Blood Atonement (9 page)

‘I’d hope I’m better at it in fiction than I am in real life,’

she added.

There was a silence. She stared at him with a look he

couldn’t fathom. Wistfulness? Regret? He didn’t know.

Was he supposed to say something here? He couldn’t find

the words. After a few agonizing seconds in which unsaid

words and feelings hung between them like a veil, Heather switched back to the topic at hand.

‘But if these two have disappeared pre1891, what can

we do?’

‘There’s any number of things I can do, but they might

all take some time,’ he said, glad to be on steadier ground.

‘In the meantime, we can take Sarah Rowley as the starting point and trace as many descendants of hers as possible to give you something to start working on.’

Heather agreed. The rest of the day was taken up with

that task. By the close, Nigel was able to hand her a small list of maternal cousins. One, a Gillian Stamey, died three years ago (a suicide aged thirty-six), while another elderly woman, Edith Chapman, died five years ago. The living females were Naomi Buckingham, Leonie Stamey, Rachel

Stamey, Lucy Robinson and Louise Robinson. The latter,

mother and daughter, appeared to have emigrated to New

Zealand along with Zach Robinson, a baby son, and his

father, Brian. The male descendents were Martin Stamey,

David Stamey, Gary Stamey— son of the recently deceased Gillian — Brad Stamey, who was the son of Martin and brother of Rachel, and Anthony Chapman. Christopher,

another male, died three and a half years ago.

Heather looked at the list. ‘So, there are four branches — the Chapmans, the Stameys, the Robinsons and the Pratt/Drake/Buckinghams?’

‘Yes,’ Nigel replied.

‘It’s not that big a list,’ she said.

‘It’s all the direct descendants of Sarah, those who share her mitochondrial DNA. The bloodline isn’t the strongest anyway. Many have died, very few kids born to replace them. The Chapman branch and Naomi’s have almost

died out. The Stameys are the biggest clan left. Seems the Robinson branch split off and set up in New Zealand. The whole family tree isn’t much bigger, just one or two others.

What will you do with it?’

‘Track these people down, the males in particular, and

speak to them. It’s a punt, but one that’s worth it.’

‘Well, I’ll look into why the line disappears pre1891,

explore some of the options. I can stay here until late, browse through some passenger lists for ships in case they came in from abroad, or have a glance at the change of name indexes to see if they shed any light on it. If I find out what happened and it leads to more ancestors and more cousins then I’ll get in touch with you.’

Heather smiled. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

Trevor Vickers picked anxiously at his fingers, occasionally putting one in his mouth to chew. At his side was a lawyer, a short man in an ill-fitting suit with an ill-advised comb over. Neither spoke. While they were sitting here — with the press, who had been tipped off that he was number one suspect, camped outside - the Metropolitan police were

inside his house. They’d covered every inch but found no trace of Naomi. It was late on Wednesday afternoon. Time had been magnified, each minute carried more significance than usual: every hour that passed without a lead was as fatal as any wound.

Foster stood watching from behind a two-way mirror.

Harris had asked him to conduct the interview. If he was being cynical, he’d think it was to appease the pack of reporters that were trailing Vickers, to make it appear as if the hunt for Naomi Buckingham was gaining momentum. They didn’t need it. Not for the first time, they were ahead of the investigation. They’d intercepted a phone call Vickers had made to his estranged father that lunchtime, warning him of the shitstorm that was about to break. It had already broken.

His father told him that a reporter had already been round to the house to offer him money for an exclusive interview about Trevor, and was prepared to put him up in a hotel to ‘protect’ him from other reporters. When he refused, maintaining his son was innocent, despite them having barely spoken in years, the reporter had gone even further, offering the resources of his newspaper to help his father find Trevor the best legal representation available. This from a newspaper that peddled a flog ‘em and hang ‘em line. Foster knew that was a lie - the help would never materialize. To his credit, in Foster’s opinion, the father still refused, not even backing down when the reporter became aggressive and threatened to drag his name through the slurry along with Trevor’s.

He fitted the profile. Loner. Loser. Mummy issues. Perv

with previous, particularly relating to young girls, to paraphrase what Susie Danson had said in her report.

Foster entered the room. Vickers shifted uncomfortably

in his seat. He looked on the verge of tears.

Afternoon, Trevor,’ Foster said brightly. ‘Thanks for

coming in. Nothing formal, just a chat.’

Trevor Vickers nodded imperceptibly, then glanced

anxiously at his brief who cleared his throat and spoke

waveringly. ‘I have to say my client wants to express his extreme displeasure at the press attention he’s receiving.

He feels certain that someone in your team must have

leaked the details —’

He stopped abruptly. Foster had thrown the file he was

holding down on to the table in front of him. The brief

stopped talking. Foster didn’t even look at him.

‘I know you didn’t do this, Trevor. But I’m probably in

a minority of one at the moment.’

A mixture of hope and bewilderment spread across

Vickers’s large, pale face.

Foster picked up the file, which contained the details

of his previous. ‘You took your PC in for repair. You see, right there, very stupid. You can’t hide four pictures of under-age girls, so I don’t know how we expect you to

actually hide a living, breathing fourteenyear-old girl.’

Anger flashed across Vickers’s face. ‘I thought they were grown women dressed as schoolgirls,’ he said slowly.

‘Course you did. You deleted them immediately when you

found out they were under age.’ He scanned the file again.

‘Or, two hours afterwards anyway. The fact is there were only four pictures; there was no evidence you’d done anything like this before so you escaped with a caution. End of story’

He threw the file back on the table. ‘But let’s get the formalities out of the way before we get on to what I think you can help us with. What were you doing on Monday?’

‘I was at home most of the day. I took the day off. Did

some shopping’

Foster raised an eyebrow.

‘Online,’ he explained. A few add-ons for my computer.’

Sure you did, Foster thought. ‘Receipts for those would

be nice,’ he said, though he knew they would confirm little.

You do anything else? Go anywhere? Speak to anyone?’

Vickers went silent for a few seconds, then his face lit up. ‘I returned a library book in the afternoon. Shepherd’s Bush library. About three thirty.’

The time Naomi Buckingham probably went missing.

‘The book?’

Vickers’s face reddened slightly. ‘Is that necessary?’ he asked.

‘Well, you don’t think we’re going to take your word for it, do you? They have records. We want to check it out.

Prove that you were there and you’re eliminated from the investigation.’

He looked down at his feet. ‘Escaping Obsession!

‘Thriller?’

‘No. A self-help manual.’

‘Come again?’

Vickers looked up, face scarlet but jaw held defiantly

firm. ‘The full title is Escaping Obsession: Dealing With the One You Want Who Doesn’t Want to Know!

Foster nodded, bit his lip, made a note. ‘Were you

obsessed with Katie Drake?’

‘You don’t have to answer that,’ his lawyer mumbled.

Vickers waved an impatient hand in response.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. His eyes had become moist. ‘I loved her. I never told her that because I knew there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance she’d be interested in me. I took a few steps to deal with my unrequited love. But I had nothing to do with her death. Now my life’s just…fucking ruined.’ He emphasized the profanity with absolute conviction and anger.

‘We’ll corroborate the library thing, Trevor. We’ll let the press know you’re no longer part of our investigation. Can I just ask a few questions, about Katie?’

He’d composed himself. Nodded slowly.

Was she seeing anyone else, to your knowledge?’

‘No.’

‘Did you notice anyone in the shop hanging around

when she worked?’

‘No.’

‘She have a disagreement with anyone in the shop?’

‘No.’

This is going nowhere, he thought. Time to leave the bloke to the tender mercies of the press pack outside — and the attempt to rebuild his life. Just another bit of collateral damage in the media frenzy that engulfs some cases.

Last question. ‘Did you notice anything different

about Katie recently, anything strange, or odd in her

behaviour?’

There was a pause instead of an instant negative. He

looked at Foster directly, but the detective could see he was lost in thought. Eventually he spoke.

‘There was one thing,’ he said. ‘It struck me as a bit odd.

Last Monday, not the one just gone, the one before that, a woman came in with a great pile of stuff belonging to someone who died. She was from an old people’s home

round the corner. Apparently the dead woman had lost

contact with all her family and they’d been unable to track down any relatives so they were giving away all her things.

Very sad, but not uncommon. Which is why I was surprised that Katie got so upset. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t in hysterics or anything like that, but she was definitely moved. She said to me how sad it was that you could die and no one would know or care.’

‘Did you respond?’

He nodded his head. ‘I agreed with her. It is sad.’ His

voice was low, as if considering what Foster was at that moment thinking: how that desolate observation was applicable to him. ‘Then she said, “But I don’t have to worry about that any more.’”

‘What did she mean by that?’

‘I don’t know. Naomi presumably’

‘But she said “any more”. As if dying and no one caring

had been the case before.’

‘I know. Someone came in and interrupted us. I’d forgotten about it. Until now.’

Foster stared intently at the list Heather handed him, as if the answer to the whole case lay buried in those names. It was late in the evening and yet another day had crawled by without an event of significance. Trevor Vickers’s alibi checked out, as he knew it would. There had been two reported sightings of girls matching Naomi’s description but neither turned out to be correct. Instead of sloping off home at five, he’d hung on until Heather returned with the names, the lights off and the door shut to make it appear he was out. When she arrived, he asked her to keep the door shut and her voice down.

‘I expected more names than this,’ he snapped, breaking

his own rule.

‘Nigel could only trace the maternal line forward from

1890 or so. Before that is a mystery. This is probably only about half the names we could’ve found.’

Foster rubbed his hand up the back of his shaven head,

then tapped the space bar of his desktop PC. It crackled into life from its slumber. ‘I suppose it makes our job easier.

Let’s feed these into the national computer first, and see if anything comes up,’ he said to Heather. ‘Then we’ll seek out those we can.’

He started with the males. He entered each name, cross

referencing with their date of birth when more than one

person appeared on the database under that moniker. He

received three hits, all from the same branch of the family.

Martin Stamey and his brother David, the former convicted of drink-driving and aggravated assault, the latter of handling stolen goods, driving without insurance and grievous bodily harm, for which he was currently spending three

years at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

‘Nice family,’ murmured Heather behind his shoulder,

making a note of Martin Stanley’s address. ‘Should be

worth having a chat with him.’

The third hit was Christopher Stamey, who’d served

two sentences for serious drug offences and was found

murdered three and a half years ago. No one was arrested for the crime.

‘Coincidence? Heather said. ‘This lot certainly sound

like the black sheep of the family’

‘There’re a few dark woolly creatures who might sue

you for that,’ Foster replied. ‘They sound like scumbags.’

Logic told Foster it was all unrelated. But experience told him not to always trust logic. ‘It’s worth checking out.’

For the sake of completeness, Foster punched in the

names of the seven women. The first six provided no

matches.

‘Here’s the last one,’ Foster said, typing in the name of Leonie Stamey, niece of the brothers grim. ‘She’ll be only seventeen, and even allowing for the criminality in her family that should —’

He stopped abruptly.

Heather was on her way out of his office to find out

more about the Stamey clan. ‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Fucking hell.’

‘What is it?’ she repeated.

‘Leonie Stamey is missing’ He swivelled on his chair to

face her. ‘She disappeared on her fourteenth birthday.’ He stood up and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

‘I don’t think that’s coincidence.’

Martin Stamey’s home was a new build on an upmarket housing estate for the aspiring criminal classes on the outskirts of Purfleet in Essex. Each house appeared identical, surrounded by large well-manicured lawns and adorned with more mock Tudor fixings than a medieval banquet. As they tried to find the right house in a warren of homogeneous streets, Foster couldn’t resist a sneer. It was the sort of place where the residents put up so many lights at Christmas you could probably see them from space.