not look back or sideways, just concentrated on what was in front of her. Running, chest heaving, jumping over brambles and ferns, darting around trees, kicking through low-growing weeds, she went as fast as her exhausted legs would carry her. She had no idea how far these woods stretched, what they held or what lay beyond. She just knew she had to run, to get as far away from that barn as she could, to have any hope of escaping the man she was sure was behind her.

Chasing her.

She had heard the twang of the barbed wire as he jumped over it, the crashing of heavy footsteps through the undergrowth. He had shouted once.

‘Hey! Come back here!’

But since then, nothing.

The noise she was making combined with the rattle of the hail on the leaves above her to cover any more distant sounds. But she knew he was still coming. He had to be. There was no way he’d have given up.

She hit a narrow trail, barely visible on the ground, and turned onto it. It was too narrow to be man-made – must have been an animal of some sort – but it had to be going somewhere and it was away from the barn, which was all she cared about for now.

She ran on.

The trail wove around trees and bramble thickets and weird little prickly bushes that she’d never seen before. She began to see light through the trees ahead. The edge of the wood? A pool? A road?

Her legs were getting wobbly and weak. Her chest and throat felt raw. It was hard to suck enough air into her burning lungs, but she had to keep going.

The brightness spread across her field of view. It had to be the edge of the woods. She had no idea what that meant but, whatever it was, she would deal with it when she got there. She just had to get there. Get away from the man behind her.

The trail was helping – it made the running easier – but she didn’t know how much longer she could go on. She tripped on a root, staggered, exhausted, put out a hand to a narrow tree trunk for balance and pressed on. She couldn’t stop. Not now. She glimpsed a grey sky between the leaves up ahead. Noticed that the rattle of hail had stopped. The storm was over. Then, lower down, she could see the bright green of leaves in sunshine. A hedge, maybe? A road?

She caught the glint of wire. A fence. The trail led right up to it and through into the long grass beyond. A huge, rough-textured oak tree stood just to the right, its bark green with algae.

She ran up to the fence, panting hoarsely and bent to climb through.

Then screamed as an arm darted around her waist and snatched her off her feet.

‘Come here!’

CHAPTER 4

Traffic was queueing into the city on Heavitree Road so Jane turned left out of the station.

‘You look a damn sight better than you did last time I saw you,’ she said as she changed up through the gears.

July, Pete recalled. Annie’s tenth birthday. Jane and Dave had called round to give her a little something from the team and to let him and Louise know the latest on Tommy’s case. Not that there had been much news to pass on. ‘Yeah, well. I hadn’t been sleeping too well for a few weeks by then.’ He’d lain awake for hour after hour every night, getting up two or three times a night. Sometimes he would stand in Annie’s doorway and just watch her sleep. Other times, he would wander the house, check the doors and windows or go to his office and sit at the computer, trying whatever he could think of in a search for clues – anything that would tell him where Tommy might have gone.

‘It showed. You looked like you’d done five rounds with Frank Bruno.’

Pete grunted. ‘Thanks. Back to my normal, handsome self now, am I?’

She slowed, indicating right. Gave him a brief laugh. ‘Don’t know about that, but you certainly look a bit more normal than you did then.’

‘That’s all right then. Wouldn’t want to frighten the punters.’

She made the turn into a side street lined on both sides with parked cars and accelerated again.

‘So, come on. What’s the latest on Tommy?’

She glanced at him, meeting his gaze for an instant before returning her eyes to the road ahead. Sighed. ‘There’s nothing to tell. It’s like he vanished into thin air.’

‘Except people don’t. He went somewhere, somehow.’

She took a left turn, working her way through the back streets towards the home of the Whitlocks. ‘Well, yeah. But, how are we supposed to find out where and how if he wasn’t seen?’

Pete sighed. This was not a discussion to be had with Jane. It wasn’t her problem. It was Simon Phillips’. But, one thing he was certain of – there was no way the Whitlocks were going to suffer months of the same agony that he and Louise had. Not if he could help it. Whatever it took, he would find their daughter.

‘Here we go.’ Jane turned at another junction and drove slowly until she spotted the right number on a gatepost.

‘Blimey, they ain’t poor, are they?’

The house was set in its own neatly manicured grounds behind a high, thick hedge.

Jane turned in through high wooden gates that already stood open and parked in front of the double-width garage.

‘You never been round this way before?’ Pete asked as they stepped out and made their way to the front door.

‘Don’t get too much crime up here, do we? And you know me. I come from the other side of the river.’

Pete laughed. ‘Well, that’s closer than me. Only money round Okehampton is the old kind. Manor houses and the like.’ He reached for the bell-push, but hadn’t touched it when the door opened to reveal a man in shirtsleeves and smart trousers.

‘Detective?’

‘DS Peter Gayle. And this is DC Bennett.’

‘Come in. My wife’s through there.’ He stood back and indicated a door to the right of the big hallway.

They went into a large, bright sitting room where Mrs Whitlock sat on one of three cream sofas, a barely touched cup and saucer on the coffee table in front of her. In her thirties, blonde hair held back from her face in a chignon, Pete could see that she was a woman of natural style and beauty, despite the haunted look she wore now.

Her husband followed them in and sat beside her, taking her hand. ‘Please, have a seat. These are the detectives, Jess.’

She glanced up, clearly in shock.

Pete took the sofa at right angles to theirs. ‘Pete Gayle. This is Jane Bennett. We just need to establish the facts of the situation, then we’ll get out of your hair.’

‘Please. Ask us anything,’ Alistair said. ‘Just . . . find her, Sergeant.’

Pete took out his notebook and saw Jane doing the same. ‘That’s what we’re here for. Now, we only have what you told my colleague on the phone, so… We need to build as full a picture as we can.’

‘Why? Surely, it’s not Rosie’s fault she’s gone? What can we tell you that’ll help find whoever took her?’

‘If she’s been abducted, rather than gone off on her own . . .’

‘Of course, she hasn’t gone off on her own,’ Whitlock snapped over him. ‘She has no reason to. She’s perfectly happy at home. And at school.’

Pete raised his hands. ‘As I was saying, if that’s the case, then whoever took her would have probably at least seen her before. It may well be someone she knows or someone you do. Or, if it was random, then one of you may have seen something out of the ordinary. Perhaps an unusual vehicle on the road out there.’ He waved towards the street. ‘Someone hanging around when you picked her up from school or in town. Anything.’

Whitlock squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back for a moment. ‘I’m sorry. Where should we start?’

‘We’ll need a picture of her. As recent as possible. Mrs Whitlock, you took her to school this morning. Is that usual?’

She looked up, a dazed look in her hazel eyes, took her hand back from Alistair and clasped them in her lap. ‘We share the job. Sometimes I do it, sometimes Alistair does.’

‘All right. Which way did you go? As much detail as you can, please.’

She shook her head slightly. ‘The same way as always. Left at the end of the road, bear right then turn right by the junior school. It’s really not that far. We only drive her because she’s never up in time to walk.’

‘Did you see anything out of the ordinary along the way?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing. It was just an ordinary morning.’

‘No one following you, perhaps?’ Pete pushed. ‘An unusual vehicle parked nearby when you got there? An accident or roadworks?’

‘No, there was nothing. As I said, just a normal morning. I dropped Rosie barely a hundred yards from the school gates. There were mothers and kids everywhere, just like always. I pulled away and . . .’ Her face crumpled and she covered it with her hands as she burst into tears. Her husband put an arm around her shoulders and held her.

Pete recalled Louise’s similar reaction in this same situation, just a few months ago, and his own seething need to stop talking and get out there, searching for his child. Emotion swelled like a lump in his chest. ‘I’m . . .’ He coughed and cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Whitlock. But this is very necessary. You didn’t see anyone you knew when you got there? Stop for a chat, maybe?’

She took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head. ‘As I said, I dropped her off, pulled away and went on to work.’

As she took out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes, Pete turned to her husband. ‘And if you take Rosie to school, you go the same way?’

‘Yes.’

‘At the same time?’

‘Of course.’

‘And when you realised she was missing, you phoned her friends?’

‘Yes. That was my first thought. Maybe she’d gone home with one of them. She doesn’t have any evening activities on a Tuesday. But they said they hadn’t seen her all day.’ His voice seemed to clog. He swallowed.

Instinctively, Pete was inclined to believe the couple. They gave every appearance of being genuine and honest and, having been in this same situation himself, just a few months ago . . . Or was it that that made him feel this way? He was going to have to work hard to maintain his objectivity on this one. ‘Evening activities?’

‘She swims at county level. Loves tennis, too.’

He nodded. ‘We’ll need a list of her friends. Has she got a boyfriend?’

Jessica looked horrified while Alistair shook his head. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘Mrs Whitlock?’ Pete pushed.

‘No. Good Lord, she’s only thirteen.’ She looked about to crumble again, but held herself together somehow.

‘Of course. But, kids these days – you never know, do you? We also need to know about anywhere she goes regularly. Like for the tennis and swimming. Anywhere she goes with friends. Or with you or other family members.’

Alistair shook his head like a man confused by what was happening around him. ‘She goes into town with her friends, like all teenage girls, and she has school and her sports. That’s it, apart from the occasional party or sleepover and the usual family stuff.’

Pete nodded. ‘If you could make us a list of her friends, with their contact details, and where she goes to swim and play tennis, then, sir.’

‘Right.’ He got up and stepped out of the room.

‘Does she have a favourite place, Mrs Whitlock? Somewhere she might feel safe?’

‘What? Why?’ She looked confused.

Pete shrugged. ‘We have to allow for every possibility.’

Alistair came back into the room, a small beige book and a notepad and pen in his hands. ‘What’s this?’

‘I was asking if there’s anywhere Rosie might consider special. A safe haven. Favourite place. Anything like that.’

Alistair shook his head. ‘We’ve never . . . Why would she need a place like that?’

‘You’d be amazed at what goes on in kids’ heads,’ Jane said. ‘She doesn’t have any history of depression or anything like that, does she? Mood swings beyond what you’d expect from a teenage girl?’

‘No. Certainly not.’ Mrs Whitlock’s eyes grew wide with outrage.

Alistair sat down and took her hand again. ‘She’s just a normal teenager.’

‘What about school?’ Pete asked, thinking of his son, Tommy. ‘Is everything OK there? No undue pressure? Exams coming up?’

Jessica shook her head.

‘Has she been bullied at all? At school or perhaps online?’ Jane asked. ‘All this twittering and Facebook, chat rooms and so on.’

‘She’s not into that kind of thing,’ Alistair said. ‘She uses her mobile a fair amount, texting and chatting with her friends, but that’s all as far as I know. And she’s not bullied. She’s very popular, by all accounts.’

‘We’ll need her computer, tablet, whatever, just to make sure,’ Pete said. He’d still never seen Tommy’s again after all this time, he remembered suddenly. He’d have to ask Simon about that. ‘I expect she had her mobile with her?’

‘Yes,’ Jessica said softly. ‘But it’s switched off. Goes straight to voicemail. That was the first thing we tried when I came home.’

‘OK. We’ll need the number then, and the service provider. I take it it’s all right for us to check the call log?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you, sir. You were already home?’

‘Yes. I worked from home today. I’m a lawyer. Look, is anyone actually out there searching for Rosie, Sergeant?’

Pete paused, writing in his notebook, then looked up again. ‘As soon as we have somewhere to search, we’ll be going over it with a fine-tooth comb, sir. But we need all the information we can get in order to get to that stage. What other relatives are there?’

They glanced at each other and he spoke again. ‘We both still have our parents. I have a brother, Jason . . .’

Pete noticed a faint grimace cross the woman’s face.

‘. . . Jess has a sister, Penny. Penny Child. She’s divorced, but she’s kept her husband’s name.’

‘So, she’s single now?’

‘No,’ said Jessica. ‘She’s got a boyfriend. Michael Gibbons. They’ve been together – what?’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Two years or so? But what’s this got to do with anything? None of the family would have—’

‘And that’s it?’ Pete broke in.

‘Family-wise, yes.’

‘Right. We’ll need a list of contacts – family, friends and colleagues, even if they don’t know Rosie.’

Alistair frowned. ‘Why?’

‘For elimination and for cross-reference. People forget things, don’t notice them, do notice them. You’d be surprised. Tell you what, you’ve got your little book there. While you do that for us, would it be OK if you made us all a drink, Mrs Whitlock? Jane can give you a hand.’

‘OK,’ she said, looking a little surprised by the request. ‘I’m sorry. I should have offered before. It’s just . . .’

‘We understand.’ He nodded to Jane to go with her, then waited until Jessica had led the way out of the room. ‘Jane.’ He got up and went to the door, stuck his head through and said quietly, ‘Ask her about her brother-in-law. And if the girl’s all right around her father as well as anyone else you can think of. Grandfathers, friends.’

‘Right, boss.’

‘What was that about?’ Alistair asked as Pete returned to his seat.

‘Oh, just something I remembered at the last minute. How are you doing?’ He glanced down at the notebook on the coffee table in front of the other man.

‘Coming along.’

‘So, you’re a lawyer. What kind of law do you practice?’

‘Corporate, Sergeant. Company takeovers, property purchases and sales, staff disputes, that sort of thing.’

‘Big money involved at times then.’

‘Yes. But it’s the client’s, not ours.’

‘Nevertheless.’ He glanced around the room. ‘You’re obviously not on the breadline.’

‘And, Sergeant?’

‘Well, one of the things we have to consider in these circumstances is the possibility of kidnapping. For ransom.’

‘What?’ He stopped writing as he stared at Pete in shock. ‘I’m just a West Country lawyer, not some big City banker. Why on earth would that kind of thing affect me?’