DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 (30 page)

‘Did you tell him how?’

‘I don’t know how. I just said I’d read something about using those pay-as-you-go SIM cards because they can be registered in someone else’s name. I told him basic
things, like clearing your messages folder and so on. I thought it was just for his book.’

Jessica believed him and felt sure Reynolds would too. ‘If he was more or less a stranger, why did you go out of your way to help him?’

Nathan leant back in his seat and looked at the ceiling, blinking quickly. ‘Look at me,’ he said, opening his palms. ‘I’m in my forties, I’m single, I live on my
own and I teach in a primary school. Being a twenty-something bloke and teaching young children would make people look at you strangely. Imagine how bad it is when you’re forty-something. I
thought I was helping him write a book. He said he’d give me a credit somewhere and I felt useful. I know it sounds pathetic but . . .’ The man tailed off without finishing the
sentence.

Jessica let him compose himself before asking the next question. ‘What else did you tell him?’

Nathan shook his head and seemed close to tears and Jessica knew the worst was yet to come. ‘He started to talk about the plot. He asked the best way to keep information securely. I think
he thought things were safer on a computer. I told him the safest way to keep information was to not store it anywhere except your head, that you should only talk about things in person. I told him
that any file saved on a computer can never really be deleted without physically destroying the hard drive. I don’t think he really understood so I made it clearer. I said that, if you
absolutely had to keep details of something, the best thing to do was pretend the last fifty years haven’t happened. Write it down manually, keep it somewhere safe and, when you were done
with it, burn it.’

Jessica felt a tingle at the base of her spine. She thought of the list of children’s names she had found. It had been handwritten, kept somewhere unconnected to Benjamin himself and, from
what Nathan was saying, would have been burned.

‘Did you ever pass on the details of any students?’ she asked, thinking of the names.

Nathan blinked and shook his head. ‘What? No. Why would I do that?’

‘He never asked you for names and addresses of children?’

‘No, never. I don’t really have access to that anyway and, even if I did, I’d never pass it on.’

Jessica nodded. She believed him again but, if her instincts were right and he was telling the truth, they still had no idea where Benjamin had got the information from.

‘Did you keep the emails?’ she asked.

Nathan rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands before stopping to stare at the table. His solicitor had been silent since re-entering the room but he leant forward and spoke. ‘My
client tells me he deleted everything but is happy to do everything he possibly can to retrieve them.’

‘When did you delete them?’ Jessica asked, staring at Nathan and ignoring his solicitor. Neither of them answered, so she repeated her question, harsher the second time.

Jessica could sense a nervousness from the solicitor and there were tears in Nathan’s eyes when he looked up from the table. ‘Christmas Day,’ he said quietly.

Jessica struggled to control the anger in her voice. ‘After you’d seen on the news that we were looking for information?’

Nathan didn’t look up from the table. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because . . . I knew how it would look. I knew that if he hadn’t deleted everything at his end, you might find your way back to me. I wasn’t really thinking. I saw him on the
news and panicked.’

‘Why should we believe you about what was in the emails?’

Nathan finally met Jessica’s eyes, pleading with her. ‘Because it’s true. Honestly, it is. I’ll help them get everything back, I’ve still got the hard drive.’
Jessica knew there was no way that would be allowed to happen. His computer would be seized and any examination would be done by their experts. As she thought that over, she realised he still
hadn’t answered the one question he had been arrested for.

‘Why did Benjamin Sturgess call you?’

‘I know you won’t believe me but I’m not really sure. He hadn’t contacted me for around six weeks or so but he emailed out of the blue asking for my phone number. I gave
it to him and he phoned straight away. It was the only time I talked to him since we worked at the school.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He was talking about cars. It sounded like there was someone with him and he was asking how computers in cars work. I didn’t know what he was on about but he kept saying how
he’d read that modern cars were all locked by computers. I think he meant the electronics and so on but, to be honest, I wouldn’t have a clue anyway.’

‘Why didn’t he email you?’

‘I don’t know, it sounded like he was in a hurry. I assumed he was just stuck with a chapter or something.’

‘And there was someone with him?’

‘I think so. I didn’t hear a voice but I got the impression someone was telling him what to ask because he was stumbling over the words as if they were unfamiliar.’

Jessica immediately recognised the significance. Assuming Nathan was telling the truth – and she believed he was – it sounded as if Benjamin and whoever the accomplice was were
trying to figure out the best way to steal a car. In the old days, a brick through a window, a screwdriver and jamming two wires together would do the trick. With modern vehicles, it was much more
complex than that and pretty hard to steal a car without a key. If they had been unable to get information from their ‘computer expert’, that might well have been the point where they
decided to take a different track which led to someone hooking Daisy Peters’s car keys out of her house. Jessica wasn’t overly pleased to admit it but a lot of his story not only added
up – but helped fill in some of the blanks they had.

Reynolds asked Nathan where he was on the night Isaac Hutchings disappeared.

‘I’m not sure,’ the man replied. ‘I keep everything on the calendar app on my phone. You took it away when I was brought in.’

Jessica looked at Reynolds. ‘Has it gone yet?’ She was asking if the phone had been taken to their forensics lab to be looked at.

The inspector shook his head and then looked at Nathan’s legal representative. ‘Are you happy for us to bring it into the room?’ The solicitor asked Nathan and they agreed. The
inspector left and returned a few minutes later with Nathan’s phone in a small plastic bag. Again he addressed the man in the suit. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing with these
things and for reasons that should be pretty clear, there’s no way we can let your client touch this. Are you happy for my colleague to open this bag?’ Nathan nodded and his solicitor
agreed.

Jessica took the bag and opened it. The rigmarole was slightly over the top and, legally speaking, not necessarily something they had to do but it certainly eliminated any future doubt over
whether evidence had been tampered with.

Jessica switched the phone on and there was an agonising wait before the main screen appeared. She turned it around so Nathan and his solicitor could see what she was doing, as the suspect
talked her through which buttons to press. Jessica soon reached the calendar and scrolled up to the date Isaac went missing. Two words were typed on the screen and she knew Nathan was telling the
truth.

‘Parents evening’.

After showing a relieved Nathan what he had been up to, the phone was switched off and re-bagged. Once reminded of that date, Nathan had a good recollection of how the day had gone. As school
was finishing – the time Isaac was snatched from the other side of the city – Nathan had stayed behind to set up the classroom for the evening. He then went out for a pub meal with
three of his colleagues before returning to the school. He said he stayed behind after the parents had left with a couple of other teachers to tidy up. His alibi would be checked but Jessica knew
it would be verified.

With nothing else to ask, Nathan was taken back to the cells, leaving Jessica and Reynolds alone in the interview room.

‘Do you believe him?’ Jessica asked.

‘Unfortunately.’

‘Me too. We should still do him for deleting those emails. Perverting the course or something. He confessed to it, so it’s a piece of piss for CPS, just the way they like
it.’

‘You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?’ Reynolds asked, refusing to meet her eye. ‘They’re going to want this finished. Benjamin’s done for the
kidnap and murder, Nathan’s done for either perverting or assisting, whatever they think they can get him for. That’ll be it.’

‘But who stole Daisy’s car?’

‘They’ll say it was Benjamin. It’s not like he can deny it. We don’t have any prints from her house to say differently.’

‘What about the texts he sent, telling someone to meet him at the shed that night? What about the list of kids’ names? Where would he have got that from?’

Reynolds shrugged. ‘Unless forensics get something concrete from his phone, trust me, this will be the end of it. The chief super and everyone else high up want this out of the way before
anyone realises quite how badly we ballsed it up.’

Jessica could not think of a reply because she knew he was right.

Jessica cradled the empty pint glass in her hand and tried to ignore the music blaring around her. She was sitting in a booth in the pub closest to the station with Adam on one
side and Izzy on the other.

‘Are you all right?’ Izzy asked.

‘Yeah, it’s just this whole New Year celebration thing.’

‘What about it?’

Jessica was not in a mood for holding back. ‘It’s just . . . New Year’s Eve is for twats basically. Whichever way you want to dress it up, it’s for twats.’

Izzy laughed. ‘At least you can drink,’ she said, pointing towards her small glass of lemonade. ‘Anyway, what’s wrong with it? I always quite like New Year’s
Eve.’

Jessica stood as Rowlands returned to the booth with Chloe and a tray full of drinks. He put them on the table and everyone shuffled around to let the pair sit down. ‘What’s going
on?’ he asked.

‘Jess is moaning about New Year,’ Izzy said.

‘Shall I add it to the list?’ the other constable replied, which led to them both collapsing into giggles.

Jessica glanced from one to the other. ‘What list?’

Diamond and Rowlands looked sideways at each other, then started laughing again. Diamond eventually answered. ‘Every time you go off on a rant about something, we write it down. It’s
sort of a “Things Jess doesn’t like” list. It’s quite extensive.’ Jessica looked around the table to see everyone, including Adam and Chloe, laughing.

‘What’s on this “list”?’ she asked indignantly.

Izzy didn’t even need to think before replying. ‘Er, Christmas decorations went on the other week. Then there’s Christmas music, radio phone-ins, charity collectors, carol
singers, the rain, the snow, the frost, the wind, roundabouts, traffic lights, Dave’s hair, supermarkets, taxi drivers, bus drivers, people who don’t like wine, kids, teenagers, people
who own dogs, people who own cats, dogs, cats, Londoners, and now New Year.’

‘And that’s just this month,’ Rowlands added in between laughs.

‘This is an outrageous abuse of my privacy,’ Jessica said, but no one was listening; instead they were giggling at her expense. When she thought about it, she could clearly remember
complaining about all of the items on the list but that wasn’t the point.

‘What’s wrong with New Year?’ Adam asked when the group settled down.

Jessica didn’t need much thought. ‘It’s so forced. All these knobheads banging on about “What are you doing for New Year” all the time and then, when it’s the
actual night, everyone expects you to be out partying and having a good time. If you’re not in the mood then you’re a spoilsport. Then it’s all about the countdown and “Auld
Lang Syne”. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who knows more than the first two lines of the stupid song. Even when that’s all over, you have these morons and
their stupid resolutions. I don’t get it. If you want to stop smoking, just stop. If you want to eat less, just do it. But oh no, you have to tell the world you’re bloody doing it, just
because the year’s changed and then, by February, you’re back eating like a pig again. It’s bollocks.’

Jessica’s rant had spilled out almost as if it was one long word with barely a pause for breath. She looked up to see her friends staring at her and then couldn’t stop herself from
laughing either. Her jaw was still aching. ‘All right, I do moan a lot,’ she admitted as Adam put an arm around her.

‘It is true about “Auld Lang Syne”,’ Izzy said. ‘I just la-la-la my way through it after the first two lines.’

Jessica smiled and pointed. ‘See, it’s not just me.’

‘It is mainly,’ Rowlands said.

‘Come off it,’ Jessica said. ‘Surely you’ve got to admit this is the worst Christmas party ever. Firstly, it’s being held at New Year; second, it’s in the pub
around the corner from work and third, the music is older than I am.’

It was a set of complaints none of them could take issue with.

Jessica looked at Izzy. ‘When did you tell everyone anyway?’ she asked. ‘I must have missed it.’

Izzy smiled. ‘I didn’t want the whole big announcement thing just because I’m pregnant. I told Dave and he blabbed it around everyone else. Perfect really.’

‘Hey, it wasn’t like that,’ Rowlands protested.

‘It was,’ Izzy assured the table.

The New Year’s celebration, however poor, was at least succeeding in taking Jessica’s mind away from the other things going on. Everything had panned out in almost the exact way
Reynolds had said it would. Nathan Bairstow was out on bail but would almost certainly be charged with something. Meanwhile, the case, while not officially closed, had been moved to one side. The
few officers who were working over the festive period were being moved onto other things and, once the rest of CID returned after New Year, it was pretty clear the ones who had been investigating
Benjamin Sturgess would be put on something else. They wouldn’t quite have the full amount of evidence they needed but, with the suspect already dead, they had enough. There certainly
wouldn’t be a queue of lawyers desperate to dispute the evidence they had. Jessica was confident there was someone else involved but no one, least of all her, had a clue who that could be.
Because the case around Isaac Hutchings was all but closed, the one surrounding Toby Whittaker’s disappearance also looked likely to be stopped. The dig at the woods had taken lots of time
and resources and, apart from a wide selection of carrier bags, they had uncovered very little. Although Nathan Bairstow had worked at the same school Toby attended many years ago, no one thought
he had anything to do with the disappearance. Quietly, it would just be forgotten about again.