Running Girl (8 page)

He fixed them with a quiet stare, and a little frisson of discomfort went round the office.

‘And I'm expecting that you will give me the same guarantees,' he said.

Seated beyond his desk, his four colleagues looked back at him. Detective Sergeant Bob Dowell was a City man, tough and apt to be cynical; he had a big, bald head and a pug's nose and a habit of clearing his throat before being abusive. From time to time there were rumours he was struggling with gambling debts, but no one denied his determination or resourcefulness. Detective Sergeant Darren Collier was a friend of his, a small man – smaller than Singh – but already running to fat. He was dependable; some thought him sly. Inspector Lawrence Shan had been flown in from the InterCity Division, a sharp-faced officer with homicide expertise, recommended by the superintendent. Detective Sergeant Mal Nolan was the only woman on the team. She was shrewd and forthright and gave no quarter in arguments. Singh was aware of being the youngest in the room by at least ten years, and by far the least popular.

‘You'll get used to me,' Singh said quietly, ‘just as I'll get used to you. We work the same way. Methodical. Rigorous. We go the extra mile. We follow our instincts. And because of these things, and because right is on our side, we will succeed, and we will succeed fast. Now let's get to work.'

He drew their attention to the updates in their dossiers, then to the operational chart behind him. ‘Thursday evening and Friday afternoon,' he said. ‘Blanks. We know she was out on Thursday. But where? Who was she with? Something happened to upset her but we don't know what. Friday afternoon we know even less. Absence records from the Academy show she missed all her lessons. It seems she was at home prior to leaving for her run at seven, but there's at least six hours unaccounted for.'

He turned back to them. ‘That's a lot of questions. Where are we with the answers?'

Bob Dowell and Darren Collier's teams had been conducting the door-to-door investigation along the routes to Pike Pond. The working assumption was that Chloe had left her home at around 7 p.m. to run up to Pike Pond while there was still light. There were as yet no reliable sightings, which was unusual but not, as Collier commented, unprecedented, given the weather conditions and time of evening. Lawrence Shan's team had begun to interview Chloe's teachers and school friends, but it was too soon to come to any conclusions. Mal Nolan's team was trawling police records for local criminals, sex offenders, vagrants and anyone else out of the ordinary likely to have been in the Four Winds area. She had also been conducting interviews with the residents at Froggett Woods, as yet without result. The calls record for Chloe's phone, expected from the service provider, had been held up by ‘unresolved technical issues'.

Dowell spat into a handkerchief and grimaced. ‘It's all slow work,' he said.

Singh nodded. ‘Too slow. I want your ideas.'

The big man pursed his lips. ‘Most perps are known to their victims. The key suspect here is Dow.'

Singh gave him a flat look. ‘The reports are in the dossier.'

‘I haven't had time—'

‘We have to make time. I interviewed Mr Dow last night. You'll find the transcript in section one. Also the transcripts of my interviews this morning with the electrician and carpenter who were working with Dow. They were with him till about four in the afternoon. They confirm that he fell off his ladder, which accounts for the injuries to his face. Also that after they left him he carried on working: the paint job was all finished when they arrived first thing on Monday morning.'

Collier said, ‘All right. But they didn't actually witness him finishing it on Friday afternoon.'

‘No, but a neighbour confirms he was there. It's the fourth transcript in the dossier: the interview with Mr Snedding. Snedding could hear him at work all afternoon. Dow had the radio on. He didn't pack up till about five forty-five; Snedding watched him get into his van and drive off in the direction of the Centre. He met his wife there at six. It all fits.' He paused. ‘What doesn't fit is the Porsche Dow saw on Thursday night.'

There was some scepticism, led by Dowell. ‘Not a lot to go on, is it? No proven connection with Chloe. Dow didn't see her get out of it. He'd never seen it before. He wasn't sure what colour it was, or even if it was a Porsche. Probably he was half asleep.'

Collier agreed. Nolan pointed out how time-consuming it would be to follow it up with any degree of thoroughness.

Singh leafed through the dossier. ‘We're starting to learn something about Chloe Dow at the Academy. She liked to go out, apparently. To a club, to a bar. It could be she was meeting an older crowd.'

Nolan said, ‘She liked to give the
impression
she was going to clubs. Girls that age, girls of a certain sort, they talk themselves up.'

‘You don't think she was actually going out?'

‘Too soon to tell.'

Singh thought about this. ‘A black Porsche,' he said. ‘It's a cliché. Tinted windows, spoiler, side skirts, techno wheels.'

Collier said, ‘Pimpmobile.'

Singh returned to the dossier. ‘This boy, Alex Robinson. We took him in after that rumpus at Pike Pond.'

‘Yes?'

‘Picked up twice in the last six months for selling weed.'

‘He's nothing. He certainly doesn't drive a Porsche.'

‘Most perps are known to their victims. You said it. They went out, she dumped him, he went off the deep end. He's a big lad with anger-management issues. He smokes too much dope.'

‘OK.'

‘I want to know who his friends are. Who does he run with? Is there anyone he knows driving a Porsche?'

There was a silence in the room. Singh looked straight at Collier.

After a moment Collier said, ‘All right, I'll put some people on the Porsche.'

‘Good.'

They got to their feet, but Singh was still staring at Collier.

‘One more thing.'

He waited until they had all sat down again. ‘I'm still waiting for the report on the Dows' garden.'

Collier flushed. ‘I didn't think—'

‘I told you,' Singh said. ‘When I was at the Dows' there was an intruder. In the garden.'

‘I just thought ... Probably it was just a local kid. A neighbour.'

Dowell cleared his throat. ‘Park a squad car on the front lawn, it does wonders for the local youth's sense of curiosity, I find.'

Shan laughed. Even Mal Nolan smiled.

Singh waited until there was silence. Then he waited longer, looking at Collier.

‘I'm sorry,' Collier said. ‘I didn't think you were serious.'

Singh said quietly, ‘I'm always serious. Next time put one of your men on it.' Ignoring them, he returned to the dossier, leaving them to make their exit. For an hour afterwards he worked on, then he put on his coat and went out to his assistant in her pod outside his office.

She passed him a dozen messages, all from journalists. ‘Some of them have called several times,' she said.

Singh nodded and put the note in his pocket. ‘I'm going out,' he said. ‘I'll be at the Dows'. In the garden,' he added.

ALL THE HOUSES
in Fox Walk had vinyl doors and windows with the new fittings. Felix examined them critically as he and Garvie waited on the doorstep of ‘Honeymead'. They'd knocked twice already but there was no answer, so they stood there waiting, looking smart. They'd straightened their hair and tucked in their shirts and checked the undersides of their shoes for dog-shit. Garvie was holding a bouquet of chrysanthemums and a condolence card from Jamal's.

But no one was home.

‘Tell me again why we're paying our respects when school said absolutely no unannounced visits?'

‘We're not paying our respects, Felix.'

‘Oh.' Felix looked interested. ‘What are we doing here, then?'

‘We're gaining entry.'

‘Why didn't you say? If you want to gain entry, it's no problem. All these houses have those new vinyl doors and windows. All you have to do is—'

‘Not my style, Felix. I prefer to knock.'

Felix looked at his watch. ‘It's two o'clock. The middle of the day, Garv. No one's in.'

‘I disagree.'

‘Then why's no one answering the door?'

‘You over-estimate Mrs Dow's powers of locomotion. We must wait.'

As they waited, Felix passed the time by helpfully outlining the very quick and completely effective way of opening the modern vinyl door. Felix the Cat. As in ‘cat-burglar'.

‘Shh, Felix. Here she comes.'

There was a shadow in the frosted glass of the front door. It wavered, there was the knuckle-cracking noise of locks being released and then the door swung slowly open to reveal Mrs Dow in her dressing gown, hair awry, face vacant and bewildered.

‘Dear Mrs Dow,' Garvie said, stepping forward with the flowers and an angelic expression. ‘We're sorry to disturb you. But we wanted to say that we're thinking of you at this very difficult time.' And he bowed his head.

They sat on the bamboo-cane sofa in the conservatory drinking orange squash while Mrs Dow said how touched she was that Garvie had thought of her. She was glad to see him again. His flowers were in a vase on the table and she peered at them vaguely and attempted a smile. She apologized for her appearance. She hadn't been sleeping well, she said, and the doctor had prescribed some pills.

‘Mick will be sorry to have missed you. He's still at work.'

Garvie said he was sorry to have missed Mr Dow too. He even looked sorry.

‘I'm so happy you came,' Mrs Dow said with a sadly quavering smile. ‘I know how fond of her you were, Garvie. I was so sad when Chloe decided to—'

‘Yeah, I know.'

Felix gave him a look, which he avoided.

‘What I mean is,' he said, ‘I know how much I'm going to miss her. She was' – he looked at Mrs Dow with his clear blue eyes – ‘remarkable. All credit to you,' he added softly.

Finding no words, Mrs Dow smiled and nodded, blinking back tears.

He went on: ‘We ought to leave you in peace. But can I ask you a favour before we go?'

She nodded again.

‘Thing is, Chloe and I were doing some maths together last Friday morning, and I lent her a calculator. But it's really my mum's and she uses it at work so I just wondered if there was any chance of picking it up. It would get me out of a bit of trouble, to be honest.'

Mrs Dow got to her feet, swaying slightly, and led the boys upstairs.

‘The police said they were going to seal her room, whatever that means, but they haven't yet.'

Felix tutted politely. ‘Police!' he murmured.

As they went along the landing Garvie complimented Mrs Dow on the tidiness of her house, and she smiled. ‘Mick does it. He can't bear mess. You won't believe this,' she said, ‘but I'm really very messy.'

Garvie said he didn't believe it for a moment but unfortunately Mrs Dow was determined to be believed, and though they were only a few paces from Chloe's room she at once stopped and began to talk in a rambling, emotional way about herself and her husband, apparently the tidiest man in the country. ‘He has a system for everything,' she told them – for laundry and housework, and even for those ‘awkward little things' like paying the bills. ‘Would you believe it, he keeps receipts of everything he buys!'

‘I can hardly believe it at all,' Garvie said. ‘This is Chloe's room, isn't it? Shall I just ...?'

But Mrs Dow had forgotten all about Garvie's mother's calculator.

‘He looks after me,' she said, with a hint of tears at the corner of her smile. ‘He'll see me through, I know he will.'

Behind her back Felix rolled his eyes at Garvie. And at that moment the telephone rang.

‘If that's Mick now,' Garvie said, ‘don't worry about us. We can just grab the calculator and be on our way.'

The phone rang on and Mrs Dow hesitated only long enough to give Garvie an appreciative squeeze of the hand before going downstairs to answer it.

Chloe's room was very feminine. There was a fluffy rug on the carpet, a dozen lace-fringed pillows on her bed and a lightshade made of pink beads. The top of her chest of drawers was crowded with cosmetics, cans of hairspray, bottles of perfume, hair-ties and costume jewellery. On the windowsill was a long line of photographs of Chloe at different ages in matching purple frames. On her bed twelve teddy bears were ranged in size. And it was all reflected in the full-length mirrors on the front of the long built-in wardrobe opposite.

‘I don't like this room,' Felix said. ‘What am I doing here?'

‘Keep your ears open. If you hear Mrs Dow coming back up, get out there and distract her.'

‘Why? What are you going to be doing?'

‘Looking for clues.'

‘What sort of clues?'

Garvie didn't answer. He stepped over to the wardrobe and slid open one of the doors. Inside were Chloe's clothes – hundreds of them, immaculately stored: neat shelves of woollens and accessories, boxes of shoes and racks of tops, skirts, dresses and trousers, everything colour-coded and in order.

‘Good luck with that,' Felix said. ‘I'll look for clues over here.'

For a while he leafed through the magazines on Chloe's desk, then inspected the jar of coloured pens. Next to the jar was a small packet of photographs of Chloe wearing a blue dress and white jacket, taken recently. Pinned to the cork notice board were a variety of cards, lists and invitations, which he read carefully twice. ‘Lots of clues here,' he said over his shoulder. ‘And here.' He began to fish around in Chloe's waste-paper basket. ‘Look at this, Garv. Bolloms the dry cleaner. And look at
these
...'

Turning round with a polythene bag in one hand and a torn pair of fishnet tights in the other, he suddenly flinched and dropped them both.