Soul Seeker (29 page)

Smillie was unimpressed. ‘I understand that your enquires about the vehicle came to nothing,' he pointed out.

Braxton looked at Beverley, his eyebrows raised in query. She admitted, ‘The keys to the van are kept securely in the estate manager's office; they have to be booked out and booked back in again. For the time in question, the van was in the charge of Shaun Carter, an estate worker. He was tasked with picking up an antique dresser for the estate owner, Mr Wallace Parker. He had to drive to Inverness – an overnight journey. We've checked and he at least was there, although we cannot confirm that the van was.'

‘But forensics say the van is clean,' said Smillie with a grim smile. Beverley admitted this, and Smillie turned to Braxton. ‘This is nothing to do with the body in the quarry. Len Barker was a good copper in his time, but he'd lost it when he had stroke.'

Braxton at last decided to contribute to the conversation and, as usual, it was to decide not to make a decision. ‘We must keep our options open. I admit that there does seem to be
tenuous
evidence that there may be a link' – his accentuation of the adjective was enough to tell both Beverley and Smillie that he did not really believe it – ‘but I think it would be unwise to work on that assumption to the detriment of all other possibilities.' Which was an easily deciphered code for ‘I am not about to be party to a decision that might ruin my record.' ‘Therefore I suggest that Frank here continues with his enquires bearing in mind what you have told us, and I am sure he won't mind you keeping a watching brief, as long as you don't neglect other lines of enquiry.'

Having made this indecision, he thought about it, nodded (presumably at its wisdom) and then looked up beaming at both of them. ‘I'm going back to HQ. Keep me fully informed.' It was a sign that they should go.

FIFTY-TWO

T
hat Smillie did not agree with his commanding officer's strategic decision was clear from his whole demeanour as he briefed Beverley on the operation to find the two children. He was defensive and curt, sounding as if he had been tasked with a waste of time, and one which was keeping him from matters that urgently required him and him alone. Beverley was well used to such an attitude and was open-minded enough to acknowledge that she would probably have reacted similarly herself; it didn't mean, though, that she took it meekly.

‘I've got four teams of two on house-to-house in the village and surrounding area . . .'

‘You think that's enough?'

‘It's standard.'

She made a face, bobbed her head from side to side slightly. ‘In an urban setting, of course, but around here, I don't know . . .'

He frowned but refused to engage in argument. ‘We know from the mother of Darren and Josh's guardians that they were in the habit of playing on estate land – Colberrow Estate is over a thousand acres and effectively surrounds the entire village.'

‘Did they have a special place on the estate that they went? Have you asked?'

A spasm of irritation crossed Smillie's face. ‘If they did, no one except the two boys knows about it.' He smiled a bitter smile. ‘Yes, we have asked, OK?'

She returned the smile. ‘Just trying to help.'

In a whisper, Smillie said aggressively, ‘This is
my
case, Beverley. Not yours. I'll keep you informed because I've been ordered to, but don't make the mistake of thinking you're welcome here. Just keep your nose out of it.'

Her lips stretched into a shallow smile while her eyes stayed aloof and just stared at him; she might have been calculating the best temperature at which to roast him. He turned to the large map on one of the whiteboards. ‘We're working on the assumption that it was to the estate that they went yesterday morning. We know that they left at just after nine on bicycles and, Darren's mother seems pretty sure, with some sort of picnic. At present, though, we know nothing of what happened to them after that.'

‘How are you organizing the search of the estate?'

‘We're using the village as a centre and working our way out from there; I have forty officers forming a cordon, but we're going to need more pretty soon.'

Beverley was looking at the map, not even appearing to hear. Smillie was on the point of speaking again when Frobisher called to him from his desk. ‘Sir? They've found two bicycles.'

‘Where?'

Frobisher repeated the question into the phone, then came to Smillie and Beverley. He pointed at the map at a point along a small, twisty road that headed north of the village. ‘There.'

Smillie took a moment to examine the map in detail before saying to Frobisher, ‘Right, reorganize all the teams so that the search is centred on that location, radiating out from there as before, OK?'

Frobisher was about forty and prematurely balding with a ginger moustache that Beverley found unnecessarily bushy. He nodded and was about to return to his desk when Beverley asked, ‘Were the bikes in plain view?'

He shook his head. ‘Hidden under undergrowth.'

‘Any sign of a struggle?'

Again he shook his head. With a final glance at Smillie, Frobisher returned to his desk. Beverley said to herself, ‘Maybe abducted, maybe not . . .'

Smillie snapped, ‘How they came to disappear isn't our immediate concern; we can investigate that when we have them back safe and sound.' He called to Frobisher, ‘Where's the estate manager? What's his name? Somersby?'

‘He's on his way in now. Should be here in a couple of minutes.'

‘Where the hell's he been?'

Frobisher shrugged.

Somersby came in, as promised, two minutes later, accompanied by a uniformed policewoman. He looked harassed and decidedly unhappy. Smillie took him into the head teacher's office, annoyed to find that Beverley tagged along; he gave her a warning look but said nothing. Smillie took up Braxton's seat, with Beverley standing to one side of him, leaning against the wall.

Smillie said, ‘You know why we're here?'

Somersby nodded. ‘It's an awful business. I hope to God that they're safe and well.'

‘Where were you this morning? We couldn't find you.'

‘I had arranged to meet some contractors to discuss some work that needs doing.'

‘What work would that be?'

‘Drainage. We've got a bad problem with flooding in the northwest corner of the estate, at a place called Fairman's Wood.'

‘And yesterday? What were you doing yesterday?'

Somersby frowned, looked across at Beverley, then back to Smillie. ‘Am I being accused of something?'

‘We have reason to believe that the boys went missing when they were on estate land. Were you on the estate yesterday?'

‘I spend most of my time on it.'

‘Which part were you on yesterday?'

Somersby looked slightly nonplussed. ‘I couldn't say for sure. All over the place.'

‘Just driving around?' Smillie's tone contained a hint of disbelief and it stung Somersby. ‘No. We're coppicing in two different areas – Silver Hill and Langley's meadow – and there are several shoots to organize. My job isn't a bed of roses.'

‘And you didn't see the two boys in question?'

‘I'd have said something if I had.'

Beverley asked from behind Smillie's shoulder, ‘Are there any buildings on the estate? Presumably there are barns, stores and suchlike.'

‘Plenty of those.'

Before Beverley could say any more, Smillie interrupted. ‘We'll need you to mark those down for us. Any mineshafts on this land?' For a moment Beverley thought that she had misheard, but then remembered that the area was technically in the Forest of Dean, where open-cast mining had once occurred. Somersby, however, shook his head. ‘No coal around here.'

To Smillie's intense annoyance, Beverley asked another question. ‘Any abandoned buildings, places that might be dangerous to go into?'

A look crossed Somersby's face as he hesitated; it was a look that Beverley and Smillie knew well, the look of a liar. ‘No. None.' The shake of the head was emphatic – perhaps too emphatic.

There followed a brief pause as if neither Beverley nor Smillie was sure what to say, or perhaps they were each waiting for the other to speak, before Smillie asked, ‘You're sure?'

‘Yes.'

He nodded before saying, ‘Very well, Mr Somersby. If you could let Inspector Frobisher know the locations of all the buildings on the estate before you go.'

‘Of course.'

He stood and was heading rapidly out of the room when Beverley called a question to him. ‘What was the name of the contractors you were meeting this morning?'

He stopped but did not turn at once, delaying the movement for a fraction. His face was bland as he faced them. ‘Marcham and Son. They didn't turn up, though.'

Smillie raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? How annoying for a busy man like you.'

‘It was.'

With that he turned again and left them.

Beverley said as soon as the door closed. ‘I wonder what he's hiding.'

Smillie might have been aggravated to the point of incandescence by his colleague's interference, but his instincts, too, were aroused. ‘I don't know, but I intend to find out.'

FIFTY-THREE

A
ntonia's migraine had returned with a vengeance and she had spent much of the day in bed. It had been with the utmost effort that she had answered all the questions put to her by Inspector Frobisher, Andrew sitting by her side while she tried to produce the answers through huge, heaving sobs. In truth there was nothing much she could tell them, and this only added to a near overwhelming sense of guilt, of failure. Since the death of her son and daughter-in-law, she had come to wear with a heavier and heavier heart a mantle of deep responsibility, and she felt that she had faltered badly. She was a woman of great sense of purpose, and she had always felt it important to do her duty and to do it properly; she had become lax, not listened to her greater instincts, not been a proper parent. If she had looked after Josh and Harriet as she had looked after James, her son, then this would not have happened. And this sense of culpability only added to the burden that was her sorrow and her dread. Stories of paedophiliac monsters crammed her senses, made thinking difficult, made sleeping impossible. Her mind was not her own to command; it vacillated wildly, caromed and cavorted as if – indeed, because it was – a thing possessed.

Downstairs, Andrew sat with Marcus Pilcher in the large kitchen, mugs of tea between them. Marcus had been there for an hour but, as he quite openly professed, doing little good. Andrew had tried to assure him otherwise, but his heart had not been in it and it had been clear to both of them that he was being merely polite and not honest.

‘Does Harriet know yet?' asked Marcus.

Andrew shook his head. ‘But we'll have to say something soon. The papers will publish something soon, and we can't let her learn what is going on from them.'

‘No, of course.'

‘But I don't know what I can say. How can I tell her that Josh is missing? She's only just got over the death of her parents.'

‘I'm sure they're all right,' said Marcus for the fourth or fifth time. ‘They're probably on some great adventure; thought they'd camp out or something – it was very mild last night.'

‘Then where are they now?' asked Andrew.

‘Well, I expect they've got lost.'

Andrew said nothing, a silence that only accentuated the banality of these hypotheses and caused the priest to become unusually interested in his mug until he said suddenly, ‘Look, Andrew, I know I'm not much use in these situations – men of the cloth never are – but I really am sure that everything will turn out all right. The media have us all believing that there are paedophiles and ne'er-do-wells lurking behind every tree, but the real world isn't nearly as bad as they would have us believe.'

‘No? What about these dreadful killings that have been happening recently?'

Marcus frowned and shook his head. ‘I am sure that this has nothing to do with that, Andrew.'

But Andrew was sunk into despair. ‘How can you be? Until they turn up safe and well, we just don't know . . .'

Marcus reached across the wooden surface of the table and clasped Andrew's left wrist with his right hand. ‘Yes, they will, Andrew. Yes, they will. Have faith in the Lord.'

But Andrew, who was a good and devout member of the Church of England, could not at that point find it within himself to believe that such a course of action would help either him, or his wife, or his grandchildren in any way at all.

Smillie and Beverley returned to the assembly hall to find Frobisher and Somersby standing in front of the map. As they approached them, Frobisher was saying, ‘It's completely secure, then?'

Somersby was an exemplar of confidence. ‘Completely. The Grange is derelict and highly dangerous. We make very sure that no one can get anywhere near it.'

‘And what is the Grange?' asked Smillie.

‘It's an old country house. A hundred years or so ago it used to be the squire's house, but nobody has lived there for sixty years. It's fallen into ruin.'

Smillie said at once, ‘I thought you said that there were no ruined buildings on the estate.'

Somersby looked uncomfortable. ‘I forgot it. It's not really part of the estate proper. It's completely inaccessible except to a few of the estate workers. There's an outside perimeter wall made of stone and an inner chain-link fence.'